Note to readers: Before anyone mentions it, yes, I do know that female Gallifreyans are called Time Ladies. But in the context that I had it in, it just wouldn't fit. Now, some of you will be glad to hear that I have a whole load planned for Merry in the future and I also have her and the Doctor's time line planned in advance, that way I won't confused myself and/or you chaps. Please tell me if there's anything that you would like to see happen in particular, and I'll see what I can do! There's no point in me writing this if no one likes what's happening. Anyway, enjoy this chapter, and the many more to come! I had something else to say, but I've forgotten it. Never mind... I'm sure it'll crop up in the next chapter...
Groaning, Merry clamped her hands to the sides of her head. The white light was gone but the light she could see in front of her still hurt her eyes. Ironic really, seeing as there was very little light at all. Taking one hand from her head, Merry ran it along the floor.
"Non-organic material…" she muttered. Taking a deep breath, and smelling metal, she licked the floor in a very Doctor-esque notion, "Titanium flooring. No steel reinforcement. Interesting…" Slowly, Merry pulled herself into a sitting position. She blinked furiously, looking at her surroundings with great curiosity. She was in some kind of cell. The room was rectangular; the walls behind her and to her side were a dull greyish colour with no windows. They looked almost identical to the floors and, had it not been for the clearly marked white boarders, they would have run as one continuous barrier. In front of her was a wall of bars, wide enough to fit a hand through, but not a head. Well, a human head at least.
Merry stood up, still a little wobbly on her feet, and made her way over to the wall on her left. She knelt down and examined the white room boarders. They weren't anything more than a strip of wire, probably…
"Communication inhibitors," she said, finishing her train of thought out loud, "Used to prevent message signals being transmitted from here, or sent to here… Wow, they've really gone all out on me."
Taking a deep breath, Merry turned back to the bars. She had been fearing what she would see, so she had tried to put it off. But she couldn't anymore. Approaching the bars, she ran her hand along the cold metal. Droids were positioned outside her cell, dumb and lifelessly standing guard. She looked at the circuit cover on their chests. They were marked with a symbol she didn't recognised. By the design and the simplicity of the droids, Merry would have named them as Type 3, perhaps Type 4 or 5 at a stretch, which put them at about the fifty-second centaury; her mother had taught her all about robots. And so had her father.
Merry sighed loudly. She hated how her Mum always made her keep secrets. It was horrible and she saw how much it made her hurt inside. River had been going through a rough time, mainly because Merry had. She had only been back at school for a few days, and already she was being tormented for being clever. Nothing ever changes though, does it? She had been hoping that her classmates would have grown up over the summer and seen that it wasn't her fault she was intelligent. And of course, what Merry felt, River felt too.
River had been having sleepless nights ever since the start of term. Those, and an unusually large work load, were weighing her down, making her more susceptible to letting her emotions break through. Now it seemed that the appearance of the Doctor had sent her over the edge. The last time he had seen them both he had told them that the next time they would meet him, he wouldn't know who Merry was, or what he was to her. He made them promise to try to keep it from him as long as possible, because Merry would be in danger if they let their guard down. At the time, River had thought she could handle the strain… Well, no one has prophetic powers, do they?
When she was a child, River had told her how their time line with the Doctor would work when Merry was older. At the time, Merry didn't believe her; her Pappy was always travelling in the right order. But sure enough, on her thirteen birthday, a teary-eyed Doctor told her that this was probably the last time he would ever see her, but not the last time she would see him. It broke her heart that at that moment in time they were completely in sync. He knew her past, and even some of her future. Parting then had been the hardest thing she ever had to do. After that, things started to go downhill. Every time she saw him he knew less and less about her. She had to remember not to talk too much about the past, however much she wanted to. Finally, she was beginning to realise the pain her mother had been going through, and the pain she would have to go through in the future.
Watching her mother endure such agony made Merry stronger. But in the same way, whenever River was sad, so was she. She couldn't help it. But she'd never seen her mother as distraught as she was earlier. It terrified her that such a strong woman could break down as easily as that. Merry blamed herself. If she could just keep her worries to herself, and hide what was happening at school from her mother, River would be happier. But River could see through her completely, just like Amy could see through her. It was a terrible, mother-daughter chain: unbroken throughout, and despite of, time travel.
