Shut Out
The moon hung low and heavy over the Adams’ mansion, casting the estate into silhouette. The once-pristine building stood silent, watching, its grandeur warped by the night. But something wasn’t right. The Doctor observed flickers of amber light dancing erratically behind the darkened windows. Not steady like house lights. Not rhythmic like security alarms. Uneven. Sporadic. As if the house were sending out a dire SOS no one would answer.
"He’s already here." The Doctor said grimly, her pulse quickening.
Yaz brought the car to a skidding halt, gravel spraying into the night. Neither of them hesitated. They ran. The mansion’s front doors had been forced open, splintered and hanging at odd angles, barely clinging to their hinges. Yaz shoved them aside, stepping forward before she immediately recoiled.
The entrance hall was a wreck. Furniture overturned, a grand chandelier swinging precariously above them, casting warped, shifting shadows across the wreckage. The Doctor blinked, heart hammering. Were they too late?
Yaz had already moved forward, crouching beside a security guard sprawled across the floor. The blood pooling beneath him was thick, spreading. But his sightless eyes told her all she needed to know. He wasn’t coming back. The Doctor forced herself to move. To push past the nausea and the dread curling in her stomach. She stumbled toward the other guard.
He was still breathing. Barely. His chest hitched, a broken, shuddering sound rattling through his throat. A knife wound cut deep into his side. Crimson soaked through his uniform. The Doctor noticed an empty holster on the man’s belt. Ashad had stabbed him with his own weapon. Then the guard coughed. A wet, horrible sound that made the Doctor flinch. Yaz was at her side in an instant, her jaw set, her eyes hard. She’d already written off the first guard.
"It’s okay. We’ve got you." Yaz put pressure on the guard’s wound, making the Doctor’s hearts ache knowing that the human’s efforts were futile.
The guard twitched, pain flickering across his ashen face. His lips parted. He tried to speak but nothing came but oozing blood. He persisted. A weak rasping warning.
"Mister… Adams… changed… crazed."
"Where did he go?"
The guard’s breath hitched. His unfocused gaze drifted toward the grand staircase, his fingers twitching weakly.
"Family… The… knife…"
Yaz and the Doctor froze. Ashad. With a knife. For one horrible second, neither of them spoke. They knew what this meant. The words hung in the wreckage of the mansion, settling like dust. The Doctor felt sick. Ashad could have obliterated these men in seconds. He had an energy weapon. Strength beyond human limits. But instead he had taken the knife. Used it. Made it slow. He had chosen cruelty.
The Doctor’s stomach twisted. Her mind was already racing ahead. The Cyberium was amplifying Ashad’s worst instincts. To not just destroy those in his way, but to make them suffer. A shuddering breath from the injured guard snapped her back.
"Did they make it out? Did Ashad-" Yaz asked, almost pleading.
“Panic… room.”
Then the guard’s body seized. His eyes rolled back before he went slack. Yaz’s jaw tightened. The Doctor pressed her fingers against his throat. Nothing. He was gone. Yaz exhaled sharply and clenched her jaw. The Doctor placed a comforting hand on the brunette’s shoulder, just for a moment. There was no time to grieve. They turned to each other
"We have to move." The Doctor hoped Yaz could detect the apology in her tone.
A cry - raw and desperate - ripped through the silence.
The Doctor ran. Her boots pounding against the marble steps, the blood in her veins turning to ice. She barely registered the ornate surroundings, her focus fixed forward. But something still seeped in. A detail. A truth. The walls were lined with portraits of the family. Smiling and warml. A documented history of a happy family. But not one included Ashley Adams. The Doctor’s mind worked frantically even as she ran. Piecing it together.
A man with an all-consuming obsession. A fanatic in pursuit of immortality, leaving his humanity behind long before he ever willingly sacrificed himself to the conversion chamber. Had he driven them away? Had he tried to ‘improve’ them too? Had they fled before they became his next experiment? Was that why they’d hired guards? Her stomach turned. Because the thought was too close. Too familiar. She had been obsessed once too, with her own past, with the Timeless Child, with an all consuming need to understand the life she had missed out on. Could she have been better? Been happier? Been something more?
In the throws of obsession, she had shut Yaz out. Hadn’t listened. Hadn’t been kind. Hadn’t even considered the damage she was doing to the human. To her best friend. Yaz had stayed, despite it all and the Time Lord knew she hadn’t deserved such grace. Had Yaz been scared, the same way Ashad’s family clearly were? Her thoughts reeled back to the Temple of Atropos. The way she had shouted at the human dismissed her and ignored how much she needed Yaz. How much Yaz had needed her. The shame curdled. The Doctor swallowed hard and kept running.
