Heeeey guys! Finally starting to get back into the habit of this but I wouldn't get used to it, unfortunately. For spring semester is fast approaching for me and that means doing this full-time student shenanigans. -v- I'm also trying to work in more sass for the Doctor. Also! Super fantastic shout out to my buddy YenKin for making the cover art for this fic! Yen's also open for commissions right now I believe so look them up on Instagram! nikkoyen
Her chest felt heavy as if there was a great weight upon it. At first, she wasn't quite sure if this was a dream or perhaps she was rendered delirious by some extraneous circumstance on a mission. The possibility that it could be a mission was highly likely because it looked and felt as if she had been trudging through this dark, suffocating tunnel for ages but the fact that she had yet to make any sort of progress made it feel highly unrealistic. The weight was crushing her by this point, she realized, as her chest clenched up and her lungs nearly pined for oxygen…
It was the sound of a voice. Practically a whisper in the darkness, it drew her ever further down that dark tunnel. The only reason she had continued to follow it was because she heard it not with her ears, but with her mind and there was only one person who she would always hear above all else. The one person whom she wouldn't think twice about trusting. The person she would follow to her very last, wheezing breath…
"…Blood soaked, godless monsters from the depths of Hell…"
Caligo's eyes fluttered open, the darkness of the room the only thing she could make out for a moment other than the heavy weight on her chest and the tight, unrelenting pressure on her throat. A single touch of the hand was all she needed to anchor herself to the realm of consciousness and realize that the weight crushing her chest was a body and the pressure on her throat was a pair of strong, work-worn hands whose calloused finger pads pressed into her pulse points. Giving up the struggle to pry the man's hands away from her throat, she instead reached for the knife she kept underneath her pillow.
As the weapon was withdrawn from its hiding place, she struck the male in what felt like his jaw with the handle and switched their positions, bringing the blade just flush with his throat…
"Cal-"
"Cal," the Doctor shouted as loud as he could, holding the wrist of the hand wielding the six-inch-long blade against his throat in a death grasp. The Time Lord swore he felt a bead of sweat run down his forehead and just behind his ear as he waited for the wild look in her eyes to clear.
"Doctor," the woman asked, sounding tired, alarmed and confused. Caligo noticed the tight grip he held her wrist with even as she moved the blade safely away from his throat and carefully observed the situation. She was straddling his torso on her bed in her room – which it had taken a moment for her to remember that she was on the Tardis and not in Blackridge – with the knife she kept under her pillow at all times in hand and the Doctor's eyes looked about ready to pop right out of their sockets. The already forming bruise on the right side of his jaw served as confirmation. Caligo sat there for a moment while the information began to set into her sleep and adrenaline hazed mind.
The Doctor finally released the bruising grip on her wrist once he was certain she wouldn't bring that knife back down on him anytime soon. "Good morning to you too," he muttered, willing his hearts to stop thundering in his chest, "I'll admit I've been received by women in their sleeping quarters before but not quite like this." Caligo's expression remained dumbstruck until he gestured down to his torso which she was still perched atop.
Caligo quickly removed herself from him completely and sheathed the knife in the Kevlar holster hidden under her pillow. The clock on her nightstand beside the bed, purely for her own peace of mind, read something along the lines of four AM and her mind was already reeling with questions, dreading the suspected answers. "You're in my room," she said, trying to get herself to sound more intelligent than that, "What are you doing in my room Doctor?"
"Question of the hour isn't it," he asked, rhetorically of course, although he did expect an answer for it after nearly being murdered by his companion in her sleep. "The Tardis alerted me. Old Girl noticed your heart rate had jumped spectacularly while you were asleep and your breathing was erratic so I came to see what the fuss was about." The Doctor rubbed his sore jaw, the tender area being his reward for his concern.
