Warnings: Character Study, Introspection
A/N: Written for who_contest's Prompt:Release. As I generally do, I sat down to do this with a fiction firmly sketch out in my mind. The getting there is three quarters of the journey and honestly, I should have brought a blanket, chocolate and a flashlight for this one. Knew what I wanted to write almost as soon as the challenge was announced, but time, Muse and time factored against me. Once more, what I wished to 'pen' and what came about are merely kissing cousins. That being said, I hope it is as enjoyable to read as it was to write (frustrations notwithstanding!) As per usual, this fic is mostly unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or blatant vagueness. And (as always), I apologize for any repetition, misspellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky/wandery/blithery and unbeta'd.
Disclaimer(s):I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC and (for now) the fantastic S. Moffat. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!

Occasionally, there was the sound of rushing water in the walls – the pipes old, but well maintenanced – the sound soothing for all that it was erratic and untimed. There was nothing else to break up the monotony of hours.

(Days? Weeks?)

He would wonder if the Ponds were okay. Then he would wonder if he brought them at all. This could have been one of those times when he left them at home. Everything had blurred together and he couldn't track as well as he should; though he couldn't fathom why.

The lone lightbulb above him had been replaced twice that he could recall. The flickering light it produced (oscillation of the electricity through the filaments – a minor fault in the connectors where it attached to the ceiling), was like the ticking of a clock. It should madden him, he knew, but seeing as he was already well beyond that state, he found it a source of comfort, something balanced in a world that was anything but.

Now and again, there were footsteps.

Faint – at the end of the corridor. The sounds bouncing between hollow walls. He was well aware that there were other rooms –

Cells

but from the lack of sound within them, they all seemed to be empty.

Maybe they had escaped. His Ponds. It was better to hope for that. That they escaped or even that he forgot to bring them with. Anything else was unconscionable. He could take this endless stream of minutes-hours-days. They could not. They would be missed.

There were very few that would miss him. His own reputation proceeded him all too well.

He blinked into the staring eye of the lightbulb above him, trying to swallow around a throat that was too dry. He was exhausted and stretched thin – the hum of the TARDIS a barely-there singing just under his ribs. He could still feel Her. She was too far away, but he could still feel Her. She was distressed because She was unable to reach him, but that didn't matter. As long as She was still there, it meant he could leave.

If only he could figure out how to do that.

The gas in the room was perpetual. He had tried holding his breath, he had tried to cover himself so that it wouldn't find a way into his skin, but all of his efforts were in vain. Whomever had thought to put him in here well knew what they were doing. A thought that was frightening, even as it was comforting. He was still alive. It meant they must want something. What that something was, was still a mystery – but as long as he kept breathing, it meant he was useful to them in some way.

It was just worrying that he couldn't feel or see or comprehend anything besides rushing water, the lightbulb above him and the hum of the TARDIS. The walls seemed to melt and shift (likely a force-field), silent and unable to be seen even by his Time-sense, never mind by the naked eye. They never seemed to bring sustenance, though there were periods when even Time seemed to be missing and he was still alive, so he could only surmise they had found a way to render him unconscious and feed and bathe him.

He should find that disturbing, but it still meant they were interested in keeping him alive. The only rub was for what purpose. The longer he was here, the darker the implications. He was longing to find out, even as he was hoping he never would.

He had never liked being caged.

And that thought led to him wondering why he hadn't tried to escape.

Ah yes.

The gas.

Footsteps sounded at the far end of the corridor. Their infrequency like the rushing of water through hidden pipes. There was no rhyme or reason. No steadiness to it.

They only sounded at one end, though. Which likely meant that there was no parallel corridor on the other end of the hallway he was incarcerated in.

Dead end.

For some reason that was funny.

The footsteps retreated and he contemplated the lack of any other sound. Like the footsteps, the water, the buzzing –

ahhh, he had caught that, then

of the light above him

two shorts, one in the ceiling, one at the connecting point

were all part of some canned soundtrack. Played for his benefit. An audience of one. It made no sense, but it made perfect sense at the same time.

Surely that was the gas.

Which seemed to be getting heavier.

