Chapter 6 - Parachute

"What is it?" the Doctor had followed me.
"Do you see that?" I said, pointing down the road.
The Doctor fumbled through his jacket pockets until he found a small pair of binoculars. They whirred and whizzed after he put them up to his eyes. "It's Teddy. He's in bad shape it looks like."

I didn't hear the rest of what he was saying as I ran back to the car and ripped the door open, starting the engine as I flopped into the seat. I snapped the car around and pulled up next to the Doctor who began pounding on my window until I rolled it down.
"Get in," I said.
"Think, Alice. The Culraith has not left his body."
"I don't care. It's my fault this happened to him in the first place and it will be my fault if it kills him. I'm not going to let that happen."
"It's a trap." He said, nearly pleading.
"That's why I've got you. You promised me, Doctor." It wasn't my intention originally to take advantage of his guilty conscience but it slipped out anyway. The Doctor pursed his lips and scowled at me before going round and getting in the car.

We drove about a half a mile or more before we got to him. Teddy was staggering down the road, barely able to lift his head to look at us as we pulled up. I pulled the brake and opened the door.
The Doctor put his hand over mine to get my attention before I got out, "Be very careful. No skin contact if you can help it."

I stumbled out of the car and ran to Teddy, the Doctor just behind me. "Teddy!" I said as I reached him and put my arm around him to keep him upright.
"Alice?" he muttered. "I had the strangest dream…but how did I get here? And why am I so tired?"
"Don't worry about that now. I'm taking you home."
"Oh, that's good because blimey, I'm beat. I feel a little sick."
I steered Teddy over to the car and opened the door to the back seat. He climbed in and lay down. The Doctor scratched his head as I shut the door, "We'll have to get him back to the TARDIS. I need more of a controlled environment and that's the best one in the universe."
"Thank you," I said, relieved.

He only nodded and got back in the passenger side of the car as I started the engine and continued down the road, heading back home. Teddy moaned in the back seat.
"Is he alright?"
The Doctor twisted around and stretched into the back seat, scanning Teddy with the blue light thing. "The Culraith is still inside him. It's feeding off of any energy it can find. Teddy must've had a happy life. It's taking everything else from him."

I pressed down on the gas and the engine revved up as we started faster down the road. "Can you help him?" I asked, looking at the Doctor through the rearview mirror.

"If I touch him now it would be risking my mind again and we've seen how that goes," the Doctor spoke plainly as though he wasn't afraid of that happeninig to him again. But I knew better.
"No, don't," I said. "He just needs to be okay until we get him back to your ship."

The Doctor climbed back into the front passenger seat. After a few minutes, the occupant of the back seat went silent. I glanced back and tried to get a look through the rear view mirror. Teddy's body was limp and his eyes were closed. "Is he okay?" The Doctor peered around the back of his seat at him, then looked at me. "I managed to dampen the effects of the Culraith. He's asleep now but I don't know how long he'll stay that way and I can't account for the dreams he may be having."

I felt his eyes on me again, calculating as they always seemed to do no matter what the situation. My cheeks went a little warm.
"He may be dreaming about you, actually," he muttered.
"You can shut up about that right now," I snapped at him.
"It's unfortunate though, when you think about it –"
"Then don't think about it," I said sharply.

"Teddy being too scared, too worried, too paranoid to look you in the eye and tell you how he feels," the Doctor continued as though I hadn't spoken and propped his feet up on the dash board. "Another interesting thing about humans, I'd wager. Only when you believe the end is imminent do you say what's really on your mind."
I rolled my eyes, "And you have no problem with doing that, right?"
"When you're as old as I am you end up losing that tick that fear gives you. It only gets in the way."

I knew he wasn't telling the full truth. I had his memories. There was no denying he was powerful and extremely intelligent, but that did not make him without fault. For a reason I couldn't pinpoint, I knew that for a fact about him. "Fear like that can also keep you from making a horrible mistake," I said.
"Is it good that Teddy never told you then?"
My immediate and selfish answer was yes. Had Teddy told me I probably would have gone with it as I had no where else to go. Even though I knew I didn't love him and probably never would, I would have gone along with him for a while and then it would come to me being afraid of telling him the truth. I would end up breaking his heart as self important as that sounded. So in the end, saying yes probably wouldn't be a selfish answer after all.

"Yes," I said quietly.
"You're alright on your own?"
"Don't be so daft. No one's alright on their own, not in the end. Some of us don't have a choice though," I said plainly. I peeked in the back seat thinking I heard a shift but Teddy was still, his eyes closed.
"Many people would hesitate to admit that truth. Many more aren't aware of it at all," the Doctor said calmly.

"Fear of truth again, Doctor," I said.
He let out a little laugh, "It's so easy to hide, isn't it Alice Crown? Sometimes it's too easy."
I nodded and blinked away the tingle in my eyes that usually preceded the water works. I'd thought for a while that I had become accustomed to living alone – to being alone; the feeling, the emptiness. I realized then that no one could ever get used to it. Even the ancient being that sat silently beside me, turning his head every now and again to check on Teddy acted as though it continued to bother him after so many years of being on his own.

"You have your ship, right?" I said. "Do you visit home often?"
His eyes were on me again and seemed darker, deeper when I glanced at him, "You already know the answer to that."

I stared confusedly at the windshield as the new memories that didn't belong to me resurfaced. My mouth fell open and I felt the moisture in my eyes. I had seen those images before – just earlier that day. "I'm so sorry," I saw the citadel burning, its buildings crumbling beneath the fiery red sky. I lifted my hand to wipe the tears away and noticed that it wasn't my hand. The fingers were long and the palms larger. It was the hand of a man. The pain I felt with the memory was insurmountable – the sense of loss, the guilt and the deepest sorrow I could ever imagine.

