Chapter 2

Breaking

2.

He didn't know how long he had been left there, lying on the concrete floor, cold and neglected, covered by his own filth. The door opened a couple of times. Men came into the room. They probed and prodded his wounds as if to assess his physical condition, but he was hardly aware of it. Someone entered and brought him a pail of water. His throat was parched, he was dying of thirst, but he didn't dare to touch it. He didn't want to be forced to urinate in the cell. He was scared sick that the man would come back and hurt him again. His dazed mind, which used to be so clever and rational and so dammed brilliant came up with the idea of a possible link, and now it was clinching onto it like a frightened child to a plush toy.

Days went by.

His condition quickly deteriorated, dehydration pushing his already struggling organs to the edge. His heart beat became irregular, and he was either unconscious or delirious for most of the time. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, and his eyes glued shut due to lack of fluids to keep them moist. His thirst grew into a beast that consumed all of his thoughts and dreams. Finally, he gave in, his fear for the man succumbing to this beast of thirst, and he crawled to the pail and drunk from the water greedily and hastily till his stomach was bloated and he could drink no more. It may have saved his life, but soon he was lying on the floor, rolling uncomfortably from side to side. Hours later, the pressing sensation in the lower part of his abdomen had become unbearably, his bladder transformed into a painful fluid-filled balloon that tortured his insides. It was then that the door to his cell opened and he was dragged outside.

Emerging from total darkness into the sterile light of a hospital corridor, his deteriorated consciousness caught fleeting images of his surroundings, a nurse who quickened her pace and averted her eyes from him as she passed by, the broken tiles and the flaking green paint that covered much of the walls, a man in a soiled straightjacket, sitting up in a hospital bed with his shoulders hunched forward, a wild animal look in his eyes and drool dripping down his chin. They took him into a long rectangular room that stank of damp mould and raw sewage. Someone untied his hands and he cried out in agony when they grabbed his wrists and forced his cold and tightened muscles to overstretch by pulling his arms upwards. They secured his wrists on a chain that dangled from a rusty pipe running across the ceiling and hoisted him up till he was barely able to touch the floor with the tip of his toes. His new extreme posture evoked the wrath of his already abused body, and every small ache that he had mercifully forgotten for the last 24 hours returned with a vengeance, causing him to spasm uncontrollably.

The first jet of water that hit him knocked the air out of his lungs, liquid ice that soon turned into a frosty javelin that stabbed his countless bruises and impaled his ribcage on the site of his broken rib. Intoxicated by this nightmare agony, his body screaming for clemency, he finally lost control of his bladder. Urine trickled down in dark brown streams, and mixed with the freezing water into yellowish pools before it disappeared into the drain. He was still peeing when they suddenly stopped blasting him with the jet. Still conscious enough to be fully aware of the humiliation, he turned his face shamefully away from his captors as he continued to relief himself, hot piss dripping down his legs. He couldn't stop. He was no longer in control of his body.

He winced when someone pinched his cheeks together and forced his head to turn back to face a fierce light that almost blinded him completely.

"You've wet yourself." This simple statement alone was enough to cause panic. The man was back. Weak, shaken and pathetic, he broke down, choking on his own sobs as the man's fingers dug deeper into his cheeks, his fingernails carving half-moon rings into his flesh. The man's lips brushed over his broken left ear as he leaned against him and whispered: "Now, who gave you the permission to do that, my boy?"

The outcome of this was, of course, inevitable. While his mind was trying to shut down to escape the brutality that followed, it couldn't stop from rewiring itself as it subconsciously linked cause to effect. It set up new rules for him to follow, and engraved fear into the most primal region of his mind to prevent him from ever making the same horrible mistake again.

He was being taught.

He needed to learn quickly, or else he would suffer the consequences.

The false memories of Donna Noble

2.

I was only still a little girl. Eight years old. My granddad got a dog for Christmas. Nan passed away that summer, and it was the first time that gramps lived on his own without her since he came back from the war. My mum was worried, so much even that she put her crazy phobias aside and went to the animal shelter herself to pick out a companion for him. Something to keep him busy, she said. It was an ace plan. He loved that dog. Reggie he called him. Short for Regina, my nan's middle name.

