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Marvelous (but sad;-;) quote of the day:

"I'll be a story in your head. That's okay. We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? 'Cause it was, you know. It was the best. The daft old man who stole a magic box and ran away. Did I ever tell you that I stole it? Well I borrowed it. I was always going to take it back."

-Sad, dying Eleventh Doctor speaking
to a sleeping child.

♧♧♧

Word count: 2005

They walked into the building labeled Lazarus Laboratories. Hundreds of people were gathered around a circular dais to watch Mr. Lazarus 'change what it means to be human'.

As soon as they got inside, the Doctor got strangely enthusiastic over the food. "Oh, look. They've got nibbles," he said, taking some from the waiter passing by. "I love nibbles," he muttered, eating them.

"Hello!" A young girl soon approached them. Nina recognized her as the girl from TV earlier.

"Tish!" Martha exclaimed when she turned around and saw her sister.

"So what do you think?" Tish asked, waving her hand at the whole event. "Impressive, isn't it?"

"Very," Martha conceded.

"And two nights out in a row for you," Tish said. "That's dangerously close to a social life," he joked. Nina had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. At the same time, the Doctor poked her arm to catch her attention, offering her a nibble. She couldn't help but laugh at his childishness, shaking he read slightly, refusing his offer gently.

"If I keep this up, I'll end up in all the gossip columns," Martha said sarcastically.

"You might, actually," Tish answered seriously. "You should keep an eye out for photographers. And Mum, she's coming too. Even dragging Leo along with her." Martha gasped. Nina had absolutely no idea what was going on. Who was Leo?

"Her brother," the Doctor whispered in her ear when he saw the confusion on her face. She gasped silently in comprehension and nodded a thank you.

"Leo in black tie? That I must see," Martha laughed. Her eyes suddenly widened in surprise as she realized that Nina and the Doctor were standing behind her, completely excluded from their conversation. "These are Nina and, er, the Doctor." Tish extended her hand to the two and they shook it.

"Hello," the Doctor greeted.

"Hi," Nina said almost at the same time.

"They're with you?" Tish asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah."

"But they're not on the list, how did they get in?" Tish asked, frowning.

"They're my plus twos."

"So, Lazarus, is he your boss?" The Doctor chimed in before Tish could comment on Martha's answer.

"Professor Lazarus, yes," Tish corrected. "I'm part of his executive staff."

"She's in the PR department," Martha told them.

"I'm head of the PR department, actually" Tish corrected again. Martha raised her eyebrows and gasped.

"You're joking." Tish shook her head.

"I put this whole thing together."

"So do you know what the professor's going to be doing tonight?" The Doctor asked Tish. Nina's eyes suddenly lit up. "That looks like it might be a sonic microfield manipulator." Nina nodded, looking at the device with him.

"Probably using sound waves to create a state of resonance," Nina agreed. "Definitely a sonic microfield manipulator."

"They're science geeks," Tish said, rolling her eyes at them. "I should have known. Got to get back to work now. I'll catch up with you later." The Doctor frowned when Martha's sister walked away.

"Science geek?" He asked. "What does that mean?"

"Means you're obsessively enthusiastic about it," Martha explained with a smile. The Doctor smiled widely at her explanation. He gently nudged Nina's ribs with his elbow, smiling at her. She couldn't help but smile at his reaction.

The Doctor and Nina were still discussing their obsession with science, and debating over the fact that the Doctor wanted to call themselves the Science Bros. Nina was strongly against it. As soon as he realized he had struck a nerve, he let it go, suggesting Geek Boys. She only laughed, shaking her head.

"Mum!" Martha's voice exclaimed, shifting their attention to her. Martha had spotted her mother and gave her a big hug. Her mother was taken aback by the sudden show of affection.

"Alright, what's the occasion?" Her mother asked, a small chuckle escaping her lips.

"What do you mean? I'm just pleased to see you, that's all," Martha tried.

"You saw me last night," her mother argued.

"I know, I just miss you. Looking good, Leo," she turned to her brother with a smirk. He scoffed.

"Yeah, if anyone asks me to fetch them a drink, I'll swing for him," Leo said. Nina immediately understood that Leo didn't like to wear ties.

"You disappeared last night," Martha's mother told her.

"I went home," Martha lied. It was a good lie, but her mother saw right through it.

"On your own?" She used the opportunity to get to know the two unknown people standing with her daughter.

"These are two friends of mine," Martha presented them. "Nina and the Doctor."

"Doctor what?" She asked. Nina cringed. The phrase just sounded.. wrong.

"Just the Doctor," she told her mother. "We've been doing some work together." Her mother raised her eyebrows.

"You alright, mate?" Leo said before his mother could say anything else. The Doctor smiled at him.

"It's lovely to meet you, Mrs. Jones," Nina told the woman. She seemed like a kind woman, a good mother who cared for her children, hence the interrogation. That was more than she could say about her own mother.

"It really is," the Doctor agreed. "Heard a lot about you."

"Have you? What have you heard then?" She asked him, her eyebrows raised.

"Oh, you know, that you're Martha's mother and," he tried to find something else. "Er, no, actually, that's about it. We haven't had much time to chat. You know, been busy."

"Busy?" She interrogated. "Doing what exactly?"

