Rating: PG-13 for violence
Title: Change
Disclaimer: The Doctor, Time Lords, and the TARDIS, are from the "Doctor Who" television program and are owned by the BBC. Their use is for entertainment purposes only; no infringement is intended or should be inferred. Please note that Clavidence and the Concordance were created by Craig Hinton (as published by Virgin Publishing, Limited) and are used as a basis for "historical reality" or in a purely fictitious manner. The character of Benediction, in addition to characters/members of the Concordance and the settings of the Concordance as represented in the stories published herein, are the creation of M.L. Stone.
Spoiler Alert: The episode "Survival" and the Doctor Who telefilm originally broadcast in the United States on FOX.
Summary: She frowned at him, uncertain of the import of his statement. She slowly stood and walked over to the sphere, all the while casting wary glances back at her companion. She stopped before the orb and looked down upon it. Her reflection was warped due to the colour and the shape.
Pairings: None
Author's Notes: This is an older Doctor Who fanfic of mine, one that centres on the regeneration of an original character, Benediction. It's an early introduction to her. This piece is perhaps eight to nine years old now.
Change
:featuring the seventh and eighth Doctors and the fifth and seventh Benedictions
If she were opposite in appearance, would she also be opposite in nature?
Guardian gave his twin sister a look of surprise. She had not disguised that thought very well. "You think that she will be...changed?" he asked.
Saint raised her eyebrows. "I can't say for certain. But if she looks so very different than before, who can truly say what a regeneration will do to her soul?" Her voice, as well as her brother's, was unusually soft. Being in Hospital seemed to invoke such hushed tones. Saint's concern also weighed heavily on her; she was truly worried for her friend.
Benediction was no longer a tall, blonde, lithe figure with classically beautiful features, touched by a hint of cunning. Now she was smaller, brunette with premature streaks of grey, her face pretty in an impish, child-like way. She looked peaceful and innocent in her slumber.
"She will be different," said a voice from the doorway. Apothecary entered the room, tapping the edge of the touchpad in his hand. "She told me that she would be. She wasn't certain of how, but she knew that she would."
"Can she retain command of the Hierarchy?" inquired Guardian in a low voice.
Apothecary moved to the observation window. He adjusted his glasses and looked down upon the new and unconscious form of the Brevet Admiral. "I won't know that until she wakes up," he said quietly.
A ball.
No, it's a sphere.
No, it's a gazing ball. Mercury glass. Cobalt blue. In a wrought iron frame. The one from the garden at the House. The secret garden.
"Very good," said her companion.
She looked to her right. She was lying on a stone bench, wearing her battle armour, and her companion was seated on edge of the fountain at the heart of the garden. He was dipping his fingers into the waters of the fountain. She could just hear him gently clicking his tongue. Over his shoulder, she could see the mirrored orb.
She sat up, swinging herself round to face him. "Who are you?" she asked.
"Who do you think me to be?" was his enigmatic response.
She arched an eyebrow and sighed. She looked him over. He wasn't a very tall man, a bit taller than she, about five feet seven or so. The shiny pair of two-tone brogues caught her eye. Her gaze moved up his form. He wore dark check trousers, a dark brown jacket with a fob chain run through the boutonniere hole and a paisley handkerchief perilously dangling from a breast pocket. He wore a matching paisley tie, a white button down shirt, and the most curious pullover sweater. He reminded her of a very eccentric don she once knew from Oxford. He had dark curly hair partially hidden under a straw fedora.
He smiled at her and nodded back at the gazing sphere. "Why don't you take a look."
"At the garden?"
"At yourself."
She frowned at him, uncertain of the import of his statement. She slowly stood and walked over to the sphere, all the while casting wary glances back at her companion. She stopped before the orb and looked down upon it. Her reflection was warped due to the colour and the shape.
"I...I don't know...what I am supposed to see..." she said haltingly. She turned back toward the fountain, but he was gone.
"That is why I'm here." His voice came from behind her. She tried to follow, but everything detached and slipped out of focus.
Change. I am changed now. What happened?