I was ecstatic. It was like having a pet of my own. I remember it was two days after Boxing day, gramps was visiting, and I was taking Reggie out for a walk. It was cold, and snowing, and it was getting dark pretty early, but I didn't mind, because inside every house of the neighborhood the Christmas lights were on, cheery twinkles glowing behind the windows. It felt like a fairytale walking through all that, a proper winter wonderland. There was only one house that remained dark, the curtains drawn. It was the old Victorian at the end of the street with the tall hedge surrounding the garden. We knew that there were posh people living in there, but we never saw them. My mum used to joke that they were probably vampires who only came out at night to buy a pint of virgin's blood at Harrods.

I was just passing by when something brown and furry darted from underneath the hedge. It was a small rabbit. I was so startled that I forgot to hold on to Reggie's leash, and before I knew it, the little dog pulled free. The rabbit dashed back underneath the foliage with Reggie right behind its fluffy tail, leaving me standing there with an empty leash. I couldn't go home without him. My mum would kill me. So when I spotted a hole in the hedge I went through. As I crawled on my belly over the snow, I could hear Reggie barking in the garden.

"What did you find on the other side?"

A dog. Not my granddad's friendly hand-luggage sized Jack Russell terrier, but a mean German Sheppard the size of a small horse. He was bearing its teeth at me, ears flat against its fur and growling like a wolf. Needless to say, I ran for it. He chased me through the entire garden all the way up to the grand house. That dog was mental. I really thought that he was going to rip me apart if he ever caught up with me.

"And how did you escape this predicament?"

There was this huge oak tree growing close to the house. I am not exactly the athletic type, but I was really in a panic, and somehow managed to get up that tree faster than a frightened cat clawing up the curtains. It wasn't until I had almost reached the top that I looked back down and saw how high I had ended up. I am very bad with heights, and was hugging on to the branch for dear life when I heard someone shout at me.

"What are you doing in our family tree?" A boy was standing in front of a window. He was about my age, maybe a little bit older. Dressed in a brown checkered dressing gown, his face was long and looked extra pale with his mop of dark curly hair hanging low over his eyes. I've climbed so high that he was looking right at me from the second floor of his house. "You're not allowed to climb in there."

"It's not like I want to be here." I told him. "There's a mad dog down there in the garden. I think he wants to eat me."

He leaned out of the window to take a look at the crazy monster circling the tree. "That's just Bruno." He replied in a matter of fact voice. "He's our guard dog. He only bites trespassers and burglars."

"I am not a burglar."

"Yes but you are trespassing, aren't you?" He said with an insufferable smug smile on his face. I wanted to slap him, if only I wasn't trapped in a tree with both my hands occupied with clinging onto a piece of wood that was starting to make really terrifying noises.

"O-o that doesn't look good." He furrowed his brows and studied my peculiar situation calmly. "How much do you weigh?"

"25 kilos." I lied, thinking that it was none of his business.

"No seriously." He chuckled. "You're like what 30,5 - 31 kilos? That branch is never going to hold you."

"Oh don't be such a smartass!" I yelled back at him, just before the tree made a snapping noise and the branch tumbled down till it barely clung on to the trunk, leaving me dangling at a most frightening angle.

"Help me!" I screamed out in panic. "Don't just stand there like a piece of furniture! Do something!" The boy disappeared for a moment, only to return with some sort of long metal construction that looked like a weird science project. Resting it on the windowsill, he shoved the long structure out of the window in my direction.

"Here grab hold of this and pull."

"Oh no! Forget it! I am not letting go! Not for this." I objected, clutching on so tightly the bark split between my fingers.

He rolled his blue eyes at me, muttered something under his breath, and tilted the end of the construction over my head by pushing it down on his side to get the needed leverage.

"What is this thing?" I asked, watching the structure getting locked in the nearby branches. It was composed of brightly colored metal parts. I was pretty sure that I had seen those parts before, stored in dusty old boxes up in granddad's attic.

"It's a Meccano bridge. I build it. Quickly, you have to climb over it now."

"What? Are you mental? I am not going to cross over on that!"

"Why not?"

"It's a toy bridge! It's not made for carrying real people."

He just shrugged and grinned, seemingly finding the whole situation more amusing than alarming. "It's strong enough. Trust me, it will hold you. Don't worry."

