Title: Run
Genre: Television
Series: Doctor Who
Characters: Rose Tyler, Doctor (9)
Spoilers: 1X01-"Rose"
Summary: That first moment between them, from someone else's eyes.
It was the perfect deception.
A world with all manners of things to inhabit, to use in our observation and ultimate subjugation of the human race, all directly under their perfectly oblivious noses.
We had only one natural enemy; he knew of us, our plans, and how to stop us. My people kept their eyes open, so to speak, ready to converge should the Doctor mysteriously appear once more to thwart us.
He doesn't realize that we are conscious, that we have thoughts within this plastic prison we've chosen for our subterfuge. He believes that it is only the consciousness that animates us, that we are merely physical representations of the signal it sends, doing what it tells us to do no matter what. The very thing that sustains us also destroys us, and in that is our undoing.
I am the first to see him.
We were all moving after the girl, the signal ordering us to silence her before she can alert anyone to our presence when he bursts into the room. She's so consumed with running from us, horrified by the idea of what we are, trying to convince herself that we couldn't possibly be real, that she doesn't notice his entrance.
He looks different from the last time we encountered him. Shorter hair, larger ears, different clothing. Since we've manifested within the mannequins of this world things like clothing are something we've begun to notice.
The difference is deeper than that; it's easy to see even for us that are without 'eyes'.
Rose Tyler wears her youth in the curve of her mouth, a perpetual smile always dancing on the edges.
The Doctor wears his grief and anger in the twist of his own, a sneer ready to be released on any unwitting soul who crosses his path.
He hesitates just over the threshold of the storage room, taken aback both by the sheer quantity of my kind within the room and the presence of the human female. His face slackens slightly as his eyes wander over her, lingering on the shine of her golden hair even in this darkened place.
She's frantic now, no longer crying out a wish for this all to be an illusion perpetuated by overzealous friends. Backing away from our rising hands and directly into the Doctor's reach, her face flinching as she prepares herself for our attack.
He slides along the wall, his eyes flitting between our aggressive stance and her own trembling huddle. He reaches for her hand, long fingers clenching around her dainty ones solidly as he pulls her towards him.
He tells her to run.
With the fluid trust that is innate of this world's species she follows him and escapes us.
We follow in our stiff-legged walk, unable to force these shells to move faster or with any of the grace humans take for granted. In the end we are trapped within this basement, unable to follow where the Doctor has ascended in the elevator.
Within minutes he has ended this existence for those of my kind within this building. As the signal is abruptly cut-off we can feel the consciousness that allows us to live drain away, and even our thoughts are slowly spiraling into nothing.
My last thought is that I envy these humans. Never before has a mysterious benefactor ensured my people's safety for all of time.
Then again, we are the villain of the story.
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