Merry pressed her head against the metal. She was thinking too much. Her head always hurt when she did that. She'd read in one of the Doctor's books that Time Lords rarely got headaches, but pregnant one's were prone to them. It had something to do with the foetus's developing active telepathic sensors. In the womb it didn't have the exposure to artron energy that it needed to be able to control its sensors, therefore causing the mother carrying it a lot of grief as it experimented. But she was pretty sure, with as much sexual experience as an amoeba in a fish tank, that that wasn't the problem. The Doctor had told her it was because the time vortex was the main source of the artron energy she needed to be able to control her sensors, and she hadn't been around it as much as any usual Time Lord would have when they were growing up. Yet he still refused to take her on a trip, insisting that it was too dangerous.
Well, now they were in real danger, whether he liked it or not. What didn't make sense to Merry was, if the Doctor knew that this was going to happen, why did he have to tell them to try and prevent it? Wouldn't that just cause a paradox? Merry felt as if she had been brought up inside a bloody paradox. She may as well start to introduce herself as "the paradox girl".
A sudden bang from down the dim corridor drew Merry's attention from her thoughts. The droids around her leapt to life. Well, "leapt" probably wasn't the right word. "Whirred" probably was. The one stood opposite her cell turned to the right and stood to attention. A tall droid walked into view and stopped in front of the smaller one.
"Release the girl. Bring her to the command deck." The tall droid ordered in its flat, robotic voice, before turning on its heel and heading back the way it came. It must have been a Droid Commander. The droid to the left of the cell pressed a few buttons, opening the door. Two of them came in, taking Merry's arms and marching her out roughly and down several monotonous looking corridors.
"How do you guys navigate this place? It's like a maze." Merry asked the droids in a feebly attempt to make conversation, looking down at the small slaves that only reached up to her shoulders. She almost felt sorry for them. She could take them out with little more than a flick. Provided they were disarmed, both of their guns and their pointy, painful little fingers. But then what would she do? She had no idea where she was going, other than the command deck. And she couldn't exactly ask for directions.
Soon enough, they reached a set of rather important looking doors. The Droid Commander was stationed outside. The two droids on Merry's arms positioned her so that she was stood opposite the doors. Merry peered behind them. She gasped involuntarily as she saw the sheer two hundred foot drop down onto what looked like an empty hanger. Two or three space craft were stationed by the far wall, no droids guarding them. The place was empty. Merry hadn't had much experience with space ships, but she was pretty sure, after watching the Star Wars films enviously, that hangers were generally a hive of activity in a working ship.
Merry looked back in front of her. The Droid Commander was stood in front of her, facing the doors. A sudden plan hatched in Merry's mind. It was simple enough. She looked down the corridors left and right and saw nothing. Her parents had always spoken of being stupidly brave in the face of danger, despite being scared. Trusting that they knew what they were talking about, Merry took a deep breath.
Without much effort, she shoved the two droids on her arms backwards and over the edge of the hanger. Hearing the noise, the Droid Commander turned to face her, readying its gun for a fight. But Merry was too quick. Not thinking twice, she punched the droid around the head, knocking out its visual sensors. The pain seared through her hand, travelling up her arm as she snatched the gun from its arms. In a panic, she shot it the chest: its centre command circuit. Slowly, the droid crumpled to the floor.
Merry sunk to her knees. So much for being brave like her parents. She looked at the shattered face of the droid. The silver metal mask was splattered with blood from her hand, and its visual sensors hung dislodged from their sockets. She'd killed it. It wasn't even alive, yet she was upset that she had killed it. What was happening to her?
She set down the gun, using her fingers to pry the frazzled metal away from the body. As she opened the creature up, she dropped the casing and screamed. There was a heart in the command circuit. A real, live, human heart. It was alive. But it wasn't now. Merry pushed herself away from the body, sliding across the floor as her whole body trembled. She was a murderer. That thing wouldn't have hurt her. It was only doing its job.
"Mum? Pappy?" Merry wailed, rocking herself back and forth, "Where are you?" Sobbing pitifully, Merry looked at her shaking hand. It was bleeding like hell, but she didn't care. The pain only made her feel better about taking a life that wasn't hers to take.
Suddenly, she looked up. Grabbing the gun and standing herself up again, Merry took a deep breath. She was being a baby. Her parents had done this and worse tones of times. And she wanted to make them proud. She wiped her eyes, grimacing as the salty water stung her bleeding hand. She didn't want to be a coward her whole life. She wouldn't let that happen. She was a Time Lord. Time Lords weren't cowards, and she wouldn't be the first to become one. Gritting her teeth, Merry bust open the door.