Ground Zero, a doctor who fanfic

It was meant to be a drabble, developed a life of its own. Because I killed the TARDIS. The TARDIS didn't like that. I don't like the story very much but it ate too many days of my life not to upload it.

Warning: Slash, in a way, and hints at what might be called 'disturbing content'.

Extra Note: Thanks to eve11 at Doctor Who Slash for pointing out all my grammar mistakes, spelling errors and typos.

Ground Zero

by Schildkroete

He does not remember how he came here, or why.

He remembers the sky, dark and dusty, and only few stars visible against the blackness. Lying on the ground he's been staring up at it, motionless, for he could not have moved even if he had wanted to. He wouldn't have moved even if he could have. He saw no purpose. No reason. His mind was empty.

His head was filled only with pain, the bits and pieces of his broken body mingled with the bits and pieces of something else just as broken or more, that should not have been broken, never, and there was a terrible sense of loss. It had no reason either, that feeling, not purpose. No direction. It tore at his heart, running circles through his empty head, suffocating him in silence as he lay there, without thought or knowledge, staring at the sky until the sky was eaten by the smoke and the stars left him.

After that, there was a very long time of nothing at all.

There is no movement around him when the world returns – another world, this one, with white walls instead of black smoke, and the light is too bright, making it impossible to see and the pain did not fade. He thinks of dying stars and knows not where the thought comes from. There are voices, talking quietly, hushed, whispers that ring too loud in his acing head. He understands the language but not the words.

He should not be here. The voices are leaving, fading. They disappear. Come back. The length of the time in between escapes him. He doesn't understand why this lack of knowledge is terrifying.

He should not be alive. That much, at least, he understands.

Death comes to him at some point and it seems familiar, like an old friend. But it does not touch him this time and turns its back to leave without so much as a smile.

The next time there is movement, as someone is nearby, a silhouette in the blinding white light. Speaking; asking him questions he does not find the strength or will to answer. He does not feel the pain now, believing not one second that it is gone.

Where does he come from, the shapeless being asks. Does he know? Yes, he does, the knowledge is there, hovering at the edge of his mind. He can not grasp it and soon stops trying. Who was he? He could not have given them a name.

How did he get here? He turns the voice out, trying to sit up, for he does have a body to sit up, arms and legs and fingers all there, despite him having doubted it at one point or another – he isn't quiet certain why he has doubted it. Thoughts blur in his mind and refuse to connect. There has been something about the sky…

He tries to sit up and fails. His body is heavy, weak, refuses to cooperate but that is not the reason, not only reason.

His eyes get used to the light, the figure next to him gaining features. Looks like a human, he thinks. What is a human?

More white to greet him when he lifts his head, just a little, and gazes down his body, lying on a bed with white sheets, wrapped in white bandages, and there are a lot of tubes and wires. There are bonds around his wrists, holding him down. Waste of material.

His head sinks back and the pillow is soft, a small mercy. The pain is back now, called by the effort to move, to breathe, but it's distant, belonging to someone else. He is merely watching, trying to make sense of the chaos in his head. Something about the sky, the stars. The stars being eaten away, disappearing, leaving him, leaving…

There are hands all over him that are rough and hard and far too warm, and they're doing something to him to make him stop as he simply closes his eyes and screams.

He heals slowly, the first bandages to be removed revealing skin that is covered in scars and burns, the ugly map of a past disaster. Broken bones do not seem to heal at all. He can't eat, or drink, for a long time – sometimes he can't even breathe, but they take good care of him, keeping him alive, keeping the pain bearable most of the time. But it never goes completely – he suspects that they make sure of that as well, to keep him weak, unfocused, so he would never find the strength to think about what they're doing to him. To plan his escape. And maybe say Thank You on the way out.

They know he is smarter than them by now. He does not know what exactly they are doing to him, but they learned many things about his nature and they are scared of him, terrified. It is silly – they are many and he can't even walk on his own. But they are careful, weary. Why, he can not tell. He has not given them a reason yet but maybe he will, if he can. It is hard to be certain how far he would go, when he knows so little about himself. Time and time again he believes the knowledge is coming back but then it escapes him, and it is so hard to concentrate when sometimes the pain gets so strong that all he can do is lie on the floor and whimper.

There is a part of him that knows he deserves that pain. It is the part of his mind that sometimes reaches out into the universe and finds nothing.

