Chapter Nine
The Cost of Kindness
She brushed her hair away from her eyes, triggering memories of having done a similar gesture in previous bodies, but it was new due to the fact that she had to deal with more hair than any of her predecessors. She was kneeling over a humanoid who was obviously a male and was seemingly only a teenager. He took a shaky gasp as he looked up at her.
The teenaged guy had short blonde hair which was cut close to his scalp, making him seem almost bald because of how fine his hair was. His eyes were big blue doe-eyes, full of innocence. She could feel her hearts twist in pain by how someone so young was in such a state and obviously due to an outside force. He didn't even look panicked, possibly because he was in a state of confusion. If someone were to call attention to the wound which tore his belly up and caused his own blood to puddle around him, he would most likely panic. She knew that if she were to keep the guy calm, he would live longer.
"Everything will be fine," she said gently, "I'm the Doctor."
"How am I?" he asked, his voice tinged with pain.
"You'll be fine," she said with a gentle smile before asking, "what happened?"
"I saw something move," he said before gasping, tears forming in his eyes, "I was attacked. I don't know by who or by what. Am I going to die?"
"Just stay calm," she said, her voice still retaining the gentleness she'd been using the whole time but with a serious edge, "can you do that for me?"
"I don't wanna die," he said, starting to cry.
"I think most would agree with that statement," she said, trying to keep the guy calm as she smiled.
"You should stop running soon," he said weakly before closing his eyes and letting out a sigh.
"Rest easy," she said to the guy before standing up, pulling out her screwdriver in a fluid motion, scanning the area, the tip glowing a turquoise color as she spun around before settling on a direction and started to run.
"Where are we going?" Allie asked, trying to keep up.
"Who or whatever did this left a bit of a trail," she stated, her face almost unreadable, "mostly because they were wearing a shimmer suit. Consider it to be like a personal cloaking device, capable of making you appear humanoid. Which means whatever it is, they're most likely very not humanoid in the slightest. And they don't want to be found."
"So we're going to find them," Allie said lightly.
"Of course we will," she replied, her tone almost sarcastic as she made a sharp turn down a street, keeping to the sidewalk, "it's kind of what I do."
"But I thought you were adamant about retiring," Allie stated sharply.
"I may be retired but I'm not one to ignore the fact that an innocent life was ended for no reason," she stated, frowning as she stopped, "and the trail ends here. But why here?"
Allie looked around and then down before the Doctor noticed that she was staring at the ground and looked down to see a manhole and gave Allie a grin.
"No," Allie said, her tone disbelieving as the Doctor slipped her Sonic Screwdriver into her pocket and kneeled over the manhole cover in order to find a way to remove it.
"Aha! Got it!" the Doctor exclaimed almost happily before lifting the manhole cover and setting it aside, "Andale!"
"I'm not going to go down in some sewer!" Allie exclaimed, "what if there's huge freaking space rats or overly large, mutated alligators?"
"Then we'll run," The Doctor replied with a smile, "C'mon, Allie Irving! Adventure awaits!"
"I can't believe this!" Allie fumed as the Doctor climbed down into the sewer with her following the alien which was starting to confuse her.
"Doctor?" Allie asked as she climbed down slowly.
"Hmm?" Allie heard from below her as she continued to climb.
"Earlier… right after the meatloaf, you were very hesitant about being involved to the point I had to convince you to stop your people," Allie stated.
"I seem to recall that. I suppose you're confused over my seemingly change of heart, hmm?" Allie could hear the Doctor say from below her before hearing the sound of footsteps hitting concrete, "you've got two more steps until the ground."
"Thanks," Allie said as she reached the ground, "and yes, you've managed to confuse me."
The Doctor held her sonic screwdriver in her hand, activating it so that she could follow the trail through the sewer. She was starting to wish that her sense of smell wasn't better than the standard human's. She could deal without being able to smell the sewage better than Allie could.
"I seem to have a habit of confusing those who decide to travel with me," the Doctor said lightly, her quiet voice still managing to echo, even if the echo itself was very slight.
"But why be involved if you're so afraid of dying?" Allie asked.
"Because there are a few things I just can't ignore. There are a few things in this universe which, if I detect, I can't ignore. An innocent person dying for seemingly no rhyme nor reason is just one of those things. Especially if it's a child."
"But you mentioned that you're over a thousand years old," Allie said, "everyone'd be a child compared to you."
