WOW holy crap. I'm really sorry this isn't going along with my usual schedule but school just decided I needed to have my ass kicked. Bio exam, independent study project and chem exams holy crap. Work, school, etc. and not to mention, not only is the holiday season getting into full swing but Pokemon sun and moon came out too! I got moon, wow I'm going to destroy everything with my adorable bird party yes muahahahaha!
Well, at any rate, I'm going to try to get back on schedule. So here's this chapter, I don't own Doctor Who, and hopefully I don't get distracted with any other writing/school projects I'm getting started on. Not to mention video games. Damnit.
On the coldest mountain peak closest to Pillar, nothing stands for nearly a hundred miles but a weather worn metal structure in the distance. The wind whips violently and merciless through the thick layers of snow in silence. The run down building matches the feeling of the environment – Isolation. Solitude. Time and space are meaningless when one is all alone with their thoughts.
A solitary figure trudging through the foot and a half of snow understands all of this as they approach the frosted doors of the old and certainly abandoned observatory. Their small hand reaches out to push against it and a frail, almost skeletal appendage matching barely in its structure attempts to aid its owner. Eventually, the door is forced to give way for the first person to enter this building in nearly a century and the welcome is anything but warm. A large hole mares the dome like roof that once protected a now worthless telescope from the indifferent chill of the mountain wind. There is no running water because it froze in the pipes long ago. No warm corners exist for most of the panels of the walls have cracks and holes all around, letting the biting chill seep in without a care.
The figure's frame is lithe, mostly bare from the knees down and most certainly ill prepared for the chill of the mountain but there's hardly any thought given to that. The warmest clothing brought with them was little more than a fur lined cloak that reached down to pale, slightly scarred calves and heavy boots, tightly laced and waterproof. The clothing matters little though and soon the woman hiding beneath it, breathing deeply and heavily so that the frostbitten air would sear her tired lungs, shed the cloak's hood to get a better view of the decrepit state of things. It was certainly less than livable but she could have definitely cared less about that. She might die if she stayed there long enough and although that thought had crossed her mind it didn't linger there long before it was forced to the back of the line by something far greater that had followed her for the last few weeks.
In the loneliest structure atop the most barren mountain that stood closest to the last remaining human city on Earth, the isolation, the solitude and emptiness of the place filled her. It knotted itself at the very center of her chest, churning and swelling like something about to violently burst and soon enough, it erupted…
Caligo's eyes shot open and quickly swept around the room, what sounded like a soft whimper drawing her from sleep. At first, the unfamiliar surroundings set alarms off in her mind until she remembered where she was and who she was with. This was a room in the Tardis, one that the Doctor had offered as hers if ever she suddenly found that she needed a "home away from home" as he said. Plain with four white walls, sparsely furnished with nothing but the necessities and a queen sized bed with navy blue sheets, it wasn't much different from her room back in the observatory. Something of a comfort, she thought, although the thought wasn't terribly satisfying or reassuring. Still, she was appreciative that the Tardis was a rather accommodating ship and she made her way to the adjacent shower to clean up for whatever the Doctor had planned for the morning. Perhaps the Tardis was overcompensating for the temperature she was used to in Blackridge. She would have to talk to the Doctor about that because she honestly wasn't fond of the idea of waking up covered in sweat…
Despite the notion that the Doctor rarely slept, Caligo was still surprised to find him in the consul room fiddling with buttons and switches. Then again she really had no idea what time it was at this very moment. Had she still been in Pillar, it would've been roughly high noon. Another thought was that she would really need to reset her watch when she went back. The Doctor may have promised to get her back on the same day, perhaps even within the same hour but her clock would still be off and the thought caused her eye to twitch involuntarily. Caligo quickly pulled herself from her thoughts when she detected the sound of the Doctor's approaching footsteps.
"You're awake!"
He sounded extremely surprised. Caligo nodded briefly and watched as he circled around the consul as if to get a better look at her. He was wearing that blue pinstripe suit again, the same as when they had been caught in that alien marketplace with a psychotic sport hunting robot. While her first thought was that those few weeks to her might not have even been an entire day for him thanks to his time machine, it did occur to her that perhaps he had multiple pairs. Perhaps he fancied the color blue.