One day he catches sight of himself in a mirror; the face looking back at him is familiar and he doesn't understand why he's expected otherwise.

He still doesn't answer their questions. Because he never says a single word they believe he doesn't understand their language – not unlikely, since they already know he is from far away. So they send someone to teach him their words and failing that, try to make him react to certain gestures, like a dog learning tricks. He loses it there, laughing so hard that there are tears on his cheeks, and there is no more breath left in his lungs, and everything hurts.

There is still a lot of nothing in is head. The knowledge is all there, but it's lurking in the shadows of his mind, staying always just out of reach. What he's got left is a vague impression of having to be somewhere else, and there are days when it gets so strong that he would scratch his way through miles of steel and concrete to get there.

Those days often end with him waking up tied to the bed, with blood on his fingers, and no idea how he got there.

The halls he can't leave are located 1503 Meters below the surface of the planet. Freedom is much farther away than that.

When they come to him the next time he fights, and loses.

He isn't made to be in one place for so long.

His body heals slowly, as does his mind. Only when scattered pieces of memory brush against his soul he loses it sometimes and screams. It's the only sound they ever get to hear from him. They think he's insane – and who is he to argue – but they are even more scared of him now that he is strong enough to move without help, and their fear doesn't make them kinder. It is amusing in a way; sometimes he wants to curl into a ball and laugh and laugh until he chokes – this place can offer him no forgiveness.

He's been inside the windowless halls for two years and twenty-seven days when he finally learns how far he is willing to go to get out.

He emerges to the surface at night and they are still behind him. He has no time to rest. But there are stars in the sky and the sight makes him stumble and fall, striking him down. For an eternity, all he does is struggle for the next breath and stare up at the stars that are very, very far away.

There has been nothing but rocks and the smell of water around where he's got to the air, but he does not remember falling off the cliff and once again his sense of time has left him – he does not know how long he floated through the icy cold waters until something grabs him and pulls him out.

At first he believes they have found him at least, but these hands are kind. There is a feeling of being carried; it feels a little bit like flying, a little bit like falling. And the stars are shimmering softly, blinking, waving goodbye. When the sun rises he lets go and allows himself to fall into a sleep filled with dreams of places once known and people whose names he should not have forgotten.

Much later they tell him of the night something fell from the sky in a ball of fire, like phoenix descending. They know of these stories because their ancestors fell the same way, ages and ages ago, having left the earth when it was a good time to be somewhere else. They got to this planet almost safe, but lost their ships, lost most of the technology, and most of the knowledge except myths and legends. They walked the way back from the middle-ages all by themselves, with little help from what was left of their vessels. After thirty generations the stars are still but distant lights in the darkness of the night sky.

One day he packs some food into a bag and starts walking. Three days, five hours and twenty –three minutes later he reaches the crater the phoenix left in the earth when if fell; a large wound full of burned nothing. Staring down he remembers pain and feelings the language of this world has no name for. There is no word in any language he knows to describe what he is feeling now.

He stays at the crater for two days, searching for anything, anything, and then he takes his now empty bag and goes home.

Five billion languages, but 'impossible' is a word that has not existed in his vocabulary until now. One morning he sits on the edge of his bed and say is it to the empty room, rolling syllables around in his mouth – the sound is alien to his ears. It tastes like ash.

Looking back, he does not really remember how he escaped from the underground halls they kept him in for so long. He just remembers struggling with his own treacherous body, every step painful, an effort, driven by determination and nothing else. Cold, brightly lit corridors, an endless ride in an elevator, but how he got there in the fist place is lost to him. It isn't like before, with the knowledge there but unreachable – there simply is a blank spot in his memory and no way these moments will ever come back to him. They just aren't there.

His hands had been wet and sticky with blood when he pushed open the final doors to the outside. This memory remains.

What technology these people recovered from the wreckage of their history belongs almost solely to the government, the scientists, the rich. It's not unusual after all. In fact, if there was one universal constant for societies it would be the fact that fairness has nothing to do with it.

Most of the population lives in small cities with simple houses without artificial energy and some of them do not even know that another life is possible. The empty house they give him after he has recovered enough to be left alone is small, with only two rooms and no furniture except a wooden bed and a closet without doors. He uses the bedroom to sleep and has no idea what to do with the other one.

