He yells her name as they are ripped apart and it sears across her mind.
"I'll save you!" he shouts desperately. "I promise!"
He's been known to break his promises before.
—
She sits in a cold, metal chair at a cold, metal table underneath a cold, metal lamp. The light engulfs her, dispelling all of the shadows she could crawl away into and hide in. She is strapped in. Cold, metal cuffs bite into her wrists.
She feels like she is part of a police investigation.
In a way, she is.
"Dalej khih kto lamfedija."
Words in a tongue she has never heard before. Words she should be able to understand. But it is all just gibberish, maliciously spat from a creature she knows nothing of. Her stomach churns. She says nothing.
Her captor brings a sizeable fist down on the table. The resulting sound is deafening.
"Lamfedija!" her captor roars. "Dalej khih kto lamfedija!"
She can do nothing but stare at the table. She hears a growl. Her captor barks orders at the guards near the door. In the next moment, she is being seized roughly by the arms and dragged from her chair. She does not put up a fight. They must've sedated her when… when…
She can't remember much.
But she thinks even if they hadn't, she still wouldn't have fought. It just would have been better for them. If she fought, they might do something to him. And now they won't. Because they need him. They need both of them.
She hopes, anyway.
—
There is no way of keeping time in her cell. It is extremely clean and extremely bare. The metal walls, like everything she encounters here, are cold and unforgiving.
So she tucks her hands into her sleeves and waits. Because really, that is all she can do. Wait and hope.
"I'll save you! I promise!"
He would save her. He always did. And then they would ride away into the stars and everything would go back to normal and— and—
It's the promising bit that makes her nervous.
—
She sits in the chair at the table in the room beneath the light in front of her captor. The captor who seems to be even angrier than last time. And the time before. And the time before that.
Hateful words are thrown at her. As always, unintelligible. She never looks up; always choosing to stare at her friend the table instead. Because once, she had made that mistake.
Those eyes. They burned.
And she felt sick and afraid and alone and he promised, but she had yet to see him. And those eyes terrified her into believing she might not see him for a long time.
—
He tries, he really does. He always tries to fulfill his promises, but it's as if the very word is cursed for him. Really, he's better off saying "I won't do this, I promise!" Because usually, things go wrong from there.
He promised to save her.
She has no doubt in his abilities.
But that doesn't make up for the fact that he promised.
—
She sits in her cell and stares at the wall.
They were good mates, them. Fantastic, even. Always laughing, always joking, always having fun. Even during the dangerous bits. Even during the arguments. She can see his face grinning at her, his familiar brown eyes twinkling with mirth. She can feel his hand in hers, tugging at her, as if to make her get up and run somewhere, anywhere, for the sake of adventure. Or maybe just for the sake of running itself.
But he's not here and she knows that.
And she sighs.
—
There is no way of keeping time in her cell. She doesn't know if this is a good or bad thing.
—
She sits in her cell and stares at the wall. He sits opposite her, fiddling with some bit of alien technology she can't ever try to name. He pulls out his specs and peers intently at it, occasionally making little sounds of interest or discovery.
After a while, she gives in.
"Oh, alright, what is that thing?"
Her voice is surprisingly hoarse. She clears her throat and frowns slightly. It's as if she hasn't talked in ages. Or she's talked herself out of a voice.
He looks up, remembering she's there, and smiles.
"Oh, just a bit of an electromagnetic transtemporal matter extrapolator. I nicked it from the control room when they weren't looking. Brilliant design, this. It's how they found the TARDIS when we were still in the Vortex."
"Where is the TARDIS now?"
He doesn't answer. Instead, he takes out his sonic screwdriver and scans his new toy. She switches topics.
"What does it do?"
"Well," he says, turning it over in his hands. He doesn't finish. She doesn't notice.
And it's not like she could follow any sort of technobabble he'd spew out at her, anyway.
—
"Dalej khih kto lamfedija."
She stares at the table.
She is taken away.
—
"Doctor?"
He looks up at her from his corner of the cell.
"What's your plan?"
He continues to look at her.
"How're you gonna get us out of here?"
He looks back down. She doesn't ask again.
—
"I'll save you! I promise!"
Her head jerks up. She looks around her cell, but it is empty. She blinks, and then squints.
"Doctor?"
"Yep?"
He is in the corner. His expression is expectant.
"…Nothing."
—
The cell is flooded with red light and an awful wailing that nearly shatters her eardrums. She presses herself into the corner and reaches out with her hand.
"Doctor? What's happening?"
She feels him sit next to her. He grabs onto her searching hand.
"Some sort of emergency protocol," he says. "Security breach, perhaps?"
She can hear shouting outside, frantic orders muffled by the walls. Then something explodes—there are several explosions—small ones, she thinks—and a familiar sound that makes her stomach churn and her mouth go dry.
And she hears her name. A desperate shout. Just like the last time…
The cell door opens with a whoosh and there he is, bathed in red, standing in the doorway. His suit is in tatters and his face is littered with little cuts. His sonic screwdriver is choked by his rigid grip.
She stares at him.
"Doctor?"
His expression is grim, but he gives her a small smile.
"I promised I'd save you, didn't I?"
She stares at him. The wailing continues.
His smile falls.
She feels a pat on her hand. She looks over, but the space beside her is empty. But she can still hear his voice, at once both sneering and apologetic.
"Ah. A bit too late for that one. Sorry."
a/n - The Random Word Generator gave me "promise" as a prompt. I'm not quite sure how well this came out.