"Come in, Grace. You're not interrupting." The Doctor's eyes opened as she peered through the barely-open door to the meeting room. He was alone, sitting in the lotus position on the edge of the oval table. As Grace entered, he unfolded his legs to the floor and stood up. "Finished my mental preparations earlier than I thought," he said, tapping the side of his head. "I've been passing the time since then doing cryptic crosswords from magazines I've flicked through over the years. What do you make of 'Dab flow of mixed-up mean dog'?"
Grace thought for a moment. "'Bad wolf'?"
"Nah, couldn't be," said the Doctor. Then he frowned. "Well, maybe. But then nine down would have to change."
Grace looked around the room. "From her absence, I take it Rose is still cross with you?"
The Doctor shifted uncomfortably. "After throwing that pax-klefti at you, I'm not exactly in her good books." He made himself look Grace in the eye. "I'm sorry if I frightened you, before. I've been doing what I do for so long, sometimes I forget what it's like to see these things for the first time."
Grace found herself smiling. "Well, it wasn't the nicest surprise in the world. But I had to see it happen for myself, one way or another. I suppose it's better you got it over with quickly."
"Yeah, try telling Rose that." The Doctor rubbed his hands together. "Anyway, speaking of getting things over with: I'm ready when you are."
Grace swallowed. No point in putting it off. "Okay. So how does this work?"
"Not much to it, from your end. I'll touch the sides of your head for about ten, fifteen seconds and re-tune you to a different psychic frequency. That's all. You'll still feel the same and think the same."
"I just won't be a human bug-zapper any more."
"Your words, not mine," the Doctor chuckled. "But yeah. You'll still get the occasional pax-klefti bite, but no more than anyone else. That means a lot more energy left for living your own life." The Doctor lifted his hands, palms turned inwards. "Ready?"
"I'm ready." The Doctor reached towards Grace's head, and with more certainty than she had felt about anything in recent memory, she added, "To stay as I am."
The Doctor's hands stopped, then lowered to his sides. He squinted at her. "You what? Why?"
"You know why. The thing that brought you and Rose here, that surge in pax-klefti activity your machine detected - that was just their population returning to normal, right? That's what you told me. But I'm the reason it was lower than normal in the first place!" Grace paused for air. She felt slightly breathless, though in a good way. "And once I rearrange my life a bit so that I can sleep properly and stop walking around with an undercharged brain, I'm going to be that reason again."
The Doctor was incredulous. "Grace, you can't be serious! Do you know what that will mean? You'll be fighting the pax-klefti for the rest of your life! That's a lifetime of struggle, a lifetime of running on fumes, dragging yourself from one end of each day to the other by your fingernails. Why would you do that to yourself?"
"Because they don't know why!" Grace blurted. "All those other people out there that the pax-klefti feed on, having their thoughts eaten, their - their peace stolen, they don't even know it's happening! They don't know why they are the way that they are." She blinked away her tears. Enough crying today, she told herself. "They don't know that they're being eaten alive by these invisible monsters. So they blame themselves instead, and that rips them up from the inside, worse than the pax-klefti ever could. Those people - people like me - they deserve better. They deserve a chance to be happier, even if it's only a little happier. And if I have the power to give them that chance, then I have to do it."
The Doctor stared at her. "You deserve that chance, too."
Grace nodded. "Yes, I do. And this is me taking it, because I can."
The Doctor shook his head and sighed, staring out the meeting room window as the sun set over London. "Humans," he said, making it sound like such a heavy word.
"Alright then, Grace Kwan," he continued after a moment. "But if that's your final decision, then there's one more thing I have to do before I go." He hesitated. "You can't ever tell anyone I did this."
Grace blinked, having no idea what to expect after everything else that had happened that day. "Did what?"
The Doctor stood up straight, snapped his right arm to his forehead, held it there, then swung it back down again. A flawless salute.
"From one old soldier to another," he said, and before Grace could reply he walked past her and out of the door.
The End
