AN: Some new-series continuity thrown in here. Have fun.
There was nothing – no sign of life, no stirring of motion. No offhanded joke about the mistake she was always making, thinking him dead. Nothing at all.
...wait.
There. One tiny, barely perceptible pulsebeat. Twenty seconds later, its lazy companion. Then, again and as before, nothing. Sarah felt hope rise to crowd out the panic, balloon its way into her heart and mind - irrational hope perhaps, but in the ruins of a dead world, surrounded by marble corpses and the dust of an ancient destruction, she was willing to let it take hold. Anything to stave off believing the evidence of her eyes.
She stayed as she was for several minutes more, only relenting to sit back on her heels when she'd felt another set of the strange, desperately slow heartbeats and knew for a fact that she hadn't imagined it the first time. Tearing her eyes from the still form, she turned her head to look out at the streets now open in front of her, the bodies lying wherever they fell...
... there was life here. There was still life in the Doctor, at least. She knew that, or thought she did. Had to believe it. Maybe the others...
The lives of an entire society...
Sarah felt her mouth fall open in shock. The realization was huge – the implications greater. Pulling herself to her feet, she crossed to the nearest of the aliens and kneeled down next to it, considering. "Don't know where you fellows keep your major arteries," she murmured, dropping her ear to the creature's chest. "But you've probably got your heart in the same place, right? Though knowing my luck, it's probably in your elbow." What was that someone had said, about making light against the darkness?
A minute passed, then another. Then, finally, there it was – a single beat in the silence. Sarah sat back up slowly, looking out over this corner of the ruined world – not full of corpses. Full of sleepers. "They're alive," she said, not sure exactly who she was speaking to but needing to voice it aloud. "They're all alive."
.o.
Where did she go? came the question, irritated and demanding. It had no location per say; it came from everywhere, permeating the whiteness.
He turned around to face the perception of it, regardless. It felt like something sneaking up from behind – and it was curious that the mental projection of his body still remained, after the trappings of the memories had fallen away. How strong Sarah's mind had been, to imprint the visual impression of him so tenaciously into the vocabulary of this mindscape. I sent her back out, he thought, and his projection smiled, smug. Deliberately so. Back to the waking world? Bit beyond your reach, I'd think.
Not beyond our pet's. A second voice, smoother and less immediately threatening, but dangerous all the same. He will deliver her back to us.
Hands settling into the pockets of his jacket, the Doctor appeared to think about this, then shook his head dismissively. I don't think so. You underestimate her.
The first voice again, disdain dripping. I believe you OVERestimate her.
Oh, no. The grin had transmuted into a look of disbelief, eyes wide. Never. Sarah is many things, but 'overestimated' isn't often among them.
We'll-
A better question is, the Doctor interrupted, clearly bored with this tedium of overblown threats, why exactly do you need her, or me? Or any of these people? Conquest, colonization? Something more unconventional? Our mental energy, perhaps?
For a long time, there was no response.
.o.
Okay. So they were all alive. More importantly to her, and yes it was terribly selfish but she'd berate herself for it later, the Doctor was alive. That knowledge was enough, for now – enough to let her focus on what she'd been sent back to do. Shut down the mental containment field. She imagined it like a physical barrier, a sort of electrified fence- one could break through it easily enough once the power was cut off. Granted, that left her no wiser as to exactly how to proceed. Was this being mechanically generated? Controlled by some external intelligence with delusions of godhood?
...or a shaking, terrified lizard in the corner? Sarah blinked. How had she forgotten about him?
Cautiously, she stepped over to where he sat shivering, clutching at his knees, eyes wide open and less empty than they'd seemed just before the white. The walls were gone, torn down by his attack. He wasn't alone anymore – and his company? His own fallen people.
He was realizing what he'd done.
Sarah didn't know how she knew this – the knowledge seemed to rise full-formed out of that bank of static that was still rolling around the back of her mind, the one that had been there since she'd woken up. She knew what he was seeing, what he was feeling, and knew that at that moment, everything had changed. She crouched down, regarded him carefully. "Can you hear me?"
"Dead," he replied, starting to shake harder. "Dead, dead, dead dead dead dead all dead…"
"No," she said, quietly, entreating. "Just sleeping. But you can wake them up. Wouldn't you like to do that?"
.o.
No reply? Hit that one a little too close, did I? Good.
The Doctor started walking, though the action had little meaning in the haze of nothingness. He was confident that the voices would follow him; they felt threatened, and would want to keep an eye on the threat. The purple-blue tendril from earlier had reappeared, grounding itself eerily through him and connecting him to the greater pattern, invisible from where he stood; his mental projection was starting to go transparent and strange. So you have this psychic field, absorbing mental energy from every poor fool you manage to catch in your little web. Spider and the fly, a game older than time. But why? What are you trying to accomplish?
Silence. He could feel them there, annoyance and suspicion and resentment, but they didn't say a word.
And why, he asked finally, turning on his heels- exasperated by the lack of response, and loud, did you pull my ship out of the vortex?
