Rating: PG-13 for violence
Title: Feeling Strangely Fine
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: None
Summary: She started laughing again. Her body shook with the force of her laughter. She caught sight of the wakizashi's hilt. The silver and black handle moved up and down as she laughed. So, she laughed even harder at the sight.
Pairings: None
Author's Notes: This is another older Doctor Who fanfic of mine featuring an original character, Benediction. This primarily an internal set piece that touches a bit on her…relationship with the Doctor.
Feeling Strangely Fine
: featuring the eighth Doctor and the seventh Benediction
She sat with her shoulders hunched, her face toward the floor, the stark portrait of defeat. Black armour, battered, scuffed, battle-worn, stood against the blindingly white backdrop of Hospital. The three-winged sanguine angel, a Seraphim, painted across the chest plate, heaved and sighed at irregular intervals.
The hilt of a sword extended upward from her left shoulder. The blade extended downward from behind her left shoulder blade. Rivulets of orange-red blood had coursed from the entry wound and had snaked delicate patterns down the chest and the upper arm. The bleeding had slowed; with every shudder, only a slow trickle crept its way from beneath the guard of the black and silver hilt.
The greying dark auburn hair was loose and hung across her visage, blocking her face from view. Even so, all in Hospital already knew what look she wore, and were glad to be unable to see it.
Ever so often, the shaking of her shoulders would increase, and her armour would shudder. If one were watching on closed-circuit monitor (and some were), sans audio, it would appear as if she were sobbing.
She sat, on the edge of a medi-bed, shoulders hunched, face toward the floor, waiting. She had refused treatment. Her people would be aided before her. She would not be mended until their healing was complete. She did not mind waiting. She had waited for nearly an hour. She would wait longer.
She would pass the time.
Yes, she knew all about Time. And Death. And Pain...especially Pain.
Old friends would help her wile away the hours.
The shoulders heaved, and Benediction laughed again, her cackles echoing through the hush of the triage unit in Hospital.
It wasn't so bad.
He had very good aim...better than she would have expected. The sword's blade had pierced the centre of the nerve cluster. Trust a Time Lord to know best how to hurt another Time Lord. The ganglion in the left shoulder. Not quite the Achilles heel, but effective nonetheless.
Benediction laughed again, clamping her still gloved hands over her mouth to keep the laughing from spilling out onto the pristine floor, into Hospital, out of the doors, and all across Clavidence. It was hysterical.
He had stabbed her.
She had looked into his eyes...those azure eyes...the face, pale, angelic even...curly chestnut hair...she'd looked into his eyes, eyes so much like her own, and watched those eyes as he took the short sword from its sheath and stabbed her.
He had done it with enough force to pierce her battle armour, her flight suit, skin, muscle, the pulsing, orange-red bloom of pure and unadulterated pain that lived in her left shoulder.
The blade was stopped by the adamantium joint in her shoulder. If not for that piece of metal, the entire short sword surely would have run a course straight through the other side. Adamantium against adamantium saved her arm from being taken again.
Truly, he had incredibly good aim.
Trust a Time Lord to have the strength necessary to break through her armour to the one place that would bring her to her knees.
And so it did. In the morning hours on Meridian, he had taken her wakizashi and stabbed her in the shoulder.
She saw it coming. She knew it was going to happen; yet she could not prevent it. She replayed it in her mind. Mneumonic memory, instant recall.
Two darksuited Kithred disintegrated in a burst of dust and decay after she ran them through with her katana, exposing the undead creatures to the morning light.
Ascension was fighting a Kithred to her six o'clock. She turned to assist.
She was face to face with the Doctor.
Benediction was taken by surprise. She had not even felt his presence, as she usually would have. She did not even know that he was behind her.
The Doctor tilted his head slightly, a curious look on his features. It seemed a mix of sadness and pity.
Then he darted forward, with surprising swiftness and agility, took the wakizashi from her, and drove it into her shoulder hard enough for her to hear the wakizashi's adamantium blade strike and grind against her shoulder joint.
The force of his attack, the pain of being struck in the nerve ganglion, and the dumbfounding reality of the situation dropped Benediction to her knees.
The Doctor had stabbed her when she was vulnerable...in the most vulnerable place. He might as well have stabbed her in her temporal lobe, or in one or both of her hearts.
She started laughing again. Her body shook with the force of her laughter. She caught sight of the wakizashi's hilt. The silver and black handle moved up and down as she laughed. So, she laughed even harder at the sight.
Really, what else could she do?
She called it wearing her favour.
Pain loved blood. The colour of blood, the smell, the way one's own blood tasted on one's lips...she loved all blood, no matter the race.
Blood was Pain's favour. Those who wore her favour were those who were touched by Pain. And everyone knew her touch.
Benediction knew her's better than anyone. Better than even the Doctor. And he had worn her favour on many occasions.