Night. Rocks. Sand. It was the desert, in the silt straits of Araerjan. The tracers of flanser and gunfire lit up the sky, mixing with the stars. The air was beginning to grow hazy with acrid smoke and it stung cold against her cheeks. She remembered that the Araerjanian desert could get to below freezing at night.
Where are we again?
"You don't remember this place?"
It was her companion again. His voice...he had a definite Scottish brogue.
"It's Araerjan. Where I was born for the fifth time."
"That's an interesting way to look at it, Delta." Her companion strolled over to a rock, twirling an umbrella. She had not noticed it previously. It was black with a red question mark handle.
Quaerere.
"You always said that I had a peculiar view, Theta." She grinned when he raised his eyebrows at her. She shrugged gamely and held her hands out from her sides. "The question marks? A rather obvious sign of the House."
The Doctor returned the grin and pointed at the Seal of Rassilon on her shoulder. "And that is a rather obvious declaration of what you are."
Benediction titled her head in acknowledgement. "I was born there."
"Don't you mean that you were Loomed there?"
The beginning of an old argument. She remembered that they once spent several days fighting that verbal battle.
"I was as much Loomed there as you were, Snail."
The Doctor's blue eyes faded a little with the use of his childhood nickname. "That is Innocet's name for me," he softly replied.
"Yes, I know. She told it to me. She also told me why she called you that and why the others called you Wormhole." Benediction gave him a sad smile and touched a hand to his cheek. "Your cousins, the Lord Cardinals, your class, everyone, they were frightened of you, Theta."
The Doctor closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against her palm. The action surprised Benediction, but she did not pull away. He opened his eyes and took her hand into his. "I know how they felt. I was frightened of you."
"Me?" She was taken aback. "H-how?"
He smiled at her, a little secret smile. "You still stammer when you're nervous."
"Your eyes still twinkle when you're teasing me," she retorted. "Please tell me. How did I frighten you?"
"You were just like me." He gave her hand a little squeeze and began to lead her from the rock formation to the firefight. "Do you remember this place?"
"Yes, of course I do, it's Araerjan. I told you that."
"What happened here?"
"There was a battle between the Revisionists' forces and the old Feds. The Revisionists took us all prisoner."
As they drew closer to the outcropping, she could see the battlefield. The Revisionists' mechs advancing on the Feds' mechs. One of the mechs was immobilised by mortar fire. The canopy opened and a woman jumped out. She hit the ground and rolled upright, firing her blaster. She was of average height, with short, dirty blonde hair. Her face was somewhat...elven in appearance.
"What happened to you?"
The woman was darting between fallen mechs and smouldering transports. She motioned the medics to come to those soldiers who were still alive. She faced the outcropping and Benediction could see her face. Her nose was slightly upturned, though not too much so, and she was of slender build.
"I was shot. Five rounds in the stomach. It was a fatal wound."
A squad of Revisionist troops broke through the line and advanced on the woman's position. She and five other Feds had taken a defensive stand behind one of the larger mechs, a Revisionist Goliath class L/M. One of the troopers had scrambled on top of the Goliath. A Fed volunteer shot him down, but not before the Revisionist's finger squeezed the trigger. Several rounds went off from his assault rifle and hit the woman, centre-body mass. They both fell simultaneously. He was dead before he hit the sand. She was still breathing as she lay at an awkward and painful looking angle.
"You regenerated."
She was irritatingly familiar.
"I did. Just."
They rounded another stone outcropping and then the world went out of focus for a moment. When it refocused, they were in Iscariot's old lab. Where he remade them into his image...
"Do you remember this place, Danadæ" It was the first time that he had addressed her by the familiar of her birth name since - it had been centuries.
"This is the Nostrium. This is where Judas committed all of his insanity. This is where... " Benediction's voice faded. She stopped walking and faced the Doctor. "Why are we here?"
"This is also where you were born for the sixth time, as you like to say."