"So you manage to catch onto that detail," the Doctor said, a small smile in her tone, "that's good. I'll miss you once I drop you off at your home on Earth."
"How long have you been traveling alone, Doctor?" Allie asked.
She really didn't want to answer. She let out a sigh, trying to find something, anything really, to sidetrack the conversation. She didn't want to have this conversation. She didn't want to admit the fact that she'd been traveling alone for too long, just as she'd admit that she didn't really want to leave Allie behind. But she knew she should. It never helped to get attached to humans, but she never could prevent that. Try as hard as she might, she knew that she would get attached to Allie and that losing her would hurt just as much, if not worse, than losing any of her previous companions.
"How long?" Allie said, her tone becoming insistent.
"Can we have this conversation some other time? Any other time, really?" she asked, not turning to speak to Allie since she wanted to get to the end of the trail and stop more people from dying.
"Fine. I will bring this up once we're done cleaning up this mess," Allie stated, sounding rather annoyed.
She let out a sigh, a little annoyed at herself from pushing Allie away. She was becoming quite rude again. She wondered if it was just something that came with age. She wondered how Allie would deal if she were to meet her end before she could get Allie back to her home, assuming she did take her on as a traveling companion. She would have to reset Emergency Program One. That was going to be hard. It would be hard, not because of any real difficulty in doing so, but because of the memories associated with it. She hadn't reset it since it was set, regenerations ago.
She pushed the memories and thoughts away from her mind, knowing she would have to focus on what was happening in order to keep Allie safe. It was in tense situations like this that she didn't think about herself. However, she couldn't ignore that little voice at the back of her head, warning her. Careful now. This is the last body I'll ever have. Don't want to waste this one. That'd be daft of me. Losing a body I'm just breaking in after regenerating less than twenty-four hours ago. I'm not that careless.
She stopped in her tracks and then scanned the walls, seeing a ladder leading up. According to the sonic, the trail went up the ladder. Pocketing the sonic, she walked to the ladder and started to climb. She couldn't wait to have actual fresh air rather than the dank, foul smelling air she'd been breathing in for about a half an hour. She knew she was going to have to clean herself very well after the nice walk in a sewer.
She silently climbed up the ladder, hearing Allie climb behind her. Finally reaching the manhole cover, she balanced to use the ladder for stability as she used both of her hands to move the manhole cover out of the way. The first thing she noticed was that the daylight made her flinch. As she blinked away the temporary blindness, she noticed the second thing that registered in her mind. That there were guns pointed at her.
"Oh, hello there!" she said brightly with a grin, "don't mind us. We're just sewer inspectors, inspecting the sewers. Someone's got to control the numbers those large people eating things down there. Luckily enough, we only encountered trace amounts of Vasta Narada and no massive people eating things. I suppose you want to see our identification."
She pulled out a leather-bound blindfold and she hoped that it wasn't her millennia-old library card. She was going to need to renew that before too long. She flipped it open, facing the people with guns. They looked at her before snarling.
"Psychic paper doesn't work on us," one of the humanoids snarled with a grin, his skin pale with dark hair and eyes.
"It was worth a shot," the Doctor said with a frown as she climbed out.
"What are we going to do now?" Allie asked.
"Find out who and what they are," she replied quietly before turning to one of the humanoids, an adult male with the same pale skin and black hair, this one's black hair was pulled back into a ponytail of some sort and had various types of tribal tattoos on his face and arms, "So what exactly are you lot? It's awfully hard to tell with your shimmer suits on."
"We are Niarlan," the man stated with a grunt.
"I know an awful lot about your people," the Doctor said, turning serious and grim, "you lot are very far away from your home. What are you doing so far away from your little corner of the galaxy, hmm? And I know how you think. If it can't defend itself, it's weak and worth being killed. It's all that matters is who's top dog."
The man glared at the last bit, growing angry as he hit a circular device that hung at his hip, becoming a canid bipedal creature with scales underlying the fur, both being black in color. Allie gasped, taking a step back.
"I'm good," the Doctor said with a grin, "because I know that you don't want to fight me."
"And why's that?" the creature asked with a deep, throaty growl as the Doctor's expression went from light and jovial to something much darker and much more sinister.