The Doctor looked up at her from the bottom of the stairs, dark, thick rimmed glasses perched at the end of his nose and staring up at her with just a hint of concern. "You sleep alright?"
"Did you?"
"Didn't once the entire time you were," he told her, almost sounding proud of the fact.
Although Caligo knew that the Tardis was sentient, he figured she didn't suspect that his lovely blue box was very aware of what went on inside just as much as outside of her. He probably wouldn't tell her that this included her room, at least not until she brought it up. The Doctor had the very distinct feeling that if he brought up how the Tardis had detected an unusual amount of emotional distress in someone who supposedly didn't feel, he wouldn't get any answers about it. Maybe she'd deny or ignore it. Maybe Caligo just didn't know, but he certainly didn't either.
The lieutenant came a little closer to him and pushed his glasses about half way up his nose before stepping around him. "Would it be possible to find something to eat before we run off into danger today," she asked. Caligo paced slowly around the consul, eyeing various buttons and knobs she recalled seeing the Doctor going for when he sent the ship hurdling off through space and time.
Caligo looked perfectly calm despite the Tardis' insistence that something was a little off with the lieutenant. Something was always off with her, he concluded, and could afford to shoo away his curiosity and let her be for now. The Doctor met her at the consul and leaned against it, arms crossed over his chest. "Well you mentioned going to look for Atlantis before," he said and waited for the moment when one of her brows would perk up in his direction, a telltale sign of her internal curiosity.
"Is there such a place? I thought it was little more than a long surviving story."
"Stories come from somewhere don't they? Besides, humans like to make things up to explain what they don't understand. You look through any history textbook and that's what a lot of it is." The Doctor noticed the disinterest in her body language, his companion finding the Tardis controls far more interesting than this. Real life problems when it came to humans… "Anyway, Atlantis is very real and it's true that they lived at the bottom of the ocean on Earth for a time. But they couldn't rightly leave when their ship was damaged and that takeoff was very likely to have violently disrupted the development of life on the planet."
"So you're saying that not only was the lost city of Atlantis not only an alien spaceship that long proceeded the birth of the human race-"
"All life on Earth. Not just humans."
"-But that they remained here for millions of years, undisturbed and suddenly left one day when no one was looking."
"Yeah, pretty much." The Doctor just continued to smile at the skeptical-as-ever lieutenant. He'd have to prove that he was right, as he'd come to expect when she doubted him, but hopefully in time she would trust him a little more readily. "I know I said at the bottom of the ocean but we don't have to swim and they do breathe air on that ship so you'll be fine. I promise." Caligo's look changed only minutely, but it didn't escape his notice that it was more exasperation than doubt.
"Find their craft first Doctor. We will go from there."
The Doctor grinned at her, one hand perched atop a lever she had been looking at earlier and pulled it. The lieutenant was certainly getting used to the old girl's movements, not even grasping the consul to steady herself as the Tardis took off. He still needed to work on the landings a little he knew but nothing was perfect. "August, 1954. Ever heard of the Bermuda Triangle Cal?"
"Suspected to have the ability to sink ships, disrupt navigation equipment and to keep whatever enters its parameter due to an abundance of magnetic metals in the sea floor," she said, casting a glance over at him, "Although that could very well be completely wrong and outdated information."
The Doctor shrugged as he mulled over the theory as he opened the door to reveal a spacious hall teeming with humanoid looking creatures going about their day. No one seemed any wiser of the blue box that had suddenly appeared in the middle of their craft deep beneath the sea.
Caligo noticed this as well. "Are you often ignored when you make such blatant appearances like this," she asked, eyeing one of the 'Atlantians' that passed by in rather close proximity to them.
The overall tone of what appeared to be a female's skin resembled a pale flesh tone tinged with red and brown pigments in various places, most prominent on the shoulders, hands, face and back. Everyone seemed to sport the same general placement of these pigments, but the pigments themselves differed greatly in color on some individuals. Her bare feet made soft squishing sounds as she walked, reminding the lieutenant of what it was like to have wet socks stuck to one's feet and the appendages themselves looked flatter and wider than a human foot with more prominent bones and webbing between the digits. Most of the Atlantians never seemed to blink and their eyes never seemed irritated by this either.