"I've regenerated?" She looked down at herself. Her body was slightly different than she remembered, shorter, more compact, like a gymnast. Her previous form was like that of a fencer or a ballerina. Her new self...she darted over to a cabinet and looked at her reflection on its polished surface. She was a brunette now, if she could rightly say that. There were streaks of grey and white in her hair. She looked younger, by the Lord. Her face was far softer than the last. Her face...no, the face of her former self, she had sharp features. She had looked cunning and dangerous. Before that, the woman they saw on Araerjan, she had looked a bit like an elf. But now? She looked like a cherub. The only thing that remained the same was the colour of her eyes. They were the same azure tint.
"I thought for certain that I wouldn't survive. I thought that I would die this time." She spun on one heel to direct a questioning look at the Doctor. "Why have we come here" Then she frowned. For the first time, she realised that her voice was now lower and grainier, and it bore the faintest trace of an Irish lilt.
"You really don't know? You've suffered a major post-regenerative trauma. What Iscariot did to your body...the nanites are having a devil of a time reconciling everything. They've managed to get your external body and your internal organs in place, but your mind, that is the tricky part. The engrams are a fiendishly clever bit of work on Iscariot's part. The nanites are trying to reconstruct your neural pathways through and around the circuitry."
"So you're here to guide my regeneration?"
"The only other Time Lord as qualified as me has come to an unfortunate demise."
"Koschei has finally shuffled off this mortal coil?" Benediction shook her head, marvelling at the information. "How was that managed?"
"Daleks. They didn't take a liking to him."
Benediction laughed grimly. "Little wonder. He presented too much competition. But how is it that you are present in my subconscious?"
"The Matrix. Lady President Romana has granted me certain access. We knew the moment of impact."
The word gave the Brevet Admiral a start. "He pushed me," she said softly.
The Doctor moved closer to her and put an arm around her waist. "I'm sorry," he breathed, "that was a stupid choice of words. I did not mean anything by it."
"No, no, it's all right. I fell to my death. You can't really avoid the fact." She sighed and asked softly, "How did it happen...the eighth time"
"For me."
"For you."
The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment. "I was shot. Eight times, I think. Perhaps nine. Automatic gunfire, you know, hard to count when you are the one being hit. I stepped into the middle of a gang fight in San Francisco."
Benediction turned in the Doctor's embrace so that they stood face to face. The Doctor's arm was still around her waist. She closed her eyes and touched her forehead to his. "You're not connected to the Matrix, you are in the Matrix."
"Yes," he whispered, his eyes still closed.
"But your eighth self is there, guiding us." She opened her eyes and saw that the Doctor had changed, as had their surroundings. They were back in the secret garden. Now the Doctor was a tall, younger looking man with flowing chestnut locks and sharp azure eyes, almost green, like hers. His face was handsome and angelic, and there was a sense of childlike innocence about him. He was dressed like a Victorian dandy, by way of America's Old West. It suited him.
He put his other arm around her and held Benediction in a comfortable embrace. "I'm here in case you don't survive the regeneration," he explained softly. His voice now carried a faint Irish lilt.
"You're here to take me back should I die," she murmured. He nodded silently. She smiled and reached up gave him a long hug. The Doctor appeared to be surprised, but he was smiling down at her. "I always wanted to do that before I died my final death. I decided to take my chance while I still could."
"You might live to regret that," he joked.
She actually laughed. "I am looking forward to that prospect." She felt a sudden weariness. Benediction sighed and closed her eyes. Immediately, she felt her mind slip beneath a wave of colours and sounds. All of her senses soon began to drown in the tumult of images. Memories of death and birth, repeated.
There are so many lives that I have lived in my head.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that they were back in the garden. It was evenfall now. The mission lanterns were lit. The last vestiges of the Gallifreyan sunset glinted on the armillary sundial and deepened the blue of the gazing orb to purple. "Did you choose this place?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I'm not really sure. It might have been me. It might have been you. It might have been both of us. It is hard to tell in the Matrix."
Benediction moved over to the fountain and sat down at the edge. She looked into the water, watching the perchalice navigate the bottom. Someone liked the odd little fish, but she could not remember whom...