His life takes place a night, when it is cooler, because the days are too hot on this planet for him to bear. Sometimes he feels like the wood of the floor is burning under his feet. Those days the almost constant ache in his head rises beyond what he can bear and the old, familiar pain creeps up and down his spine, making him feel sick and helpless, making it hard for him to breathe. He shouldn't be so sensitive to foreign climates, but hardly ever finds the energy to worry about it.

When he isn't sick he spends time teaching the people from the town how to improve their living with what little means they have. He does so because they helped him and because they need his help. He does it also, because he has nothing else to do.

Most of his life takes place at night but he never leaves the house when the sky is clear.

He still knows the name of every single star he could see, if only he found the courage to look.

When his mind was empty they still screamed at him in his dreams. Now they do so every minute, every day. It has always been like this.

It is the way it should be. They deserve to be remembered. And there is no-one left to remember but him.

He understands that forgetting is a blessing.

One day he wakes up in the evening – and he doesn't remember ever needing so much sleep before this planet – to find a little girl from the town standing in his door, with her arms full of flowers she picked on the way and now puts everywhere in his small house. Because it looks so empty, she says. Before he can summon the will to say something she runs away. He watches her leave with fondness and a vague feeling of dread.

The flowers wither within days. After a week she brings new ones.

Sometimes he wonders if they know exactly who he is, that he has something to do with their 'Phoenix' and if, in fact, they expect him to work some kind of miracle to lead them all to paradise.

He does what little he can, which is mostly helping them help themselves. The time for miracles is over.

The little girl who brings him flowers always shows up around noon, disturbing the uneasy slumber he often falls into during the warm midday hours, and her visits gradually grow longer. She still makes sure to be home before nightfall, lest her parents would worry. Though they are grateful for his help most of the people do not trust him. He is weird. He is from far away. He knows too much and tells too little. The child doesn't care about that. Save the man who once pulled him out of the ocean she is the only one to ever visit without reason. She comes to him because she believes he would be lonely if she didn't.

He doesn't talk much but sometimes he lets her talk him into telling her stories of distant worlds and he never mentions that every single word is true.

From time to time he wonders, how the underground people never caught up with him, how an entire city would keep his presence a secret, while there should be people searching for him. Then he thinks of the blood on his hands and dreads the answer.

The man who pulled him out of the ocean dies four years later and he watches him go with a slight feeling of regret – the man has never been anything but kind and patient with him but he always felt like he's expected more from him than he could give.

The house had been build close to the ocean that should have been his grave and sometimes, when the day gets unbearably hot, he wanders into the cold water and takes what comfort it can offer him. He is glad that he doesn't have to breathe as often as the humans do. Those are the better days.

Other days he just lies around on the floor of his home, having crawled out of bed around noon to vomit what little he has eaten the day before. One day he wakes from the familiar state somewhere between sleep and unconsciousness, somewhere between memory and nightmare, to find the girl who is not so small anymore by his side. His head is cradled in her lap and she is stroking his hair with her small, warm hands and he doesn't have the heart to tell her that her touch is hurting him.

She likes holding his hand, fascinated by how the temperature of his body is so much lower that hers, the pattern of scars carved into his skin, and he lets her, though the touch is uncomfortable for him. Makes him want to tear his skin off some days but he only smiles for her, because she deserves nothing else. She is fascinated, as is everyone else, how long he can hold his breath. He never lets them know that it used to be so much longer.

He doesn't believe that it was only his time in the underground laboratories that has damaged him so much; this whole planet is wrong, the sun is poisoning him as is the food, and everything he's lost has torn a hole into his mind that seems to grow with each passing day. Most of the time he simply accepts it with something close to apathy. It happens only very seldom now that it comes crashing down on him and here he takes the effort to grit his teeth and suppress his screams, even though they choke him.

After eight years and thirteen days he returns to the crater that gave him nothing; he doesn't know why – there is nothing left for him to find, but he comes anyway, turning every single stone once more. After returning to the village he asks the ones who went there when it was still burning if they hadn't found anything, anything at all, and they shake their heads once again, somewhat amused, somewhat saddened, because he has asked so many times before.

Finally, he gathers his courage and returns to the laboratories. The lock on the entrance is no challenge for him and he finds the place vast as remembered and deserted and empty. It's just halls now. They can give him no answers.

There are corridors he doesn't remember though he must have passed them on his way out. The memory stays dead. He does not try to reawaken it – it would be useless and he knows he wouldn't want it anyway. Still that feeling of wrongness grows and he's not sure it's only the frustration at finding nothing that makes him punch his fists against the walls until they bleed.

