Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own anything but Kylie, unfortunately.
I'm quite surprised at myself, to tell you the truth. This is the fastest story I've ever written. I'm just having so much fun with it:) Thanks for all the new follows and favorites! You make me happy:) And to my amazing reviewers, you make me blush;)
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Soooo on to the chapter!
I snapped to my feet, and it took me a moment to try to make my way from sleep. The Doctor and Martha were already running through the door, and I finally remembered what had woken me.
A scream.
I ran after them, suddenly afraid when I saw they had entered Shakespeare's room. We crossed the doorway and, relieved, I saw Shakespeare merely trying to blink away his sleep.
However, whatever relief I had shattered when I saw a woman's – the barmaid's –body on the floor. The Doctor crouched beside it, trying to feel for a pulse.
Martha and I ran for the open window, just in time to see a witch on her broomstick laughing away as she rode the wind. We exchanged wide glances, before turning back to the Doctor.
"Her heart gave out," he said. "She died of fright."
"Doctor?" Martha called.
The Doctor ran to us, and leaned out the window. "What did you see?"
Martha and I met eyes once again. We spoke at the same time. "A witch."
Dawn had just passed. The Doctor, Martha and I sat in Shakespeare's room, watching as he paced and mourned.
"Oh, sweet Dolly Bailey. She sat out three bouts of the plague in this place. We all ran like rats. But what could have scared her so?" he sat, staring at us intently. "She had such enormous spirit.
"Rage," The Doctor muttered, quoting. "Rage against the dying of the light."
Shakespeare glanced at him. "I might use that."
"You can't," The Doctor said, still lost in thought. "It's someone else's."
"Lynley drowned on dry land," I muttered. "Dolly died of fright. Not the most usual ways to go, are they?"
"They were both connected to you," Martha said, softly, looking at Shakespeare.
"You're accusing me?" He asked, and his voice was angry, though his expression was stony
"No, but I saw a witch, big as you like," she explained. "Flying, cackling away, and you've written about witches."
Shakespeare's face twisted in confusion. "I have? When was that?"
"No," The Doctor corrected her in a low voice. "Not quite yet."
The writer still seemed confused. "Peter Streete spoke of witches."
"Peter Streete?" I asked.
"Our builder. He sketched the plans to the Globe."
"An architect," The Doctor repeated. Then his eyes widened in disbelief. "Hold on. The architect! The architect!" He jumped to his feet and slammed a fist on the table. "The Globe! Come on!"
We rushed off in the Globe's direction, sprinting and ducking around the people already wandering around, starting the day's chores.
I barely avoided a woman carrying a basket on her head when my shoulder caught with another man's. I stumbled back, losing my balance.
"Look where you're going, wench!" he growled.
A hand caught me before I could fall, and I looked back to see Shakespeare glaring at the man.
"Piss off," He barked.
The man scowled in return but backed off, shooting us glares as he left.
"Are you alright?" Shakespeare asked.
"Yeah, thanks." I shook myself off, pulling Shakespeare along. "They're leaving us behind."
"They'll wait."
I laughed good-naturedly. "I don't think the Doctor waits for anybody."
The Doctor and Martha were already inside. Martha stood onstage, and we joined her as we watched the Doctor walk in circles around the pit.
I stared out into the pit and the seats. Even if the Globe was empty, being onstage still felt thrilling. The whole building was made for the place where I stood at to be watched. This was the focus, the center of attention, impossible to miss.
"The columns there, right?" The Doctor was saying. "Fourteen sides. I've always wondered but I never asked… tell me, Will, why fourteen sides?"
Shakespeare shrugged. "It was the shape Peter Streete thought best, that's all. Said it carried the sound well."
"Fourteen," the Time Lord repeated to himself. "Why does that ring a bell?"
"There are fourteen lines in a sonnet," Martha tried.
"So there is. Good point. Words and shapes following the same design. Fourteen lines, fourteen sides, fourteen facets…." He grabbed his head, hitting it as he paced. "Oh, my head. Tetradecagon… think, think, think! Words, letters, numbers, lines!"
"This is just a theatre." Shakespeare pressed.
"Oh, no it isn't just a theater. And you know that Will." I said, sitting down on the stage's edge and leaving my feet dangling as I watched the Doctor.
The Doctor nodded in agreement. "Theater magic! You should know." He walked to the stage next to my legs, running his hands over the wooden floor. "Stand on the stage, say the right words with the right emphasis at the right time… oh, you can make men weep, or cry with joy, change them." Then he paused, like he realized something important. "You can change people's minds just with words in this place."
"It's like your police box and your Timepiece," Martha added. "Small wooden box and a fragile wristwatch with all that power inside."
I caught the Doctor's look, my mind running over the implications. "If there was a way to exaggerate all this power, well, who knows what you could do."
