II: Through his eyes
"In order to face what I am about to tell you, you must have a very open mind ..."
"Listen, Killgrave with the upgrade or whoever you are, the only thing very open will be your head if you don't decide to give me more information about the whole damn weird situation! " Jessica had threatened him, waving a fist near his face, more than eloquently.
"Tsk, tsk, Jess, all this anger that you hide inside is certainly not good for you," he had looked at her worriedly, shaking his head.
Jessica could not have known for sure which of his personalities she was interfacing with.
"Do you believe in the existence of aliens?" he had asked her.
"A few years ago some aliens fucking invaded New York, devastating half of the town ... it's one of those reasons why, yes, you end up believing it!"
"Uh, really? Some of them should learn manners… " he had scratched his head, with a thoughtful attitude. "Do you remember what race they were?"
She had put her hands on her hips, with an unmistakable expression.
" Does it really matter that much?" she had pointed out to him, without adding anything else.
"Nope, I guess it doesn't!" he had shrugged. "The point is, you believe in aliens, very well, it's already a great starting point. Now, don't think that there are only the bad ones with destroying lasers and dreams of conquest; there are also good, very good and fair ones, there's also a particular one who tries to save as many planets as possible, traveling through space and time with an unconventional spaceship,indeed: the Doctor, also known as a Time Lord. "
"So you are a Time Lord?" the detective had guessed.
"Yes and no. I am half Time Lord, I am a hybrid, born from a human woman like you… without special powers, but with a temper that can compete with yours, "he chuckled, a little nostalgic. "And from a Time Lord ... but wait, don't think about a pairing of the classic ones ... they haven't even touched each other ... as for the Time Lord, only his amputated hand was enough." he had been quick to clarify.
"A hand? Were you born from a fucking amputated hand? " she had interrupted him, startled.
"Yes, it was before he got another one, the fighting one!" the Metacrisys had displayed a satisfied grin. "The Doctor did not want to regenerate and so he poured all that regenerating energy against that hand that he still kept in a case ..." he had explained, this before he realized how Jessica was looking at him.
"For Gallifrey's sake! How can I explain to you what a regeneration is?" he had pinched his chin several times, looking for the right analogy. "Do you watch football? Of course you do, when we were together, besides the rugby matches I also made you watch some football matches with me… " he replied, mostly to himself. "Well, you know when the Coach asks for a player substitution? The player changes, but he keeps playing for the same team, is that clear? That's the regeneration… well, the Tenth Doctor said no to the Coach and threw all the regenerative energy back into his old hand. His Companion, which has more of an assistant connotation, before you think badly, touched that hand and... boom, a moment later I was there naked and alive as never before. "
"You could have spared the naked detail... and you don't need to give me any explanations about who the Companions traveling with him are or aren't!" Jessica had muttered. "Do you think… your Tenth Doctor has kept saying no to theCoach?" she had used his own metaphor.
"Uh no, no really, I think it's something you can only do once and it wasn't even so obvious that he could ... now we're in 2015 .. well it wouldn't surprise me if in the meantime we had already reached the Twelfth or Thirteenth regeneration, it depends on how you count them. "
"Okay, that explains, in a way that to call absurd is just a fucking euphemism, how you were born." the detective had summed up . "What about why you lost the memory of who you were and became mainly the ruin of my life?"
"I have to make some premises ..." Metacrisis had prudently pointed out.
"You've been making fucking premises for hours!" she had rolled her eyes with a snort.
"You're so exaggerated, at most it will be a quarter of an hour since we have started this discussion!"
"You, fucking minute man, I almost preferred you when you were playing tetris with people's minds!" she had protested, arising only a smirk in him.
She knew that way of smiling all too well.
"My darling, don't forget that I am always here, only with more new awareness," Killgrave had winked at her. "And this is already the second time that you admit you prefer me. You know, a guy could get ideas about it." he had tapped his tongue against his teeth, defiantly.
"Didn't you have to make some premises, you damn schizophrenic?" she had prudently changed the subject.
"You are right. I mentioned the Companions to you, right? Well one of them, the first that the Tenth Doctor had, which means I had too, as well as the Ninth Regeneration had, before us, well ... she was more than an assistant, more than a precious collaborator, more than a good friend ... "
" Okay. You two had a thing… "
"Yes. No. Yes. Okay, it's a bit complex to explain… but I have to make another premise. " he had stumbled over words.
Jessica had dropped dead weight on the sofa, looking exhausted.
"Jesus Christ, you sound like a broken record!" she had complained, but he had decided to ignore her.
"Probably the Doctor would have kept me with him, maybe I could have kept him company even in his next Regenerations ... but he radically changed his mind after I did a very bad thing ..."
