Disclaimer etc.: see Prologue
By the way, this has a few little spoilers for 'The Idiot's Lantern' (I suppose), so if you haven't seen it… Well, please read anyway, but you could close your eyes at the spoilery bits I guess?
And if you can understand that, then you are one smart person!
And by the way, thanks to all you guys who reviewed. blushes I hope it doesn't disappoint…
Breath of Life
Chapter 1 - Diving
"What is it about the phrase 'Don't wander off' that is so amazing difficult to understand?"
At the sound of this mock-irritated voice a single sleepy owl swung its feathered head in the direction of this disturbance. Wide yellow eyes studied the lean, tousle-haired figure as it wandered purposefully along the rough semi-gravel path. A gust of wind bounded along the ground, catching the figure's long brown coat, writhing it up into the air, and ruffling the owl's snowy-white feathers. The bird's head swiftly disappeared underneath its wing; drowsy in the morning sunlight, but the Doctor kept striding along the path, unperturbed.
"I mean, honestly, it's like I'm speaking another language sometimes!" the Time Lord continued, twisting his hands deeper in his pockets. "It's like she goes looking for trouble!"
He thought for a second.
"Well, nothing wrong with the last part I s'pose… But she could at least let me know!" He blew out a breath through his still-strange teeth, and shook his head in amused exasperation.
Really though, it wasn't that he minded her going off, exploring, getting into trouble, he did it all the time; it was the consequences he was afraid of. What really terrified him was the remote possibility that one time she might wander off, and not come back. The vision of himself having to carry her broken body back to her mother haunted him whenever he let himself dwell on it.
Or, more recently, her faceless body.
A shadow slid across the Doctor's features at that thought. That had been like his worst nightmares made flesh; staring into her faceless visage, feeling the unstoppable rage building inside him. At that point, he would have ripped the universe apart to get her back. And later too, as her stolen face floated on the TV screen, the terror in her unseeing eyes had pierced his soul like a burning blade. Her lips had silently cried his name, calling for him to save her, and he had been able to do nothing.
Doctor! DOCTOR! DOCTOR!
He blinked in surprise and stopped in the middle of the path, the echoes of her voice drifting through his mind, ghostly fingers sending chills up his spine.
But…
That hadn't sounded like a memory.
"Excuse me, may I help you?"
The Doctor's head snapped up, and he favoured the stranger with a wide but worried grin. "Ah, yes, hello." His hand unwittingly sketched a wave without compulsion from his pre-occupied mind. "I'm the Doctor."
The stocky be-robed man before him gave him a slight bow, his hands clasped over his stomach, smiling like a benevolent Earth Buddha. "Welcome, Doctor. I am Brother Malchize," he greeted. "Is there any way I might aid you? You seemed… worried."
"I think you might," the Doctor ventured. "I'm looking for my friend. I was told that she might have come this way. She's called Rose, Rose Tyler." He studied Malchize's face for an instant. "Have you seen her?"
In the blink of an eye the monk's whole demeanour changed. His weight shifted onto the balls of his feet and his eyes became guarded, even though his face retained its open expression. For some reason his hands quirked upwards, towards the silver medallion that hung on a long chain around his neck, resting low on his chest.
"Ah," said the Doctor shortly, his worry rising. "You have seen her."
Doctor, please!
He started, visibly and mentally. Rose?
Malchize studied the Doctor through the eyes of a hawk. "You should not utter the name of the dead," he said softly, reverently. His recalcitrant fingers sketched a quick symbol over his stomach; a flick up, a flick down, a flick diagonally back. He inclined his head slightly, but not to the Time Lord. "It is disrespectful."
Name of the dead?
Rose!!
On a jerky whim the Doctor lashed out and snagged the medallion from where it hung around Malchize's neck, the chain snapping in two. A fierce-looking woman was immortalised in the silver metal, tails of blue-jewel studded hair swept across her forehead and breasts. Her face carried an insufferably haughty expression, emerald eyes flaming like green fire.
The Doctor's dark eyes studied the medallion, every muscle in his body tense with worry and fear. "Isatai," he said shortly. "Ancient goddess of water and wind." His eyes flicked to Malchize. "Am I right, hmm?" Back to the symbol. "Isatai, Isatai, Isatai… Ah! Worshipped across roughly… seventeen worlds, right?" Back to Malchize, who was looking somewhere between worried and scared. "Has crazily devoted cult, I'm guessing you're one of them." Medallion again, and then stopped. "Oh. Oh no." His head started to shake. "No no no no no no!"
"Doctor?"
