The Doctor looked at Kavrin for a moment. Either this was part of her act, or something had gone wrong with her programming and she still didn't remember what she was. He didn't really think it was the second choice; Jahra were always conscious of the fact that they weren't actually the person, like…like actors on a stage playing their parts extremely well.

Yet…Kavrin certainly looked like she was in distress. And there was the running through the halls…and she would have killed him if she'd known she was Jahra and everything that came with that…and then there was what she'd said when she'd stumbled…

"What did you say?"

Kavrin looked blankly at him. "What do you mean?"

"A few minutes ago, you said something…could you repeat it?"

She turned away, shrugging. "I don't know. It's…just something I keep hearing. A song."

"Something you heard on Earth?"

"No. I picked it up a few minutes ago…in the halls." Kavrin looked back at him, her eyes forcefully devoid of tears. "What am I, exactly?"

"You should already know."

"But I don't," Kavrin said, standing up to face the Doctor. Her composure was obviously forced. "Until five minutes ago, I was a girl from Earth who'd gone through some sort of creepy operation and wanted to wake up from my nightmare. Now I'm…what did you call me, a Jahra?"

"Well, I already said that you're a clone," the Doctor said, deciding to play along for a bit. "The Rahki are one of the major races with time traveling technology. They made a mess of it at first—changing history, that sort of thing—and were ordered to find a better, risk-free way. So, they came up with a system of collecting memories from different time periods. They grow a Jahra, a clone like you, and put all the facts, details, and characteristics of someone into their mind. Usually an important, history creating, noteworthy someone, like…like whoever your current President is."

"Go with Winston Churchill," Kavrin said. "Better analogy, and I really don't think our—" Kavrin stopped with a slight grimace. "Try this again. I don't think that their President is particularly noteworthy. Well, besides being the first African American one."

"Oh, you're on him?" the Doctor asked, not giving anything away with his tone.

Kavrin shrugged. "Yeah. They are. So, what's with the body swapping?"

"Ah yes, well, after that you get your physiology changed to match the real person, you get put in their place. After that, you act out their life like someone on a movie screen. When you're about to die, or when you pass the really important turning point, you get reclaimed. Your memories are downloaded, your mind is erased and filled with the life of someone else. Off you go again."

"Who do we get to thank for that sort of hell?" Kavrin asked bluntly. The Doctor was a bit surprised.

"I wouldn't exactly think of it as 'hell,'" he said. "Your mind is wiped of all personal memories; you wouldn't miss anyone."

"Oh, and I would just love to live my life never having one," Kavrin said scathingly. "I would beg to have some creep suck out my feelings and memories and everything that made me, just so I could…play act!"

Kavrin stepped very close to the Doctor and looked him in the eye. "Well I don't give a damn who you think you are, Doctor." His name sounded more like an insult than a title. "This is my life, those are memories I lived, and I have a bloody right to it. I will figure out what's wrong with my head and my vision, and I'll get out. If the Rahki want my life, they'll have to get it over my—dead—body."

She turned away from him, scooped up her dagger, and deftly kicked the doors open. "Out of my way!" Kavrin snarled at the group of people who'd been peering through the windows, waving her arms irately. An isle cleared and she disappeared back in the direction of her room.

The hospital Matron, Shravin, slipped inside the room and over to where the Doctor stood. "She seems…"

"Like a reckless child who's going to go cry for a few hours before getting up and taking the universe by storm."

"I was going to say 'dangerous' and 'unstable' but your assessment is close enough." Matron Shravin folded her hands into her sleeves. "She still has her blade."

"She won't use it on anyone," the Doctor said. "She was…running scared before. It'll be fine."

"She's behaving rather oddly for a Jahra," the Matron said doubtfully. "Do you think that it's part of her character?"

"I don't know," the Doctor admitted with a sigh. The Matron was silent for a moment.

"I'm going to call the Rahki," the Matron stated. "I know that they have the tracking systems in all their Jahra, but they seem to be taking their time with this one. I want her gone. She's a danger, and definitely malfunctioning. She needs to be removed."

The Doctor glanced at her, then back to the door. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe you're right."


Kavrin made it back to her room without further mishap. Everyone had stared at her as though they thought she would explode, but they'd left her alone.

Alone. She closed her eyes in pain at the thought.

A moment later she opened them again. What was with the colors? They were…they were everywhere! Would she never have a moment's peace from the world again?

"Don't bother with that, Kavrin." She bit her lip. "Talk out loud. Get used to the new voice. New face…that comes later. Much later. Got to figure out what I'm going to do. I don't even know where I am." She laughed humorlessly. "I might not even know when I am!"

She frowned. "That fly-boy Doctor probably knows…but I don't really want to talk to him. He's obviously got something against me. Or maybe I have something against him?"

Kavrin dropped her head into the hand not clinging to the rock, sighing. "Facts. What do I already know?

