Written for Class Appreciation Week (Day One: Favourite Character)! Mine is Quill, obviously, and so I decided to explore Twelve's opinion of her and how they interacted pre-episode 1.
Enjoy!
The Doctor doesn't quite know what to make of Quill.
Permanently modifying someone's entire physiology takes hours, and the prince had been adamant that Quill undertake the procedure first so he could be sure it was safe. She had protested against the whole thing, but all it had taken was a single order from him to shut her up. Once he had seen Quill emerge from the chamber, completely different but definitely alive, Charlie had been compliant enough.
While they had waited for her, the prince - who had happily accepted the name Charlie when the Time Lord suggested the human approximation of his own name - had explained to the Doctor the situation of the Quill terrorism. How the leading terrorist had been linked to him and made to protect him. Then he had asked that he be left alone to try and process his grief.
And now, the Doctor is left alone with Quill.
"What's your name?" he asks. It bothers him, how Charlie simply calls her 'Quill,' like she is nothing more than her species.
"I am Quill," she says softly, without looking at him.
They're in the infirmary, and she's sitting on the edge of the bed while he leans against the counter and contemplates her. She keeps shifting, staring at her bare arms and toes. She's in leggings and a tank top; he had laid out some clothing options for her, and she had numbly selected the pile closest to her and started stripping off the now far too large Rhodian clothing that had been hanging off her newly slight frame. He had started to protest, before deciding against it and simply turning around as she got changed.
"The name of your species isn't your name," the Doctor says to her. "What did your people call you?"
"Why does it matter?" she asks, and the utter defeat in her voice makes the Doctor's hearts pang. "I am the last Quill. What other name could I want or need to carry?"
"You're more than your species."
"Wrong," she says, voice hard, until it trembles. "That is all I am. That was all I was even before my people were slaughtered like the cattle they were always treated as. I stopped being myself the moment they put this thing in my head."
"The arn," the Doctor says. "Yes, Charlie told me."
"Charlie?" For the first time, she lifts her head and looks at him. Her eyes - the same eyes, the same shade of blue, the only part of her original self that remains - hold confusion, and then her lip curls with disdain. "Is that what he's going to be calling himself?"
"Charles Smith. Charlie for short. It's not so far from his real name."
"It's certainly less of a mouthful," Quill mutters. "It's not as if it matters. No matter what you call us, no matter what you make us look like, we will always be a prince and his slave."
"He called you a bodyguard."
"Bodyguard implies at least a semblance of choice."
"He said you're forced to protect him?"
"If I fail to, I die," she says, and the anger lights her up, brings her to life in front of him for the first time. "If I use a weapon other than my hands, I die."
She pauses to hold her newly humanoid hands in front of her. Her brow furrows and the disdain returns.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with these?" she murmurs under her breath. She wiggles her thumbs, frowning at them like they've done something to offend her.
"It'll take a while to adjust. You'll get used to it. My species changes bodies on a semi-regular basis, so trust me when I say I know how weird it can be, the sudden change. But you're still the same person on the inside, and that's what counts."
He's not completely sure she's listening to him, but she does nod a little, far more occupied with examining herself further.
Her hand runs through her hair - she's a blonde, her bob and fringe cleanly cut - and she lets her fingers slide down her neck. Her hands keep exploring, across her shoulders and arms and torso. They pause at her breasts, cupping them experimentally.
The Doctor glances away, flushing like someone who hasn't had multiple wives.
"So soft. And squishy," she murmurs.
"Er, yes," the Doctor coughs. "Humans are weird like that. But stronger than they look, I promise."
Her eyes run over him. "You're weird like that too."
"Convergent evolution's a funny thing."
She sighs. "I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm still a slave no matter what form I take. Still subject to his every command."
"So it really is slavery, then?" the Doctor asks. He had suspected, of course, from the moment Charlie had mentioned the lack of choice Quill has in her bodyguard duties, and the arn keeping her in check. But hearing her speak now confirms it and leaves an unpleasantness in his gut.
Quill blinks at him. "You believe me? You heard from the prince first-"
"Why should that matter? It's not subject to bias; it's an objective fact. What you've just described is slavery. Whether or not you're a criminal who did terrible things, the matter of your being a slave doesn't change."
"Try telling that to him. He won't hear it - none of them ever did. Even though they never subjected one of their own to this punishment, no matter how serious the crime. Only ever my people. Only ever the Quill. And yet they still claimed not to think of themselves as superior. What utter bullshit. Fighting is our way of life, our most fundamental belief, and this punishment takes it from us. Takes away the very core of us and makes us their pets."
