Chapter 25 – Falling Down
Susan sighed out and ran a frustrated hand through her hair. Andred, Romana, James, K'anpo, and Leela had showed up on the doorstep mere minutes after the Doctor and Rose had left. Her plans for the evening, namely ravishing and being ravished by Koschei, were scrapped and she was stuck trying to explain his sudden reform and her relationship to him, to angry and suspicious Time Lords, a relationship she was no ways certain she could explain to herself, let alone to them.
K'anpo and James were silent through it all, merely watching as the drama played out. K'anpo looked troubled, but at least he didn't leak out hatred and anger like the other three did.
"I'm willing to believe anything of the High Council these days, Susan, but have you got any idea how many horrible things he's done over the centuries?" Andred snarled, with his hands clenched at his side, as he paced through the living room. Susan remained quietly seated beside Koschei, hands clasped together, on the black leather couch where she had sat, not that long ago, explaining her survival to Rose.
James was leaning against a wall nearby, his Victorian garb changed for a dove gray modern suit, while K'anpo sat in the chair the Doctor usually used, still in his Tibetan style robes. Romana, in her brown long coat and slacks, was standing near James, shooting distrustful looks at the former Master, while Leela, in black t-shirt and fatigue pants, sat, frowning, with arms crossed, in Rose's chair.
"I'm right here," Koschei reminded him with a grimace. "Look, it makes me sick to think about everything I've done and I'd really rather not think about it, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten a single thing." His voice was flat and toneless and she could feel the anguish roiling inside of him. "I know what I'm guilty of."
"I don't trust you," Romana snapped at him and Susan could feel his flinch as the jagged angry thoughts of the other three lashed out.
"That's fair enough," he sighed out. Susan held his hand tightly, lending him her emotional support, trying to protect him as best she could.
"Whatever the council did to you, you had a choice in how to behave!" Andred shouted at him and Koschei merely nodded.
"That's not fair! He was only eight years old!" Susan protested. "They layered him in compulsions! They twisted everything inside him and made it serve their purposes!"
"And those compulsions lasted all this time?" Romana asked disbelievingly.
"Why didn't he ask for help?" Andred asked right on top of Romana's question.
"Yes, they lasted that long, Rassilon himself created them, and one of the compulsions was to mistrust and hate anyone who tried to help me," he explained, answering both questions. His voice was so tired and his heart so sore that Susan was bleeding inside for him, but didn't know how to help.
"Please, I've been inside his head, I've seen what they did and all the damage that was done to him. Please leave him be," she implored and Romana gave her a long look.
"You've seen that he's safe now?" she asked and Susan laughed, though it was a bitter sound, rather than mirthful.
"Which of us is "safe", Romana?" she asked. "Which one of us didn't do something we are bitterly ashamed of in the War?" Andred, Leela, and Romana all turned away, guilt and grief in their faces and their minds. "But he's not about to enslave the planet or kill us all, if that's what you want to know."
"May I also point out that I did try to fight the compulsions? I really did. I mean, didn't you see how badly my plans all fell apart. My hearts were never really in it," he admitted and Susan nearly laughed aloud at the looks on the other's faces. "I mean, really, some of the stuff I did was practically a cry for help," he sighed.
"You did have some rather dumb plans," Andred admitted.
"Thank Omega they never succeeded," Koschei sighed out and the others fell silent.
"I am willing to wait and see, all right?" Andred told them. "But if you do anything to hurt anyone…!" he let the threat hang and Koschei nodded.
"Captain, if I ever revert to that person, I would want you to kill me," he answered and the sincerity in his eyes and mind were unavoidable. His self-loathing was always there, right under the surface, Susan realized, and that worried her a lot more than she wanted to admit.
"Now come on, Rose, it's just like our first date," the Doctor told her and Rose resisted the urge to punch him, but it was a close thing. They were running for their lives, being chased by shop window dummies. Yes, it was very like their first meeting, except for the fact that she hadn't been wearing strappy high heels and an expensive and rather chilly dress.
"I would have preferred to reenact it with more clothes on," she informed him and he whipped his coat off and draped it around her, even as they kept running. She tugged it around herself tightly and grinned. "Best husband in the universe, you are!" she chirped and he smiled back. Holding hands, they pelted around another corner and the Doctor pulled out his cellphone.
