PARENTHOOD

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Seven

Alan's senses were on red alert the moment the light faded. He looked around and noticed he and Hope were in a small room with steel walls, ceiling and floor. There was a steel framed bed with a mattress, pillow and red blanket on it, a steel table beside it with a small lamp and a steel toilet in the southern corner of the room, but other than that the room was bare.

Hope blinked her eyes and looked left and right in confusion.

"Hey, where'd everybody go?" she said, turning around.

She froze when she saw the angry look on Alan's face.

"I told you not to touch it!" he said sternly. "Now we're trapped somewhere!"

"I..."

Hope wanted to give him an explanation but didn't know what to say. She knew she should have obeyed Alan's command not to touch the bird but it was so pretty and it was standing there on the twig and she had never touched a bird before. She looked at Alan's angry expression and knew that she'd upset him. The realization that she did something that made her favorite uncle angry brought her to tears and she began to cry while she sobbed out how sorry she was for touching the bird.

"I'm...sorry," she wailed. "I didn't mean to do this. I just wanted..."

She cried harder, feeling angry with herself for disobeying Alan and letting him and her family down. She wanted more than anything to help her father and be a Time Lady and she was angry that she had been so stupid. While she cried, she felt Alan kneel down next to her.

"Shhh," he said, embracing her. "Hey, it's alright. I'm sorry I got so angry with ya. I've made stupid mistakes too and so has everyone else in your family, okay?"

Hope looked up at him and saw his crestfallen face. She let out a ragged sob.

"I...I wanna be a Time Lady and I did this stupid thing and I'm sorry," she said between sobs.

Alan rocked her and held her close, pouring love into her mind while he tried to calm her.

"Daddy won't let me help him now," Hope said, rubbing her tear filled eyes.

"Awww, course he will," Alan said gently. "I told ya he's done stupid things before and that includes touching things he shouldn't have. If he got rid of every companion the moment they did something stupid, he would have been alone 99 percent of the time. You did this and it's done and you know now that if someone tells you not to touch something, you do it, lesson learned. Now calm down. I need your help now because we need to get out of here. Plus, the place must have a damper because I can only feel your mind at the moment and your mind is very, very sad and it's throwing off my chi so please cheer up before I give you tickles and snugglebumpkins, eh?"

"I just want everyone to be proud of me," Hope said mournfully.

"We are proud of ya. You're our little junior Time Lady in training and your daddy wouldn't have let you come outside if he didn't trust ya. Please stop crying, eh? You need to help me so we can get out of here so you need to dry your tears, okay?"

Hope sniffed and nodded. Alan kissed the wet streaks on her cheeks and Hope wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tightly while Alan poured love into her mind.

"Now..." he said, cupping her cheeks, "are we ready to solve this puzzling puzzle of how to get outta here?"

Hope nodded and he kissed her nose before he stood up and reached into his pocket.

"First off, let's try the mobile and see if we can reach them that way," he said, sitting back down on the floor.

Hope sat down beside him, drew her knees up to her chest and watched while he checked for any bars on his screen. He cursed when he saw none.

"No service. This phone doesn't need antennas to operate so the damper thingy is probably disrupting it. Blast. Still...your mum and dad and aunt and uncle are clever. Perhaps they'll figure it out, eh?"

Hope nodded and Alan tousled her hair before he got up and put his mobile back in his pocket. Hope watched while he went to the walls, trying to find a hidden door. She watched for a moment before she went to the wall off to his right and did what he did; both of them feeling along the walls for any hidden switch or button or just hoping the right touch would trigger something. Then suddenly, there was a flash and a hole appeared in the wall in front of Alan. Alan stepped back and got in front of his niece when someone dressed in a white spacesuit stepped inside and pointed a blaster at him. Alan put his hands up in front of him as he tried to peer into the helmet. The Perspex covering the face was blacked out and he couldn't see any head of any kind. He suddenly wondered if it was the Vashta Nerada but then thought they would probably be dead by now if it was.

"Whoever you are, we're friendly," Alan said. "We mean you no harm and I hope you mean us no harm."

The spaceman leaned out the hole and beckoned to someone. Then another person in a spacesuit entered holding a small metal box in his hand. On the side of the box was a long, rectangular hole.

"Stick your hand in the hole," the one with the box said in a deep male voice.

"Why?" Alan said.

"Stick your hand in the hole and be identified," the man said, holding the box out.

"Hey, you leave him..."

