They took away its bed.
It had been punished. Still bruised, still sore, it limped back to its room, and they have taken away the bed. Just the empty floor where it used to be, the hard straight chair and the Cleanslate wall they use to communicate with it. And when it goes to the shower all the water is been cold. Even now that it has dried off, it still shivers.
It draws the chair up to the Clearslate and sits cross-legged. Sometimes it writes down words it's seen, ones that look nice, or it draws things from outside. But it's hard to do anything when it's sore and cold. It shuts its eyes and uncaps the pen anyway.
Draws the Doctor's box. And it was the Doctor. They can tell it what they want. They kept telling it, all that time. Eventually, so that the punishment would be over, it agreed. Couldn't possibly have been the Doctor, because the Doctor is dead. The Doctor died at Lake Silencio, and burned and all. All these things they told it, and all these things it agreed to eventually. But it saw.
It draws the box, with it's beacon and the funny word it doesn't know before 'box'. And it writes his name. It writes Doctor. Because it was beaten for the word Doctor, for what it saw, and they have taken away its bed, because of the Doctor, all for the Doctor, all these times it writes that name, that word. Doctor. Then finds it can't stop and covers the Clearslate in it.
They'll see. They'll come in and see and take it away to be punished again, and punished for lying the first time and saying it agreed and they were right.
Fine. Let them come.
It keeps writing. The Clearslate pen makes no visible marks on the walls, but it carries on, nonetheless, determined to cover them.
As it goes on, beneath it's mask, something entirely new happens. It discovers its own mouth. No different, that I knows, from any of the mouths it sees moving every day. Still writing, it recalls the shape that mouths form to mean 'Doctor'. And mimics. The little tongue click of the C feels odd against its palate. The full round O at the end is more pleasant. And it recalls too that when other people make their mouths move that their chests go down too. It breathes out, making the shapes, and feels the air change shape with it. It tries again, and again, pushing more air out through it.
The guard outside hears it. And it must, simply must, be coming from somewhere else. He looks side to side down the hall, walks to the adjoining corridor to check there, before finally looking into the room he was standing outside.
And it is the thing inside which is talking. A mangled, husky version of the word 'Doctor'. He radios, instantly, for assistance. "And get Kovarian up here now," he adds, neither hiding his fear nor trying to.
A voice comes back, over the radio, "Madame Kovarian, if you please."
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am."
"Now what are you shouting about?"
"It's… It's talking, ma'am."
"That's ridiculous; it couldn't possibly have a concept of sound, never mind speech."
"All the same, ma'am, it's opening its mouth and there's words coming out. Well… One word, really, ma'am."
Owner arrives, with guards and some of the Tall People. It feels them coming and turns. Owner stands at the window in the door, and orders it to drop the pen. It doesn't want to, can hardly stop its hand from moving. Owner reiterates her order, though, and it does.
"Now turn around and face the wall. The guards will come in to shackle your hands."
It wants to try the word 'no', but it hasn't had any practice at that one. It has only one word. Instead, it does something else entirely new, and disobeys. It runs up to the door, close to the glass so they will hear. It bangs on the door and tells them, "Doctor!"
Why anyone would bother with this thing of moving the lips, when it makes one's throat turn so raw and sore, it just does not know.
"Step away from that door and face the wall!"
"Doctor!"
"Enough!" And this time, Owner hits back at the door. It flinches so hard it falls over its ankle and scrabbles back towards the wall. Not only faces it but kneels there with its head against the plaster, feeling the wet of the Clearslate pen, printing that word on its face. That person.
It does not want to make Owner angry. Does not want to disobey. But as it sits there, with the guards coming warily in behind it, it starts to think. Thinks bad and dangerous, punishment thoughts.
It does not quite know what it is doing. The first guard places a hand on its shoulder. It takes hold of it and throws him into the wall, barrels past the next two and punches another in the doorway.
The Doctor lives.
Its heartbeat, running and under attack, races. It steps up again when it has that thought – the Doctor lives. A Time Lord lives. And fear has such absolute power over it that no guard, no Tall Person can stop it.
It falls on the next guard and grabs the electronic key from her uniform, unlocking the shackles on its forearms. The blades, fired with adrenaline, grow down short over its fingers.
It runs until it reaches the spherical room, then rides the platform elevator to the top. Owner is there below it, and so are so many others, all wanting it, all trying to catch up with it. Even before the stop at the top, it leaps off and clambers into the gallery. More time for it before the elevator can return to the base.
Outside the transport room, it snatches a new, blank return disc, takes the chain from around its neck and hurries it on like a pendant.
They would believe that the Doctor is dead. They would leave him, then, in peace, to thrive and continue. If it understood the sounds of fear it might whimper or keen. As it is, all its fear is self contained and cries in on itself, multiplying, strengthening into hate.
It will bring them the Doctor and they will thank it and be kind with it.
They are coming up from below now. It closes itself into the transport room, but cannot lock the door from inside.
It feels for that secret inside pocket, for the disc they wouldn't let it use, the one they rejected. The one that will take it for the Tardis. But its hands are shaking and it's panicking, and it fumbles. Pulls it out and drops it, and it rolls along the floor.
On its hands and knees, it grabs it back.
The guards are at the door when it slams the little circle home into the box.
Fading out is a familiar feeling.
The Tall People are outside, but to enter now would be suicide. It watches, and behind its mask it smiles at its success, until it shudders, and disappears entirely.