"Hey, Pete! The Sycorax appear to have been a diversion, there are Autons… Autons, Pete!… A-U-T-O-N-S, yes that's right, and they are running amuck down here!" he shouted into his phone. Rose was fairly sure that they had told Pete about the Nestene Consciousness and the Autons, but she couldn't remember for certain.
The whizzing of bullets, the screams of civilians, it was all so familiar. She didn't mind it at all, normally, but these shoes were killing her. They were headed at their best speed towards Torchwood One, dodging bullets and ducking around screaming civilians.
The sound of a TARDIS materializing came from nearby and they exchanged glances and sped in that direction. A shabby newspaper kiosk materialized on the street and Koschei poked his head out and waved them forward.
They skittered to a stop inside Susan's TARDIS and he slammed the door behind them with a frown.
Susan was already resetting coordinates and hitting the dematerialization switch even as they ran up to the console.
"Can we trace the Nestene?" Koschei called out to them as they all moved into positions around the console.
Four pilots, Rose thought gleefully, this is so brilliant! Her husband shot her a 'kid in the candy shop' grin and she returned it with interest.
"Locking on," Susan answered Koschei and Rose noted how the two of them worked so smoothly together that they seemed almost like one person. Susan would hit a button and Koschei would slip past her to shift a lever and neither had to speak a word to make it happen. She glanced at her husband and wondered if they would ever reach that level of synch.
"Yes," he murmured to her, hearts in his eyes, and his love enfolding her like a warm blanket. She wasn't as much at ease with telepathy as he was, but she reached out to him haltingly, trying to return the feelings. Malla's guidance steadied her and she sent the emotions towards him. She wasn't quite sure how to do it exactly, up until now it had mostly been accidental when she'd sent him things. This was her first real attempt to make contact consciously.
"Get out!" Susan screamed and jerked sideways, stumbling to her knees and then falling to the floor of the TARDIS. Koschei abandoned his station and knelt down to cradle her against him, his body, and Rose could dimly sense, his mind, shielding her.
She realized what had happened in a flash of consternation. Somehow she'd broadcast her feelings in too wide a pattern. She'd sent it to everyone, including Susan. Rose gathered every scrap of herself behind her shields in an instant, but the damage had been done.
Koschei threw his shields around Susan, blocking her from Rose's sending. He could feel her frantic retreat into her own mind. The unexpected intrusion had triggered her defenses, honed fine by centuries of attacks, into a protective withdrawal. She was curled up in the center of her being, scared, traumatized, and locked in the throes of memory. He could feel her in there, but had no idea what to do to help her.
"Shay, find the cord of your link with her," the Doctor murmured to him. Looking up, he saw his old friend kneeling across from him, not touching Susan in any way, but staring at them both with sadness and compassion.
"She's all closed up," he protested. How was he supposed to get inside her mind while she was locking out everything and everyone?
"Nothing can break your link to her, except death, find it and follow her in." The Doctor's voice was gentle and sad, filled with a quiet patience that he had rarely seen before.
Taking a deep breath, he searched through his own being until he found it, the shining golden cord that connected their minds. Carefully, like a blind man feeling his way through an unfamiliar room, he eased himself along that thread. It went right through her defenses and, by clinging tightly to it; he could slip in as well. Once past her walls, he found her mind in total lockdown. It was completely empty, no thoughts, no feelings, it was hollow as a corpse's.
He felt like crying.
So, this is how she had survived what they had done to her. She'd killed her mind again and again, shutting herself down completely to give them nothing to attack. It was brutally effective, but it must have felt like dying every time she did it.
"Oh, my poor girl," he sighed into her mind. The courage it must have taken to do this, the strength of will, it humbled him and enraged him at the same time. How dared they drive her to this? It was a damn good thing that the bastards were all dead, because he could easily go back to his old ways if faced with them right now.
The golden cord led off into the darkness and he followed it, hoping that when he found her he could do something, anything, to help.
"You'll be getting to her center soon," the Doctor's mental voice was the merest whisper, he was staying far back, so as not to interfere in their bond, and Koschei was grateful for both his assistance and his care.
"What do I do, when I get there?" he asked, desperation tingeing his voice.