Something shifts in her, then. Hope sparks in her eyes, changing her entire face.
"Wait. You have all of this equipment, all of this technology, and more knowledge than the Rhodia. You - could you get it out? Could you get this thing out of my head?"
The desperation in her eyes makes it impossible for him to deny her.
"I can see if it's possible," he says, and takes his sonic from where it's resting on the counter and fiddles with the settings before pointing it at her head. He tries not to notice how wary she is of the action, how tense her body becomes the moment he picks it up.
The results of the scan aren't encouraging. He sighs and runs a hand down his face.
"I'm sorry. I can't for the life of me think of a procedure that wouldn't kill you."
Tears spring to her eyes and a few moments later she goes still and her fingers dart to her face, collecting the moisture on the tips of them.
"What the hell is this?" she asks, voice no more than a whisper. He's confused, for a moment, and so she repeats the question, only with more force.
"Oh," he realises, chuckling weakly, "those are tears. Funny old humanoid characteristic. When you're emotionally overwhelmed - usually with sadness, but sometimes it's joy - they come out of the tear ducts in your eye. It's called crying."
"What's the point of it?"
"No point. It just is."
"Brilliant. Another ridiculous aspect of this existence." She had already told him how much she didn't like 'this weird fluffy stuff on my head that doesn't seem to serve any real function except something for an enemy to grab in battle.'
He doesn't quite have an answer for her, and when he fails to respond, she lets her head drop. She cries silently, clenching her fists where they rest on her knees. The Doctor feels helpless and hates it. Letting a slave remain a slave, no matter what crimes they might have committed, goes against everything he stands for.
"Wait," he says, blinking, "you both said this thing was telepathic. Well, so am I. I could see if I could communicate with it somehow, try and convince it to not hurt you."
Understandably, she doesn't look completely convinced when she lifts her head. He knows that caution, that hesitance - not wanting to let yourself hope because the possibility of having it ripped away again is too much.
"Try, then. Just try not to kill me by mistake." Her voice is hollow. He has to wonder how much she actually cares about whether she lives, if living means continued slavery.
He approaches her slowly. They're hyperaware of each other, her because she's a slave and criminal and soldier, him because he knows all of that and can see that taking her by surprise is the last thing he should do.
When he reaches for her head, she flinches away from him, body going completely rigid. His hearts ache; what kind of treatment must she have faced, to have that kind of reflex?
"It's alright," he says, voice low, gaze steady as she meets it. "I just need direct contact to reach out to it. I'm not going to hurt you."
"As if you could do anything to me that hasn't been done already," Quill snaps, even though her whole body is trembling. The Doctor can't stop to consider all the possible implications of that sentence, not now. He can only focus on trying to contact the arn.
He makes sure to be as gentle as physically possible when he places one hand on the top of her head, heel of his palm on her forehead and fingertips at the crown. The other goes to her right temple. She is completely still, a statue, a soldier on a grenade.
The arn's consciousness is strange. It doesn't really think like a humanoid does, it knows only instincts, the things that it has been programmed to register as wrong, things that mean attack. The Doctor tries to adjust these first, tries to tell it that only killing is wrong, that disobedience and fighting and weapons shouldn't warrant an attack.
It doesn't work. The programming runs too deep, and the creature's brain is simply too different from his own for him to know how to get through to it. He tries a few other things, like rendering it unconscious, but short of just mentally ramming it, he can't think of anything guaranteed to work. And that kind of violence is the sort of thing that could far too easily end with Quill dead.
He withdraws from the arn's mind and opens his eyes to see Quill watching him intently. It only takes a moment for her to see the lack of victory in him. The tears start up again, but she does not look away this time. She is strong even when crying.
"Thank you for trying," she says, voice thick.
"I'm sorry."
The hand on her forehead falls gently, down the left side of her face. He's about to pull it back to his side - he's still not really comfortable with this kind of physical contact, not with someone he isn't extremely close to - when Quill leans into it, eyes falling shut as she presses into his hand like a cat.
It's the tiniest of movements and the most colossal of indicators.
They stay there, completely still. The Doctor is uncomfortable but also unwilling to move, not wanting to take something away from this woman who has already lost everything except her actual lifeforce.
It's thirty two seconds before she opens her eyes again. She searches his eyes for something, but he's not sure what. He slowly removes his hands from her head, letting them fall back to his sides. Her head snaps to them as they go, a kind of panic flashing through her eyes.
In hindsight, perhaps he should have expected what comes next, but to be fair, this kind of thing has never been an area of expertise for him.