He struggled to keep his eyes open, but it was impossible – like trying to lift two tons with his eyelids. He could feel Time bend and knew he wouldn't be awake for long. Panic clawed at his insides and he tried to roll to his knees – only he didn't know where they were.

A voice melted through his mind and he tried to grip it to him, a drowning man flailing at rope. He had enough curiosity left to wonder when he last heard anyone speak at all (himself included), the anchor of that thought slowly pulling him to the depths. He registered the fact that he couldn't understand the language

translation circuits on the blink

that the TARDIS couldn't understand the language, before he finally stopped thinking and wondering at all.

O-o-O-o-O

"Zziftbt?"

Circuits on the blink

"ZZIFTBTERT!"

The Ponds – were they alive?!

"Bmmmfhgt."

His voice. That was his own voice. What was happening?

"Vffrretgb!"

The TARDIS. Why couldn't he feel Her?!

"WERRDDFFT!"

"That's a side effect," the tone was like an ice pick in his mind, the voice like liquid nitrogen. He couldn't place it – but then, it seemed he couldn't place himself, either. "It should pass. Long enough for him to be moved, anyway."

Dridiaprixlen. Planet in the far-flung quadrant of Linneur Galactic. Small planet. Big commerce.

Big commerce.

In what?

He couldn't remember.

The voice obviously wasn't talking to him, but about him.

"Why do we have to move him? The residence was secure." A sibilant hiss. Tongue not forked, but deliberately split. Two species did that. Only one populated near the Galactic.

S'fthebart. The fork-tongued Singers of the Black. But they had no technology, not like –

"He's moving too much. Gas him. We are changing location. She'll be back and I'm not looking forward to tangling with her again. He's valuable, but damned if I know why. Hold him still – "

She? Her?

River?

But River was –

" – dead if we don't deliver him on time. We've held him for too long." Said Ice-Pick voice.

A mask was shoved hastily over his face and he didn't even have the strength to claw it away. Though they hardly seemed to be paying attention – they were too involved in their conversation.

A conversation he seemed to be losing his grip on.

Why were there no other sounds? Voices?

Where was the TARDIS?

"They…payment…early…"

Fading. It was fading and he needed to hear –

"Did…bit – get…merchandise and…rich! Quickly…arrives."

"Weefdtbbrrmm?"

A sharp pain in the back of his skull, enough to cleave his breath in two. He was falling back into the black – and he'd hardly had time to climb out. Where was his TARDIS? Where were the Ponds?

He gasped against the sweaty plastic of the mask and gagged as the very air seemed to score his lungs. Too much. Not enough hydration. Atmosphere was heavy, gravity too light, but –

"Hold…still!" Ice-Pick. "Worth…if…dead!"

Another sharp pain (at his temple this time), another hissing, sliding noise through the screaming pound of shocking silence in his ears –

Singer objecting?

along with a cacophony of images –

touching – someone's touching me

And then nothing for a long time.

O-o-O-o-O

Another room.

A steady drip-drip-drip replaced the flicker of electric light and the thunderous hushed noises of plumbing. There was nothing else. There was…nothing. He could feel himself gasp at the singing absence of Her, the hum under his breast-bone an ache that thrummed through his blood. He couldn't hear Her, feel Her – and when he stretched out his mind –

Nothing.

Time yawed and swayed within his senses. Flickering like that light-bulb he no longer had. Both had been an anchor of a sort (Time more so), both he had been deprived of. He knew what caused this. He knew it, but without his anchors, without his ability to see…

He gritted his teeth in frustration – the move a rash one it seemed – as pain flared through the fragile clasp of his skull like lightning across a dank sky. He wanted to scream and rage and sob. The sudden loss of his Girl just as crippling as the loss of Time. He had neither – and he had never felt so small and helpless as he did at that moment; pain notwithstanding.

'Stop it, old man. Think. Work with what you have, the rest will follow.'

"There's my boy," a voice purred, laughter flirting at the edges and he couldn't place it. He didn't know that voice at all.

But he knew Gallifreyian when he heard it.