"Help her," was the answer and he felt a flash of terror. Help her? He wasn't even sure that he could help himself. Susan was the one who seemed to know what to do in these situations. After all, she'd followed him down into his darkness and pulled him back, she'd kept him from hurting himself with his bitterness and regret. She'd saved his sanity time and again and all he'd done was lean on her like she was a crutch. What if he did something wrong? What if her hurt her? What if he destroyed her?
"I'm scared." That was the truth. The real truth, the deepest most honest thing he'd ever known. He'd been a child and they'd taken him over and warped him. He'd spent most of his adult life, hundreds of years, under the compulsions of the High Council, driven mad by their actions, driven to the dark places in his soul and forced to live there. In all that time he'd been alone, far more alone and lonely than he'd realized.
The one moment of true connection, the first time he'd felt like he was seen, understood, and been part of something greater than himself, had been the result of his attack on her mind. How rubbish was that? That he could only find a soul to touch his own through violence and cruelty. How was he to help her, when he was soaked in blood and death, a creature who'd expressed only violence and contempt for so long that he wasn't sure he knew anything else anymore? He was the monster of nightmare, the beast that rent and tore and slew. He couldn't be the one to heal her, he was a thing made of shattered fragments, held together by his pain and her determination. He couldn't do this thing.
"There isn't anyone else; you're the only one who can help her." The voice of his oldest and dearest friend whispered to him and he felt that hammer blow rock through him. She needed him and here he was wallowing in misery again.
He took a deep breath and plunged down, falling into the deepest darkness of her empty mind until the cord ran into a light so bright it hurt to see. She'd condensed her essence into a tiny space, like she'd made her soul into a singularity. Slowly, gently, he called to her.
"Susan, it's okay. No one is attacking you. It was just Rose. It was an accident. Please Susan, come on back." He nattered on, calling, pleading, reaching out so very lightly to her, and hardly daring to touch the brilliant pinprick of light.
Like a flower made of star shine, she unfolded, slowly, carefully, wisps of her thoughts drifting out and testing her safety.
"Koschei?" it was the quietest of sounds, but he smiled to hear it.
"Right here."
She exploded outward and it was like holding a star, or being pressed up against someone as they regenerated. She moved through him and he was staggered by the beauty of her. What passed between them was wordless, but it changed everything.
As she had gone to his rescue, so he had proved he'd go to hers.
Rose clenched her hands together, holding the feelings of guilt and misery tightly inside. The Doctor knelt by Koschei and Susan, his face tense, his hands carefully on his knees, and she could feel the restraint he held himself under. This was the second time Susan had collapsed and this time, there was nothing he could do to help. The urge to rush in and save everyone was strong in him, but he left it to the man who'd, not long ago, been in dire need of rescue himself.
Susan lay pale and still, her hair splayed out, looking like pooling blood on his jacket. He clutched her against himself, those startling blue eyes riveted on her face. They might deny it and pretend indifference to each other, but the tenderness with which he cradled her belied that pretense.
It was all her fault, she knew, if she hadn't tried to use abilities she wasn't trained in, she wouldn't have hurt Susan. She wanted to fold up and cry, but concentrated instead on Malla's patient instruction in keeping her energy contained and away from the still figure of the woman on the floor. The last thing she wanted to do was to compound her initial error with further intrusions.
There was a moment of timeless suspension and then Susan's body arched and her eyes flew open. They stared at each other for a long moment, blue into brown, communicating in silence and then Susan smiled at him.
"Sorry to scare you," she murmured and then turned her head to include them all. The Doctor touched her lightly on the shoulder, his eyes still worried beneath drawn brows.
"Quite right, too," he joked, though there was little humor in his face or voice.
"I'm so sorry!" Rose apologized and Susan shook her head. She had still not moved from the circle of Koschei's arms, nor had he made any motion to release her.
"No, my fault, I should have fixed all this before now," she told Rose with another head shake, absolving her from blame. Koschei frowned at her and opened his mouth to say something, before he shook his head and then helped her stand.
"Autons," he reminded them, instead of whatever he was originally going to say. Susan nodded at him and went back to the console, her attention on the ship now. Obviously, he was going to wait to have whatever conversation they needed to have until the present crises was over.
"Right, back to work," she said absently and both the Doctor and Koschei let out the breaths they'd been holding and relaxed a bit more.