She's on her feet in less than a second, hands on his jacket, pressing her mouth to his with a desperation he can physically feel in her body, in her every movement. It sends him stumbling backwards several feet.
A stone pillar would be more receptive to this kiss than him - though at least the stone pillar couldn't feel so damned awkward about it.
The Doctor is unmoving, as rigid as she had been only a few minutes before. He's not prepared for this kind of advance, he never is, and god he hates being kissed by anyone who isn't somebody he loves fiercely. Somehow, his complete discomfort, which couldn't be more obvious, doesn't deter her - or perhaps she genuinely just hasn't noticed.
He is forced to gently grab her by the arms and push her away. "No, Quill," he says softly, but also firmly.
"But-" Her eyes are shining. Frantic. "Please. Please."
"No."
He's never seen anyone look as lost as Quill does in that moment.
She staggers back from him like he's a live flame, her hands reaching out behind her for the bed but falling short. Her whole body gets mixed up, somehow - it's to be expected, she's smaller in every possible respect, with different bodily proportions, it will take time for her to adjust and compensate. She falls to the floor, landing hard on her bum and hands.
This time, when she cries, it is not silent. It is loud and bawling and furious. It is utterly painful to have to listen to, to have to watch - the Doctor finds himself flinching a little.
In so many ways, it is so familiar. He remembers crying like this after using the Moment, coming right out of his regeneration, and just sinking to the floor, and curling up, and crying, for what felt like days.
But at least, even then, he had been a free man. Only now does he realise how much he had still had.
"Do you want me to leave you alone for a bit?" he asks.
"I'm alone no matter whose company I might be in, now and forever," she says, once she's managed to calm down enough to speak and gulped down some much needed oxygen. "Stay or leave, see if I care."
The Doctor considers his options, and leaves the room. When he returns ten minutes later, with a tray holding two mugs and a small jug of milk, she looks surprised to see him.
The crying seems to have stopped; when he came in, she had been staring numbly at the counter cupboards opposite her spot against the infirmary bed.
"What are those?" she asks him when he sits down on the floor near her.
"I find that it's a funny little rule of the universe that almost every single person can feel better from consuming one of these two beverages."
"Which one?"
He chuckles. "You misunderstand me. You'll probably like one or the other. Try both, and try them with the milk if you're not sure at first."
She takes the mug of tea, sips at it, and makes a face. She reaches for the jug and drinks a little from it directly, only to make an even worse force and spit it out onto the infirmary floor.
"Urgh, what is that?"
"Tea, and milk."
"It's disgusting."
"Try the other one."
Quill takes the other mug and lifts it to her lips, expression beyond wary. She smells it, wrinkles her nose, and slowly takes a sip. The Doctor waits. A moment later her eyebrows lift, face relaxing a fraction, and she takes a few more sips. Then a gulp. She drinks greedily, slurping away at it until the mug is empty and her lips are dripping and somehow there's a few drops on her nose too.
He grins at her, and she gives him an uncertain half-smile back, only to catch herself a moment later and fall back to neutral. He wonders how long it's been since she smiled properly.
"What is this?" she asks.
"It's called coffee. It's a common beverage on the planet I'm taking you to."
"Oh. That's something, at least. It's good. Better than anything we had back home. Bitter, rich, hot but not hot enough to burn."
"It can burn, if you're not careful."
"I am a warrior of the Quill, Doctor, I fear no burn from a hot beverage."
She's so completely serious in the way that she says it - frowning slightly, voice flat - that the Doctor can't help but let out another chuckle.
"'Atta girl."
"What?"
"Nevermind."
"Can I have more of this 'coffee'?"
"I'll show you how to make it. Come on."
They go to one of the kitchens together. While Quill's every step on her new legs is unsteady, the Doctor keeps a close eye on her and is impressed at how quickly she adapts to the new stride and movement.
She is an attentive and quick learner. Soon she is making her own coffee and he's fixing himself some tea before moving to the small dining table nearby.
Quill joins him a few minutes later, cupping the steaming mug in her hands.
"You said something, earlier, before all this-" She gestures to herself with one hand before returning it to the mug. "You said that you understand our pain because you used to be the last of your people too. Explain the past tense. How can someone be the last, but not permanently?"
"I was the one that did it," the Doctor says, staring at the wood grain of the table. "Because I had to, because it was my people or the whole of the universe. And for years, I lived with that sacrifice. Until one day, I had the chance to stand there again and make a different choice. But I still remember every day that came before, every day where I thought my home was gone. And I deserve to remember every last one, because the first time, I chose wrong, even though it was for the right reasons. Because I wasn't the Doctor anymore. But when I was, when I'd found myself again…I had the strength to stand there and choose differently."