At the landing, the chandelier’s cold, eerie light cast long shadows over an enormous oil painting. The family stood together in it; mother, three children, posed in soft golden hues. But the painting had been defiled. Smiling faces with slashed throats. Thick, wet streaks of crimson paint smeared across the canvas, from Ashad’s bloody knife. A grotesque statement of intent. The Doctor stopped abruptly. She tentatively reached out, her fingers ghosting over the ragged, brutal slashes.
"Maybe… maybe this is what he meant? Maybe they’re okay?" Yaz grasped for hope, her voice cracking.
The Doctor pulled out the sonic, scanning the house. There was nothing. No signal. No sign of life other than their own and that of Ashad.
"I can’t detect anything."
Dread tightened in the Time Lord’s chest. The uncertainty was crushing.
"But that could mean anything, right? The panic room could be shielding their life signals?"
The edge of the Doctor’s mouth twitched, Yaz’s capacity for hope in the darkest of situations was so beautiful. The Doctor was but a moth to Yaz’s aureate flame. The blonde wanted to share Yaz’s hope. Needed to. But her gut instincts overrode her brain. A young, unsuspecting family at the mercy of a monster.
"Maybe." The Doctor replied hesitantly.
Yaz didn’t press further. They both knew there was only one way to find out. Following the trail of destruction, they hurried down dingy corridors. They slowed as they could hear the sound of metal on metal. Like Ashad was trying to punch his way into the panic room. They had arrived. Between clangs the mansion around them was silent, which somehow unnerved the Doctor further, it were as if the building was expectantly holding its breath. The Doctor and Yaz pressed themselves against the wall, the flickering light from a damaged wall sconce casting their shadows in shifting, jagged shapes.
The Doctor stared ahead, running a hand through her messy, storm-tossed hair. Yaz watched her closely.
"Tell me you’ve got a plan."
The Doctor’s lips pressed together. She exhaled, rubbing her temple as she turned to Yaz.
"I’ve got the end of a plan. An ‘an” if you will. Maybe just an ‘n’."
Yaz’s eyes narrowed. The Doctor’s forced casualness had not fooled the brunette.
“Doctor.”
"Okay, but it’s a start. The key is getting Ashad to leave without opening the panic room. The rest is a work in progress."
Yaz exhaled sharply, shaking her head. This was classic. Absolutely classic. The clanging resumed. The Doctor saw goosebumps rise along Yaz’s arms. The Doctor turned to her, the plan beginning to take shape.
"You need to get inside the panic room, Yaz."
Yaz glared at the Doctor. Weary recognition flashed across her face. A return to the bad old days. The brunette tensed, fists clenched.
"What?! No. I’m not leaving you -"
The Doctor cut across her firmly.
"You’re the only human here. That makes you a target. If Ashad sees you, he will not stop."
The Doctor gripped Yaz’s shoulders. Tight. Certain. She didn’t want to push Yaz away, but she had no choice. She continued, averting her gaze anywhere but Yaz’s hurt eyes.
"If anyone’s alive in there, they’ll need help. First aid, reassurance, someone human. That’s you." The Doctor finally looked at Yaz. “And I can’t lose you. Not again. Please, Yaz.”
Yaz stared at her, torn between protest and understanding.
"And what about you?"
The Doctor grinned slightly, another attempt to ease Yaz’s - and her own - nerves through sheer bravado.
"I’m gonna do what I do best! Talk a bit, stall for time, annoy the genocidal cyborg. You know, the usual."
Yaz raised an eyebrow, but nodded. Now she had a rather reluctant agreement from Yaz, the Doctor pushed the door open. The room was dim, the emergency lighting flickering weakly across the destruction. Furniture strewn everywhere. Toppled drawers, the wardrobe doors caved in, the bed overturned. Every mirror appeared to have been intentionally smashed. The Doctor wondered if Ashad had been horrified by his new monstrous form. Or maybe it was anger at his imperfection.
The heavy, steel panic room door stood at the far end of the room, sealed shut. The last defence preventing the annihilation of an innocent family. Relief flooded the Doctor as she noticed Ashad’s relentless pummelling had not even caused a slight dent. However, ominous smears of blood painted the door’s fingerprint scanner. Bloody fingerprints on the doorframe. It was becoming increasingly clear to the Doctor that the occupants might not have made it in unscathed. She needed to open that door. But in front of it, blocking the way, stood Ashad.