"It was me," he answered. The Doctor knelt in the wet earth at the base of the fountain and pushed up his sleeve. He extended a slender hand into the water and clicked his tongue. The perchalice encircled his hand and flapped their fins in a watery caress.
"They always liked you. No one in the House could ever understand why. Except for Einäelle. And she was quite secretive about that."
The Doctor grinned at her, a large, warm, and inviting grin. "She knew my mother was a mermaid."
Benediction shook her head. "Now I know I must be dying." The sundial caught her eye, the arrow's tip an orange-red. The colour of blood. Replay. His hands against her throat. Pushed against the transparasteel. Again. Again. Again. Pushed through the transparasteel. Her hands locking onto his wrists. Falling. Her blood, streaming from her ears and nose and mouth oh good Lord -
The whole is equal to the sum of its parts except on Sundays when the bough breaks when the little deepening comes then we'll run around and jump through hoops to find the flower thief in the garden imagining sadism.
"Delta Sigma."
That wasn't right. What had she meant to say?
She was in the Reading Room in her TARDIS. The sunlight of a winter's afternoon shone through the large bay window. A fire was lit in the fireplace. The Doctor with the umbrella was sitting in her favourite milano chair, sipping a cup of tea. His umbrella was resting on the map table in front of him. "This is a very nice room," he said. "I quite like the view of the coast. Would you mind if I borrowed it for the old girl?"
"No. No, I don't." There was a brief flash, white static blocking everything out, then the world seemed inside out for a moment. When she came back to the Reading Room, the Doctor was besides her, holding her up.
"The regeneration," he said, as he helped her down on the sofa. "The nanites are having more difficulties than I imagined. They are having problems with your semantic and procedural memory. Your episodic memory seems to be intact. Quite peculiar. I had thought the opposite would have been the case."
He laid her out on the sofa and gently placed a pillow beneath her head. "Theta. If I live," she began, "how will I know that I am really me? When all is said and done, how will I know that I have not become the thing that Judas wanted all along? How will I know"
The Doctor leaned over her and kissed her forehead. "You will be the you that you have always wanted to be, Danadæ. The you that you have always known. No more and no less," he purred to her.
"How do you know?"
"Don't doubt, my dear. Always trust your Doctor," he said softly.
Another blinding flash, this time accompanied by searing heat.
The white did not fade. Instead, it drew into focus as swirls of mica dust, driven by a constant wind, transformed into diamond sparkles by brief, muted glimpses of sun.
"What is this place?" she said. The sands swallowed her words. Her throat constricted at tasting the arid atmosphere.
"A future echo." The Victorian dandy had returned. He squinted at their surroundings. "You need not know this place. Not yet."
"But... " He pulled her close and placed his hand over her eyes.
"Not yet," he whispered into her ear.
I have not died the same death twice. I will not. I promise you that.
They were under the stone canopy at the far end of the garden, beneath a garland of ivy.
"You seem to like this place the best of all," he said to her. The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against a column. It was morning now. A band of sunlight fell across his eyes and they shone a bright azure.
"I came here whenever Judas...experimented. It was the one place that I was safe from him."
The Doctor regarded her sadly. "In a way, you're still hiding yourself from him."
"I can never escape him. No matter what I do, no matter how I try, what he did will forever be a part of me. I cannot ignore the evil that he did. I can only overcome it."
"You do realise that in acknowledging it, you have defeated him"
Benediction stared at the Doctor. "I...think that I do."
"Good." The Time Lord smiled and reached into his vest for his pocket watch. "It is nearly time, Danadæ."
"How much time has passed?"
"In your world and time line, three days."
"Three days in a coma. All to keep my mind from falling apart. He was a genius, despite everything."
"So was Davros. So was Koschei. They both found their end."
Benediction regarded the Doctor carefully, taking in his form one last time. "Is this an ending, then?"
He smiled. "No, my dear Delta, consider it another beginning. As you like to say, you have been born for the sixth time." He stepped forward and pressed something into her palm. Then he placed a fingertip to her forehead. "Time to sleep, Danadæ. Perchance to dream..."
