**Hello there! Long time no update? If this is your first time reading The Pale Cage, welcome! This story takes place...ooh its kind of hard to say. If you've seen up to Angel's Take Manhattan you'll be in good shape. Enjoy!
For those of you who read the original The Pale Cage...There were several things that made me unhappy with my original version, like some of the characters and some of the events and motivation of the characters. So I've changed it and hopefully made it better. The Plot is the same but you will meet new characters and some things will be slightly different. I hope you enjoy the new Pale Cage.
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who etc etc. **
Chapter 1 The Fire
There was a Spark. A small initiation of life. It came without a gasp of breath, and without suddenly being jolted awake. The Spark could not feel. So it thought a question.
Who am I?
An impossible question. How could such an answer be found? The Spark had no recollection of anything. The Spark couldn't remember the past. All that lay before the Fire was just a void of darkness. The Fire could not see, hear, feel, touch, smell nor taste. Time was unknown and the Spark felt sad.
Why am I sad?
Time was important and it was bad that the Spark didn't know Time. Time was one of the Spark's senses, and it was lost like the others. The Spark struggled to understand why the loss of Time placed the Fire teetering on the edge of a parapet. Time, time was the key without it the Spark would be swallowed by the pit. So the question it thought changed.
What am I?
The new question made the Spark grow, and as it grew, the Spark became a Flame, and a bright warmth spread into the darkness. Time was so important. Time was so much a part of the Flame's existence that without it, the Flame knew its life would be meaningless. The Flame tried to think of a creature whom its very existence was woven into the fabric of time itself. Suddenly like a snap, a switch being flipped, the Flame knew.
I'm a Time Lord.
The Flame was still without its senses and time was still unknown. However emotions were quickly filling the void. Images only seen through the mind's eye flitted around the Flame. It fueled the emotions that burned of Hatred.
"You gave me hope and then you took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous. God knows what it will do to me."
Hatred gave away to despair.
"I guess you don't know me very well. I refuse."
Despair dripped and dried in the rising of the dual stars, and the Flame felt happiness.
"I'm going to travel with that man forever!"
A thousand other emotions swirled around the Flame. Some of them hurt and guilt weighed heavily over the Flame, and threatened to snuff it out. However, love was ever present and it chased away the memories of a burning planet. The Flame finally had enough and decided to return to its original question.
Who Am I?
Memories answered back in response. A thousand voices, a chorus of people and faces flashed before the Flame. They all said a single word. Some of them screamed, some cried, some whispered, some smiled, some shouted, and some sang. The first face was of a young girl with short brown hair. Her youthful face morphed from child to adult.
She cried, "Grandfather!"
And instantly the Flame saw a memory that transformed the voices into waves crashing upon rocks.
She stood before him, a teenage scowl upon her face, "But Grandfather, TT Capsule is so dull and drab. Time Lords are the greatest species to have ever evolved, couldn't they have been more..."
"More what, Susan?" an old man asked her.
"Oh Grandfather, more creative!"
"Hrrumph," the old man, Grandfather, replied, "Maybe they are more creative than you think. What would you have it be called?"
"Hmmm," the girl, Susan, thought, "TT Capsule means Time Travel. So the moving within any place in time. TT Capsules are very cool for their 'bigger on the insides'..." she hesitated to look at her grandfather who eyed her for her childish ramblings, "I mean it's dimensionally transcendental. Oh! I know!" she beamed as she looked up to the TT Capsule's time rotor, "A TARDIS. That's brilliant! Don't you think so Grandfather?"
"TARDIS? What's a TARDIS?"
She looked back to her grumpy grandfather and smiled, "It stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Much more exciting than a TT Capsule."
"I suppose you'll need to reevaluate your statement of Time Lords being uncreative."
"No, I still think they could work on it a bit; but Time Ladies are pretty cool."
"TARDIS is never going to catch on," her grandfather told her in response to her cheekiness.
The Flame pulled away from the memory. The acronym pulsed within it and the sea a voices came in and out of focus. The Flame burned as it tried to listen to each one. The voices were many and the Flame could only focus on so few at a time. However, each voice added a kindling to the Flame until the Flame was a roaring Fire. They all said the same word.
"Doctor!" a Scottish accented voice matched to a black haired boy.
"Doctor!" a third voice belonging to a blonde haired girl, her face twisted and morphed between the form of a young lady and an old woman with short hair.
"Doctor!" the fourth girl held a secret smirk, she wore a pink dress and a long white scarf, though her face wasn't clear, it kept rearranging, shifting from three different faces and the Fire couldn't remember which one was true. The Fire thought, maybe all three faces were of the same soul, but the Fire could not remember who. She cried fiercely and so full of anger that the Fire shied away.
