Guess who has listened to Goldfrapp's Ocean over 300 times in the last four days?
I blame that song for this fic.
The Mistress can hear her feet smacking against the floor, feel the sharp pain running up both legs with each slap to the ground.
She's barefoot and can't see where she's going.
Something's following- she can't hear it but its presence is everywhere here.
How did she get here?
Her memory pulls up nothing.
Where is here?
It's all off- unlike any planet or moon or satellite she had ever visited. The air is thick and seems to choke her, slowing her down. She can't see anything except darkness and her own hand- clear as day- as she raises it to her face.
Relentlessly her feet beat at the floor until she can't move further.
She stumbles and there's water at her fingertips.
She leans down to drink it but it recedes away into the ground.
"No." The Mistress pulls at the red cracks in the earth which crumble into dust.
"No- please!" She begs the ground as she hears the water trickle away from her, "I need it- please!" She cries out, fingers prying free clumps of rock and dry dirt.
There's a sharp pain in her back and she arches towards the wound, gasping as her hands go to it.
It's wet.
Shakily she pulls her fingers back into her vision.
The blood shines red, so red, against her skin. The planet seems grey in comparison.
She turns- tries to see what did this to her. There's nothing. No one.
She's standing up now and she's stepping backwards from herself, one hand still at her wound. Had she just been hugged by herself?
The other her stares back at her mournfully, eyes wet.
It's dark.
She's covered in sweat and she's not breathing through her lungs even though she's panting from exertion.
There's rain lashing at the windows. Thunder rumbles.
The lightning casts horrific shadows on the floor and she sees death in them, open mawed and covered in blood.
She goes to speak but sees herself in the darkness, all of herself, staring at her.
Empty.
Dead.
The Mistress recoils, hissing at the ice against her back- bars.
She's trapped!
Not trapped- in bed- she reminds herself, shock still gripping her hearts tightly.
On trembling limbs the Time Lady stands.
If she can just get to the vault door she'll be okay.
If she's okay enough to walk over there it'll chase off her nightmares.
It will.
It will.
It will.
She wishes he was here with her.
There an awful crunch and he screams out, remembering the feeling of bones breaking and organs failing then burning, burning, burning.
The Doctor isn't here.
He is decaying now, rot dropping from his skin and blisters everywhere. It's an ancient body which is falling to pieces, tearing her apart as she walks but she escapes it, borrowing bones and skin and shredding apart the mind inside them. The name is similar to his, the letters in a different order. He likes it- it fits.
The Doctor regenerates this time. He's glad to see him, even if only for a while.
He feels a bullet pierce one of his hearts and turns, feeling himself collapsing already into regeneration. Through the flames he thinks he sees one of the Doctor's companions. She had been on that feral planet too. She watches him die and the Master wonders if she sees the connection to it.
The Doctor isn't here this time.
There's daleks too, extermination burning him to a crisp. He burns so much until all he can feel is the last of his awareness trapped inside a container.
He bursts out of it but the Doctor isn't here.
He isn't in his own Tardis.
So the Master takes a new body but it starts to fall to pieces too and he tries to take the Doctor's regeneration but that backfires and he's sucked into the Eye of Harmony and he's burning up and falling and falling apart.
The Doctor was here though- he was here! He saw him with his own eyes!
Then there's war and blood and fighting and all of a sudden there's a pocket watch in front of him and a chittering blue creature. It shoots him and he kills it.
The burn of regeneration sets in again and he relishes in it this time, thinking of the Doctor, all soppy and romantic and young. He will be like that too- he will be reborn!
The Doctor is here somewhere- he knows it!
There's nothing now- blurs of pain and laughter and it's noisy- too noisy!
She clasps her hands over her ears, gasping for air- crying. Crying.
Why is she crying?
There's laughter. People are laughing and it hurts.
The Doctor's laughing at her and she fights it.
"No! He's not- not him- he would never!" She gets out between tears.
The Mistress brings his sad smile up in her mind and the noise vanishes like it had never been there.
She shivers as the shadows rear up at her again.
There are hooves and she has no weapons and she's running and she's he and there's tearing and ripping and teeth and it hurts so much.
Somehow she comes to herself, cutting herself from the flashback before she has to endure another burn of regeneration.
Her back is hunched over, arms wrapped around her chest as she stares into the darkness.
The remnants of her scream cut short echo around the room.
She had been covering for the Doctor then. They'd caught her instead. A primitive species- hunting for sport. Even she had never stooped so low as to fight something that couldn't theoretically fight back.
The rain seems to drum louder against the window pane she is immobile, trying to hold all her pieces together. She's broken so many times.
Where's the Doctor? She needs him- it's his job to fix things isn't it?
There's another crash and she falls to the floor, adrenaline and fear crushing her.
Rasillon- she's pathetic.
It's a storm- nothing more. A storm. She's crying over it.
Stupid.
She should stop.
The Mistress reaches for the water glass on her bedside table. It clatters to the floor, knocked by her trembling hands and water spreads across the floor.
The glass remains unbroken.
As it crashes she feels a jolt impact the back of her head and she grunts in pain, holding it tightly as the dizziness spreads.
No.
It's not real- it's somewhere from her past. It's a nightmare.
All she has to do is get to the vault doors. She'll be okay if she can at least manage that.
The Mistress drags herself from the wetness, her trousers sticking to her legs where they've soaked through and slapping against her ankles as she pulls herself up using the bed.
She stumbles, catching hold of chairs and tables and the edge of her plinth once, making her way to the vault doors.
She wants him with her- needs him now.
The Mistress wants him to wrap his arms around her and kiss her forehead and hold her tight, safe from her memories.
She feels another death hit her- another burn as she remembers another regeneration.
There's a bloom of pain tearing her from it again as she collides with the door.
She's here.
The Mistress runs her fingers over the surface. It's cool to the touch. It feels good as she pushes her face against it. It cools her feverish skin.
"Doctor?" She calls out, hoping he's there.
"Doctor?" She calls out again.
"Doctor? Doctor? Doctor! Doctor. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor- Doctor? Doctor! Doctor! Doctor!" Again and again until her voice goes hoarse.
"Doctor!" Bang! The Mistress cries out, throwing herself against the doors with a bang.
"Doctor!" Bang! He has to be there.
"Doctor!" Bang! She screams, battering herself into the doors again.
"Doctor!" Bang! She sobs.
"Doctor!" Where is he?
"Doctor!" She reaches out with her mind.
"Doctor!" He's not here.
"Doctor!" He's out of range.
"Doctor!" Bang! She keeps impacting against the door.
"Doctor!" Bang! He's left her alone.
"Doctor!" Bang! She vaguely feels the heat of fresh blood travel across her skin and soak her thin night clothes.
"Doctor!" Bang! He's gone.
"Doctor!" Bang! Bang! He's left her.
Bang! Bang!
"Doctor!" Bang! He's laughing at her.
Bang! She can hear it.
Bang! Bang!
"Doctor!" Bang! Bang! The sounds are getting smaller but his laugh is everywhere.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
She slips on wet blood.
Bang!
It's dark.
The Doctor isn't here.