He doesn't go back to the village right away after that but keeps wandering through the empty plains for days, too exhausted to deal with anyone right now, too devastated, too lost. Sitting on a weathered rock in the middle of nowhere he stares sightlessly into the night sky (that keeps staring back at him no matter how much he refuses to look) and cannot explain where these feelings come from. They have done horrible things to him down there but it isn't the worst that ever happened to him during his long life. Yet somehow this brief visit has left him in what seems like a caricature of his mental sate right after the war, when he woke up and knew and felt that there was no-one left but him, not anywhere, not ever, and his hold onto sanity was so very thin.

He never returns to the crater after that. He tires to fit into life as best as he can and they have long since gotten used to his strange habits, to his being weird, being alien. Life goes on and takes him with it.

The second room of his house remains unused. The part of his self that might have lived there still believes that he is not going to stay for very long.

The girl who brought him flowers grows into a young woman, kind and pretty and willing to give him so much more. One evening she stands in his door, like she did years ago, and offers to take him to the stars once again, if only for a moment. He looks into her eyes and sees her age and wither and die. He sees himself standing in front of her grave in a matter of days and turns his back to leave without so much as a smile.

He has a history when it comes to broken hearts. It is an art he's perfected.

Even with her heart broken she is still warm and bright and passionate, this human child – It is impossible not to love her, and because he does he is glad when she finally finds happiness with someone else. On the way to her wedding he picks up flowers and she smiles at him, when he arrives, full of happiness and love and presses her lips against his, chaste but not brief, before she smells the flowers and takes them to her waiting groom.

Before the end of the year she asks him to name her first child, an honour that leaves him feel touched and uncomfortable and insecure. In the end, the child gets a name from another time and another world, another life. For the little boy, though he might never know, it is a big name to live up to. For him it is another proof that he cannot let go.

He finds out there is another man in the village with a name like that: old and classic, so to say, from the old world. There was a time when that name was as common as the name he used so often for himself, but here and now, it is a rarity, and the man speaks it with pride when he introduces himself.

He doesn't think he deserves that punch in the face just for saying his name.

There are times when he feels almost good for days and he dares to hope – silly, optimistic him – that it finally gets better. When the good days end and the bad days come back, it's always worse than ever before. At first his body had been recovering from the crash and all that had been done to him later, to the point where he almost felt like himself again. But the pain and sickness had never completely gone away, and over the years it grew worse when he has hoped it would get better. He begins to treasure the days when his head, his bones, his insides ache less than usual and he can eat a little bit more without throwing up five times in a row.

Sometimes, when it gets worse than he can bear and he can feel his body fail bit by bit and there is only one heart beating in his chest, he considers putting an end to this and start anew, grant himself a little mercy. He decides against it because there is no use in the end. This planet is killing him anyway – after a small break it would start again, and he can not run away like this forever. Better to wait until it happens on its own without throwing away what little time he has, for there is still some hope to get away from here, hidden so deep in his soul that he can't get rid of it, can't tear it out before it has a chance to rot and poison his blood.

He's always liked hope. Nice feeling. But he begins to realise that it doesn't have to be a friend.

Eventually he leaves for the forbidden places, the machine cities, the other side of this world that is decaying in the sun. He doesn't know exactly why he hasn't gone before. Maybe, he muses, he has been afraid to run out of options should there turn out to be nothing to find. Losing the last bit of hope is nothing he looks forward to. Maybe he's just waited to get better. Might as well go now, then, because 'wait till it gets better' has long since turned into 'go, before it gets worse' and so he goes. It isn't easy to get past the walls and the guards and the security systems, yet it's easier than expected. Inside it is cooler and that is a mercy, but it doesn't help as much as he has hoped.

Exhausted from the long journey, all he does for many hours is lie in an alley and wait for his hearts to beat at a normal rate. After that he sets to explore and lie his way through the city. Hacking into computer systems and finally breaking into a large technology institute he feels alive, almost back to the old days. There will be a price to pay later but right now he couldn't care less.

There is such a difference between this place and the outside, where everything is turning to dust, that he thinks he should have a word or two with the guys in power.

But then again, he wouldn't know what to tell them.

Little over an hour in the institute, finding one disappointment after another, and then everything goes black. When he comes around he is in what looks deceptively like a cell, his hands are tied and he is overcome by an unwelcome feeling of déjà-vu.