Hope was about to come up beside Alan but stopped when he held his hand out and gave her a warning look. Hope backed up several steps, making sure to obey this time but she watched nervously while Alan put his hand in the hole. He saw him wince and wondered what they were doing to him. The man asked him to withdraw his hand and Alan examined it while the man read something on the back of the box. Alan glanced at him when the man frantically beckoned to his companion and they read the back of the box together.

"What'd they do, Uncle Alan?" Hope asked.

"Pricked my finger and took a blood sample," Alan said, showing her his index finger. "I think they did a DNA scan and..."

"You are the Doctor," the man with the box said in awe.

Hope frowned and came up beside Alan.

"Nuh-uh, this is my Uncle Alan, the Doctor is my daddy," she said.

Alan chuckled.

"I'm a clone, love. I have the same DNA as your daddy so that's why they think that. But she's right," he said to the man. "My name is Alan; I'm a clone of the Doctor."

"I was not aware the Doctor had a clone," the man said.

"Yes, well, I'm a well kept secret," Alan said.

The man passed the box to his friend and reached up to take off his helmet. For a moment, Alan got a flashback of River doing the same thing in the library but when the helmet was removed, the face was frog-like.

"Hey, it's Kermit the Frog," Hope said.

"Now, Hope, that's not nice," Alan said, trying not to laugh. "Be polite."

"If you're not the Doctor, where is he? Is he deceased and left his clone to carry on in his place?"

"No, actually, he's...well, we were walking through the forest and stopped to look at a bird and Hope and I were brought here so wherever the bird was, that's where the Doctor and the rest of my family are."

"Ah! Terzac, go tell Pelema to locate the Doctor and bring them here," the man said.

Terzac nodded and walked out of the room. The man extended his hand.

"I am Belock, leader of the expedition here on Pangea."

"Ah, I am Alan and this is my niece, Hope."

"Hi," Hope said, shaking his hand.

"Hello, small one, it is a pleasure to meet both of you and..."

"Found them, Commander," Pelema said through his communicator. "Bringing them to your location now."

There was a sudden flash and the rest of his family staggered after being teleported to the room. They looked around in confusion and Rain knelt when Hope ran to her and hugged her.

"There you are, we were looking for you," Rain said to Hope as the Doctor tousled her hair.

"I'm sorry," she said to Rain and the Doctor. "I did a bad thing and didn't listen to Uncle Alan. I wanna help you. I wanna be a Time Lady. I'll listen next time and be good."

"I told her that she doesn't need to worry because we've all done stupid things in the past," Alan said to the Doctor.

"Can I still help you, Daddy?" Hope said.

"Course you can," the Doctor said, tousling her hair. "Can't do it without you. Besides, Alan's right. I've done stupid things as well so don't worry about it. You're safe and that's what matters. Question is, are we prisoners? We were examining that bird to try to get it to work for us and here we are."

Belock came forward and introduced himself. The Doctor shook his hand, introduced his family and repeated his question. Belock shook his head.

"Not at all. We are merely researchers, not kidnappers. We use those birds as teleports and your clone and daughter accidentally came here. There is no malice intended. However, we did a DNA scan on your clone brother and your DNA registered on our scanner so we assumed it was you."

"I have an owie now because of them, see?" Alan said, walking up to the Doctor and showing him his finger.

"Get Rose to kiss it and make it feel better then," the Doctor said.

Alan walked his finger over to Rose while the Doctor turned his attention back to Belock. He was about to say something to him when he noticed Rose was in a liplock with her husband. He caught Rain's eye and she rolled her eyes while he chuckled.

"So," he said, turning back to Belock, "what are you researching?"

"The environment of this planet and the dinosaurs that are here."

"Dinosaurs?" the Doctor said, surprised. "We didn't see any dinosaurs."

"They are rare in your location because we put up sonic emitters to keep them off the path. However, they are numerous in the deep woods. We came to this planet to research them once others learned of this planet and their existence. However, some of the dinosaurs found our shuttle and thought it was prey apparently and damaged it. We have heard that you have a great mind, could you help us fix it? We're stranded here because of that and we would like to go home now."

"I'll try. I can't guarantee anything until I've had a look at it but I will help you in any way I can," the Doctor said. "But before I do that, what sort of dinosaurs live here?"

"Come with me. I'll take you to the teleport room and we'll go up to the observatory," Belock said.

Hope took her mother's hand while everyone else followed Belock out of the room.

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