It was then that Caligo realized how humid the air felt and a sort of grunginess collected on her exposed skin, as if she were standing by the breaking waves of an ocean. "I suppose I wasn't prepared to find them to be so humanoid and yet resemble aquatic life," she murmured.
"What were you expecting?"
"I'm not sure. I expected that they could be anything, not necessarily humanoid."
The Doctor smiled at her. "Keeping an open mind are we? Glad to hear it. Wait until you see what else they've got on this ship. Their technology is amazing! You'll never look at the ocean the same way again."
As the Doctor led the way – it was hard not to, seeing as his height made it easy for him to stride ahead of her without even realizing – Caligo started to think of when it was she'd seen the ocean last. It had been before she was decommissioned from active duty, certainly. There was also a very good chance that it hadn't been the Earth's ocean she'd seen. Wilhelm had been there. The man, not the machine. Must have been more than seven years ago. The more she thought about it, the more she ignored the Doctor's run away history lesson and the more the details started to come back to her.
It must have been at least eleven years ago that it happened. Caligo recalled that she and Wilhelm had been dispatched to answer a distress call from a freighter ship whose main engines had been badly damaged. It was nothing strange at first, just various forms of aquatic life being transported back to Earth for research. That was until they found out that the engines had failed due to extreme water damage, something one doesn't normally account for in space. That discovery led to the realization that along with the aquatic creatures, a sentient aquatic entity had unknowingly been brought aboard the ship as well and had broken free from its containment. There were a lot of little details that had come back to her during their walk but the most defining one was also one that stirred something deep within her.
A massive wall of water towered above the Draugr, surging in place as the captured creatures swam about as if the strangeness of the situation didn't disturb them in the least. It probably didn't if they spent their entire existence living in said ocean. Neither Draugr dared to move but slowly, Caligo felt a pressure around her waist and shoulders before the wall of water engulfed her.
"Cal," the Doctor shouted as she all but collapsed. He was lucky he was quick, just barely able to keep her from crashing to the ground. The lieutenant's entire body was tense right down to her fingers that dug into the sleeve of his trench coat, eyes wide open and pupils dilated as they fixated on the large, glass like wall that separated the crew and them from the depths of the ocean. Fear. It was plain as day in her eyes even if she would never admit it – Caligo was afraid, no, terrified of the ocean. The Doctor could feel her pulse racing dramatically as he craned her head to look away from the dark depths and she shut her eyes tight. "Cal, it's alright. You're not in the water, not even close to it. You're just fine, on a nice, dry ship. Just breathe, okay? Can you do that for me?"
The lieutenant's body was starting to go limp in his arms and the Doctor feared that breathing was exactly what she wasn't doing at this moment. Anxiety and fear did that to humans, made them forget completely how to perform basic bodily functions like breathing. "Just breathe, Cal," he almost yelled, his own heart rate picking up a little when the death grip on his coat lightened and she suddenly inhaled loudly. The Doctor sighed in relief as her chest began to heave – albeit a bit violently – and Caligo was now forcing large lungful's of air into her body again. He did a quick once over, noting there wasn't any sort of external injury on her that he could see, no water on her skin save for a sheen of sweat on her face and she still hadn't opened her eyes. Caligo's breathing slowed dramatically, shoulders sagging and hands losing their grip on him and sliding to the floor. She had fainted.
I told her we'd be going to the sunken ship in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle which she seemed to have understood was in the ocean, he thought almost irritably to himself. Why didn't she tell me she was afraid of water? Shame? Fear? All those things would've made sense if she could feel those things and he'd have been able to put two and two together if he could just figure out what she was feeling, but no! "I'll bet that damn inhibitor knocked her out too on top of this," he muttered, cross as ever.
"Sir?" An 'Atlantian', one of many onlookers stood over the pair, what was most likely his brownish green brow furrowed with worry. "If medical attention is what you seek, we may be of some assistance. Our knowledge of human physiology isn't the greatest but it may be of some help to you."