"Bit of a hard time catching you up, dear. You do like to get yourself lost in the oddest of places. Talk about hard to get." Amused. The click of heels as the Voice circled around him, the swish of petticoats and the smell of citrus an assault on senses that had known nothing for ages but flickering light, footsteps and water in old pipes. "For all that they were idiots, they sure did know how to capture you. Maybe I should have asked their technique…before I killed them. Maybe have some pointers for how to 'get your man'. For a future playdate."

"Wh…what…are – " A voice. He had a voice. And if he had a voice –

"Shhh," a cool pressed of a gloved (leather?) finger against his lips startled him into silence. He could almost cry with the relief of feeling something touching him; if it weren't for the familiar chill that screamed 'danger' racing through his nerves.

Every species had survival instincts. Just because he ignored his most of the time didn't mean he didn't have them. As crippled as he was, he couldn't afford (at this moment) to fall back on what he knew. This was unknown. And without his Girl and his Time-Sense to lead him through –

"It'll wear off soon enough," flatly, as though he had ruined a joke or a particularly fun surprise. "Like I said, clever – but not clever enough."

The finger lifted away from his lips, but before he could roll to a sitting position, a high heel was pressed between his hearts, the touch light, but with enough threat to keep him immobile. The Voice hummed thoughtfully to itself, heel digging into his sternum with just enough pressure to leave him gasping, but not enough to puncture. The heel (and the voice) stopped abruptly, the tune still spinning in his mind, the sound familiar, even as it left him with a feeling of being haunted. Like a ghost had –

"We will meet again, love. Not soon. No. Pity that. You look like a delightful playmate." The sound of her voice made him think of razor teeth and dark alleys and he shuddered against the cool concrete that was now registering through the thickness of the tweeds he wore. Sensations – smell, sound, the feel of his own skin – were starting to shiver awake and he knew this was the most dangerous point. Whether or not he came out of this alive was purely at the discretion of the woman (?) who had 'rescued' him. Her purposes as shadowy as her identity. There were few who could disguise themselves in such a way. All of them were dead. He should know.

He was the one to pull the trigger.

"You know," the voice said sadly, almost wistfully (though the sharp glee still lurked underneath it). "They truly thought they had a rarity. The last of the Time Lords! Oh! What a prize! But they were wrong. Most beings are. Even you, Doctor. You especially."

There was a wheezing, grinding noise in the distance. He knew it by hearts –

you always leave the brakes on

it's a brilliant noise

and he could feel Her start to weave Herself back into him, his hearts warming, strength returning as the fierce triumph of Her Song thundered back into the galloping rush of his blood. Time snapped back into focus and he took a deep breath, stretching his senses out-out to grasp at the environment, a million-billion calculations swarming through his mind, sifting, coalescing into –

"Time to go," the voice sighed, almost disappointed, but resigned. He could feel a psychic slap when he reached out for it, a resounding sharp jolt that left his overly sensitive system reeling at the solidness of it. "See you in the future, dearie. Maybe I'll call."

There were footsteps in the distance. Another set of heels, the squeak of nurse's shoes and the distinct slap of flats – three approaching –

And one leaving.

There was a swish of petticoats near him. A cool press of lips to his forehead (the smell of citrus light, yet overwhelming in the fact that the void that was there was too solid to be a void) and the click of heels as they retreated.

He rolled to the sound of three pairs of feet rushing towards him (even as they were still too far) and tried to muster the strength to lift himself from the floor. He succeeded only for a moment, collapsing back to the pavement as his head pounded and screamed at the sudden movement, the leftover vestiges of the gas (not to mention the blows to the head) leaving him too weak to fully mobilize, much less hold the thin strands of consciousness close enough to greet his rescuers –

brilliant Ponds…still too dangerous...

He tried to breathe through it, keep himself awake, but he could feel his hold slipping again. He managed to just catching the sound (feeling) of time-space ripping ten feet away from him, the sharp reek of ozone before he gave over. He didn't mind this time. He was found – and his Ponds were (would be safe) – even from the stranger who rescued him.

If they would remain safe, only time would tell.

As for the stranger –

Well, that was another story for another time.

Wasn't it.