The Doctor grinned. "Oh. Oh, Martha Jones, Kylie, I like you. Tell you what, though. Peter Streete would know. Can I talk to him?"
Shakespeare sighed, running a hand through his head as he watched us. "You won't get an answer. A month after finishing this place, he lost his mind."
"Why? What happened?" Martha asked.
"Started raving about witches, hearing voices, babbling. His mind was addled."
"Where is he now?" The Doctor inquired.
"Bedlam."
"And that would be…?" I asked.
"Bethlem Hospital." He paused, eyeing us. "The madhouse."
The Doctor didn't waste any time. "We're gonna go there. Right now. Come on!"
Martha and I scurried after him. I didn't think of us as his assistants anymore. No, now we looked more like his well-trained dogs.
"Wait!" Shakespeare yelled. "I'm coming with you. I want to witness this at first hand!"
We passed two actors on our way out. Shakespeare handed them a sheaf of papers. "Ralph, the last scene as promised." He told one of them. "Copy it, hand it round. Learn it. Speak it. Back before curtain up. Remember, kid, project. Eyes and teeth. You never know – the Queen might turn up."
"Really?" I asked him as we hurried after the Doctor.
Shakespeare laughed almost mockingly. "As if. She never does."
We went out to the street, and once again began the arduous task of trying to keep up with the Doctor's long legs.
"So, tell me of Freedonia," Shakespeare told Martha. "Where women can be doctors, writers, actors."
"This country's ruled by a woman," she responded.
"Ah," Shakespeare said, nodding. "She's royal. That's God's business." Then he turned to me. "She's a doctor. How about you, dear Kylie?"
"I,-" I hesitated, seeing Martha becoming interested in my response all of the sudden. "I travel."
"Ah!" Shakespeare grinned approvingly. "A wanderer. You do seem like it. Though, I must say, you've already wandered into my heart, you beauty."
I laughed, though Martha didn't seem to be that amused by it.
"Whoa, Nelly!" She exclaimed, stopping in her tracks. We stopped beside her. "I know for a fact you've got a wife in the country."
I felt my eyebrows rise and I met Shakespeare's eyes. "Oh, you do?"
He simply shrugged it away. "But Martha, this is Town."
The Doctor turned on his heel when he noticed we weren't following him. "Come on!" he urged. "We can all have a good flirt later."
Shakespeare's eyes seemed to glint as his mouth edged into a mischievous grin. "Is that a promise, Doctor?"
That seemed to have stumped the Doctor. He hesitated for a second, before muttering, "Oh, 57 academics just punched the air. Now move!"
Shakespeare met my eyes and winked. I giggled as I followed after them.
Bedlam was a huge hospital, complete with huge – unused – gardens and an iron gate surrounding the property.
If the outside of the building looked unwelcoming, the inside screamed 'run away while you've still got the chance.' Screams and moans filled the air as we passed, and the smell of dirt and mildew filled the air.
The jailer was huge, but I felt much better walking beside Shakespeare than him. He talked about whipping the 'mad men,' and putting up a show for us. I knew that we Osiriens weren't faultless or the best species to ever exist (far from it,) but I at least knew there wasn´t anything remotely like this in our planet. The Forces would not have allowed it.
The Doctor and Martha had the same disgusted faces than I did, and the Doctor vehemently denied every one of the jailer's ideas. Shakespeare, however, remained impassive, his face almost stony.
"Wait here, my lords," The jailer finally said. "While I make him… presentable, for the ladies."
He left, hitting some cages as he passed.
"So this is what you call a hospital yeah?" Martha finally broke the silence only accompanied by the moans. Her eyes were steely as she confronted Shakespeare. "Where the patients are whipped to entertain the gentry? And you put your friend in here?"
"Oh, and it's all so different in Freedonia," He mocked.
"But you're clever!" She insisted. "Do you honestly think this place is any good?"
"I've been mad," he said, and it sounded so forlorn that I unconsciously moved in closer. "I've lost my mind. Fear of this place set me right again. It serves its purpose."
"Mad in what way?"
"You lost your son," was the Doctor's quiet interruption.
His expression broke my heart. "My only boy. The Black Death took him. I wasn't even there."
"I didn't know. I'm sorry," Martha said softly.
I was so close to Shakespeare already I didn't have to reach much further for my hand to reach his. I quickly enveloped his in mine, and only smiled softly in reply in his searching look.
His hand tightened and laced through mine.
"It made me question everything," he continued. "The futility of this fleeting existence. To be or not to be…" the somber mood was suddenly broken. "Oh, that's quite good."
"You should write that down," The Doctor advised.
"Hm, maybe not. A bit pretentious?"
The jailer made his way out of a cell. "This way, m'lords!" he called.