"That'd be fantastic to be honest," he sighed and proceeded to lift Caligo up as best he could. There wasn't much helping the way her left arm dangled haphazardly, but the other male was nice enough to help support the hefty appendage on their way to the ship's med bay. "I'm the Doctor by the way. Sorry to kind of just pop in like this. Wasn't expecting my companion here to faint all of a sudden."
"Tilius, Doctor, and that is quite alright. Humans are always fascinating creatures to examine when we have the chance, seeing that their occurrence in such depths is rare."
Tilius brought them to a very sterile looking room with walls tinted in a sort of bluish green color and soft lighting. There were plenty of open beds but no medical equipment that the Doctor was familiar with. The warm temperature of the room and humidity were hard to ignore but he supposed this was what optimal conditions were for their species.
"Rest her anywhere you choose, Doctor. I'll go and fetch our physician."
He wondered for a moment if Tilius thought he was also human, but was even more curious to know how they knew a human when they saw one. Having been here before the human race was born and relatively certain that humans hadn't yet explored the depths of their ocean as far down as this just yet made him more than a little curious. While he really wanted to go poking around this ship, he couldn't without knowing with some degree of certainty that his companion needed little more than some rest. Rest is good for humans. Knowing the lieutenant, I'd wager five quid that's not something she's good at doing.
Tilius returned a short while with a similar looking individual by his side. One of the notable differences though was that this Atlantian had brighter greens on his skin and was just a little less…hydrodynamic in terms of body shape. The greener male's eyes widened at seeing what probably looked like two humans in his otherwise empty med bay and immediately strode over to them.
"I hadn't realized I was this well off! Two humans now? What a rare occasion indeed," he cried in obvious excitement. The physician paused by the bedside to get a better look at the unconscious lieutenant, daring to briefly place a finger against her unprotected cheek. "Interesting…"
The Doctor cleared his throat loudly and fixed the Atlantian with an expectant look. If humans weren't such a novelty to the species he'd have thought the physician's reaction to the sight of them more than a little strange and perhaps odd. "My friend here seems to have fainted," he started, trying to guide him back in the right direction with as little snark as possible.
"Yes, excuse me. It's been a long while since I had the opportunity to see a human at such a close proximity. Not to worry, she's in good hands!" The physician turned to him, curiosity in his eyes. "Would you happen to be suffering any sort of maladies yourself?"
Blimey, that look of his! It was in fact curiosity, but the kind that the Doctor often found led to trouble. "No, no. Not me. Not from around Earth you know." That alone seemed to make the physician lose interest and he directed his efforts back to Caligo, something he wasn't sure if it made him feel relieved or just a little bit wary. "Do you think it's anything serious," he asked, steering things back to Caligo.
"It doesn't seem to be the case," the physician murmured before producing what looked to be a clear gemstone the size of a human child's fist mounted on a silver frame. Before the Doctor could object, the device was mounted on Caligo's chest just above the collar of her vV-neck blouse with what looked like an unnecessary amount of force. "That was a lot harder than it usually is… Not to worry though! The prongs just barely pierce the skin, won't be a problem so long as she doesn't get up and go for a swim anytime soon. By the way, doctor Durellis. Ship's head physician and local expert on Homo sapiens."
Durellis sounded quite proud of that last part. The Doctor himself was quite interested to know exactly what Durellis thought he knew about humans, seeing that he lived on the bottom of the ocean so far away from them. More of his concern stayed with the strange device now changing colors on Caligo's sternum. "Nice to meet you. I'm the Doctor. So what exactly is this little doohickey for?"
Durellis's eye twitched just a little but he gave the Doctor a friendly enough smile, fake as it was. "This device is made of psionic crystal. Very responsive to the human telepathic field. It responds very honestly to their brain and nerve activity. See, one of the things you must understand about the human race is that they are prideful creatures and see some sort of accomplishment in hiding their feelings, which can be troublesome if one is trying to treat them and they insist on enduring vast amounts of pain for no purpose whatsoever."