"Doctor!" the Fifth voice shouted out angrily. She had other things to say, but it was lost to the sea of voices. The Fire couldn't see her face, just her mouth opening and closing.
Just a mouth on legs thought the Fire.
"Doctor!" the sixth voice screamed, the sound of agony ripping from her throat. The Fire turned to see another girl, her hair was a short brown bob and she had a head band. Her face changed consistently between a beautiful girl with a big smile and a girl with a stern expression, all of her brown hair gone, leaving her head bald. The girl made the Fire cry with her.
"Doctor!" the seventh voice called out. She was fierce and brave and holding a gun. It seemed wrong, because the Fire hated guns.
"Doctor." the Eighth voice whispered, American accented, belonging to a woman who just stared at the Flame, trying to fathom its existence. The Fire smiled, the Fire was trying to 'fathom its' existence as well.
"Doctor," something breathed.
"Don't call me that," the Fire whispered to itself. The voice disappeared behind a door labeled TIME WAR. The Fire didn't dare follow it in there. The Fire didn't want to remember why, but the door was cracked and memories reached for the Fire.
"Doctor!" a girl shouted, instantly pulling the Fire away from the door and memories of what HE DID. The Fire turned his attention to a girl with blond hair and big brown eyes. She looked up to the Fire. Her brown eyes turned to gold as if she was the Fire. Her hand was outstretched and there are tears streaking down her cheeks.
"Doctor!" a ginger haired woman wept. Her head shook and she begged the Fire not to take it away.
"Doctor!" the final voice shouted. A smile tugging at the corner of her lips and her green eyes watched him. Her hair was like Fire and her face morphed from a young lady the the form of a small child. Her outstretched hand reached for the Fire, and she waited for him.
Nothing now could stop the memories that followed. The Fire suddenly remembered and answered his own questions.
I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifreyin the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm the last of my kind.
The door opened, but the Doctor didn't want to go through it, he didn't want to leave the sanctuary of his home, of his Tardis. But Amy was suddenly next to him.
"Doctor, I'm waiting for you, out there. Please don't leave me alone."
"I'll find you." The Doctor told her and he watched her smile. He stepped out of the Tardis and his eyes opened.
His eyes opened to a glass cage and he struggled for a deep gasp of air. There it was, the sudden jolt into reality and he painfully coughed and his lungs wheezed, as if they had never been used before. He awoke in a semi-panic, knowing who he was but not where he was or what was happening. His limbs refused to obey him, they were numb and limp. He shuddered when he saw why. His body was wrong, twisted and warped and it laid like liquid rubber in a bath. His breath blew harshly over his teeth and his hearts stuttered when he looked into the glass. He couldn't see beyond it. He could only see his reflection. The reflection that jerked back in response of his own appearance.
The Doctor's reflection was not what he was expecting and it gave him chills. The face that looked back was as pale and as white as milk. The mop of dark brown hair was slick and wet with sweat. His long chin quivered as he coughed and sputtered. His two embryonic hearts thumped wildly, trying to reach an acceptable rhythm. The Doctor painfully recognized the face in the glass. It was his own face and he knew the truth.
'What happened?' he wondered. Tears threatened to spill over. At least he was alive. He knew he was alive as he gasped for air once more. And he knew who he was, what he was. And he knew where he was as soon as he managed to look beyond the looking glass of his pale cage. Peering eyes watched his every move, watched his rebirth. They crowded around, with hungry eyes, excited eyes, evil eyes. He shuddered as he knew what it meant.
With a deep breath he relaxed into the milky bath. He chose to ignore the strangers peering in beyond his reflection of the pale cage. He focused on his body and willed his limbs to move. He closed his eyes and focused. Slowly sensation reached his fingertips, it raced down his chest and then to his legs and his toes twitched. He sat up. Muscle, tissue, cartilage and bone formed and grew, organs, nerves and veins fitted into place. The milky water drained from his bath. He was right, the other one. He gritted his teeth at the truth, his molecular structure managed to survive the pulsation of the sonic screwdriver.
He closed his eyes as his tears mixed with sweat, no one knew the difference. He was not the Doctor. The Flesh Time Lord opened his eyes as he remembered his last memory. He looked at his hand, it had held the Sonic that dissolved him, Miranda and Jennifer, just Gangers back into gunge. He forced a growl through his unused vocal chords. He was not the Doctor, he was the other Doctor, the one made from programmable Flesh, the copy. Not the Doctor. The despair changed quickly to anger and he glared up at the faces looking at him.