Jessica had risen from the sofa, excited with interest.
"How bad?" she had asked him.
"You know, I may have been created by him, but I don't have the same moral integrity as him and if I see a big red button that says 'total destruction', well, I press it!" he had shrugged, as if it was a small matter.
At that moment he had reminded her a lot of the careless wolf she knew.
"But the Doctor did not want to forgive me for this thing , he said that I was too dangerous for his Universe and that he would do something about it: eliminating me would have been the most immediate and simple thing, but the Doctor is too magnanimous and he gave me a second chance, with the first of our Companions, in the parallel Universe she was in. He left the girl I think he loved, with a piece of himself. " he had concluded his umpteenth premise.
"A story with a happy ending, I would say, right?"
"I wish I could say yes, Jessica, but…" he had frowned.
"But?"
The Metacrisis had looked at her before taking a decision.
"I'm still half a Time Lord and coupled with the enormous mental power I have now, yes, I think I can do it ..." he had muttered.
"Being able to do what?" she had frowned.
"To show you everything, instead of telling you about it."
"And how?"
"I know you don't like being touched by me, Jessica, but this time it's necessary."
He had told her that with Killgrave's calm voice, with his English accent so strong, even the way he looked at her was the same as he had, yet there was something different in his eyes, something that told her that this time she could trust him.
Jessica had nodded, unsure about what to expect.
Killgrave, Metacrisis, or whoever he was at that time, had slipped closer to her, placing his hands on her cheeks and applying light pressure.
He had looked deeply into her eyes before closing them and concentrating.
And Jessica's journey had begun, without her moving from that couch.
She had crossed the space-time boundaries until she had found herself in a bay, beautiful, but with the sea a little restless, just like the one who was observing it.
Jessica had figured out she wasn't really there, but she was seeing everything through his eyes.
Metacrisis' eyes, when he was still just the Metacrisis, when he was a little younger, but not too much.
She had seen him return to his home, not far from the beach.
A small but comfortable house.
He was not alone in that house, a young woman, very beautiful, blond, with big expressive brown eyes, was listlessly flicking through a magazine, leaning against the counter of the kitchen with peninsula.
The Companion he had told her about, probably, the detective had guessed, as she was a silent and invisible spectator of that scene.
"The sea is not in its best days, but we can always go for a walk if you like." he had begun, but without receiving an answer.
"Or we can finish assembling that piece of furniture we left unfinished," he had suggested.
Silence again, apart from the noise that was made to turn the page.
"We can do whatever you want, as long as it's not another lunch with your parents!" he had made another attempt, more playful, but she had snorted.
At that point, even the half-human, half-Time Lord's patience, had expired.
"Could you bother to tell me what's wrong with you, Rose? And I don't mean just now, you've been like this for several days, should I say for months? " he had hardened his tone a little.
At least she had stopped reading, or rather, pretending, looking at him.
"Do you want to know what's wrong? Well, I'm tired of this usual routine, John. How long have we been together? A year, two, three? It's all so banal, so obvious that I don't even mind at it anymore. " she had snapped.
And so the blonde was called Rose, but why had he been called John?
Jessica would satisfy that curiosity later, now she was too intent on watching the couple interact. They seemed to have come to a standstill.
"I miss it when time didn't flow linear, but it was unpredictable and everything was a continuous adventure. What about that adventure? " Rose had muttered.
"Why don't you tell me clearly who you really miss? And, please notice, I am not using who at random! " he had challenged her.
"John, don't ..."
"I have the same appearance as him, I have his memories, I even have his own personality, the Tenth one, but that's not enough for you, is it?" he had continued his tirade, walking around the kitchen in the frantic way that characterized the Doctor in his TARDIS.
"You said it right away, that day in the bay, when he left me with you: I'm not him, I'm just his second class version." he had said, his voice broken and his eyes teary.
Jessica had felt her heart squeeze.
"Do not say that!" Rose had screamed.
"Ah, shouldn't I? When it is you who keep telling me every single moment, with every gesture, every glance of yours. How do you think I feel? " he had faced her.
"It's not easy for me either ..." she had murmured. "I was hoping that things would go differently ..."
"You can't stand all this anymore, but mostly I can't stand it!" he had declared, for both of them.
However, it still wasn't enough. John was about to strike a chord, because he needed it, with his pride of a hurt man, and because she deserved it.
"You know, Rose, sometimes I think that actually you have never even loved the Doctor, both the Ninth or the Tenth one, but rather the TARDIS!"
That's it, he had told her, with as much poison as possible in that voice that also knew how to become sharp.