There was a feeling she was getting from the sight of the discolored skin, one that she didn't think she knew or had a name for but she disliked. In fact, she might've been horrified but there was something else in it too. She felt nauseous at the idea that she could've very well done him in all from having a bad dream. "I'm so sorry," she blurted out, "I didn't think about it. I should've known it would happen. I never meant for this to happen, I swear. I would never consciously hurt you." I swear, she thought curiously at the back of her mind. Was this a promise she was making?
"S'alright, Time Lords heal up nice and quick like," he told her. A little bit of well-directed regeneration energy and any and all traces of the bruise she surely would've left on him – not that he would admit it – was gone. The Doctor moved his hand away and grinned, no longer feeling the ache the mark had left him with but it didn't put Caligo at ease as he hoped it would. "Bad dream?"
"You could say that," she murmured, inwardly relieved that he was alright but not trusting herself to be within arm's reach of him now. "Old habits," she sighed, gesturing to the sheathed knife lying at the foot of the bed, "I'm used to waking up alone especially if I went to bed alone the night before." It was the truth. For seven years she had been almost completely alone. Had she not been already awake when the Doctor arrived in Blackridge for a second unexpected visit, she probably would've reacted in a similar manner. Bad dreams weren't uncommon for Caligo but this was the first time she had ever been so shaken by one – that she knew of – that someone felt the need to check up on her. It was almost endearing if not for the fact she had been moments from carving the Doctor up like a turkey. Her inhibitor was responsible for keeping her body in a state similar to sleep paralysis until she was fully conscious of the fact that she wasn't dreaming, but she didn't have that safety net anymore.
The Doctor watched her, waiting to see if there was any more she would say. He was old enough to know that bad dreams were more than just dreams. More often than not they were memories of days long since passed but still smoldering in the corner of ones' mind. They haunted you in the dark when you were alone and most unaware like your own teeth bared viciously against yourself. It wasn't something often talked about, however, not his bad dreams at least, but humans were always better off getting things that bothered them off their chests. Caligo, unsurprisingly, seemed to constantly challenge human norms. Creta Five had been a bit more excitement than they had bargained for but she had bounced back spectacularly; so much so that he'd become a bit suspicious of her behavior.
Nearly four straight days of running, either doing little projects somewhere in the Tardis or mucking about on some alien planet with short, four to five hour breaks in between. Even when the Doctor had insisted she get some rest, she was hardly ever seen sleeping so when she finally agreed with him that it was time for bed, he expected her to be out cold for the next nine or so hours like she'd been at the beginning of the week. It was about six hours and thirty-seven minutes in when the Tardis wouldn't let him walk past her room anymore without checking on her.
"Doctor?"
Lost in his thoughts, the Time Lord had missed the annoyed stare Caligo had set on him for the last minute and a half. Right. Staring, although unintentional, made her upset and one shouldn't stay upset after having a bad dream. "Sorry. Go on."
"Would you please get out of my room?"
He wouldn't deny that he was taken aback by that at first. At least until he realized that all she had on at the moment was her very short shorts and the blue blazer she had been wearing that early morning he'd gone back to Blackridge for her the second time around. "Yes. Sorry. Can't sleep with me taking up all the space, can you," he laughed, getting up and strolling toward the door. He stopped just at the entrance and turned back to her. "Good-" The rest of the words got stuck in his throat when she flicked her wrists in his direction, shooing him out of the doorway. "Good," he said again but was cut off as the woman shut the door in his face. "Night." The Doctor pouted a little before turning on his heel and going back to the consul room to finish fixing up something that he may or may not have disconnected on their last landing.
Caligo waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps in the hall beyond her door before gently resting her head against it. "Please," she whispered into the wood, "Don't tell him next time. Please don't tell him because I don't know if I'll come to my senses in time if this happens again. I don't want to hurt him." She waited for some sort of sign, maybe the lights or a groan or hum like she would hear in the consul room but there was nothing. "Please don't tell him again." That's the end of that, I suppose. I guess I should get into the habit of locking my door or something just to be sure, she thought almost ruefully. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep now. The adrenaline had her blood pumping even now, so she figured she might as well get dressed and see if the Doctor was up for another adventure.