Quill stares at him, eyes unfathomable, but wide with countless emotions he can't read.
"You're truly remarkable," she says in the end. "Every time I think I understand you, you prove me wrong, and every time I think there's no chance I will ever understand you, again you prove me wrong and make me think that one day I could."
"Oh, people have spent centuries trying to understand me, it drives them mad," the Doctor scoffs. "You really have better things to be doing with your time, Quill."
"Like keeping his highness safe? Hardly."
He can't deny she has a point there. "Look," he says with a sigh, "I'm not saying that everything you feel towards him isn't justified. But he's just a boy, and he has a good heart. He's just misguided. He doesn't understand the truth or gravity of your situation, that much is obvious. But you can try and convince him."
"Do you think I haven't?" Quill demands, scowling. "Do you think I haven't tried protesting this point a hundred times? The Queen had the need for us to obey her commands, as well as our personal Rhodia's, programmed into the arn. She ordered us all to never protest our situation or call it slavery. It's only now that she's dead that the command has lifted."
"Then now's your chance. Though I think he'll be more receptive once you've both had some time to deal with everything that's happened today. Baby steps. It's not like you're going to be leaving each other's sides in a hurry."
She winces. He changes the subject.
They spend the next few hours swapping war stories, laughing at a few but mostly taking solace in the mutual understanding. It isn't all easy companionship, though. They have very different views on killing: she has no qualms about it if it is necessary, while he always believes it is wrong and considers it the absolute last resort. He knows he still sometimes has nightmares of the thousands of people he slaughtered in the war. She says she sees only her fallen comrades, her fallen fellow slaves (her officers, whom she had had to watch be tortured and stripped of themselves, just as she had been).
It shouldn't matter, in the grand scheme of things, but even in this circumstance the Doctor can't keep the accusation out of his tone when they discuss her kills. Eventually, she shuts down on him and sips at her coffee without saying a word.
"I'll find you a book of human names, so you can pick one for your human alias," he says eventually, and leaves to fetch a baby name book.
She takes it without a word of thanks when he returns with it and flicks through the first few pages of the 'girls' section. Within a few minutes she stabs her finger at a name.
"That one."
He leans over to look. "Andrea?" She nods. "You sure?" Another nod. "Good, that makes things easier. Now, Quill works well enough as a last name, so Andrea Quill it is."
"Andrea Quill," she repeats, testing out the name. Her nose crinkles again and she sighs. "Good as anything, I suppose."
"Plenty of humans mostly go by their last name. I'm sure most people will happily just call you Quill."
"Well, that's something." She gets up to make another coffee, and while waiting for the kettle to boil she stands at the kitchen counter, gripping it with white knuckles as she stares ahead at nothing in particular.
"It's going to be okay," the Doctor tells her, knowing that look of quiet despair from a mile off.
"Spare me the optimistic drivel, Doctor," she replies, without looking at him. "I'm a realistic person, and a soldier of a failed revolution, a slave, and now the only surviving member of my people. There is no possible way that things could get better."
"You never know. Something or someone on Earth might surprise you."
"I hate surprises."
"Remind me never to throw you a birthday party," the Doctor mutters into his mug of tea.
When the sonic beeps twenty minutes later, alerting them to Charlie's procedure being finished, the two of them leave the kitchen to help him. Or rather, the Doctor helps him while Quill expresses the opinion of the prince's hair looking even stupider than hers, despite being more practical.
Charlie keeps tripping over his new limbs and falling on his face. It's the only time the Doctor sees Quill laugh or even smile properly in the whole time he knows her between the rescue and leaving the two of them on Earth.
"Where will you go now?" Quill asks him, when he finally bids them goodbye.
"No idea," he replies, cheerfully, "I'll end up somewhere eventually. I always do."
It would be so much easier if he hadn't caught the envy in her eyes and realised how cruel it is for him to be flippant about his complete freedom (of travel, and of everything else) when she is stuck on one planet, with one person. Stuck in a kind of slavery that can't be broken, while he grins at her and wishes her well and saunters off back to space.
If she hates him for it, he has to admit that it's more than fair.
In quiet moments in the months to come, if he thinks of the two survivors of Rhodia, the Doctor likes to imagine Quill finding something on Earth that makes her smile again.
The realist in him knows that Charlie suffering misfortune is probably the closest she is going to get for a long time. The optimist in him tries to ignore that and continue to hope all the same.
After all, nothing is impossible.
Thanks for reading!