His half-metal face caught the light, his incomplete shell glinting in fractured reflections. His one human eye twitched, unfocused, like he was listening to something no one else could hear. The knife was still clutched in his hand, but loose, forgotten. He hadn’t moved to strike yet. He was standing there. Tilting his head, calculating. All the while he muttered to himself
"They should not have run. They should not have locked me out. They should not have resisted me. There should be no resistance."
His fingers twitched. He blinked rapidly. His whole body shuddered, like he was fighting against himself. He turned, slow and deliberate, towards the Doctor and Yaz. His visible eye fixed itself onto the Doctor. For a moment he said nothing. He just watched her. Tilting his head again, like he was figuring something out.
The Doctor swallowed hard but forced herself to relax. Hands in her pockets, rocking on her heels, like she wasn’t standing a few feet away from a half-converted madman with a knife. She subtly manoeuvred Yaz into the shadows and, hopefully, outside of Ashad’s vision. A feeble attempt to keep her partner safe.
The Doctor took a deep breath before launching into her spiel.
"Hi, Ashad! Remember me? Not a fan of your work back at the lab. I know you’re busy, but let’s be real - this isn’t a great look for you."
She attempted to keep things light, as if this were just another day at the office. She got no response. Just that tilt of the head. Studying her. The Doctor pressed forward, trying to control the conversation.
"Think about it. Big, scary Cyberman coming back to his family home for what, revenge? Sounds a bit emotional . Not very Cyberman-y. Can’t imagine that Cyberium clogging up your brain is thrilled. It’s perfect specimen botched his own conversation and is now focusing on matters of the heart. What’s up? Are you sad? Upset? You still want them to love you?”
A pause. A flicker in his human eye. A grim grin crossed the Doctor’s face as she realised the goading was working. She pressed on.
"Really, Ashley? Can I call you Ashley? Man-to-man, Ashley, this is not how you get over a break up. Have you considered something less extreme than all this?" The Doctor gestured to the devastation around her. “Smashing up your ex’s house seems a tad hysterical. Maybe try a therapist? Get your feelings under control.”
Ashad twitched again. His fingers clenched. There was one final head tilt and then he spoke. A simple question. One that drained the air from the room.
"Are you human?"
The Doctor’s stomach plummeted. The game had changed. He was figuring her out. She didn’t let it show. She held his gaze. Steady, unshaken.
"No. I’m not."
A pause. Something shifted. Ashad straightened. His face smoothed. His human eye emptied. He raised his arm.
“Then you are irrelevant.”
The wrist blaster fired. A blinding white-hot beam cut through the darkness, searing the air with a sickening hum. There was no time to react. No time to dodge.
The blast slammed into the Doctor’s chest. Agony ignited through her body. The force ripped her off her feet, sending her crashing into the shattered remains of a mirror. Glass splintered beneath her, slicing into her back, but she barely registered it over the damage to her chest. Her vision fractured. The world tilted sideways. Her limbs felt wrong, disconnected, distant.
Somewhere far away, like a sound coming through a tunnel, she heard Yaz scream her name. The pain and terror in the human’s voice hurt the Doctor more than the blast.
The Doctor tried to move. Tried. But the damage was too great. Her chest burned. One of her pulmonary tubes had been totally obliterated. Her body was already fighting to compensate, to survive. Blood dribbled from the Doctor’s lips, her remaining pulmonary tubes desperately trying to clear themselves to keep her from drowning in it. Her hearts thundered, struggling to maintain function as her subconscious pulled her toward emergency shutdown. She could feel the tendrils of a healing coma wrapping round her. Urgent. Unavoidable. Dragging her into unconsciousness. But she couldn’t afford to slip into a coma. Not yet. Not when Yaz was at risk. Not now that Yaz had revealed herself in her worry for the Doctor. It was all her fault. She needed to fix this.
She blinked rapidly, fighting the pull of unconsciousness. Fighting the pain. Fighting the fear. But her body had already decided for her. She strained, trying to push herself up. Searing agony ripped through her, more blood oozing from her mouth. She collapsed back, her breath a gurgling, wet gasp. Useless. Helpless. Yaz was now locked in a standoff with Ashad. Her fate, and the fate of the family in the panic room now fell on the human’s shoulder.
Through her swimming vision, the Doctor watched as Ashad tilted his head again. Not gloating. Not celebrating. Just calculating. Assessing. Deciding. His cold human eye locked onto Yaz. The Doctor tried to speak. Tried to warn her. But only a choked, drowning noise escaped her throat. No words. No protection. No time left.
Ashad took a step forward.
Yaz was next.