And Rose's slap, which had sprinted towards him, had arrived punctually on his cheek.
"Not this. You should NEVER, EVER allow yourself to say this!" she had growled, tears in her eyes.
In response, the Metacrisis, John, the clone of the Tenth Doctor or whatever other way to call him, had burst out laughing, a bitter laugh.
"You know what, Rose? You didn't notice that day in the bay, but before saying goodbye the Doctor took me aside and handed me a piece of the TARDIS, a single fragment, but I'm still a Time Lord, at least half one, and I know how to make it grow. "
Rose had completely changed her mood, while Jessica hadn't the faintest idea what they were talking about.
"Really? John, but it's wonderful! " she had smiled at him, throwing herself into his arms. "Show me where it is, take me to travel again ..."
She was also about to kiss him, but he had pulled back, looking at her with the deepest disappointment in his gaze.
"Why do you think I didn't tell you right away? I wanted to find out if you loved me, just me, for what I am and mostly for what I am not, I wanted to find out if you could be happy even just like that. Only then I would have revealed it to you, but now it's too late. " he had told her, tough, both with his voice and with the expression of his eyes.
"John, no, wait ..." she had called him, noticing how he was getting closer and closer to the front door.
"Now I understand how Mickey and sometimes your mother must have felt, always put in second place." he had continued both the conversation and the walking that would make him leave that house.
He had turned to look at her one last time, not caring that she was in tears.
"If one day maybe you find your precious Doctor again, good for you, but you're done with me!" he had slammed the door, no longer looking back.
Jessica had watched him walk along the bay for hours, this before something unexpected happened.
Two truly bizarre creatures, more like large self-propelled garbage cans and with what looked like a blender whisk instead of an arm had surprised the Metacrisis from behind.
He had had the feeling something bad was about to happen, but when he turned it was too late.
He had already been hit.
"Ta-ke down! Ta-ke down! " the two creatures had exulted as the detective's vision went blurry.
Time had passed again and now Jessica didn't understand where she was, it looked like the inside of a spaceship.
If she was able to see again, it means that the Metacrisis had regained consciousness.
"Why am I not dead? And mostly why the hell are you still alive? I had exterminated all of you, Daleks. Ex-ter-mi-na-ted, yes, just that word you like so much! " he had mocked them, recovering his senses and realizing he was tied up.
Daleks, that's what those strange and creepy creatures were called.
Jessica was learning more and more.
"Not everyone." one of the Daleks had answered, there were three of them.
"What?"
"We didn't take part in that battle." the second Dalek had explained.
"Daleks are cautious. Daleks guarantee survival. Always." the third one explained in his metallic voice.
"Which brings us back to the first question: why am I not dead? Oh, come on, you should be angry with me a lot; I threw a blow up party! "
Jessica had smiled. There was something about him deliberately annoying them in which she saw herself a little.
"You are our revenge." the Dalek had exclaimed, the one who proclaimed himself the leader.
The half human, half Time Lord had lost his witty attitude.
"What!?" he had darkened.
"You are not the Doctor, but you are part of the Doctor. It was easy to feel your energy and find you. " one of the subordinates had explained.
"We just had to wait until you were alone. But Daleks can be patient. " the second had added.
"You will be our perfect war machine!" the boss had cheered. "Exterminating an entire planet would immediately draw the Doctor against us ... but hitting a few inhabitants at a time ... he won't notice!"
"You're forgetting a little detail: I will never help you!" the Metacrisis had growled.
"You're already doing it ..." the boss had chuckled as his underlings were advancing holding a strange helmet.
"What ... what are you doing?" he had tried to break free, but those ropes, made of who knows what space material, prevented him from doing that.
The helmet had already been placed on his head and he could feel electric waves frying his brain.
Even Jessica could feel some of that pain and the way he screamed was the same as she'd seen Killgrave do when she had said that key phrase.
"You will be a human Dalek. Emotionless. Filled with hate… you will bring chaos and destruction. We will give you the power to do it. You will control the minds, everyone will carry out your will. And your will will actually be ours. Exterminate!"
"N .. noo, it will never happen!" he had opposed with his own strength, but felt more and more at the mercy of their brainwashing.
"We will give you new memories, a horrible childhood, a life of loneliness, you will think only of yourself and you will only cause suffering to those around you." the Daleks had decided and now there was nothing more to be done.
Their victim felt his mind cloud, the memories gradually disappear, his will grow weaker and weaker.
The treatment was over, the Daleks had let him go, confident that he would be their messenger of devastation.
Staggering, Metacrisi had returned to the bay, but somewhere else, where he never ventured.
Jessica had seen him go to what looked like a slightly ramshackle blue phone booth, hidden from everyone's eyes.