If the Doctor were to have said that Caligo entering the consul room not half an hour after the whole nightmare business in her room was a surprise, it would've been an outright lie. In fact, he'd made sure his repairs had been finished by the time she made her way to his location because he knew what she was after. His back was to the hallway where she entered and he smiled to himself a little, hearing the clunk of her boots against the metal grating. Running for the same and yet all the wrong reasons, he thought just as she came into his right peripheral.
"I'm not even going to bother with sleep at this point," she grumbled, leaning against the consul and blowing a stray lock of hair away from her face.
The Doctor's smile morphed just the slightest bit into a smirk. She'd done exactly as he thought she would. "Well you're in luck," he told her, calmly at first just before he threw the switch that sent the Tardis into motion. Barely any sleep had – six hours didn't mean anything to him when he could see the bags beginning to form under her eyes – and she wanted to be out running for her life. She wants adventure but she didn't say what kind of adventure! "You mentioned true predators back when we were running for our lives," the Doctor said, already flipping switches and pressing buttons.
Caligo stared at him for a minute. "I'm pretty sure I know what you're referring to, but I just want to say, we do an awful lot of running for our lives y'know." She couldn't bite back the bark of laughter when she saw him pout. "But what about predators, Doctor?"
"Well," the Doctor said with a shrug, "if you aren't too busy snarking I thought maybe you'd enjoy a little safari."
"Safari?"
"Not hunting or anything. Just looking. Up close. Likely in a semi-protected vehicle."
Caligo's brow raised, skeptical of how this might be a good idea. "Purposeful danger?" Then again, everything in life bore some magnitude of danger. There was one thing that had never escaped Caligo, however, and it was that individuals who relied solely on their greater intellect often underestimated predatory creatures who relied on instinct. It was commonplace to forget that predatory creatures were more than just pure instinctual killing machines and that many of them learned from mistakes they lived through. They were capable of learning the habits of their prey and even their own predators.
The Doctor studied his companion's face for a moment. Whether Caligo was aware or not her face had become blank. Or maybe it was something a little more than that? She continued to stare at the lever his hand rested on, thinking most likely. Her lips, the corners naturally tilted upward, were drawn into a faint frown. Are you remembering something, he asked no one other than himself. Is it just a memory? Or is it more than that? "You scared," he asked after some time. It could've been a few minutes. It could've been hours. He was never really sure but it was too long and too quiet for his liking.
Caligo's head shot up to look at him. "I'm not scared," she snapped. She cringed a little, not having caught herself, and shook her head before repeating more gently, "I'm not scared. Are we going or not?" As if she needed to ask, the Doctor threw the lever without warning and Caligo staggered a little from the lurch of the Tardis. Had he gone and done that on purpose? Why not? She had been awfully snippy a moment ago.
The Doctor grabbed his coat and nudged her gently. "Promise nothing bad is gonna happen. It'll be fun," he chirped before rushing out the door with Caligo on his heels. "A nice, peaceful nature preserve. How could you go wrong with that? Flora and fauna from all around the galaxy. Might not be technology but just as fascinating, right?" The Doctor watched Caligo catch up, her hands stuffed inside her pockets as she followed him down the stone-like pathway framed by an expanse of green grass. They had landed in the visitor's pavilion; safer that way, obviously. "Nothing terribly dangerous here so it's safe to walk," he told her when he noticed the measured, almost cautious steps she took. Caligo looked in every direction as if she suspected danger from any and every angle. The Doctor couldn't recall her ever being so cautious before but perhaps this is what the lack of an inhibitor did to her. She was surely still learning to navigate this body, a new experience with a full range of human emotions and now subconscious responses to her environment. Same hardware, updated software.