"One: I seem to be stronger physically than before. Two: I seem to have…three hearts. Three: My blood is purple. Four: I see weird colors when I close my eyes. Five: The song has lessened some but is still in my head.

"Side note: I don't know what this song is, or why I get to hear it, but it hurts. Whoever's singing is in agony. It feels like an emotional S.O.S. Fly-boy seemed to recognize it."

Kavrin fell backwards on the bed, staring at the too-white ceiling. Was it especially clean, or did she have better eyesight than before? More unknowns. She looked at the smooth black rock she couldn't seem to let go of. Why did she care about it so much? Why had the Grixzen?

Another tangent; how had she known what they were? That Doctor had asked a valid question.

Kavrin huffed. Everything was coming back to the Doctor. Who was he anyway? She re-ran her conversation with him through her mind.

She pressed her hand against her mouth as the worst of it came to mind: "You're a copy. You're a replacement for the real Kavrin on Earth, meant to live her life until the day she died. You'll be reclaimed, erased, given a new life and sent to replace someone else.

"You're a copy…a replacement. Copy, replacement. Copy, copy, copy.

Kavrin folded her hands over her face, curling up on the bed and starting to cry. She was a fake. Her whole life… and it wasn't even hers! Her mom and dad and brother and friends and feelings and memories and house and room and dogs and…and…and it wasn't even her! But that didn't leave her with…with anything. Or anyone. She wasn't anything. She was no one, and nothing, and she was dying from the pain but her family…what about her family? What about the real one?

Kavrin sat up abruptly. She hadn't died…so was the real Kavrin still wherever the Rahki kept their victims? Or…or was she put back in the alley with those Grixen and torn to shreds?

"Usually an important, history creating, noteworthy someone…"

"No…no, she'd be put back alive to keep history flowing…right? Or… or was the rescue the important thing and she died in the process?"

A dark image of her family standing around a grave with her name on it flashed into her mind. It was so vivid that Kavrin could almost smell the flowers on the casket.

"But I'm not dead!" Kavrin burst out before biting her hand to stop further outbursts. The last thing she needed was a sedative for being reckless.

"But I'm not really alive," she whispered. "How can I be? What did Fly-boy say? I'll be erased…Reclaimed and erased. I'm…I'm a video tape. That's all. I'm not even a person…independent thought? My brain belongs to Kavrin. Who might be dead."

She gave a shuddering breath. "Oh, I hope not. She…she deserves a life. Something amazing…"

Kavrin fell back on the bed. "But I want to live! Oh Mom, I want to live!"


The Doctor took the stethoscope off the wall next to her bed, leaving her to mourn in privacy. So he'd used the next door room to spy on her. Wasn't the first time he'd done it, and he wanted to know who she was, who she really was.

The most likely choice had been that she was a normal Jahra still playing her part for whatever reason. But now—unless she was still acting even though caught—it seemed as though she'd never known and something really had gone wrong with her revision. But that didn't seem very likely. Jahra always knew they were acting.

Of course, his second theory did have another hole; why was she changing back outside of Rahki labs? Wasn't there a particular serum or code you entered into the Jahra to switch them back to the base code? Or did it just happen at a pre-set time, like a kitchen timer?

The Doctor suddenly realized that he didn't know. He'd never paid that much attention to the Rahki or the Jahra.

Maybe he should have looked in on the process a little more. He'd heard rumors of so called 'rogue Jahra,' clones who had taken off on their own life, refusing to play the part anymore. The Doctor had never actually met one, but some of the stories had to be true. Was this what it was like?

No, couldn't be. Kavrin really seemed sincere about what she'd thought all her life; that she was the original, the one and only. And suddenly she'd lost her life and identity in the space of a half hour.

The Doctor felt, for the first time, pity for her. No, not so much pity as empathy. He knew what that was like, to lose everything. Or almost everything. He'd still known who he was when Gallifrey died. He'd still had the TARDIS. But he did know what Kavrin was feeling.

He rubbed his forehead, banishing the emotions. He had to think. The Doctor reflected on their second conversation.

Those words she'd spoken in a moment of pain. He didn't think that anyone else knew that language anymore. But she didn't really; Kavrin had said there was a song in her head. Who'd be singing in a language with no name and sending it through her? Try as he might, the Doctor hadn't picked up on anything. Was Kavrin an even stronger telepath than he was, or had the song been programed into her? No, the Rahki wouldn't know something like that. So someone in the hospital was screaming for help.

And then, when Kavrin had been making her statement at the end, she said she'd find out what was wrong with her vision. The Doctor got the feeling she didn't mean she was blind, so there had to be something else.

He stood up decisively. He needed to speak with her.

He glanced at the wall. In a few hours. She wouldn't speak to anyone, particularly him, just now.


*Constructive criticism welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*