They were scientists, that much was clear. With their lab coats and their laboratory and the cage they'd imprisoned him in. They did this to him. They turned him into an experiment. They resurrected him without any thought of what it would mean, what it would do to him. What it would do to the universe. They'd recreated the Oncoming Storm, the Bringer of Darkness and he would make them pay. He would destroy them, make them burn. He would listen to their screams and watched the life leave their bodies. He would make them suffer, for existence as a copy as the last of your kind was hell, he would make them all pay, there would be nothing left and it would be remembered for all time of the Victorious who ended it all.
'Doctor, I'm waiting.'
No one spoke, the voice came from within the Flesh Doctor's own mind and memories that all belonged to another man. But it was enough to stop the Oncoming Storm, enough to bring him back and to make him reconsider his name and his mission.
Amy was waiting for him and he remembered the last thing she said to him. To Him, not the Doctor, but to him, the Flesh Doctor, back in St. John's Monastery all those years ago, yesterday, that last memory.
"You're twice the man I thought you were."
The Flesh Doctor shuddered. Amy knew he was the copy, but he had proven to her that he was the same as the Doctor. They had agreed the same thing, when they had swapped shoes, they proved they were the same. Both Doctors, original and copy had seen that they were the same, when prejudiced Amy couldn't tell them apart. And she hugged him telling the Flesh Doctor that he was twice as amazing as she had thought.
It all came back down to Amy. She proved that he was the Doctor too. Just as good as the Doctor. So why should he suddenly become less than what Amy had thought. The Flesh Doctor knew he wasn't anything like the Meta-crisis Doctor. That creature was half human and his morals were still shaky from the Time War and had no problems with committing genocide. That was not who the Flesh Doctor was. He was the Doctor and he couldn't stop being the Doctor, just because he was now made of Flesh.
"Why do you have to be so human?"
"Because right now I'm not."
The Flesh Doctor looked up, holding his head high. This situation he found himself in wasn't so different from Rory the Roman. A Nestene Duplicate with all the memories and feelings of Rory Williams and Rory, even when he went back to being human, he still had all those memories. The Flesh Doctor decided then and there he would not allow himself to become anything less than the Doctor. He would not become anything less than what Amy had said about him and that was a high expectation to reach. The Flesh Doctor would not become the Victorious. He would be the Doctor...He wiggled his fingers and stretched them. The Flesh held all of the Doctor's 909 years of memory, but not just memory, experience as well. He stared at his milky half-formed fleshy hand, as soon as he stabilized he really would be the Doctor.
He wanted to be just as good as the Doctor, he wanted to live up to what Amy said to him. But there were enough time anomalies and timey-wimey problems occurring with the Doctor and his past selves running into each other. And for him to be thrown into the mix, he'd probably get a crummy name like 'The other Doctor' or 'Ganger Doctor' or 'the Flesh Doctor' as he was already identifying himself as. What kind of name was that?
When the Doctor pretended to be the Flesh he took on the name John Smith. That name followed him like a bad penny. The first name he always thought of and always gave when asked and he didn't want to reveal his himself. The Flesh Doctor shook his head, he didn't want to be John Smith. He wanted to be the Doctor, but not the Doctor, greater than the Doctor, but his own self. He remembered when they had swapped identities and for a good few short hours...he was the Doctor. He was trusted as the Doctor and he was her Doctor, Amy's Doctor.
Amy would be with the Doctor now. He had no right to suddenly return to her and expect her to make room in her heart for a copy. The Flesh sighed. The Doctor had his blue box, the Flesh had his face and memories.
The Flesh looked out at the scientists watching him, monitoring his every move. He willed that his psychic abilities would kick in. But even without scanning their minds he knew two things for sure. 1. They were human, and 2. They were not friendly. The Flesh sighed heavily, he was their experiment, they probably had some serial number for him. He really needed to find a name for himself.
The Flesh cleared his throat so that he could test his vocal cords.
"Heh," it sounded low and rusted, he tried again, "Hel- Hell-"
His volume rose, a couple of humans out of the crowd looked nervous. He stared back at them. A flash of silver caught his attention, a young woman with long brown hair that was braided and put into a bun. She wore thin glasses and had silver eyes. Their was another with those same eyes, a man, he had short brown hair but his features matched the girl's. The Flesh looked between the two and realized they must be siblings, or twins or perhaps, clones? The Flesh took another deep breath and tried to speak once more, "Hel-lo," he rasped out.
He smiled, proud of himself. He leaned back and rested, exhaustion swept through his flesh. He really needed to find a proper name. He quite liked the Doctor's identity...But he didn't want to be confused as the same Doctor. The Doctor could be anywhere and he didn't want his actions to get confused with theDoctor's actions. Things could get potentially very, very confusing. He wanted his own name. He wanted to be separate from the Doctor. The first name that came to his mind was Fletcher, it stuck to his tongue like a bad taste. It was much too close to the word 'flesh' and he wrinkled his nose. He thought about Amy.