Caligo was still cautiously scanning the area by the time she came to stand beside him and the Doctor noticed her right eye. More specifically, he noticed how he could see her pupil dilate and contract when the sunlight reflected off the semi-artificial looking lense. Eventually, Caligo looked at him and her right eye dilated a bare fraction more than her left as she brushed her bangs out of her face. "Was it the whole thing," the Doctor asked. He wasn't sure if he managed to sound as nonchalant about it as when he discovered she had a prosthetic arm. "Your eye."
Caligo looked directly at the Doctor, wholly unaware of how her right pupil contracted when she focused her attention on him. Even though she knew what he was referring to it still took her a minute to react and she didn't know where this hesitance came from. This apprehension. Was this what she was feeling or would have been feeling the first time he had asked her about her inhibitor or her arm? Was this the reason she always felt reluctant to talk about herself or Wilhelm or the people of Earth? Caligo had known that everything he had seen and experienced on the Earth that she knew displeased him. She could recall the fury in his eyes when Pillar's Military Police officer had dismissed them after they had nearly been set upon by a small angry mob but the real impact of it hadn't hit her until she had to think about it. Until she didn't have the inhibitor to keep these feelings of hesitation and uncertainty at bay. Was this a form of fear? Am I afraid of the Doctor? Caligo turned her gaze to the closest thing to the Doctor – a directory, as it were – that allowed herself to not have to look at that look of his that wasn't quite a disapproval. "Not uh," she mumbled as if distracted, "the whole thing. I used nanites with a modified programming to break down and repurpose the foreign objects on a molecular level and sort of just decided to install an ocular upgrade while repairing the physical damage."
The Doctor's brow quirked. "Install an ocular upgrade," he parroted. He could see every inch of Caligo's body tense when he did and he wondered if he made her nervous. Did he, dare he think it, frighten her?
"I made the decision to," Caligo said. "I thought it would be useful and it has been, don't you think?" She chuckled and moved closer to the sign, hoping to play off the body modification. Caligo wondered if the Doctor, with his alien eyes and intelligence, could tell that the eye he was seeing was little more than a fleshy casing for robotic parts. It wasn't a lie either. The choice had been wholly hers and she didn't regret it then or now, but she wondered if she still would have made the same decision had she been susceptible to these feelings. Susceptible? Is that the machine talking? How much of me is even human?
The Doctor saw his companion jerk ever so slightly and a small, barely audible sound escaped her. Not quite pain but more a sound of distress or discomfort. "What's the matter? You alright," he asked with mounting concern. Without hesitation, he drew his sonic and scanned swiftly over the back of her neck and the right side of her face. The implants were functioning perfectly fine, even a few billion nanites circulating in her system but nothing out of the ordinary for her. He could ask about the nanites later but what caught the Doctor's attention was the clear increase in stress levels.
"Doc, I'm fine," Caligo groaned in irritation. She pushed the sonic far away from her, part in fear that he might detect something. What it was she wasn't entirely sure, but she didn't want anything scanning her without her permission for a good long while. Caligo looked back to the directory and couldn't help pausing. The realization that she was easily comprehending an alien language, while she knew the reason why and had none to worry, caught her by surprise for the second time. Perhaps it was the surreal feeling of it? "All this talk about animals and predators but we're nowhere near them." Caligo rolled her eyes just to tease him. "Oh," she practically purred, "Carnivorous plants. Yes please."
Her moods were changing swiftly and suddenly even for a human and the Doctor knew he would most certainly need to watch out for that in the future. Caligo was choosing to ignore the distress and the cause of it and he could only assume it was for a lack of knowing how to deal with it. Of course, it isn't helping that she doesn't know what that feels like or lets me know what's going on in her head, he inwardly groaned. The Doctor had to hand it to Durellis about being spot on with humans hiding their more troublesome emotions. Still, if he could keep her entertained throughout the day maybe she would discover what relieved the stress and even spark her interest. Something other than machines and working all the time. The Doctor stayed close to Caligo as she plucked a pamphlet from a display on their way into the expansive alien garden. "Actually, that's a sort of umbrella term. Not all the plants eat meat. Don't call a fish or insect-eating plant carnivorous, do you?"