They come to him soon after that but his body fails him before he can even consider weather or not to answer their questions. They believe he is freezing while he's burning with fever. He would laugh if he had enough strength to appreciate the irony. One day later he would do anything for a glass of cold water if only he had a voice to tell them.

Them finding out that he doesn't like high temperatures so quickly is probably a good thing. They do it much sooner than they did in the underground laboratories, but he realises why when he finds himself confronted with one of the scientists from that place. So they know who he is. It was to be expected.

Coming here was a mistake. Not that that ever stopped him.

He only ever sees the scientist through the glass of the window leading to the corridor. The man never comes inside, but in his eyes he can see anger and fear whenever he stares at him. So he was there when he escaped, has seen what he did to the others, and it scares him to death. It's not a comfortable thought but it doesn't surprise him.

He severely doubts that they would grant him the mercy of cool air and a soft bed if his condition wasn't so bad to begin with. Once again they appear to wish for him to live. The thought does nothing to make him feel better.

Drifting in and out of consciousness for days he sometimes wakes with a distant remembrance of something stirring in the darkness of his mind, something alien. It is hard to tell the difference between dream and reality, but it is the first time he gets an impression of not being alone in his own body.

Because he sees no sense in not answering their questions he does, this time, within reason. He never tells them, for example, which village he stayed at or what chemicals to mix to get the most effective explosive. It makes little difference. Most of all they are just happy to have something alien to play with. He overhears his old scientist friend warn them sometimes, but he gets ignored. Such a human thing to do, it makes him feel all nostalgic.

One day they use an oxygen mask to try and get some kind of toxic gas into his lungs but he holds his breath which he can still do for quite a long time, all things considered. Still, some part of his mind wonders why they do not simply use injections to get whatever it is into his system – they did it before. Only when someone takes hold of his left hand and starts breaking one bone after the other until he screams he begins to understand: it is more fun this way.

And there goes any doubt that might have remained about these people originating from earth.

It takes a few lungfulls for the poison to take effect. He never finds out what exactly happens next, and he doesn't care to. The last thing he remembers clearly is the removal of his restraints and colliding with the floor, hard. Weak body, unable to move. Pain, feeling sick, rough, hot hands and indistinguishable voices, but one of them certainly his own, screaming, and then darkness. Later, when he wakes with the taste of blood and vomit on his tongue, and something else he doesn't dare to identify, he cannot remember any more than that and this time he actually fights the memory, for he doesn't want it. He is soon distracted by other things, like the agony created by the needles they push straight through his skull and into his brain.

The scientist insists on him being dangerous and finally they react to his warnings. He can tell, because they make sure he can't escape by breaking his legs. How very brilliant.

His friend, the scientist, gets braver over the weeks and dares to enter his room whenever he is unable to move, through restraints or drugs or both. He still manages to catch him by surprise one day, grabs his head with both hand and looks into his mind, searching for the day he escaped years before. He finds it and sees himself standing in the corridor, in front of two dead bodies and then the scientist of memory turns around to run, because his past self turns to look at him and his eyes are burning.

He breaks the contact there to collapse and throw up blood that splatters all over the clean white floor. Then the drugs take hold and the world disappears once more.

He doesn't know what exactly he did to the scientist but he never sees him again after that.

And then he is outside again. He's never wanted to return to the village if he ever escaped because of the danger that would cause to the people, yet that is exactly where he finds himself: half a mile from his house, lying in the dust, naked and broken and too weak to even lift his head as he hears voices coming closer. No knowledge of how he's gotten here, none at all, and now it is horrifying.

He wonders how many of the people he must have killed on his way have been innocent.

It's the woman who brought him flowers as a girl that takes care of him, because 'somebody has to'. Most of the time he is delirious, and one time he can hear her crying when they think he's asleep, and another voice (Her husband's?) trying to comfort her, saying that yes, he is dying, but it is probably better this way – he's been sick for so long.

But I'm not, he wants to tell them, for he isn't even though he should be. I'm not dying.

I wish I were.

When he gets better she starts bringing her little son with her, and the boy sits on his bed and begs to tell him stories because he can do it so much better than his mother. It always seems like he's really been there.

His mother merely smiles and listens too, when he finally gives in.

There is a vase on the bookshelf, containing the flowers she's picked on the way.

The little boy he named adores him, like his mother adored him and he still doesn't understand why. But he watches him grow up and watches her grow older and knows he should leave, because this is exactly what he's never wanted.