The Doctor was Time's Champion in a previous incarnation. He was Time's Conscience in an incarnation previous to that. She did not think he was aware of it at the time. As for the Doctor who had stabbed her...he was Life's Champion.
The irony gave her a fit of the giggles.
The Brevet Admiral Benediction...the Lady Danadævoretrelunbarra of the House of Montdarran...Dr. Dana Smith...Lieutenant Colonel Dana Smith of Her Majesty's Royal Army...Danadae...Delta Sigma...those titles meant nothing.
Pain's Champion...that was everything.
Time Lords always had a weakness for the Higher Eternals. Powerful creatures, Time Lords. Able to give life to a concept by simply believing in it long enough.
When one has thirteen lives, that provides a ridiculous amount of time to believe in something.
Time, Death, Pain, Cacophony, War, Fear, Life...all Higher Eternals given purpose and meaning and power by the Time Lords.
Made into gods.
Time Lords also had a weakness for striking deals. The Doctor struck a deal with Time to be her Champion. Benediction struck a deal with Pain to be hers.
So it was only fitting that Benediction wore Pain's favour yet again...a silver, black, orange-red favour on her left shoulder. A badge to let all know that she, the Brevet Admiral Benediction of the Hierarchy of the Concordance, Time Lord of Gallifrey, holder of a Triple First in Temporal Physics, Temporal and Spatial Dynamics, and Temporal Theory and Relative Applications, top of the class graduate of the Prydon Academy, Lady of the House of Montdarran, was Pain's Champion.
No.
She was Pain.
One of the Horsemen...one of Judas' Horsemen.
The First.
The quiet child.
She never screamed for him. Despite him...in spite of him. Even when he took her limbs...she never screamed. Never said a word. She would never give Iscariot that satisfaction; the warm sick thrill of knowing that he could cause her harm.
Pain loved that, even more than Benediction's orange-red Time Lord blood.
A fitting champion for Pain, one worthy to wear her favour.
Again.
And again.
And again.
And –
She awoke in her own bed, in her house. It was evenfall. The moon was high in the sky, the pale white light filtering in though the slight part in the curtains.
Benediction was clothed in her pyjamas. She didn't remember changing into them. She didn't remember coming home. She didn't remember anything other than -
The Doctor with the angel face, the bright azure eyes, the crushed velvet greatcoat, taking my wakizashi and stabbing me in the shoulder.
Her shoulder...she reached up and tentatively touched the skin. The wakizashi was long gone. There was no scar. She knew there would not be one. Apothecary was very skilled and the new synthflesh that the Guilds had developed was remarkable. Her shoulder was stiff now, but that was to be expected. There were echoes of the pain she had endured on Meridian and in Hospital. There were echoes of a different pain as well.
Pain's Champion. She knew there were two favours preferred by her namesake. The gaudy, colourful kind worn on the sleeve, as it were, and the deep, dark kind, the one hidden away from light, pulsing, throbbing, glowing with its own unearthly aura.
The dark favour...that was the kind that Pain delighted in the most.
Benediction knew her sponsor well.
She engaged her mneumonic memory. While in Hospital, she had been sedated, finally, by Apothecary. While she was under, he removed the wakizashi and healed her wounds. The nanites had cleared the last of the anaesthetic from her system hours ago. She had been sleeping under her own will, forced into slumber by exhaustion, physical and mental.
While sitting upright in bed, she felt something familiar brush against her mind. It was Apothecary. He was in the house...his presence was too strong for him to be elsewhere.
where are you? she asked him telepathically.
in the kitchen, he replied in kind. would you like some tea?
yes, i'll be right down.
no, i will bring it to you. you shouldn't be moving just yet.
very well.
Benediction felt Apothecary's surprise. She had not fought him on that point. She felt she was too tired to fight anymore.
...two darksuited Kithred disintegrated in a burst of dust and decay after I ran them through with my katana, exposing the undead creatures to the morning light...
She rearranged the pillows so that she could sit comfortably in bed. She spied her battle armour and her flight suit lying on the cedar chest across from her bed.
Even without her external ocular enhancements she could tell that neither had been cleaned nor repaired. She was pleased with that. Apothecary respected her enough to not have touched the items.
...Ascension was fighting a Kithred to my six o'clock. I turned to assist...
Her flanser and percussion pistol were holstered, slung over the side of the armchair. Her katana and wakizashi were sheathed and slung over the other side of the chair.
...I was face to face with the Doctor...
Benediction wondered if it was Apothecary who had cleaned the blade of the wakizashi.
...the Doctor tilted his head slightly, a curious look on his features. A mix of sadness and pity...
Her eyes focused on the crack in her battle armour, and the orange-red spider webs that ran from the crack down the breastplate and the upper arm.
...then he darted forward, with surprising swiftness and agility, took the wakizashi from the sheath, and drove it into my shoulder hard enough for me to hear the wakizashi's adamantium blade grind past my shoulder joint...
Benediction closed her eyes and, for the first time in her 1,238 years, screamed.
: kore de zenbu :