"Okay, then what would you call them Doctor?"
"The former? Pescatarian!"
Caligo stopped walking for a moment and looked up ahead of her, the bridge of her nose scrunching and brow furrowed. The word was completely alien to her. A fish-eating plant? That sounded more believable than a word like that. Surely he'd made it up. Damn sure he made it up, she thought the moment she turned and saw the shit eating grin on his face. "God. Really Doctor," Caligo groaned in half-hearted irritation.
"Why not? If humans can be pescatarian why can't plants? You lot might've made up the word but it's not exclusive use. That'd be rude to Martians don't you think?"
"Wait. That's a real word?"
"Blimey you lot really did lose an awful lot of history, culture and language too didn't you," the Doctor murmured. That wasn't an overly important word anyway. "Know what we should do? Show you everything you missed out on. Things you really ought to consider bringing back. Would lighten everyone up a bit I bet!" Caligo smiled one of her just-barely-there smiles and walked on ahead of him.
"Sure Doctor. But since we're already here, let's go and look at the plants that eat possibly people," the woman said. "I fancy me some non-human predators for a change of pace today." Caligo still kept a wary eye out, however. Animals may not be specifically interested in hunting people and aliens, but that didn't mean it didn't happen from time to time. She could see the smaller creatures scampering through the bushes and tall grass and absolutely massive herbivores on the horizon line that were likely of no direct threat to them. The change in the humidity didn't go unnoticed like the presence of various insects did, plants of various sizes idly devouring the unwary that strayed within their reach. Caligo felt the gentle tug of the Doctor's hand on her arm as he carefully directed her around a sprawling vine with a thickness that of her forearm. She very likely would've been caught in its grasp although unlikely to suffer any sort of injury from it but was still grateful deep down that someone was watching her back. Heavens knew it had been ages since there was another person at her side.
"Someone hasn't been keeping up with the yard work by the looks of it," the Doctor joked as he let go of her arm. At that same moment, he turned on his heel and tilted what looked to be a four-foot corn stalk with several black orchid sized flowers all gathered at the top.
Caligo immediately frowned. "Doctor we're not supposed to pick the flowers," she scolded, holding up the informational brochure.
"I'm not," the Doctor grumbled, rolling his eyes before quickly gesturing her to come closer. "No harm in it." He leaned in and took a slow, deep breath. It smelled of roses. "Come on then. Tell me what you smell," he beckoned Caligo, doing his best to keep the tightness out of his facial expression. "What this plant does is that it attracts prey within a certain proximity to it by playing a little olfactory trick. Its natural chemicals create a scent that's most appealing to that particular individual to lure them in. Bring you just close enough and then," the Doctor paused for dramatic effect. Caligo was still leaning in close to smell the flower, though she had made a sound of acknowledgment whilst he had been talking. He lunged and quickly grabbed her by the shoulders, aiming to give her just a slight jolt. "It strikes!" The Doctor laughed when she yelped but froze the moment he caught sight of her face. Caligo's left eye pooled with tears, one daring to slip loose as her slightly hooded gaze started to focus more on him. Her left eye was glossed over but he could read longing and loneliness in it like words on a page.
Caligo had barely gotten within an inch of the flower when she smelled it. The familiar scent of wood polish, gunmetal, and leather that had just a hint of musk. She could almost taste bitter black coffee and salt the deeper she breathed – after all, smell was a part of being able to taste. Her chest felt as though it were being compressed. Her limbs felt especially heavy at this moment and a sound she hadn't known she could make escaped her, not that she cared. The scent and taste clung to her senses; she was practically drowning in it. Her senses were smothered in something far disconnected from reality even as the Doctor pulled her away from the plant and held her tightly. Her mind rang with a sound that was barely more than an echo yet left no room for anything else, not even coherent thought. The entire world could be burning around her and Caligo wouldn't have noticed it for a second.