Between the stars he could hide. Stuck on a planet one can only run so far.

He's been gone for little over three months, and it seemed so much longer than that. They tell him that there was some kind of accident in one of the forbidden cities, something that destroyed much and killed many. No information was ever given to them but they have seen the smoke in the distance.

Not three days after that he's returned, in a state even worse than when they first found him and he doesn't answer their unasked questions.

For this time to horror is too much for him to bear.

When her son is ten years old she gives birth to a little girl, and this time he knows exactly which name to suggest for the child – she has always loved flowers.

There comes the day when he works on some simple device or another and then wakes up on the floor, drenched in sweat, with the all too familiar taste of blood in his mouth, blood on the floor. With it comes a wave of hopelessness that breaks him down even more – he is going to die here, he suddenly realises. Not once but twice, thrice, until there are no more lives left and the end comes, for good.

And suddenly he is scared. Not of death, he's been awaiting – and sometimes welcoming – it for centuries. It's the setting that scares him. Going down here, like this, without meaning or significance; it was never meant to be this way.

And then comes the day when he realises that he is not dying, or rather, he is, but without end. This life should have ended long before, but it didn't, and that realisation scares him even more. He doesn't understand completely, but he knows there is something else hiding in his body, his mind, and whatever it is, it seems to always keep him just out of Death's reach. He also suspects that at the same time it is responsible for him falling apart like this. Sometimes he wonders if this might be what the humans call Hell.

He probably deserves it.

She still comes to visit every once in a while, picking a few flowers on the way and sometimes bringing new clothes and food he barely touches. Her visits grow more frequent after her husband drowns in the sea during a storm and she gets more lonely. Her daughter marries five years later and leaves and once again he is reminded that he doesn't belong here and should have left long ago, if only to settle down somewhere else for as long as he can bear.

Her son also visit every so often, and having grown up long ago he's still fascinated by him and his stories and by the way he didn't age over all these years, and he knows he very much needs to leave.

He can feel that presence more clearly now, and it seems strangely familiar. He can sense it stir in the back of his mind all the time, but even more so when his state worsens and he is choking on his own blood. It feels like it wants out now, when his body can't support it much longer, and he's pretty sure that that will be the end, of this life at least. This is, however, not the reason for him to do his best to keep it inside. Whatever it is (and he has a terrible sense, deep inside, that he knows) it is powerful and has killed many, without any sense of right or wrong, guilty or innocent. But it only surfaced whenever someone was critically endangering his life. He can keep it under control, as long as he avoids such situations. Anyone else, however, would be lost, and he does not dare imagine the consequences, not in this place, where there are so many people he loves, even though he doesn't want to.

So he has to get away from here, to keep them safe if he ever loses control. Has to get away from any potential new host. The decision is, in the end, surprisingly easy to make. He's always been an expert at running.

And the next evening, just as he is about to leave, she comes to him, staggering and barely able to walk. When she felt the fist signs of sickness she ignored them. But now, when they get to strong to ignore she comes to him, searching for his help and comfort in his presence. It is the first time in many years she hasn't brought flowers.

Her hair had turned grey years ago. There are wrinkles in her face but still she is pretty, a queen now, rather than a princess. He looks into her eyes and sees only death there – he cannot help her. Ages ago he would have been able to cure her illness but now he can only watch while it kills her. In less than a week she will be gone, and her last days will be filled with nothing but agony while she feels the flesh falling off her bones.

He looks into her eyes and sees so much pain already, sees something even stronger that says: I don't want to die. And the unshakeable believe that he can save her, that somehow he will make the pain go away and she will live forever.

And he gently strokes her hair and caresses her cheek and whispers into her ear, to let her know how sorry he is, before he snaps her neck.

He laughs a little, after that, when he realises he spoke in a language she didn't understand.

When they come, when they scream about murder and beat him down, drag him away, he doesn't fight. Doesn't try to run. He should. He doesn't. They all loved her so much.

Two days later her son comes to him. He speaks of trust and love and betrayal, the words are so familiar. He just stares through him in return, barely able to stand and says nothing. The man asks for reasons and he doesn't give any. Only closes his eyes and waits for the inevitable punch to come.

Instead, he feels strong, warm hands wrap around his shoulders and then lips pressing against his own in a kiss full of anger and passion and hurt.

And the strange alien presence inside his mind takes the chance that is being offered and leaves.

