It occurs to me that the astute listener might question why my medical room is equipped with a sedative gas release which (I have checked, and am informed) is absolutely, one-hundred percent, totally legitimate except a tiny little bit. And I could answer them. I really could. But I'd rather know what an astute listener who found that odd might think of one of the flat metal slabs being equipped with four shackles, a collar and an upper body restraint.
And I'm not telling.
It was just one of those things I always knew would come in handy. That's my justification and that's the only justification you'll hear from me. It's all I need, considering that right now I am currently no longer under threat from a certain surreptitious stowaway, due to its being chained down in front of me.
I think of the helipad and am assured by this whole situation that it too shall someday soon be useful.
And, for the record, it is waking up. Relatively quickly too. But then again, the trials that got that sedative banned were primarily conducted on humans, and these things do vary, species to species.
I have not yet removed its mask. I don't see why I should. If that's how it murdered, that's how it'll pay the price. The eyes beyond it start to drift open. Large and round and an extraordinary electric blue. They swim a bit, at first. Then light on me.
The pupils shrink to pinpricks. From the toes up, every muscle seems to think it is about to run. And when it doesn't go anywhere, it thrashes against its restraints. I let it. Stand back and admire its spectacular recovery time from sedation, and how long it manages to go on trying before it falls back, chest rising and falling against the steel loop over it.
I broke the blades off its arms. The ends are jagged like splintered wood, cold and strong like metal, and ooze a little like open flesh.
Even now, exhausted, it strains away, trying not to even look at me. But since it has no ears to hear the pleas for mercy, I'll have to make it. I grab it by the chin of its mouthless mask, tugging its tight dark hood up with it, and bring my face down so it can see. I know when it can see because the eyes go all wide and damp again.
"Didn't I tell you you were in very deep trouble, Little Ghost?"
It nods. Or maybe my hand makes it move its head. Either or, doesn't much matter; rhetorical question anyway.
Less rhetorical. "Now tell me who you are."
My hand has nothing to do with the way it turns its head on its side. The eyes behind the mask go dull, an utter lack of comprehension.
"Who sent you?"
It shakes its head. "Does that mean nobody or just that you're not telling me?" It shakes its head.
For a moment, my hands hover near its temples. I could, if I were so inclined, have a nose about for myself in the Little Ghost's head. It would save a lot of time and effort in dealing with an indisposed deaf-mute. It's something I never take lightly, and that more so when I can already imagine what horrors it might leave with me. It sees me hesitate. Its head lashes up at me, and behind the mask I hear teeth gnash together, snapping. So I place my hand over its face and push it back down.
"No, Little Ghost. 'Rahr' is my word now."
I walk away from it, out across the room. I am trying to think, and looking at it makes thinking with clarity and a definite moral centre difficult. Behind me, I feel it raising its head again, watching after me. All I have to do is point out behind me and it drops back like a puppet.
As it turns out, it's still difficult to think with clarity and a definite moral centre. I can think very easily of the things the Little Ghost has undeniably done, and the things too that it has probably done. I can think very easily of the things that deserve to happen to the Little Ghost. And it causes me only a very mild, negligible even, discomfort, to count the number of these which I could inflict upon the creature. On behalf of my race, you understand. Not because it tried to kill me.
A little bit because it tried to kill me. Not very much.
Too easy to think of those. Down by my side, one of my hands has balled up in a fist, quite without my knowledge or permission. Now that I'm aware of it, however, there's something pleasant about the sensation. Something very right.
I force it loose and shake out my knuckles until they crack. Enough of that.
When I turn back, the Little Ghost is staring at the door, as if it can will itself out. I slip around the table and lower myself into its line of sight. The fist might have been wrong, and all the low, unspeakable thoughts of how it might suffer as I have suffered ('me and mine', I should say), but to see that same dilation in the eye all over again, hear its breathing jump up a desperate, panicked gear, smell that iron-and-sweat tang of its fear, that's right. I do not question it. Some things, when they happen, are too perfect to be questioned.
"You kill Time Lords," I tell it. It's not a question, but the Little Ghost nods, perhaps just to show it understands. "You killed the Keeper, and tried to kill me." It nods again. "I am a Time Lord. Matter of fact, I'm the last one, and there might have been a couple more hanging about if it wasn't for you. You know, I always wondered, how they knew that every-Gallifreyan-that-e'er-there-was was on Gallifrey when the lock happened. Was nobody out on business? Off on a jaunt? Nobody sunning themselves on Antiphon's silvery shores? But it wouldn't have mattered, would it, Little Ghost? You would have gotten them all, eventually. Just my tough luck not to be there. On time, of course, I mean… But enough about me. It all brings us to the one big question, doesn't it, little one? Of what exactly we're going to do with you."
"Doctor!" The scream so loud, so sudden, so everywhere, that I cry out and jump away from the table. At first I presume the Little Ghost must have found its voice, but as that panic passes, it strikes me – that voice, the one that just yelled out my name to echo eternal through the wastes of the starless place outside, that voice had a Scottish accent.
"…Pond? Tardis-Pond?"
"Hello? Doctor, are you there? Doctor, say something!"
The speakers. I was turning them on to chase the Ghost, but I never turned any of them off again. I do it now before that voice comes again, lest I end up the one with no ears to hear.
On the wall, there is a monitor, a camera link to the console room. Handy if anybody's ever up here sick or injured, as opposed to just chained to the only safe table in the only safe room. Tardis Pond is gone, as she rightly should be. No, the Pond speaking to me is a frantic face on another further monitor. She may be sealed off, but the console obviously sensed the urgency of the call and chose to connect. I press down the intercom button.
"Amelia, I'm here, what's the matter?"
"I need you here. Where are you?"
"You won't see me, I'm not in the room. What is it, Pond, what's wrong?"
"I need you here, Doctor, now. It's River."
"Oh, I know, she's escaped again, they announced it. It's alright, it's me she wants."
Pond's pretty little face furrows up, raging. "I know!" she cries, and turns her camera round.
There, in a twenty-first century suburban living room, my wife is holding a fifty-third century gun to her father's head.
Pond turns the camera back on herself. Lost and tearful, she says, "She's asking for you. She's lost it, Doctor, I don't know what to do."
There are seven letters in 'divorce'. None of them repeat. There are seven letters in 'wedding'. Two of them are the same, and this repetition is pretty much at the centre of the word. 'Divorce'. It rolls a little better off the tongue, doesn't it? A sort of a sweet, round sound, like a humbug. You know, there are planets where the old tying-of-hands doesn't hold.
I look over my shoulder, just the once. The Little Ghost isn't going anywhere. Doesn't even seem to know that I'm having a conversation now it isn't vibrating through the walls.
And now that I'm thinking of it, River's given me an idea.
Also, Pond is crying.
"Tell her to put the gun down, I'll be there in a minute. You're her mother, Pond, be firm with her. Honestly, I don't have time to give parenting classes at the drop of a hat."