We did not, came the immediate and unexpected response.
.o.
"Noo, out of my head. Head. Out." The huddled reptile clawed at the top of his skull, ducking his head away from Sarah's suggestion. Didn't close his eyes. Couldn't, now that he'd seen the truth. "Only they can be in my head, you're not allowed, you can't turn me against them they are good they give me everything…"
He stopped, and seemed to be listening for something, waiting. Expectant. But nothing came, in the end.
"Test. Testing me. Always testing. The pattern's all that matters."
Sarah stepped back, watching the creature rocking itself back and forth, clutching its head. Looked over to the Doctor, inert, defenseless, depending on her. Out at the people she knew now to be alive, waiting in the stillness for someone to come along and save them, pull them from that forever, painful whiteness. She made a sharp, frustrated noise, leaning against one of the standing support beams, pinching the bridge of her nose. She could do this, even alone. She just didn't have enough information. Ask the right questions.
"Why does the pattern matter?" she asked suddenly, louder than she intended, looking up from her own frustrations.
She watched him blink, and stop rocking, and look up at her, uncomprehending. At first she thought he wasn't going to answer.
Then: "Because... it's beautiful."
.o.
The Doctor blinked. He hadn't been expecting an answer at all, much less that specific answer. Then who did? The boy?
No. The gentler, more cajoling voice. We would know. We are in control of him. We are only trying to get home.
You're in control of everything here... and of course you could simply be lying, but let's leave that aside for now... so you would be aware of any sentience pulling nasty tricks with temporal dynamics. It's not a subtle thing, after all. Unless... The fade was getting worse; looking down at himself, there was very little he could still see. Ahh! Unless it wasn't a mind that did it.
And he set off in one direction again. Despite the uniformity of the landscape, there was a feeling of coming up upon a cliff, of seeing something vast and great coming into view below, a piece at a time. The rest of the pattern, spidering across the white, interconnections singing and crying in colors and light.
He recognized it, now. The song of everything. The pattern buzzing and vibrating with the energy that connected up the universe. It changed as he watched, sweeping in on itself, possibilities upon ideas upon chance upon chaos upon the forever-branching path of time. What was left of his eyes widened. He hadn't seen anything like this since he was a child, and it hadn't been easy then.
It was like looking into the Schism.
.o.
Wonderful, Sarah thought harshly, biting back a shout of frustration. An artist. How do you argue aesthetics? "Life is beautiful too, you know," she attempted lamely, knowing the cliché for what it is but not much else was coming to mind, and she had to say something.
"No no no, life is ugly. Everything hurts and everyone goes away. It's... messy and ugly and it hurts and they hurt and they hurt you and the pattern doesn't care if I'm different..." The boy resumed rocking, and a low, keening sound made its way from his throat, a plea or a lament.
Everyone goes away…
Sarah sighed harshly and shudderingly, risking another glance back to her own gone-away friend. "People go away, but sometimes they can come back. If you let them."
Silence. Behind those dull eyes were memories of better times and better days, of summers gone and friends sent into darkness. Of the sun, brilliant, shining through the glass ceiling of his home, burning into him the feeling of something better, something greater. The safer days, the stable life, before he was differentspecialstrange. Everyone retreats to the same havens, in the end.
Hesitant, the voice meandered its way across the room. "How do you let them?"
.o.
Where do you come from? What planet? The Doctor asked, not looking away from the twisting and writhing mass of light. The question was flat and uninflected, and terribly, terribly serious.
We cannot say.
Irritation, attention still glued below. What do you mean, you can't say? That's the most ridiculous load of poppycock-
We... do not know.
Again, unexpected, but that seemed to be the order of the day. He projected towards his idea of 'where' they were and focused in on the minds, trying to feel out their structure and get a sense of their probable origin. It was impolite at best, but this had just become that much more serious. And they recoiled, pulling into themselves after he'd gotten only a glimpse, but even that glimpse was confusing. That doesn't make any sense...
A third voice broke in suddenly, fairly screaming in the echoey white space. Hurry hurry he's going to destroy it all our work all our efforts we will die we will all die there's no time he's weak he's weak he's weak...
And like that the voices were gone, leaving him alone, standing before a child's multi-dimensional drawing of the great harmonic frequency of the universe. Slowly evaporating into the white.
.o.
"By letting go," Sarah said softly, crouching beside the boy and reaching for his shoulder. The static buzzed again in her mind and another fact or two became obvious, like pieces of a puzzle slotting themselves into place. "You've been using them, building your pattern with them. And it is beautiful to look at. But you're killing them – all of them, to maintain it. That's not right. It isn't beautiful at all."
Silence. For a moment, she thought she'd won; she bit her lip, waiting. But it could never be that easy. She watched, horrified, as he spasmed under her grip and fell forward onto his side, shaking and crying and all but screaming out apologies to his angels and his gods.
"No, no please, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'll only do what you say I won't listen to her I'm sorry I'll do what you say forever..."
tbc. (c) ricebol 2007