"Oh, you know," he trailed off. "Stuff." Nina wanted to rip her hair out at the scene unfolding in front of her. Thankfully, Professor Lazarus tapped on his champagne glass in the middle of the room to catch everyone's attention and the Doctor and Martha's mother stopped talking to each other.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Professor Richard Lazarus and tonight I am going to perform a miracle. It is, I believe, the most important advance since Rutherford split the atom, the biggest leap since Armstrong stood on the moon," Lazarus spoke out loud. Nina sneaked her hand through the Doctor's arm, locking their arms together. She pulled him down to whisper something in his ear.

"You have no idea how much of a bad feeling I have about this," she told him. He frowned at her, not really knowing what do say. After realizing the girl had rendered him speechless, he nodded, in a way reassuring her.

"Tonight, you will watch and wonder. Tomorrow, you will wake to a world which will be changed forever," Lazarus continued.

The old man opened the door and walked inside his machine. A pair of lady scientists step up to lock him in and activate the device. Soon enough, the four columns surrounding the machine start to oscillate and rotate around the chamber as they pour energy into it.

"Something's wrong," Nina said out loud when she realized what was happening.

"It's overloading," the Doctor added. The computer agreed as it beeped an alarm sound throughout the room.

Suddenly, sparks start to erupt from the controls, and then a thick cloud of smoak followed. The Doctor was quick to take action as he rushed to the controls and took out his sonic screwdriver.

"Someone stop him!" A woman yelled. It was Lady Thawn, Lazarus' wife. "Get that man away from the controls!" The Doctor turned to face her.

"If this thing goes up, it'll take the whole building with it. Is that what you want?" The woman suddenly realized the gravity of the situation and shook her head, shutting up. Nina was quick on her feet and ran to the Doctor, somehow knowing exactly what to do to turn the machine off. She looked at the controls and pulled out a power cable. The contraption slowed down, and then finally came to a stop. Martha ran to them.

"Get it open," Nina told them.

Methane did as she was told and opened the door, allowing a young man to stagger out. Nina recognized the man, it was Mr. Lazarus. She got a chill throughout her body. This was wrong. This shouldn't be able to happen.

"He did it, he actually did it!" The old woman exclaimed.

"It can't be the same guy," Martha tried. "Its impossible, it must be a trick."

"Oh, it's not a trick. I wish it were," the Doctor mumbled. He and Nina kept their gaze straight at the young man. They could both feel how wrong the situation was. This human was bound to live twice the lifespan of a normal human. Humans were learning to live forever. This was not how things were supposed to be.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Richard Lazarus," the young man yelled to the crowd. "I am seventy-six years old and I am reborn!"

The crowd cheered.

"What just happened?" Martha asked the Doctor. She had noticed how serious both him and Nina were.

"He just changed what it means to be human."

The trio watched as Lazarus was speaking to his wife, and suddenly stiffened and grabbed a plate from a waiter, eating the whole thing.

"Richard," Lady Thaw scolded him.

"I'm famished," he told her.

"Energy deficit," the Doctor chimed in. "Always happens with this kind of process."

"You speak as if you see this every day, Mister?" Young Lazarus trailed off.

"Doctor. And well, no, not every day, but I have some experience of this kind of transformation," he told the man. Nina scoffed. They both had quite enough experience with transformation and energy deficits, hadn't they?

"That's not possible," Lazarus commented.

"Using hypersonic sound waves to create a state of resonance," the Doctor used Nina's words from earlier.

"Isn't that... inspired," she noted.

"Both of you understand the theory, then," Lazarus smiled.

"Enough to know that you couldn't possibly have allowed for all the variables," Nina told him.

"No experiment is entirely without risk." Nina scoffed.

"That much risk? That thing nearly exploded. You might as well have stepped into a blender," she commented.

"You're not qualified to comment," the old lady told her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she fake apologized. "Who was it that stepped in to disconnect the cables form your beloved machine before it blew the whole block?"

"She's right," the Doctor backed her up. "If we hadn't stopped it, it would have exploded."

"Then I thank you two. But that's a simple engineering issue. What happened inside the capsule was exactly what was supposed to happen. No more, no less," he argued.

"You've no way of knowing that until you've run proper tests," Martha chimed in. She was definitely right.

"Look at me. You can see what happened," Lazarus told her. "I'm all the proof you need." Nina shook her head, a frown on her face. This was so wrong.

"This device will be properly certified before we start to operate commercially," Lady Thaw told them.

"Commercially?" Martha exclaimed in disbelief. "You are joking. That'll cause chaos."

"Not chaos, change. A chance for humanity to evolve, to improve," Lazarus said.

"This isn't about improving," The Doctor told him. "This is about you and your customers living a little longer." He knew what Lazarus was up to.

"Not a little longer, Doctor. A lot longer. Perhaps indefinitely."

"Richard, we have things to discuss, upstairs," Lady Thaw said, grabbing her husband's arm.

"Goodbye, Doctor. In a few years, you'll look back and laugh at how wrong you were," Lazarus said, taking Nina's hand and kissing its back, then leaving with Lady Thaw.

"Oh, he's out of his depth. No idea of the damage he might have done," The Doctor mumbled to himself, his hands going through his head.

"So what do we do now?" Martha asked.

"Now? Well, this building must be full of laboratories. I say we do our own tests."

"Lucky I've just collected a DNA sample then, isn't it?" Nina told him, a smug smile on her face as he winked.

"Oh, Nina, you're a star." He grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her forehead.

♧♧♧

So guys I just found a way to turn this fanfic super fucking weird, so that's what I'll do. Just a warning. :)

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