I really had no other choice, so I clumsily climbed on top of the toy bridge. My heart jumped in my throat when my weight caused it to buckle in the middle. "Just use it like a ladder on its side." He tried to reassure me. "If you hold on to the railing you will be perfectly safe."

Slowly, I inched my way towards him. At least this thing has metal nuts and bolts in it and wasn't made out of bleeding Lego, I kept telling myself. I was almost at the other end when all of a sudden the bridge dropped half a meter down, launching me backward. I managed to cling onto the railing and yelled my lungs out.

"You said it was going to hold me!"

"It's not the bridge. It's the branch! It's giving. Come one. You're almost here. Take my hand." He reached out to grab me, but I was still too far away.

"Can't reach it!" Then I noticing that he was still standing half a meter away from the window. "Can't you any get closer?" I shouted.

He didn't move an inch, just kept leaning his upper body further out. His brows knitted in a worried frown when he noticed that the other end of the bridge started to sink lower and lower.

"Try harder!" He urged. "Come on!"

I stretched out towards him as far as I possible could. Finally our fingers touched, then his hand was wrapped around mine, pulling me to him. It was not a second too soon. Behind me, the Mecanno bridge slipped out of the window and tumbled two floors down into the snow. I was propelled forward in the opposite direction.

"Are you all right?" He asked, as I was lying on my tummy with my teeth scraping over the carpet.

"Of course I am not all right! You almost pulled my whole arm off! Why couldn't you even bother to move to…" I stopped moaning when I turned around and finally saw him.

He was sitting in a wheelchair.

"Oh…oh I am so sorry." I felt my head flush hot with blood. So that's why he couldn't get any closer to the window. "I…I didn't know –"

"It's all right." He acted as if it didn't bother him. Looking back now, I think he would have preferred me yelling than to have me apologizing to him. He never wanted to be pitied by anyone. Unfortunately, at that age I kinda lacked the smarts to keep my mouth shut.

"What happened to your legs?" I asked stupidly, gawking at him like I just saw them drop off in front of my eyes.

"Nothing." He glared back at me, clearly resenting the question. "I was born like this. What? You've never seen someone in a wheelchair before?"

"Yes. Old people. Not some-one of my age."

"Well, congratulations." He huffed and angrily spun his wheelchair around. "I hope I have been very educational to you."

"Hey, I said I was sorry didn't I?"

I finally got a chance to look around in the room and noticed that it was packed with the most stupendous amount of toys. There was a workbench with boxes full of Mecanno parts, enough, I was sure, to build a ladder all the way up to the moon. There was a cupboard overflowing with games, ranging from Cluedo, Operation and Guess Who to that silly mouse trap game that I've been whining about to my mum for months, but never got. There was more Lego in that room than I have ever seen in a toyshop, and against the wall, there were bookshelves filled with rows and rows of books. It was a kid's dream come true.

"Is this your room?" I gasped, stunned with amazement.

"Yes, what of it?"

"It's amazing!" I exclaimed, hardly able to contain my excitement. "I could stay here for months without ever getting bored. Your parents must be rich!"

"It's compensation." He muttered, turning back his wheelchair to face me. "I'm not allowed to go outside, so my parents try to do it the other way around, and get as much of the outside world to fit in my room to cheer me up. Ignore the mess." He muttered, slightly embarrassed as I made my way through the packed room. "With a crazy logic like that of my mum and dad's it's just a matter a time before I ran out of space. They are moving me to a bigger room next week. At least you can't say they don't try."

I picked up a toy spaceship. It had two laser canons that lit up and made buzzing noises when you pressed in a series of buttons. "I wish I had this much stuff in my room."

"It's boring." He said, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. "It's rubbish. I wouldn't mind to give everything away if I could trade it all for just one day out in the snow."

He looked really bitter and sad when he said it. I made me feel sorry for him. "Hey. Cheer up." I told him. "You're not going to stay inside forever. I know it's a real bugger, especially when it's snowing and you can't get out, but you'll get better. My cousin Jamie did. leg used his kneecap last year and had to spend the whole winter inside, but now he's up and about like the rest of us. My aunt even let him play soccer again."