"Because I'm your worst nightmare. I've destroyed countless worlds. I'm responsible for multiple genocides. Even the Daleks feared me once, calling me such things as 'the Predator', 'the Oncoming Storm', and 'the Destroyer of Worlds'. The question is, are you as thick to try to mess with someone who makes the Daleks quiver in terror? Well?"
All of the guns lowered almost at the same time as the Niarlans stepped back, almost in respect. The Doctor walked up to the undisguised Niarlan as Allie was started to be filled by fear just by the expression on the Doctor's face. An expression filled with anger and rage and barely restrained wrath. For the first time since meeting the alien, Allie was starting to have honest second thoughts.
"Smart move," the Doctor said darkly, "now, tell me – what is your business here. Come on, tell me. Tell me what exactly brought you here."
"It's a Niarlan matter," the undisguised Niarlan stated with a frown, "nothing for outsiders to get mixed up with."
"Then tell me why a child was murdered in cold blood!" the Doctor shouted angrily, her body shaking with the effort to restrain her anger, "then tell me why one family has lost one of their children!"
"He got in the way of our hunt," the Niarlan stated, "and if you get in our way, you will join that child."
"I think not," the Doctor said, her voice just above a whisper, "and just keep in your small, thick minds just who you're dealing with. I'm the Doctor, a Time Lord. If I see another murdered innocent, the hunters will become the hunted. There will be no safe place for you and your people in this whole universe. That's your one warning I'll give you."
With that, the Doctor turned around and started to walk away. She could hear Allie starting to follow her, trailing behind her. She headed towards an alley where no one would care to look for anyone in, or would even want to look into to see people there. She needed to sit down for a moment and compose her thoughts and maybe calm her raging emotions. Finding a solid box that she knew would hold her weight, she sat down and hugged her knees to her chest and rested her head on her knees.
"Are you okay?" Allie asked after a lengthy silence.
"I've yet to get injured," she answered, almost muffled by the way she was sitting.
"I was talking about emotionally, you dork!"
"I'm starting to think I haven't been emotionally okay since the war," she said quietly.
"Can I ask you something? It's something I need to know before anything else happens."
"Okay."
"What was all that about destroying worlds and genocide?"
"Do you honestly think that my hands aren't caked with blood?"
"I didn't think that you were a monster."
"I think I am. Did I ever tell you how the war ended? It ended because of me. I sealed the entirety of the war in a bubble where time is speeding along within the bubble, while on the outside, time is at its normal pace. In effect, I condemned my own people to death. My people, my family. Gone. All because of me! All because I knew that if no one did something, the universe would have collapsed under the strain of the war," Allie could hear the Doctor as the alien remained motionless before she continued, "and I thought I recovered from it all long ago."
"I think it's because you're dealing with hormones and the fact that there are others of your own people out there," Allie offered.
"Right. Girls are often very… emotional," the Doctor said before jumping up suddenly, grinning widely and acting as if she hadn't been angst ridden moments ago, full of the manic energy Allie had realized was the alien's normal mood, "let's see what that hunting party's hunting for, shall we?"
Allie nodded dumbfoundly, wondering if she should see an actual doctor for the case of whiplash she experienced because of the Doctor's moodiness. She smiled a little as the alien grabbed her wrist.
"Andale!" the Doctor exclaimed, pulling Allie along as the two girls left the alleyway behind.
Author's Note 3/11/13
I'm so sorry that I didn't get this done and up during the weekend. I wound up wandering around TVTropes while watching a show that was intended for those much, much younger than I am (but it's so cute and has good writing…). And then before I knew it, I was listening to audio dramas which is a crossover due to the fact that there is a background character throughout the cartoon which is surprisingly like the Doctor and is constantly seen running by. (Okay, the cartoon was My Little Pony and the crossover audio drama is called Doctor Whooves Adventures and both are very addicting.)
I really should get working on a final project for my class (expected to be possible to complete in an hour and I'm mostly done with it). I just hope that I could stave off my Doctor Who addiction until the new episode comes out. I do have a season of the 8th Doctor's audio dramas left plus a ton of Classic Who on Netflix and the new episode of Doctor Whooves Adventures is coming out soon and I've yet to listen to any Doctor Whooves and Assistant outside of the huge crossover (the crossover was epic and hilarious due to there being two different Doctors in the same location… seems to be a reoccurring thing where if there's two or more different Doctors involved, they will argue and bicker… with the exception of Time Crash.).
Don't forget to be awesome, everyone!
~Gregora