Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Doctor Who.

Part two of the "soarta muritorilor chronicles."


One day, she meets a man with a charismatic smile who promises her the world.

/

She is twenty-five when she first meets him and he walks into the small café where she works, he's charming, handsome and he's not Lorcan.

He talks of stars and space and she's always been insecure so when he calls her beautiful, she swears she's in love/

Every day, he comes in and he says she's special, says she's destined to do great things and he's enticing, and she's never been good at avoiding temptation, and probably never will be.

Six months later, he gives her a diamond ring and she gives up her wand while Molly tells her, warns her that she's moving too fast, falling into a marriage to a man that she doesn't really know, but she brushes her sister's concerns aside and tells herself that she knows what she's doing, of course she does.

So what if he never tells her that he loves her? Some words just don't need to be said.

Right?

He takes her into a blue box and tells her he's an alien and that time and space bend to his will. She just laughs and laughs and thinks that this man is simply mad, that maybe her sister was right all along.

But, then he takes her to Utopia and she believes.

He whispers that the human race needs to be conquered and he wants her by his side and her thoughts are rushing, whirling around in her head and oh, Merlin, what is she doing, this man is mad, get her out of here now!

But then he touches her gently on her face, tells her that he loves her and all her will melts away because that's what she needs, to be told someone loves her and she nods, says, "Okay," and apathy claws open her soul and slithers in.

Being apathetic is the only way she can survive.

He takes her to the year 2008 and suddenly, she's (Muggle) Lucy Cole Saxon (n witch Lucy Weasley) and she has a family that isn't hers and she doesn't understand, not really, (time is so strange) and he's running a campaign to be Prime Minister and she just watches, watches and looks pretty, a smile frozen on her lips, and she doesn't care, not about anything, and at night, he talks of another man, another Time Lord that he knows will come and ruin his plans and in the darkness, a very small part of her prays for salvation from this Doctor.

He whispers of a drumming that's in his head and she nods and smiles, because what else is she supposed to do?

Is he mad or is she?

Sometimes, she doesn't know.

These small metal spheres are suddenly there, he tells her what they are and his words don't register with her and she feels like she's permanently trapped underwater as they kill this woman, and her husband laughs and laughs and her diamond wedding ring weighs her hand down heavily.

She feels like she's barely alive, barely breathing and sometimes, she feels like she should cry but she can't, won't, let herself do it.

She notices that his warm eyes have grown cold and his smile is more forced and sometimes, when he doesn't think she sees, something changes, but she can't quite put her finger on it.

She sleepwalks through her life, and she laughs, smiles and stands by him and he tells her of his plans to wipe out ten per cent of the human race and she says, "Sure," and sometimes, she thinks of running away, of getting as far away as possible from him but then he looks at her, and she knows he knows what she's thinking so she just wraps her hand in his and promises of her love falls from numb lips.

He takes her onto the Valiant and she thinks this is such an ironic name.

He meets with the President of the U.S. and she's been with him long enough to recognize that slight tilt of his lips when Winters broadcasts worldwide and she watches as the Toclafane kill Winters at her husband's call and a man appears with haunted eyes and she's detached as a man appears along with a woman and her husband kills the man with his laser screwdriver.

He turns it onto the man with haunted eyes and she absently takes in the fact that the man is being made to age a hundred years.

Her husband taunts the man and the man replies back calmly and suddenly, she thinks of her own sister and wonders if she misses her, if Molly even notices that she's gone and then she decides probably not because her and Molly were never that close and Lucy always fell off the grid for long periods of time.

He activates something and a rift opens aboard the Valiant and six billion Toclafane pour out and all she can do is stare, a rising sense of horror pushing past the apathy and no, no, no, he's really going to do it, going to wipe out one-tenth of the population. And the Toclafane do.

The woman, Martha, she thinks she's called, teleports away and he motions her to grab the Doctor on one side and she has to do it, has to obey, because she's still loyal to him, still loves him even after all this time, and she grabs one side of the Doctor and forces him to confront the slaughter.

And that's that.

A year passes but not really, and every time his hand meets her flesh, she dies a little more and she doesn't feel anything, not a thing and there's attempts to escape by the man who keeps dying and the woman's family and sometimes that Doctor too and she wants to laugh at them, laugh and laugh, because she knows there's no hope, no escape, but she doesn't, she just watches and waits, her apathy the only thing that keeps her company.

The Doctor has aged again and is put in a cell, and her husband drags her over with him and boasts to his fallen fellow Time Lord that his empire will begin the next day and she nods, smiles, while he talks of the drums that he hears in his head and she thinks that though she can't hear these drums, she's the one that's mad, not him.

Her husband reaches out and squeezes her hand so tight that although she can't feel the pain, she thinks maybe one of her fingers breaks and then she begins telling the Doctor of Utopia, of the future, of what happened to the people and this is what she's supposed to do if she doesn't want to wind up with another broken wrist.

And that's that.

Her husband leaves and the Doctor gives her a small tilt of his lips and for the first time in a long time, she feels something, and a spark of hope flares in her heart, does she dare believe?

Then he's back with the Doctor's companion, and that spark of hope burns out.

Then the woman, Martha, starts laughing, starts talking about a fictional weapon and the Archangel network, and she watches, and listens, and that flare of hope is back, stronger than before, and then…

Something happens and the Doctor has reversed everything and there's fear in her husband's eyes and she's feeling just a little detached, a little like this is a play and she's just watching it unfold and suddenly, Martha's mum is pointing a gun at him and her mind is screaming "DO IT DO IT!" But she doesn't and things are happening around her that she's only dimly aware of because she can't take her gaze off of that gun.

It's her escape, her freedom from the monster that poses as a man, and she must have it. Her hands shake as she grabs it, the metal cold against her flesh and Merlin, Merlin, she doesn't know what she's doing, her thoughts are spinning around in her head and the only way she can escape him is if he's dead so he has to die, he has to and her hands are quivering as her fingers wrap around the gun.

And suddenly, a loud crack breaks the air, and he's bleeding and she's falling to the ground, her legs refusing to support her weight and she stares at the gun and a sob escapes her throat and she doesn't know how long she stays there, shaking and looking at the gun but suddenly she's being pulled up and handcuffs are being slapped around her wrists.

And she smiles.

Because that's all she's ever known how to do.