He thought about stealing her name, Emil, Amery, Emelerich, Emerson, Emrys, Emory, Imrich. All relations to the name Amelia. He smirked. Thieving her name wasn't the answer. He didn't want to steal her name. He wanted to be himself. Certainty though, that girl, he could take on her heritage perhaps? He was flesh, a copy and someday he would stabilize and become a Time Lord once more. He thought like the Doctor, acted like the Doctor, he was the Doctor, but Doctor did not define him, it was Amelia. Flesh Amelia. He remembered, the real reason why the Doctor severed his ties with Amelia, took on the identity of Flesh, traded titles. He went for the Roman instead. He did this because those other people did not matter to him. The flesh and the humans, they didn't matter to Doctor. He knew Amy was Flesh before they had even arrived to the factory. So he left flesh with flesh to save the human, Rory. Because he was on a mission to save the real Amelia, where ever she had been taken. He really hoped the Doctor had sorted that out.
The Amy he knew, even though she was flesh, her heart and her soul...they were in his hands and he hoped, the Flesh hoped, he had done the right thing...because he knew the Doctor had.
He shook his head. No, the Flesh would not take Amy's name. He was new like a new regeneration, and he would have his own life and he would choose how to live it, but surely that girl did leave a mark on him and he would not forget her. He would be twice the man she knew him to be. He would be good, like the Doctor always tried to be. He would never forget Amelia Pond. The first few hours of his life, when he was separated from the Doctor's memories, when he became different to the Doctor and his own memories were created, they were spent with Amelia. The Doctor severed his trust with Amelia and put it in a copy's hands. It was something special and something he would never ever forget. Something Atheyr would never forget.
Atheyr, short for Atheyronaeyis. It was long and complicated. It was Gallifreyan. Atheyronaeyis, Uh-thayr-roh-nay-yay-ees, it meant in his language 'the Good Fire'. Fire like regeneration and rebirth...Fire like Amy's hair. And Atheyronaeyis would be good, better than the Doctor. Twice as good, twice as fiery. Atheyronaeyis would hide his name, like all the other Time Lords of Gallifrey. He would shorten it and be called Atheyr, the Fire.
An applause and cheers jolted Atheyr and reminded him that he was still trapped. He carefully sat up and took a look at his audience, their eyes never left his naked body. Atheyr looked down to see pink skin trying to over power the white flesh. The other Gangers became more stable when they focused on becoming their own beings. Atheyr remembered trying to assimilate all the Doctor's past regenerations, it was painful and terribly difficult for him to stabilize. He hoped he wouldn't have to go through that again... He looked at the scientists who were looking at screens and analyzing his condition. However, that pain might be a walk in the park compared to what was to come.
Atheyr sat back up and worked himself to a scrunched position on his feet. He put his hands on the glass. The cheers settled down and a few more nervous glances were cast by the man nearest to Atheyr's cage. Atheyr's eyes connected with the silver eyed woman and he focused on her. She stepped forward so she could hear him.
He glared at her and opened his mouth, but his lips did not want to form the words right, his tongue rebelled against the English language. He worked hard to control his own body.
"L-et m-e ou-t!"
He coughed and cleared his throat once more, the flesh took on not only memories but experience too. He was eager for his Flesh to remember that it knew how to work his vocal chords.
"N-ow!" He ordered.
He worked his chin, his jaw already sore from the use. He massaged it, hoping to loosen it up. He needed his words, his words got him...and the Doctor out of the most unlucky situations. An older man with graying hair moved and Atheyr's eyes shifted to watch him.
The older man answered him, "No. Not yet. We've lowered the temperature and gravity field in your cubical with pure oxygen. If you leave there you'll return to the liquid flesh."
Atheyr frowned, he knew it wouldn't be that easy. He looked down to his slick milky white hand. He tried to stabilize, but his skin just simply refused. When he looked back up to the scientists as a thought sparked to life.
"What ab-out...Clea-ves? Who-else sur-viv-ed?"
"Who?" The silver eyed man asked.
Atheyr turned his head towards him, "Clea-ves, Mir-an-da Clea-ves."
The silver eyed man looked over to the older man, but he shook his head. He turned back to Atheyr, "No, we found no remnants of hers. It has been 200 years since the melt down at that factory. Four years ago we found a clump of nerves trying to reform, we found Time Lord DNA there and we've been cultivating it..."
"You mea-n me, you-ve bee-n...cul-ti-vat-ing me," Atheyr stated.
The man nodded, "We've woken you ten times before, but each time we've let you outside of the cubical you returned to liquid."
Atheyr's brows knitted together, "So- this is...the e-le-venth a-ttempt. Well is-n't that...just dan-dy?"