It had been three days since Judas and Benediction had fallen from the Nostrium, three days since Judas had breathed his last, three days since her battered body had undergone a metamorphosis. It had been three days since she had lapsed into a deep coma. The members of the newly formed Seraphim had taken turns sitting vigil. Apothecary was the one constant, being the one person beside Judas who knew Benediction's biology. For three days, Apothecary harboured the hope that his vigil would not turn into sitting Shiva."Muddy knees."
The sound startled Apothecary and Guardian, who were keeping the newly named Chief Medical Officer company. "Thank God," Apothecary breathed. He grabbed his bio-scanner and went to work.
"Brevet Admiral? How do you feel?" asked Guardian.
Benediction propped herself up on her elbows and surveyed the recovery room. "Muddy knees," she repeated. She was grinning now.
"Oh, no." Guardian exchanged a nervous glance with Apothecary. "What are you talking about?"
"He had muddy knees," she said triumphantly.
Guardian and Apothecary exchanged looks again. The doctor shrugged and gave her a nod of his head. "Of course he did. Okay, I'll bite, who had muddy knees and why?" murmured Apothecary. He started a detailed scan of Benediction's brain.
"His knees were muddy because he knelt by the fountain. He was playing with the perchalice. They always liked him."
Guardian frowned. "What are perchalice?"
"They're a type of fish. They're very nice, actually. Rather sweet tempered. We had them at the House. The House liked them very much. Don't you see what it means"
Apothecary set down his bio-scanner and looked into Benediction's eyes. They were still the same colour. How were they the same...?"I could guess, but I'd rather not. No, I'm sorry, we're not quite following you."
"Continuity." Benediction smiled. "A little bit of continuity in the Matrix is a miraculous thing. Since he had muddy knees and I was able to tell you that he had muddy knees, it means that my memory is intact. All of it. I knew that he should have muddy knees and I remembered that he would have muddy knees and I could say it. The nanites were having problems restoring the memories but they managed to work around the engrams. The regeneration is complete. I am me."
Guardian and Apothecary looked to one another and started to smile. "You really are you, aren't you?" said the Admiral First Rank with a laugh.
"A little shorter, but yes, I am."
Guardian sucked on his lower lip. "But which you are you? I mean, you're different than you were before..."
"Yes, Guardian, I am different. But I am me." She smiled, remembering the garden. "I am the me that you knew and more..." She let her mind wander back to the garden for a moment and then refocused on the recovery room. "Does anyone have any tea? I am rather hungry after three days in a coma."
Apothecary grinned. "Earl Grey?"
"Yes, actually. I would like that."
"At least you've kept your taste in tea. Right, then. No, don't get up, please stay here, Benediction. I don't want you moving until you've had a few moments to regain your sense of surroundings. Also, we have some news about the Reclamation, and I wouldn't want you to hear it on an empty stomach, let alone after three days in a coma," said Apothecary. "We still have to run a full physical on you yet."
Guardian nodded his head in agreement. "He's right. You still need to be completely checked. Besides which, having an Ops meeting might put you back in a coma." He smiled. "I'll let the others know that you're awake now. They will be relieved to know. Just give us the word when you're feeling up to a briefing."
"I will. Apothecary, Guardian - thank you." Both men smiled at her as they left the room.
Benediction lay down on the medibed and closed her eyes. She could just hear the soft burble of the fountain, could just feel the sun, could just smell the breeze. She opened her eyes, relieved to find that she was in her present. Benediction turned onto her side and gently opened her hand to see what the Doctor had placed into it. She had felt it in her hand when she awoke, but she didn't want the others to see. It was private and special, like the garden. She smiled broadly at what he had given her. She would have never expected it from him. It was a wonderful, thoughtful gift.
It was a gold Damascene cross with an ornate detail of a dove, on a gold chain.
She undid the clasp and hung the cross round her neck. She felt the metal against her skin. It felt warm. Just like the strength in the memories the Doctor had helped her to recover.
"Thank you. One day, I shall return the favour, Theta," she said softly. "I promise that I will."
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