"Sorry," he murmured quickly. "I'm so sorry Cal. I should've realized. I'm so sorry." The Doctor gently led her some little ways away from the plant and held her in a firm hug. Gods, he could feel her entire body shaking even if it was just a little. It was well known that the plant recreated pleasurable smells but he knew better than most that even things that once brought pleasure could also bring you pain. He waited for what felt like an eternity for the sound of her breathing to even out and her chest to stop heaving, supporting her against his chest. Her arms hung limp and heavily at her sides as though they were little more than weights but eventually Caligo had gotten hold of herself and managed to support herself. The Doctor brushed just under her left eye with his thumb and gave her a light smile. "No shame in crying. You're only human after all."
Caligo made a sound of annoyance and pushed his hands away from her face, eyes looking in any direction but his. "Fuck you. I'm not crying," she croaked, turning to walk further down the path. "Draugr don't cry. We don't feel. I'm pretty sure my tear ducts don't even work," she rambled loudly. She couldn't see it, but she felt a heat almost like a burning sensation spread across her face and up to her ears. "I only have one anyway!" The tastes and smells she had been drowning in minutes before were quickly dissipating the more she talked, the more she breathed the fresh, humid air; but the echo in her mind was still there. It was softer now but Caligo could feel its familiarity, recognize the voice. His voice. She knew the song. Our song. "I haven't drunk anything since yesterday. Where's all this liquid coming from?! My nanites must be malfunctioning!" Except that the nanites were in the eye that was no longer capable of producing copious amounts of tears.
Caligo had been walking faster and faster, most likely without knowing it and the Doctor was already sprinting to catch up to her when he saw it. "Cal, stop!" But she was just a little too far ahead for him to grab a hold of her again. All the Doctor had managed to do was get himself within range of whatever this was too. Caligo's foot hit the wire before she knew what was happening and the air around them practically exploded. The last thing the Doctor could remember seeing was Caligo's back, standing frozen in the middle of the blast. Or at least that's what it had all looked like.
Her vision was blurred and far too bright for what it had been a minute ago. Caligo's right eye was whirring violently, doing its best to balance all of the sensory information it had just taken in that short span of time but the only reason she knew, other than it being plugged into her brain, was the feel of the very faint vibration of it. There was no sound. Not even muffled bits; just pure silence beyond that echo in the corner of her mind urging her to get up. To keep her guard up. That they weren't alone. Caligo clumsily pulled herself up from the ground onto her knees and tore open the straps on the left sleeve of her jacket, her prosthetic arm expanding into the kinetic shield. Vision in her left eye was still blurred and basically useless but the nanites in her right had helped to right enough damage that she could use her infrared filter. They were already surrounded by several heat signatures on all sides, all armed and her hearing hadn't even made a comeback yet.
"What gives? I thought you said this would put her down for good," one of the figures questioned angrily. "Or do Draugs upgrade themselves?"
"Does it matter? Look. She's flying blind. Probably doesn't even know we're here yet," another barked in response. Her own ears were still ringing slightly from the power of that sonic land mine and they had all been a fair distance away when it had detonated.
"Don't take any chances," a deep and commanding voice ordered from the rear of the group. The alien took a few steps out of the brush and to the untrained eye, it would have likely been several seconds before they realized that their skin was changing to match their surroundings. The chameleon-like alien eyed the Doctor who was currently splayed out on the ground behind the human woman and grinned with a wickedness that was intensified by the long scar running down from over his engorged left eye down to the bottom of his jaw. "End of the line, Doctor," the alien growled. "Secure him. I'm gonna put this one out of her misery myself." He cocked the plasma rifle in his hands, knowing that her kinetic shield would do her absolutely no good at such a close range.