There had been another flash and this time Jessica could see the half Time Lord inside another spaceship, but more beautiful, more golden, more coosy, even if with fewer rooms, little more than a control room.
That was where he was setting something up.
Looking through the various compartments he had found something ... it looked like a silver metal stick that emitted a blue light.
"My will is failing me, the Daleks are taking over my mind, but I still have time to do something ..." he had mostly thought aloud as he set the coordinates for that new TARDIS.
The one even those three Daleks didn't know about.
"I will not harm this universe, I cannot do this to Rose, she has already suffered losses, here she can have a new life, I will not destroy it. We no longer love each other, but it doesn't mean I hate her."
The engines had started, if anyone had looked at the blue cabin from the outside they would have seen it fade away.
While he was satisfied that he had left that universe in time, it still wasn't enough.
"There must be a way to undo this manipulation! An expedient for me to recover my memories… "
He couldn't rest, looking for something that TARDIS didn't have.
"When the Doctor hid from the Blood Family, he had that watch that would remind him who he was ... as it happened with the Master too ... but here I have nothing like that ..." he was desperate, before he saw the light at the end of that dark tunnel. "It doesn't have to be an object, it will be a sentence that will trigger me!" he had begun creating said trigger, typing frantically on the console, something that he would then scan into his cerebral cortex.
"A sentence, an easy sentence, something anyone would say, I don't know 'What a beautiful sunny day!' or 'I love cookies!' … "
No matter all his efforts, he was even pointing the sonic screwdriver at the screen, but every sentence proposed was rejected and the sentence 'You are not Ten anymore' kept appearing on the screen.
"Oh no, come on! Are you kidding me? Okay, it's a sentence a parent would say to reproach their sons… but it could be any age 'You're not five anymore, you're not eight anymore..' The possibilities of saying just ten are almost nil ... " he had surrendered to his fate, while a headache stronger than the previous ones canceled what remained of his conscience and the TARDIS with its classic jolts landed on the planet Earth of another Universe.
Metacrisis, or rather his physical appearance, the only thing that remained of him, had come out of that strange phone box without even remembering why he had entered it.
He had the bewildered air of someone who had no idea where he was and one of the passers-by on the street, a gentle and good-natured gentleman around his seventy, had approached him.
"Sir, are you alright?" he had asked him, hesitantly.
"Tell me where we are. Place and year. " the disturbing younger man had obliged him.
The elder hadn't even dared to point out how bizarre his question was, no, he just wanted to answer, he longed to obey him.
Jessica had already figured everything out.
"New York. March 18, 2013. "
About a year later he would meet her.
"Very good," the younger had replied, before feeling an irrepressible urge to give him another command, just for the simple and cruel reason that he was able to do it.
"Go throw yourself under a car."
Under his impassive eyes andJessica's shocked ones, the poor, unfortunate old man had executed, arousing the horror of the surrounding crowd, who had tried to help him, in vain.
Exterminate.
But little by little.
"I feel good. I feel great." the persuader had sneered.
Now he was quite clear to himself who he was: he was Killgrave.
Killgrave had removed his hands from Jessica's face and her unusual interactive flashback had been over.
"Do you believe me, Jess?" he had asked her with those big dark eyes that tried to read into her soul.
"Not even if I drank all the whiskey in this fucking world could I have a trip like this. Fuck, yes, I believe you! " she had nodded, still a little shaken. "This is how it all began!"
"But mostly this is how you managed to put an end to it!" he had smiled sweetly at her. "Would you like to believe me even more?"
"And how?"
"What if I showed you that strange cabin you saw in my memories?" he had suggested.
"And why should a ramshackle cabin change things?" she had looked at him skeptically.
He had shown her one of his Machiavellian wolf smiles.
"Because you still have to go inside it."
TBC
Notes:Technically, the next will be the last chapter, even if there is already someone who has requested a sequel ... and with me that word is dangerous XD
I'll tell you what, at the beginning I thought this chapter would be just the flashback of John / Metacrisis/ clone of the Tenth Doctor ... but then he didn't convince me, he would have spoiled the rhythm ... I liked this thing of showing Jessica his memories, I find it a very Time Lord thing;)
If any Rose's fans, in spite of the warnings, has stumbled on here, I apologize, but this is exactly how I see her ... you can see it as bashing, even if I could have done worse, so much worse XD
I love the Daleks but I had never 'moved' them yet, I hope to make them sound at least a bit credible,, it is a plan evil enough to be in their strings .. oops in their organic filaments that they have inside the cans XD
It would really really help me if you could take a minute to tell me what you think so far, but thanks anyway.
Goodnight 3
Lu