The Doctor nodded in response, feigning fascination with what Durellis seemed to have thought was some sort of ancient human secret. Although he did notice that he was right about that. Humans often tended to endure an awful lot of ridiculous things to prove how tough they were compared to others. The real weight of Durellis's words hit him less than a second later though. If this device could in fact tap into a human's telepathic field this could possibly tell him exactly what his companion was feeling, even if she couldn't feel it herself. Along with the burning curiosity however, was a sense of intrusion. The lieutenant's feelings were her own private matters. Using a device to reveal exactly what they were made it feel as if he were overstepping his boundaries…
Durellis tapped the psionic crystal with a webbed finger, frowning. "Odd," he murmured, more to himself than the other occupants of the room, "It usually doesn't take this long to settle on a specific color."
Indeed, waves of reds and greens and blacks were clashing almost violently with one another. If this device were responding to her state of mind and the colors corresponded to an emotion similar to a mood ring – that was actually effective – then she was definitely feeling and feeling a lot.
Probably confused if she's got any sense about her at the moment, the Doctor thought to himself. As if it might help, he took her hand, the right, human hand and held it in his own. The crystal eventually settled on what looked to be a brownish color that constantly fluctuated in random, violent bursts with its shade. He'd have to look up exactly what that meant later on. After all, why would he bother with trying to color code human emotions like mood rings? The science behind them was horribly inaccurate, if it could be called science in the first place.
"Well at least she seems to be in a stable mindset so to speak," Durellis muttered. He seemed fascinated with the chosen color of the gem. "Maybe she's having what they call night terrors. But regardless, I think all she needs is a sound rest. Feel free to leave her be in my care, erm, Doctor~ She'll be right as rain as they say. Humans do that often too you know. They completely exhaust themselves for no particular purpose. It's as if evolving made them lose their basic instincts to keep themselves in good health! Counterproductive, don't you think? Hah!"
The Doctor nearly winced at the volume at which the Atlantian had laughed but his annoyance with the individual was soon forgotten when he detected the faintest sound of little whirring motors. Caligo's chest visibly rose as she took a deep breath and slowly, her eyes fluttered open. He could feel the tension in her body rise as her eyes darted around the room and the twitch of her left eye as Durellis held her down by the shoulders.
"Easy now young lady. It seems you had an episode of some sort. You shouldn't be getting up just yet."
Caligo made a sound, whether it was one of agreement or annoyance was unclear, but she wasted no time in brushing him off. "Apologies Doctor. I'm not quite sure what came over me. I hope you weren't terribly burdened by it."
There it is again, he thought grimly. The coldness in her voice meant that the inhibitor was doing or had already done its job but recalling the terror he had seen in her eyes back there he wondered if perhaps, just this once, it wasn't such a bad thing. Caligo would surely be a nervous wreck the entire time they were here. And yet she walked all the way through the rising tide in Barcelona…
Caligo sat up again and almost instantly took notice of the strange device sitting center on her chest. "What is this," she stated more than asked. Rather than deferring to the complete stranger on her left, she turned to the Doctor instead. "Why is it changing colors."
Indeed, the color of the crystal was shifting again, a deep shade of red that surged violently, as if attempting to break free of the device. No one in the room needed it to tell that the lieutenant was not at all happy with finding this on her person at the moment but no one knew what sort of temper she had either.
"Just to be sure your vitals are alright and to make sure you're not trying to 'endure the pain' and such," Durellis chuckled a little nervously under Caligo's intense gaze.
"Go with it for a bit, yeah? You feel okay?" The Doctor felt the hand in his twitch slightly as the pressure of his fingers increased just the slightest bit. It was probably pointless to ask, already getting the feeling that she wasn't about to tell him why that happened, but maybe her thoughts and emotions would betray her just a little now with Durellis' device in place. It seemed as if it did, though it still didn't tell him much. The color of the crystal faded to a dark gray, so at least she wasn't angry anymore but she certainly wasn't at ease.
"I believe myself to be in a more stable condition now, yes. I highly doubt that it will happen again but I am sure that Wilhelm is quite unsettled being confined to your ship."
Ah, yes. The uppity, meddlesome drone of hers. To his understanding, Caligo's panic attack was surely detected by her partner drone as well if they were able to transmit data such as vitals essentially via telepathy. The Doctor knew already that if they went back to the ship for him now he in particular would surely catch the ire of the AI and he definitely wasn't too keen on that. Occupied with that though, he almost didn't notice Caligo remove her hand from his and slide herself off the bed.