The mind that occupied this body gets crushed in a second, never standing a chance. There is nothing left to fight It, as It takes over this form completely, gaining control of the limbs just in time to catch the thin body that collapses against It and gently lower it onto the ground. There is no bed in the cell so It cradles his head in its new lap and looks up to greet the men It can sense arriving, the ones with the rope. They come with the lady who lost her mother and they all stop to look at them in fright when they find the man who used to be her brother look at them with such an empty face, and burning eyes.

Before they can say anything It rises its stolen hand and turns them into dust.

The man in Its arms wakes just in time to see them die and he screams at It in rage as he scrambles away, begs It to stop when they hear the next people arrive, again and again interrupted by heavy, wet sounding coughs that leave blood on his lips and the floor. Even over the distance It can sense one of his hearts flutter and give up. It has lived inside that body, hidden, for decades, and it has not been pleasant. Living in that mind, however, has been (for the last time has been so very brief) and It regrets having to leave. But It needs its power now and It can not risk crushing him like that.

It has lived inside his mind and knows it is brilliant (It knew before, though), but there is one thing he assumed wrong all this time. He thinks that all It did was to preserve its own existence, while all It wants is to preserve the existence of the only thing that gives its existence meaning.

He gets to his feet with effort, tries to get between them when the door opens and people stand there, staring, but his legs give way and he falls again. It ignores the people for the moment, walks over to where he's fallen, and only when they get over their shock and start to act do they share the fate of the others. He is screaming again, so angry; It expected nothing else because he never understands what is best for him. And it will do what is best for him, will keep him safe no matter what he says. It is free to do so now, without any restraints, doing only what It has, needs, wants to do. (There were so many times before when he simply wouldn't allow it. And some times when It did so anyway.) The building is starting to collapse around them but they are safe. He looks up through wide, bloodshot eyes and he has never looked so young, has never been so old.

He knows. He merely doesn't understand.

And It sinks to its knees before him, pulls him close, tenderly presses its stolen lips against his forehead and whispers:

"I will protect you, my Doctor."

It does not care at all about the horror It sees in his eyes, just before he gives in and lets the darkness take him away once again.

They leave the burning village one hour later; on-one will follow them.

It keeps him unconscious most of the time because it is easier for both of them. He would not accept what It is doing, and he is too weak to walk anyway. But this body is large and strong and can carry his nearly weightless form for a long time.

Finally, It places him on the ground and sets a bottle of water to his lips because he needs to drink. He wakes up in the process and struggles and shouts and knows exactly what happened, but It holds him down effortlessly and forces the water down his throat.

He tries to fight, but he is too weak and his body hurts too much. He tries anyway, because he has never let himself be stopped by anything, even if he knew there was only pain waiting for him down the road he's taken. He tries to punch It and he is actually crying. It catches his fist and then pulls his body against its own and holds him, so he can not hurt himself. He's always needed to be protected.

Finally he exhausts himself. Hanging limply in its arms he stares up at the cloudy sky and, in a hoarse, broken voice, he screams for a long time. It knows he feels guilty but It doesn't understand why nor does It care. It simply touches his mind, gently and tenderly like a lover, and lets him slip into darkness again, where he can find peace.

The sun rises and sets three times until they reach the crater their arrival had created more than half a century ago. It matters little. In its arms he is still sleeping and It can feel him dying, now that It isn't there anymore to keep him alive. Even that matters little because soon they will leave this planet and he will get help. He will survive, which is important, because he has not enough lives to waste any. It knows he will live, because It knows all that can happen, and now It has the means to make sure it does.

He will live. Everything else It takes no interest in. He will not forgive but It doesn't care – they need each other.

Looking down into the crater It searches and finds. Its original form does not exist in this place anymore, but once it did, and it takes no effort to resurrect it from the wreckage of time. Its resources are limited ever since It fled into his mind as a last way to ensure its continued existence, to stay with him, but this is itself and it is just like opening a door, and coming home.

Back in the old form the old limitations will be back, and yet, It will be so much more than It ever was. It leaves this body as soon as It has made him comfortable, leaving the host on the floor, alive but devoid of anything resembling a mind. It is back where It belongs, where It can do anything, and It will do anything, if it is for him. It is like a god, like a devil. Nothing will ever keep It from protecting him, and his opinion does not count in this matter at all.

And then It takes off and takes him back to the sky, and the stars, that have been waiting.

January 10, 2007