"I've got a lock," Rose told them, manipulating the controls with a confidence she was far from feeling.
"Allons-y!" the Doctor shouted and they all pretended that nothing had happened. Still, Rose felt like she'd nearly killed Susan and the guilt was hard to bear. She wondered how the others dealt with it. It must be a crushing weight on them with every breath.
Her mind was diverted by the TARDIS re-materializing. Right, she thought, back to saving the Earth.
The Doctor had one eye on Susan, even as he was stepping out of the TARDIS and scanning the area. He had only gotten a vague echo of Koschei's emotions while he was helping Susan, but it was enough to make him very, very angry.
Her reaction to Rose's fumbling telepathic reach, only served to underscore how poorly he'd protected Susan from the High Council and the Visionaries and that made him even angrier.
Which was probably not the best state for him to be in when he stepped into the large warehouse to face the Nestene Consciousness.
"Time Lords," the Nestene addressed them all and he stood and stared down at the vat of pinkish goo, trying to stuff his temper back into its box. "It has been decreed that you all must die."
"Decreed? By whom? And why?" the Doctor demanded. How did it even know who they were? This was a whole different universe! The time line had been changed so that there were no Time Lords here. Rose grabbed his hand and Koschei stepped between Susan and the Consciousness, his face set in an angry scowl.
"The Seers of the Nestene see all futures, all pasts, and share their visions with all versions of the Consciousness, we span all universes." The Doctor was gob smacked. In all the time he'd fought them, he'd never imagined that their consciousness extended so far.
"Are you angry at me for the last couple of times we tangled?" he asked. "Because I never meant to bring you harm, I only wanted to protect this world."
"Those losses were as the removal of tissue, small irritants, requiring no concern," the Nestene informed him and now the Doctor was even more baffled.
"Then why go after us?" he demanded.
"Your offspring knows. She has seen the future that we seek to prevent! The Time Lords will destroy all time and space, all of history will be lost!" Behind him, Susan gasped and the Doctor spun to look at her. Koschei was holding her hand tightly, his face white as paper, blue eyes blazing, and Susan matched his paleness.
"Then, if you have seen my vision, you already know that there is hope as well, that terrible fate can be averted!" Susan protested, with a hand out in supplication towards the Nestene.
"How can we risk all of time and space on the strength of so frail a thing?" the Nestene rebuked her. "Far better that all Time Lords die now, ending the threat, than that we hazard so great a danger!" the Doctor wasn't sure what Susan had seen or what great danger was looming, but something else was becoming clear to him.
"Who killed the Gallifreyans in this universe?" he demanded, pretty certain that the answer was gurgling in a tub in front of him.
"Hear us, Time Lord, a ship of time will explode, taking all of the multiverse with it, so all such ships must be destroyed! Those that created them, those that pilot them, till none are left to threaten us all!" the Nestene insisted, voice gone strident in anger.
"Doctor, there are Autons approaching," Koschei informed him, Susan's sonic screwdriver in his hand. While he'd been talking to the Nestene, the other man had been scanning the area.
"Why does that TARDIS explode? Why not stop the event itself?" The Doctor was getting angry again and he fought to control his rage. It made no sense to destroy all TARDIS if only one was at fault.
"That is being dealt with as well," the Nestene assured them and the cruelty in that voice chilled him. "There are two events that must be avoided, Time Lord. The explosion of the TARDIS is the first and if it is averted, there is still another." The Nestene seemed to gather itself, as though even speaking the words were disturbing to it. "The Silence will fall, when the question is answered, Doctor. Before that can happen, all the Time Lords must be destroyed! Anyone that can pilot a TARDIS, anyone who knows the answer, they all must die!" insisted the Nestene.
"What question?" he demanded.
"That is as yet, unknown," was the answer and the Doctor was feeling less than charitable just then.
The sound of plastic feet stomping was coming closer and the Doctor looked at his family standing behind him. He'd failed to protect them before, but he was damned if he'd fail again.
"Stop now and I will spare you, you have one chance," he warned.
"To save everything, Doctor, we must risk… everything," was the Nestene's answer and he reached into his pocket and grabbed the vial he'd hidden. He threw the anti-plastic in a high arcing curve and watched it sinking into the Nestene Consciousness.
Then they turned and ran.