"That's different." He snapped, angered by my clumsy attempt to be kind. "The doctors told my father that my leg-bones are not formed correctly. I am nothing like your cousin. I will never be able to walk." He paused when he noticed my shocked reaction. "Just...don't feel sorry for me. It's getting better. My legs used to hurt so much…Like…like they were on fire. Now they just hurt." He shrugged, all of his anger already dissipated. "Anyway, I got used to it." He studied my face. "I'm sure that I've seen you before. Do you live nearby?"

"Actually, I live in your street. If you look out of the window you can probably see my house. I can see yours from my bedroom window. At least, I see the huge hedge around your garden."

"I saw you pass by a couple of times." He admitted, seemingly interested. "You were in your school uniform. Richmond Elementary, right?"

"I haven't noticed you around. You go to a different place?" Probably one that's more posh than mine, I thought, but he shook his head.

"Home-tutoring. Like everything else, the teachers come to me."

"You really never go outside? Ever?"

"My parents won't allow it. The doctors say that I don't have an immune system. If I even catch something so ridiculously harmless like the common cold I am dead."

"So…if you don't go out, and don't go to school, when do see your friends?"

"Don't need friends. I can keep myself busy." He answered stubbornly, but the change of expression on his face told me he wasn't exactly happy about it.

I tried to change the subject. "You drew this? Is that your dad?" I pointed out a drawing that was stuck with two magnets on a whiteboard. At an age when most kids, including myself, were still drawing people as simple figures with big balloon heads balancing on broomsticks, he actually had made some very live-like sketches that would put the average grown-up artist to shame. "Is he a policeman?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, for a start, he's standing next to a blue box that says police."

"That's not my dad." He sighed as if he was offended by how stupid my question was. "That's the Doctor."

I frowned. "Who?"

"His name is the Doctor. He is an alien and he travels through time in his spaceship." He answered with such persuasion that I found it a bit disturbing. "And that's not a wooden police box. It's a time travel machine called the Tardis. It stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."

"Oh-kay." Being locked up in a room on your own was obviously not very good for your mental health. There were more drawings of the Doctor. More sketches of the blue police box on weird planets where the sky was red like it was dawn or entirely black, littered with the night's stars. He even had made a model of the Tardis out of balsa wood, complete with a hand-puppet version of the Doctor with a happy-go-lucky grin plastered on his puppet face. And then there were these monsters. Aliens I supposed, made out of plaster and painted with great care. They came in all different types and sizes. Some looked like lizards in battle armor, others looked like robots with metal arms and legs. The weirdest ones were shaped like silver dustbins with miniature toilet plungers sticking out of their heads.

This kid had a seriously big imagination.

"You made all of these?" I asked him, picking up another hand-puppet that looked, alarmingly, a lot like him.

"It's the only thing that is not boring in my life."

"Do you and the Doctor have all kinds of adventures together? Is he like an imaginary friend?"

He stared at me like he was expecting me to burst out laughing any time soon. "You think that I am a total freak." He concluded.

"No No, I don't." I stammered, feeling guilty. To be fair, I actually did think he was a bit of a nutter. Here I was, stamping all over this crippled kid's feelings. "You know what. It's not that weird. I also have an imaginary friend. Her name is Amber. It's been a while since we played together, but I still talk to her whenever I am sad."

That was actually not completely untrue, and he seemed to relax a bit.

"The Doctor is my only friend." He admitted in a soft voice.

"He doesn't seem like a bad one to have." I smiled, trying to cheer him up, and gestured at the wall with the drawings. "I'm sure he's amazing."

When I put the hand-puppet back on the shelf I noticed a bulky object standing next to the toy cupboard. It was narrow and as tall as a grown man, and was covered up with a large white bed-sheet. Curious, I went over and lifted up the fabric to see what was underneath.

"What are you doing? Leave that alone!" He warned, suddenly on edge.

"There is a mirror under this. Why do you keep it covered up?"

"No reason. Don't touch it!" Did I imagine it, or did he sound afraid? "Look, you should get out of here before anyone notices you. If my mum sees you standing here spewing germs all over me, she is going to have a serious fit."

I just emerged from underneath the sheet when a loud barking came from outside. We both shared a look and rushed over to the window.