"Take this off of me," she practically commanded. Durellis was barely taller than her but certainly larger. Damned if that meant she would bend to whatever his whims were about attaching strange devices to unconscious patients.
"Actually, Cal, maybe it's better to leave it on for a bit. As long as it doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt, right," the Doctor asked, still a bit concerned about the prongs underneath her skin that held the device in place. "Durellis is a physician and if something happens, best he knows straight away don't you think?"
She didn't like the idea. The Doctor probably knew that she didn't like the idea but he had that look on his face. Caligo remembered, she had seen that look on his face when she had come stumbling out of the darkness on the beach in Barcelona. The Doctor was worried for her and as natural as that probably was for any normal individual, it caused a strange stirring sensation in her chest that she quashed with all of her might the moment she felt a familiar thrumming in the base of her skull. "Yes. I suppose you're right Doctor. Its removal can wait until we leave." Caligo pulled her coat over her chest and pulled the zipper as far as it would go. Only a small portion of the crystal was still visible and one would have to blatantly look that much closer to read it. She herself may not have felt or be capable of reacting to her emotions but there was no need for anyone else to know how she felt either. It was more than alright for such things to remain a mystery in her mind.
When she turned to face him again the Doctor couldn't help but notice how she hid the device on her chest. There was just a tinge of disappointment that his companion would feel the need to hide something so natural as her feelings and yet it didn't seem fair for everyone else to know how she felt before she did. It made him feel much less guilty about it being there at least. "Oh! Sorry. You said you were hungry before we got here right?"
"I still am, if that's what you really mean to ask."
Caligo was out the door without a word to Tillius or Durellis. Bit rude in the Doctor's mind but then again he had forgotten that his companion hadn't eaten since after they'd ran out of that diner back at the concert. "Thanks for the help, I guess we'll be back later to give back your thing."
"The first sign that anything is wrong, don't hesitate Doctor. My door is always open~"
Durellis sent him off with a brief wave and the Doctor was out after Caligo in moments. "Oi. Don't wander off. Goodness, do you have any idea how often I've had to tell people that? Don't wander off. That's the sort of thing your mum tells you when you're out at the store with her innit?"
"I suppose it is," is all she says.
Even for Caligo, she was being far less talkative than usual or perhaps he was just talking that much but either way, the balance between them felt off. The Doctor figured that they got a little lucky on finding food though. The ship's residents were more than capable of living off of the nutrients their photosynthetic skin gave them, but some of the crew just wasn't quite adapted to living at this depth. The Doctor spent much of their lunch together talking about how they managed to supplement what they needed by feeding off the creatures in Earth's oceans, though he certainly tried to avoid outright mentioning the water if he could help it. It was a little harder than he thought it would be at first but he hardly ever backed down from a challenge. "Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I tried to not accept a challenge but the point is that I can now make a pretty decent tuna maki."
Caligo's skepticism was clear and she put down the last piece of sliced fish on her plate as if the story had drastically reduced her appetite. "I don't believe I pegged you for someone who knew how to even properly hold a knife. But I suppose it makes more sense if I were to think of it as you dissecting the fish instead."
"Well we can stop by the market when we get back to the Tardis and I'll show you!"
"I wouldn't think of eating it."
The Doctor pouted at her. "Now you're just being difficult."
A very faint chuckle escaped her and the Doctor finally smiled since they'd left the infirmary. It wasn't unusual for the pair to fall into silence but it was certainly rare that it happened, mostly in part for the fact that the Doctor was quite the talker and Caligo hardly had much to say unless it was in response to him but she knew right away that this silence was different. It was uneasy still and tense and she knew why. "I remembered something," was how she started off.