I blinked and I saw the road in front of me again, his voice was close by as well.
"Interesting things, memories. You can't observe them from an outside point of view. And because of that you can't have the memory without the emotion that comes with it. That's why the Culraiths use them."
I sniffed and wiped my eyes, placing my hand back on the manual gear shift. He put his hand over mine and patted it understandingly. I cleared my throat and pushed the memory away. Because I had my control back, it allowed me some peace, finally. "So what memories to you have of mine?" I asked in attempt to change the subject.

"Well," he spoke lightly, staring at the ceiling of the car as he thought. "I'm still trying to sort out the images, really – put them in some kind of order." His brow furrowed, "There's the girl in the red dress. She's looking at her reflection in the mirror. Same exact blue eyes only without the shadow in them."
I glanced at him for a second then back to the road.
"Ah," he said with a broad smile. "Just as they are now."

"What else?"
Teddy groaned softly and the Doctor checked on him again. "Still sleeping," he muttered. "Let's see. There's this young man, maybe fifteen, sixteen years old. He's smiling and you're feeling a little – Oh," he said as though he'd just found the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. "Your first kiss I take it?" He was looking at me innocently with raised eyebrows.
I frowned at the windshield.
"Don't be upset, Alice," he said. "This is more efficient than any getting-to-know-you game I've ever participated in," he stayed silent for a moment and began subconsciously rubbing his face. "Oi! His face must've felt like a steel wool carpet."

I laughed, "Like rough grained sand paper."
"How disrespectful is that? Stupid boy. Some first kiss, huh?" He patted my hand again.
I shrugged simply, "I learned a long time ago that moments like that – the ones you look forward to and picture in your head all the time – never turn out the way you see them."
"You're far too young to be saying things like that," he said in a low voice.
"Can't be helped," I said.

A sudden crash and a groan stopped our conversation. I looked to the Doctor. His eyes were closed and he was slumped against the closed car door. The door window had a huge break in it that was splintering from the point of impact out to the rest of the glass area.
"Doctor!" I screamed and slammed on the brakes.
We skidded to a stop but I couldn't move to help him. Teddy's darkened eyes blinked right next to me and I felt his hands on my neck and throat.

"Turn around, Alice," it spoke through Teddy's lips as evil and rough as it had done before. "Go back."
"Why?" I said, trying to keep calm. "There's nothing the further out we go."
"Turn around or I will make certain he never wakes," the Culraith/Teddy gripped the Doctor's neck as though he would snap it.

He squeezed on my neck as well as I put the car in first and turned back down the lonely road.
"Doctor," I muttered and groped for his hand after we were back on the country road, the scenery becoming greener and flatter as we went. His fingers were still and his arm limp as we drove but I held onto him. I don't know how long we drove. Teddy sat, waiting patiently in the back. I knew that we'd be reaching the coast soon because I think I ended up going more east than south and I was dreading what the Culraith planned to do with us when we could go no further.
The road had become a dirt path. I pulled off to the side, onto the short damp grass when the Culraith told me to stop. I waited after parking the car and killing the engine, still holding the Doctor's hand in mine.

"Get out," the Culraith spoke harshly in my ear.
A moment passed and I would have bet my life that I felt the Doctor's hand flex in my own. I glanced down but his fingers remained still.
"Out of the car now, Alice," it said forcefully.
I pulled the handle and opened the door. My face was stung by the icy sea air, the smell of salt and waves in my nostrils. The endless crashing of the sea on the rocks below was all I could hear above the wind.

Teddy stood right beside me, "Now – "
"Wait," I said and I braved the dark eyes. "Whatever you want to do with me is fine," my voice shook but my gaze didn't falter. "But I'm going to make sure he's okay first." I pointed to the car where the Doctor still sat unconscious.
Teddy nodded and waited as I hurried over to the passenger side of the car and opened the door cautiously. The Doctor nearly fell out. I pushed him back into the seat and saw a spot of red where his head hand hit the window. I took of the thin sweater I was wearing over my shirt, balled it up and rested his injury against it. "No matter what happens, Doctor, thank you," I said as I tried not to cry. "I would like to have known you better."
The Doctor groaned and muttered something, his lips barely moving. I kissed him on the forehead and before I moved away he mumbled again. The only word I caught was 'happy' before I closed the door again.

Teddy grabbed me roughly by the arm and we started to move toward the cliffs where the Earth seemed to stop and the sky moved on forever beyond it. It was beautiful. Had the situation been a little different I would have wanted to stay there for a while. We reached the edge and looked down. The white cliffs ran down for what looked like miles until they reached the ocean and the clusters of rocks below.

"You're going to let me fall? Is that your revenge?" I said.
"Have you ever witnessed someone's mind as they are falling?" he said in my ear. "It is a thrill and a feast - all of the horrors, the regrets, the lies and truths, all bubbling to the surface at once. You alone could provide me with energy to live on for weeks before you die. They I will move on to your friend." The eyes closed and a smile crossed the lips, "Such dark thoughts, the terror and violence he has locked up inside his great mind could sustain me interminably."
"You won't get him," I said. As terrified as I was I amazed myself by being able to speak at all.

"Just the willingness of his touch on the dead bodies will transport me and I will be powerful enough then that he will not be able to stop me."
I looked at him in disbelief, "You're going to kill Teddy too?"
"He will be of little use afterwards," it said plainly.
I wiped a tear off my cheek and I saw an image of a blonde woman smiling up at me. Her eyes were warm and I could see the love in them. But the love was certainly not for me. I closed my eyes against the memory and focused on the crashing waves.

"Are you ready?" its voice mocked me. Teddy's arm went around my waist but at the same time someone grasped my hand on my other side.