"Reggie!" I watched with terror how the little terrier was being chased around the tree by the big black monster that had tried to get to me earlier. Round and round they went like a crazy vortex of fur and teeth. "It's Reggie!" I turned to the boy. "Your bully of a dog is going to tear him to pieces! Call him back!"

"It's no use, Bruno won't listen to me. He only listens to my dad and Bernard."

"Who's Bernard?"

"Our gardener. He isn't here. He never comes on Wednesdays."

"Please." I begged him, coming close to panic. "We have to do something!"

"Okay, calm down, stop screaming like that and just let me think for a second!" He bit his lower lip while he contemplated. "Right. Give me something of yours. Quickly, something that smells."

"Oy! I don't smell!"

"Something with your scent!" he snapped his fingers at me. "Your scarf. Give me your scarf."

"What do you want to do with it?" I asked as I handed it over to him.

He rolled out what looked like a pimped up red lawn mower from underneath his bed.

"What is this?"

"A remote control race car. I got it for Christmas. Despite it being stupendously expensive I got bored with it pretty soon, so the Doctor and I took it apart and rebuild it into something much less boring." He fastened the scarf around the antenna. "Now, with your scent as a bait and our angry house pet waiting downstairs… this should be interesting." He gave me a mischievous grin before he pushed the button on the remote control. The red race car rocketing out of the room and flew down the staircase with the engines roaring like a jet-plane.

"There is a camera attached to hood."He turned a switch and a tiny screen lit up, showing the downstairs hallway at ground level. "I can see exactly where we are going." He turned the tiny wheel in the center of the remote and the view rolled sideways, revealing the front door. "And out of the cat-flap we go." He muttered, punching in a green button that caused the springs in the hind wheels of the race car to uncoil. The toy was propelled right through the square hole and made a full turn in the air before landing back safely on its four wheels. Realizing that the thing was out in the garden, I rushed to the window to follow its course. Beneath the old oaktree, Bruno was still chasing Reggie, but then the race car appeared, shooting right between his legs. The mean black Sheppard immediately lost interest in my granddad's Jack Russell, and turned to chase after the toy car, snapping his jaws at my scarf with the ferocity of a hungry tiger going after a steak. The race car made a few turns around the three, making sure to keep Bruno's attention, before switching over to a higher gear and racing off over the lawn, luring the beasty away from the smaller dog.

"Yes!" I cheered, turning back to the room. "It works! It really works! He's leaving Reggie alone!"

"Of course it does." He said, keeping his eyes on the tiny screen. "Now get down there and grab your dog. I am going to give Bruno a few extra laps. He's getting slow. He could do with a bit of exercise."

I was heading for the door. "Thanks for helping me." I told him.

His face lit up with a thin smile. "Thank you for a not-so-boring afternoon."

"You know, you didn't tell me your name."

He appeared to be genuinely surprised. "Why do you want to know?"

"I just want to make friends."

"Why?" He asked, still puzzled. "It's not like I am ever going to see you again."

"Oh don't be daft. You're not living on another planet. Of course we will." I took his hand since he wasn't offering, and shook it firmly. "My name is Donna. Donna Noble."

"Martin." He replied, a bit uncertain. "Martin Oakdown."

He gave me instructions how to get out of the house. When I got to the hallway downstairs I looked back up. He was still outside his bedroom near the staircase, staring at me. It felt bad leaving him like that, all own his own. I sneaked out of the kitchen door, and ran back to the side of the house where I found Reggie underneath the old oak. I picked him up and petted the snow out of his wet fur. Martin was back inside his bedroom. Sitting alone behind the glass, he looked absolutely miserable. I waved at him and gestured that he should open the window.

"Are you still here Red?" He shouted down at me.

"If you want to I can come back to visit." I offered. "We could play together, run off and have adventures with the Doctor."

"You're serious?"

"There is a hole in your hedge on the other side of the garden. It's easy for me to get in."

He seemed to be tempted by the offer. "But my mother…"

"She doesn't need to know."

"Donna…" His face suddenly showed hesitation, but I just kept chatting.