We made our way through the dingy corridor to the cell. Shakespeare's hand squeezed mine once before letting go. If Martha or the Doctor noticed, they didn't mention it.
Peter was crouched on a corner, head bent and arms wrapped around his legs.
"They can be dangerous, m'lord." The jailer told the Doctor. "Don't know their own strength."
"I think it helps if you don't whip them," The Doctor snarled. "Now, get out!"
The jailer left, and the Doctor approached Peter slowly.
"Peter? Peter Streete?" He said, much softer.
Shakespeare stepped up. "He's the same as he was. You'll get nothing out of him."
The Doctor softly placed a hand on Peter's shoulder. "Peter?"
Peter's head jerked up. He stared at the Doctor, green eyes glassy. His mouth opened and closed, as if he wanted to speak. He twitched and shook, looking deathly afraid.
The Doctor placed his hands over Peter's temples, staring at his eyes intently. "Peter, I'm the Doctor. Go into the past, one year ago. Let you mind go back, back to when everything was fine and shining. Everything that happened in this year since happened to somebody else. It was just a story. A winter's tale. Let go. listen. That's it, just let go." He softly pushed Peter until he was lying on his cot. Then, the Doctor straightened, and his voice changed from soft to a command. "Tell me the story, Peter. Tell me about the witches."
"Witches spoke to Peter," Peter rasped, nodding along as he talked. "In the night, they whispered. Got Peter to build the Globe to their design. Their design! The fourteen walls – always fourteen. When the work was done," He started laughing maniacally. "Oh! They sapped poor Peter's wits."
"Where did Peter see the witches?" The Doctor inquired. "Where in the city? He crouched beside the man as Peter's breaths started coming out as pants. "Peter, tell me. You've got to tell me, where were they?"
Peter took a long breath, as if fighting for control. "All Hallows Street."
I think I was the first to notice the creature, the witch, appearing next to the Doctor. Her nose was long and her green skin was wrinkled and sprinkled with warts. Her hair was dull and thin, the white strands falling over her shoulders.
"Doctor, beside you!" I screamed.
"Too many words," The witch cackled.
The Doctor jumped to his feet, immediately coming to stand beside us as we faced the witch.
"What the hell?" Martha exclaimed.
"Just one touch of the heart," the witch said, lifting a finger. She slowly placed it over Peter's heart, and we watched, uncomprehending.
"No!" The Doctor screamed, but he was too late to stop it.
Peter's scream was ripped from his throat. His eyes bugged out, before slowly running back to his face as his scream died. We watched as Peter's life was taken and absorbed into the witch.
"Witch!" Shakespeare gasped. "I'm seeing a witch!"
"Who would be next, hmm?" The witch wondered. "Just one touch." Her hands floated on the air before us. "Oh, oh, I'll stop your frantic hearts. Poor, fragile mortals."
Martha rushed to the cell's door. "Let us out! Let us out!" She shrieked.
"That's not gonna work," I muttered. "The whole building's shouting that."
"Who will die first, hmm?" The witch cackled.
"Well," The Doctor dragged out the word. "If you're looking for volunteers." Then he approached the witch.
"No! Don't!" Martha screamed.
"Doctor," I warned. By now I knew very well the Doctor didn't do anything without a reason, but this seemed plain, old foolish.
"Doctor, can you stop her?" Shakespeare asked.
The witch grinned a repulsively big smile. "No mortal has power over me!"
"Oh, but there's power in words," was the Doctor's reply. "If I can find the right one – if I can just know you…"
"None on Earth has knowledge of us."
"Then it's a good thing we're here," The Doctor shot me a look. "Anything?"
I frowned, my mind running of the hundreds of species I had met, but I came up with nothing. I shook my head. "Sorry."
The Doctor shrugged, and began analyzing the creature before him. "Now think, think, think… Humanoid female, uses shapes and words to channel energy… ah, fourteen! That's it! Fourteen! The fourteen stars of the Rexel planetary configuration! Creature, I name you Carrionite!"
The Carrionite was suddenly enveloped in a bright yellow light. She wailed and flung her arms, before dematerializing into thin air.
We stared, astonished.
"What did you do?" Martha asked, awed.
"I named her. The power of a name." The Doctor paused. "That's old magic."
"But there's no such thing as magic," the would-be doctor continued.
"Well, it's just a different sort of science. You lot, you chose mathematics. Given the right string of numbers, the right equation, you can split the atom. Carrionites use words instead."
"But," I wondered. "Where did she go?"
"She's not dead, if that's what you're asking." The Doctor paced. "She's just weakened, that's all."
"What are they going to use their words for, Doctor?" Shakespeare asked.
The Doctor paused, facing us.
"The end of the world."
Dun dun duuuuun