The Time Lord lunged forward, grabbing the monk by his robe front, dropping the medallion to the dirt. His foot crushed it into the ground, not entirely by accident. He shook Malchize. "Isatai. Eventually derided and wiped out. Hated. Ooh, maybe four-hundred years from now? Yeah, that'd be about right." He shook Malchize again, harder this time. He was angry now, angry and terrified. "Why? I'll tell you why. Live sacrifices."
"The goddess demands it," Malchize said, his tone intended to be placating. He pushed the Doctor away. "She requires it."
The Doctor's expression was dazed. "Drowning," he murmured. "Death by drowning." The anger slid back onto his face, pure and simple, and was quickly replaced by terror. "You drowned Rose!"
And then he was running.
The water was smooth now.
Well, as smooth as it ever got. It was a rippling carpet of crinkled blue silk, occasionally broken by a tiny white horse rearing its foamy head out of the water. This place wasn't quite the sea, but it was large and deep enough for hundreds to have lost their lives in its depths.
The water was smooth now.
Mere minutes ago the air had been filled with voices; first conversation; then protests; then screams. A struggling body had been thrown down, cords twisted around its limbs to keep it from escaping its end. It had sunk down, still fighting, until it had just stopped, and hung there, limp beneath the calming surface.
The water was smooth now.
A man arrived beside the water. He was calling a name, one syllable, desperation in his eyes. Pebbles slid into the water as the man's feet scrabbled against the side, sending ripples out into the crunched satin. The man had stripped off his coat and jacket now, still staring down into the lake, still crying the name.
The water was smooth now, but not for long.
The man backed up, his chest heaving, eyes scared. He called something out, something different, not the name, something full of promise and terror, and then ran towards the water. His body arched towards the silky surface, slamming into the water in a perfect dive, his fingers dipping in first, followed a fraction of a second later by the rest of his body. He plummeted down, scything towards the other body, the calm body, still calling out.
Rose! God no, ROSE!
Deep beneath the surface, wrapping his arms around her still, lifeless form, the Doctor's hearts were screaming out in unbearable agony. This couldn't be happening, he was a Time Lord, he couldn't let this happen!
No! Rose!
He shook her, as much as he could while still underwater. Her skin was rapidly taking on a greyish pallor: he needed to get her to the surface. But first, she needed oxygen. His shaking fingers pinched her nose tight and he pressed his mouth over hers, frantically trying to force air into her lungs.
Please Rose, c'mon breathe, you gotta breath, c'mon Rose, please, please don't leave me, please please please…
His mind was incoherent, even to himself, and that was something new. All that mattered was getting her to breathe, was getting her to live. He started to kick his feet fiercely, driving them upwards towards the ever-out-of-reach sky as his arms held Rose tight to him, carrying her with him.
It seemed like an eternity until their heads broke the surface of the water. The Doctor was vaguely aware of dragging Rose's limp body to the shore, of pulling her onto the pebbled beach, of tears mingling with the water dripping down his face. He could hear his voice mumbling incoherent words as he tried desperately to resuscitate her. His hands thumped down on her chest, trying to force her lungs back into action. Shaking fingers pressed to the pulse point in her neck, finding nothing.
His lips pressed to hers over and over again, half pushing air into her lungs, half kissing her desperately back to life. And all he could think was, 'It wasn't supposed to be like this'.
In the back of his mind he'd always had this vague notion that when he first kissed her, in this body anyway, there would be candles and waves and a gorgeous sunset, and soft music in the background, and it would be gentle and passionate all at once.
But instead here he was, kissing her over and over as she lay on the shingle, her lips growing cold, the life slipping away from her.
And he was steadily realising that it was no use.
He was too late.
Tears dripped uncontrolled from his eyes, splashing on her face, her neck, her hair. She was gone. Snatched away from him because he hadn't been careful enough.
"Rose," he whispered, shaking fingers stroking her cheek. "Rose, no…"
She was gone. Forever.
No…
It was his nightmares come true twice over.
But never in his nightmares had this all-consuming rage flooded through his body, suppressing the grief.
In seconds his mind was scarily clear, the milky fog of a moment ago burned away by the scarlet red of his flaming anger.
The tears stopped, and with jerky movements he pulled on his jacket over his drenched shirt. His now-calm hands wrapped her body in his brown coat, pulling it snug around her form. An emotionless mask descended over his sodden face and dripping hair as he scooped her body up and tensely stalked back along the path, never looking back, never looking down at her.
His mind, tortured by grief, could bring up only one comprehensive truth that he could grasp.
He knew who was to blame for this.
Malchize… Isatai…
They had murdered Rose.
And so they would be murdered in turn.