"Your parents shouldn't listen to those doctors. They can't just lock you up in your room the rest of your life because they are afraid you will get ill. You're missing out on so much! Look!" I scooped up a big handful of snow and squeezed it tight into a ball. "It's snowing outside, and you can't even get out into your own back garden to build a snowman with me, or do this!" I launched the snowball at him. It hit the window frame and showered his coat with a light dusting of snow.

"Hey stop that!" He shouted back, but wasn't angry. "What are you doing?"

"Having a snow-fight." I laughed. "I know it's not entirely fair, but if you step aside I can throw you more snow, and then you can make your own snowballs to throw back at me."

"Donna stop." He paused, his face all serious while he made a turning motion with his finger, meaning look behind you.

A gloved hand touched my shoulder. I jumped and immediately turned around. A woman in a black fur coat was standing behind me. She was tall and willowy, her lips pressed into a thin red line. The stony look she gave me reminded me of my mum on a very bad day.

"Who are you?" She asked in a stern voice. "And what are you're doing to my son?"

The Doctor and the empty house

2.

"You never told me that your home planet was so beautiful." Clara commented as they made their way down to Oakdown Hall. They were following a slivering road under a canopy of silver oak trees that was lined by a spectacular bloom of wild meadow growth. "Look at these flowers, they are amazing."

"It's rundown." The Doctor complained. The proud memory of how it once was would not allow him to see it any differently. "The gardens, the fields surrounding the estate, it's all unkept, allowed to grow wild. You should have seen this place back in its glory days. Lady Oakdown used to spend a fortune on a small army of gardeners to keep it looking respectable. The lawn was so manicured to perfection that I was terrified to even look at it…But now..." The Doctor stopped and gazed at an uprooted oaktree. It had probably come down with the winter thunderstorms and was blocking the road, but no-one had been bothered to clear it. The tree's branches had already withered and its crown of leaves was long since brown and dead. The very sight of it made his hearts cringe again.

"There still is a beauty in this place." Clara noticed optimistically. "It looks peaceful…almost serene."

"Yes, the way graveyards look peaceful." The Doctor commented, arching his brows. "Until you accidently walk over the dead." He stuck his hands inside his pockets and continued their journey with a brooding look on his face.

"So, that friend of yours, what is he like?" Clara asked after a long silence.

"What? Why? Why do you want to know?" He answered, distracted and not exactly being his chatty old self.

"Well, we're going to meet him, aren't we?"

The Doctor ballooned his cheeks and blew out the air between his lips. "That's not very likely." The Doctor grimacing like he was having a toothache.

"What do you mean? Doesn't he live here?"

"Oh he hasn't for a very-very long time."

Clara waited for him to further clarify this, but he didn't say another word about it.

"Could you just stop and tell me what happened here?" Clara finally asked, noticing how unhappy and worried he had grown with every step that brought him closer to the estate. "You really don't want to be here, do you?"

He just shook his head. "Not now Clara." Too many bad memories.

Oakdown Hall had aged into the Doctor's grim expectations. The moon-stone walls that had once shone like pale celestial-stars had become dull and dark, covered by layers of soot and grime. The wooden structures that framed the countless tall windows in the building were rotting away and on parts of the roof, weed was growing between the cracked tiles. Even the Oakdown family's insignia had been unkindly touched by time. The stone crown of the proud oak-tree had eroded away by acids in the rain and air, leaving only the bare lower branches visible. The Doctor tried the door, and found that it was left unlocked.

Come on then feet, don't let me down now. He braced himself and stepped over the threshold with Clara following closely behind.

The false memories of Donna Noble

3.

As the light in the vortex became brighter, the room, by comparison, became much, much darker. The window that showed her the past seemed to grow, and threatened to swallow her whole.

"What's going on? What is this?" Donna whispered.

"Your recollections are healing the vortex. It has absorbed your memories, and it is showing it back to us like a reflection, only far more clearly. By doing so, it will help you to gain access to the deeper regions of your mind. You don't need to be alarmed. The process is perfectly safe. Just proceed."

The room began to dissolve around her, the chair in which she sat, the harsh light beaming from the ceiling, the ugly walls, all broke down into ribbons, then atoms, before they were put together again, reshaped into a new reality.