"Sorry?" The Doctor was confused, or at least he looked it. He wanted to believe that she was talking about what had happened earlier. That she was sharing with him just like that day they spent on the remnants of an Earth-like planet camping under an alien sky. He wanted to know and he wanted to ask but just this once, he needed to keep that overactive gob of his shut long enough for her to tell him on her own terms. The Doctor wasn't so think that he hadn't known that she didn't like to share things about herself after the way he reacted after visiting Pillar…
Caligo glanced up at him thoughtfully and she already knew that it was because in the very back of her mind she had already made it a reinforced habit to choose her words carefully when she spoke to the Doctor. There were a lot of things that she could tell him, she knew, that were both truthful and would be distasteful for him to hear. If she could, she would certainly try not to hurt him, even if it was with something as simple as words. "It was a very long time ago. One of the first distress calls I'd ever had to respond to with Wilhelm. A transport ship had been stranded on its course back to Earth in a less than hospitable part of space so we were sent out to investigate. The ship was supposed to be transporting aquatic specimens back to a lab for study when the engines completely failed… They were completely drenched in water. We found out very quickly that the fluid they used to fill the specimen tanks was part of a living ocean."
The Doctor let out a low hum, quickly putting two and two together. "I'd imagine it wasn't happy about its predicament… Came after you two, didn't it?"
Caligo nodded. "I suppose I don't quite have an accurate account of what happened once we made the discovery. According to Wilhelm, I had nearly drowned. I didn't realize what had happened until after he told me he had to resuscitate me."
"What about in Barcelona? You ran through an ocean on a foreign planet in the dark." Something he still actually felt a little bad for.
"I was focusing on something far more important at the time," she murmured.
She probably didn't know it, but the small portion of the psionic crystal that was still poking out of her jacket had been constantly shifting in its colors for the past couple of hours. The Doctor only had short glances but he caught the light blue hue it took on in contrast to the dark leather of her jacket and he couldn't help a grin. "I'll take that as a compliment then. Real accomplishment if I can get you to pay attention to me for any span of time eh?" Caligo hummed quietly as the two got up to move on to the next great thing. "You probably want to take a better look at their ship and all the astounding things it can do I bet."
"Yes, I believe I would…"
The Doctor nearly walked off without her when he noticed that he couldn't hear the clunky steps of her boots behind him. Just a little way back, Caligo had a hand against a wall, supporting herself and looked rather faint. "Cal? What's wrong," he asked, immediately ready to catch her again if something were to go amiss. "Talk to me."
Caligo swiped her hand over her face after a moment, limbs heavy and a light sheen of sweat forming across her forehead. "I'm sorry… I don't know why but I feel as though I may be sick," she muttered. The air in the room felt smothering. Breathing was quickly becoming a chore and her eyes refused to obey any command to stay open. It most likely won't be long before I pass out, she thought, though she couldn't find a cause for it. Regardless, as much as she didn't want to admit it… "I believe I should return to doctor Durellis."
The Doctor didn't argue but he did find it a little odd that Durellis was almost waiting for them at the door as if it were sheer coincidence. He had a bed ready for her, exactly as promised and Caligo was out cold not minutes after they'd gotten her situated.
"As I said before Doctor, your friend is in good hands. If you feel a need for companionship, I'm sure Tilius would be more than happy to accompany you~"
"While that's awfully kind of you, I'd like to make sure my friend's okay." He pulled back the lapel of her jacket just enough to see that the crystal was a soft blue color as it had been earlier at lunch. He could only guess that she had been at least content at the time and was resting easy now. Before they arrived the Tardis had detected dangerously high levels of anxiety and stress while she was supposedly asleep in her room. Bad dreams, he thought somberly. It happened to all humans. But what good does that do for someone who only pretends to be human?
The Doctor, preoccupied with his worry as to the cause of his companion's stress, didn't catch the way Durellis observed him. More specifically, his interaction with the female human now in his care. He was hovering with annoying closeness. How was he supposed to get anything done with a watchdog alien? He didn't have to tell Tilius. He already knew. "Doctor, I think it'd be best if you got some rest yourself. You're more than welcomed to take up a bed here for the time being. Rare is it that we find ourselves at capacity here in sick bay." Durellis wasn't unaccustomed to this, masking himself in such a way. There was a human saying that old habits were hard to break, but it was of little concern when one never attempted to break them in the first place and he knew that he had to watch out for the particularly intelligent individuals. There were always a few in the mix, especially in groups. But Durellis supposed that he'd been lucky when the Doctor agreed because he didn't look tired in the least. Still, all creatures had to sleep sometime…