Caligo, head turning in every direction, was terrified. The voices of the individuals were still muffled murmurs and the occasional bout of laughter. She saw several of them move for the Doctor who still had yet to so much as move and it only made the fear intensify. He was usually so quick to recover from disastrous situations. What would she do without him? You're the Draugr. You're the one who's supposed to protect him, not the other way around! That's your purpose! The only reason you exist is to protect those around you, her mind screamed at her but it didn't seem to be capable of doing anything other than that; screaming at her. By sheer luck, Caligo caught the sight of the charging plasma rifle aimed at her face. Without a second thought, she raised the shield up in front of herself and rammed the main support beam of her prosthetic into the barrel. The only coherent thought there was, the only thing that mattered as the adrenaline forced her heart to send blood rushing through her veins was to stop the weapon from firing. Stop it from firing at her, at the Doctor, just firing in general. She just wanted to stop the alien with his finger on the trigger. She just didn't want to die. What she hadn't intended to have happened was for the round to feed back into the weapon itself or for it to overload. Caligo never intended for the weapon to suddenly explode, to destroy her shield or cover the wielder with the volatile plasma rounds that essentially disintegrated the upper fourth of his body, quite likely leaving him dead.
Silence filled the air, for what little Caligo was now actually able to hear. No one spoke or made any sound as the body hit the ground. It was as if everyone present had suddenly been frozen in that one moment in time. Eventually, however, someone had come to their senses and shot at her. Caligo took the full blast in her left shoulder leaving next to nothing of her prosthetic's relays still connected to her but that was the least of her problems. The entire group – there had to have been at least twenty of them in total – had descended upon her and while her Draugr training made her formidable even in a state of panic and fear, there were still far too many of them. This is it. This is the end, she thought as her vision began to fade. The nanites just couldn't keep up with the damage being caused. I always knew it would end like this. With the strength she could muster, Caligo stayed on her feet for what was probably about a minute before someone or something knocked her to the ground. A blade struck out at her, just grazing the right side of her face as she tried to squirm out of the alien's grasp when a bellowing roar shook the air. The ground rumbled violently with the thundering steps of something in the distance and a heavy fog quickly settled in around them. The aliens growled, cussed and shouted in fear and anger but their rage couldn't have prepared them for the creature that had followed the fog.
Appearing gargantuan from her place on the ground, Caligo saw what could only be described as a hulking reptilian creature with a penchant for carnage. None of their attackers were spared and the creature even came and bit one in half, devouring them. Fearing that the Doctor or herself might be next, she reached for a plasma pistol that had been dropped by one of their unfortunate assailants but it disappeared into physical nothingness the moment the fog settled over it. While Caligo swore she saw a face in the fog, the reptilian monster crouched over her, sniffing her and then turning its head toward the Doctor. "Don't you dare! You stay away from him," she shouted, unable to clearly hear herself but certain that the creature did.
The creature eyed her with curiosity before throwing its large crocodile-like head back and uttering a rumbling… laugh?
"Janine, stop that," a voice echoed disapprovingly from somewhere in the fog. "They're both alive so let's take them back and see if we can't keep them that way." The fog itself suddenly lifted and condensed itself into a peculiarly humanoid looking shape, leaving the entire area perfectly visible once more.
The crocodile-like creature gave a low growl as it picked up Caligo first and then the Doctor, both slung over either shoulder. Caligo's right eye struggled for a brief moment before locking onto the Doctor's features and doing a very quick and basic scan. The voice in the fog had been right. Caligo could still detect a pulse but the Doctor's eyes were glazed and completely unresponsive. What in the hell happened? He needs medical attention. I need to get him back to the Tardis! Caligo struggled to get closer to the Doctor but as she did, the same strange fog clouded her already weak vision.
"If you keep squirming you'll just hurt yourself more," the voice told her, but reasoning with her didn't seem to be one of the better options currently. So he made an executive decision to put her to sleep. Converting part of his body into a nonlethal, nontoxic and nonaddictive sleeping agent, he filled her lungs until she finally fell into an uneasy slumber. The crocodile-like creature, to which he referred to as Janine, growled disapprovingly at him but carried the two individuals back in the direction of the sprawling mountain range in the distance nonetheless.