Hi there. First of all, thanks for clicking that link and giving my little story a chance.
Secondly, a little disclaimer: This incarnation isn't owned by the BBC. He's actually owned by the wonderful templremus1990, whose amazing fic starring Eleven is actually being rewritten at the moment. As soon as it's up again, you should all read it - it's fantastic. The companion belongs to me, as do the planets and other random specifics mentioned, but they're free-for-all. You want to use them, you can. Oh, and Fror was mentioned by Scarf Warriors, but the detailing is mostly mine. Pretty much everything else belongs to the BBC.
In case you didn't quite get that: this Doctor, while technically being Eleven, isn't meant to be Matt Smith's portrayal (because he hasn't started yet, so how would I even do that?!). So no flaming about that, please.
I think that's about it. Read on, and (hopefully) enjoy!
He woke up screaming, skin on fire. The sky was the faded lilac of evening, the twin planet reflecting the light of the far ruby sun, but all he saw was fire, and ice, and blackness.
He was dead until dawn.
--
Whiteness surrounded him – tight, heavy, soft. He wasn't aware that he had been moved, and there was far too little feeling in his limbs for him to have moved himself. There was no feeling anywhere. The pain had been replaced by an excruciating numbness; he might have thought himself dead if he had energy to think. Instead, he lay there, staring upwards at the lilac sky.
--
Some hours later – far into dawn as he remembered it, though more hours must have passed – he woke again. The sky was still lilac. A false evening, or he'd slept through the daylight hours at least twice. He was aware that he ought to have been hungry, and as soon as he thought it, felt a pang in his stomach. He couldn't feel where that was, though. The numbness made him feel oddly displaced. He knew where his body was meant to be, but he couldn't feel it. He also couldn't see it, because he was still staring upwards at the sky, even though he was sure he'd told himself to look elsewhere.
It was then that he realised that the sky had an end.
It was difficult to see at first, between the haziness of his mind and his gaze, but he could focus on it, like it was a solid object. As far as he remembered, the sky was not a solid object. Not on any planet.
But there it was, a solid sky. Or something all above him that was like a sky but not. This theory became more likely by the second as he realised that a tall glass column met the sky at the corner of his vision. He wondered briefly whether the column was supporting the sky. He was sure it couldn't bolster such a large object, but then he didn't know how much the sky weighed. Or how strong the glass was.
Before he had opportunity to ponder this further, he heard a low gurgling just beside his left ear. He turned to see what it was, and didn't turn. Frustrated at his lack of control over his own body, he rolled his eyes, inwardly cursing.
"Oh, hello. Awake, are you?"
The voice had a strange accent that he couldn't quite place, if indeed he'd ever heard it before. He got the distinct impression he never had, familiar though it sounded. He couldn't see who had spoken, but had they been in his line of sight, he would have glared at them. What, they were expecting a response when he couldn't move, let alone talk?
"I expect you're wondering what's going on. To be honest, I'm still doing that myself. The long and short of it is, you were trapped under an avalanche."
He could feel it then, around the body that he couldn't – a thick cloy of snow taking him hostage, punching him further into the icy darkness.
"You remember." Whoever was speaking – still out of view – paused for a few seconds before continuing, voice quickened and hitched slightly. "Were you exploring? Now this is going to hurt."
He might have found it odd that the speaker asked a question without waiting for an answer, but at that moment he felt a prick in his arm and was flooded with a bright burning sensation that tore at his flesh. A hand clamped over his mouth as his throat started to scream of its own accord.
"Use your hands," he was instructed. "Where it hurts."
It hurts all over, he wanted to yell, but couldn't stop screaming to let out the words. He instinctively clutched at his right shoulder blade, and jerked his hand back as the pain was replaced by an icy sharpness.
"Don't touch any one place for too long. You'll end up hurting yourself more. The gloves are just a temporary fix."
He glanced over and found his hands encased in some sort of plastic gloves, with a translucent yellow gel sandwiched between their two layers. He didn't know what the gel was, but it simultaneously numbed and scorched with its icy touch. His skin was already scalded, but as he cooled it area by area, the pain became more bearable.
His body had fully recovered from its temporary paralysis by this point, and he took the liberty of examining himself – interrupted every so often by a sharp spasm of pain that forced him to numb the offending region with the gloves. His hands and feet were more or less intact, though his heels had mild blistering. He remembered, walking across the ice, complaining that his boots had been too big.
The blisters were the least of his concern. Across his chest hung a thick patch of red weals, some with yellow-white strips, most an angry russet. Similar welts adorned his lower right thigh, left elbow and, judging by the fierce protest from his back whenever he put any sort of pressure on it, at least one of his shoulder blades.
"Feeling better?"
The tone of voice made it clear that he wasn't being asked if the pain had stopped – which would have been a ridiculous question given the obvious severity of his burns – but whether he was able to control himself.
He gave a cautious nod, and the hand was removed from his mouth.
He took in a deep lungful of air as he pushed himself into a seated position, relieving the pressure from the wounds on his back and letting him take in more of his surroundings.
The room was expansive and vaguely dome-shaped, with white walls and a striking red floor. The glass column was surrounded by a large hexagonal console, forming the focal point at the centre of the room. But it wasn't that which drew his attention.
There was a man stood to his left, blond hair a complete mess but nonetheless striking when paired with such snappy dress sense. His jacket matched the red of the floor, and his trousers didn't seem to be the plain black that they first appeared. He proffered a mug. "Tea?"
"Pardon?"
"Oh, sorry. You must be wondering who I am, where you are, et cetera, et cetera. Yes? I'm the Doctor, this is the TARDIS, and this," he said, lifting up the mug, "is quite possibly the best mug of tea I've ever made." He took a large gulp of the liquid and crouched down on the floor. "And who might you be, young sir?"
"Ixfin. Thank you. For taking care of me."
"For finding you, you mean. And it wasn't easy, you know. Locating you was difficult enough, but finding a polythene spade to dig with? Nightmare. Incidentally, why were you even on a category six planet?"
Ixfin shifted uncomfortably, placing a gloved hand on his elbow to soothe the sudden flare of heat under his blistering skin. "We were wearing suitable protection."
"Looks like it." The Doctor cast a critical eye over the young man's wounds. "You were in hazmat suits. They might protect you from the rain and the snow, but a snag on a rock and you're vulnerable. And you got snagged by more than one rock." He heaved himself to his feet and pulled the tattered remains of the suit up to show. Massive rips shredded it from head to toe, leaving only the visor intact.
"Unexpected rockfall," Ixfin said quietly.
"It was a landslide. You're lucky to have survived with such minor burns, especially considering the acid content of the precipitation. Good grief, the only reason you survived at all was pure chance."
Ixfin looked away, not wanting to meet the stranger's gaze, afraid of confirming the truth. After a few moments, however, he found that he could bear the silence even less. "None of them survived?"
"One was still alive." The Doctor's voice was soft. "But by the time I found her, she was too far gone. I'm sorry." The last phrase was a hoarse whisper. "If I could have saved them, I would."
"Is that what you do, then?" Ixfin looked up at him suddenly, his expression less than friendly. "A travelling doctor who just happens to be in the right place at the right time?"
"Sometimes." The man looked away into a corner of the so-called TARDIS, and further even than that. "If I'm lucky," he murmured.
Ixfin waited for the stranger's gaze to return to the world. "And if you aren't?"
"Then people get hurt. Or they die. And it's usually my fault, one way or another."
"I'm sorry," Ixfin said, though he wasn't sure whether he was. The words seemed oddly empty. At that moment, everything did.
The Doctor quirked his lips. "Strange how words never mean what you want them to, isn't it?" He met Ixfin's gaze and smiled suddenly, madly. "So, an explorer. Your first trip?"
"Fourteenth." Ixfin found himself smiling back. "My dad used to lead expeditions when I was younger. But with mum gone, he gave it up to look after me. I made him take it up again last year. Made him promise to take me with him." He laughed then, a hollow half-gasp, half-choked sob as his back erupted in pain again.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Blame yourself." The Doctor looked at him with green eyes so old they looked grey. "You're too young for such twisted thoughts."
"I'm not blaming myself."
"Well...good."
"I'm blaming them."
The Doctor watched him hesitantly for a second or two. "Who?" he asked finally, his voice soft but guarded.
"Fror," Ixfin replied, as though this should have been obvious.
"Fror?" The Doctor looked at him, uncomprehending, for several moments. Then his eyes widened. "Oh... The four great wars of the Castan galaxy. Of course." He looked at Ixfin with a sort of morbid curiosity. "You must have grown up in those conflicts."
Ixfin held his gaze, his expression so hostile that he looked about a second away from tears. "The third war took my mother. I was seven. The fourth took my best friend. Sixty years of war, Doctor. And they still won't leave us alone."
"How'd you mean? I thought the Voluptran Council called a ceasefire back in '29." He frowned.
Ixfin looked at him with dead eyes. "That was before we excavated Frorling weapons on Axel 62."
"Oh, so that's what you were doing. You'll forgive me for saying that's an incredibly stupid excuse to go anywhere near a category six planet. I mean, honestly. You really are lucky to have escaped with such minor injuries."
"The others weren't so lucky."
"No. Well." The Doctor lowered his gaze. "Nothing I can do about that, I'm afraid."
"But the planet was stable, Doctor. Axel 62. They gave the all-clear for expeditions twenty years ago. Yes, the acid was dangerous, but the planet itself was stable. As long as proper procedures were followed, there shouldn't have been anything that could go wrong."
"Landslides can happen anywhere."
"It wasn't a landslide. The excavation triggered one of the weapons. It damaged the tunnel infrastructure and the shaft collapsed."
"You weren't trapped there by accident." The Doctor looked at him with his mouth hung slightly open. "You said you were looking for Frorling weapons."
Ixfin cautiously nodded.
"You were looking for enemy weapons that would prove that Fror had disobeyed the Voluptran Council, and there just happened to be a landslide?"
"You think they were responsible?"
The Doctor shrugged off his jacket, looking serious. "I think somebody was."
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