A young spring sun beamed down from a pale blue sky. The smell of flowers and fresh cut grass hung heavy in the air. A young Donna wheeled Martin over the lawn. Martin's legs were now wrapped in a cage of metal that locked them into a rigid position when he straightened his limbs. Bernard the gardener is standing next to the children, and looked down worriedly at the boy.

"Are you really going to do this my lad? I don't mind making these braces for you, but if you fall and hurt yourself..."

"It's all right." Martin replied, realizing what Bernard was fretting about. "I will tell my parents that it's all my idea. You won't get blamed for any of this if it goes wrong." He reassured him.

"It's just that they are not home right now, and I can't drive a car. What if you injure yourself and need to see a doctor?"

"He won't." The young girl said it with such a faith in him that Martin found it touching. "The leg-braces will work, right?"

"Of course they will." He answered defiantly. "I've designed them. The only thing that could go wrong is Bernard's sloppy DIY work."

"That's not really comforting lad." The gardener said, resenting the boy's comment.

"Ooh just stop worrying Bernard." Martin sighed. "Like Donna said, I am going to be fine."

"Ready to do this?" Donna opted.

Martin nodded, but his expression was extremely tensed.

"Don't worry." She whispered into his ear. "If you fall, I'll catch you." She squeezed softly in his hand before she moved away from the front of the wheelchair, making room for him to start.

He placed his feet on the lawn and slowly, carefully, leaned forward, putting weight on his legs. The pain immediately shot up into his face and Donna found herself gasping for air. She reached out to support him, but he gently pushed her back. He needed a moment to balance himself. It was like his legs were filled with broken glass, and by forcing himself to stand on these wretched things the shear weight of his body was pushing the shards through his muscles, cutting through skin and tendons.

"Are you all right?" Donna asked, as she watched his pained actions with growing concern.

Sweat was trickling down his temples and into his eyes. He pressed his lips together to muffle a scream when he moved his legs, forcing them from the 90-degree angle positions into straight lines. The shards inside his legs splintered again into a thousand pieces and the agony became horrendous. His heart raced. His head was spinning.

"Careful!" Donna managed to grab hold of him just before he was about to keel over.

"Let him sit back down. He's passing out!" Bernard pushed Donna aside and tried to guide the boy back into to wheelchair.

"No…no." Martin muttered, struggling weakly against his grip, his voice so low that only Donna could hear. "No don't. If I give up now, I won't ever try again."

She understood him perfectly. "Please." She begged the gardener. "Let him. Just one more try."

Bernard reluctantly backed away and let her take over the support of the young boy. With her help he tried again.

"Hold on to me." She was so engaged in his struggles that she hardly felt the pinch of his fingers digging deep into her shoulder. "Don't give up, you're almost there. Just a little more, come on."

He uttered a cry of pain and relief when the locking mechanism of the braces finally snapped into place with a loud metallic clang. Shaking and panting heavily, he looked up at Donna with a wide triumphant smile.

"I am standing!" His voice was strained by exhaustion. 'Look Donna! I am really standing up!"

It was at that exact same moment that the family car pulled up the drive way. Lady Oakdown stepped out, and the minute she saw her son's wheelchair out in the garden, she came running over the lawn with lord Oakdown in close pursuit.

"What were you thinking!?" She shouted at Donna from afar as she half stumbled over the seams of her dress. "Taking my son out in the open air, are you trying to kill him?! And you!" She and pointed accusingly at the gardener. "You let her. You are fired Bernard, do you hear me?!"

"Please, darling." Lord Oakdown huffed, trying to calm her down. "Remember that we have talked about this."

"I should have never listened to you." She sneered back at him over her shoulder. "That girl is an awful influence. I knew it from the first day I set eyes on her." Coming closer, she finally noticed that the wheelchair was empty. "Where is he?" She stared at the other two, perplexed and anguished. "Where is Martin?"

"I am here." Bernard stepped aside to reveal the young master, still shivering but standing, his hands clutching firmly on Donna's arm for support.

All the anger washed out of Lady Oakdown features to be replaced by shock. "You're…" She broke off her sentence and covered her mouth with a shaky hand. "My God…My boy…This is a miracle."

"No mother…it's just me." Martin told her, tired, but with a self-assured smile and a extremely proud glint in his eyes. "And look what I can do with the help of my friend."

To be continued, meanwhile please review or comment!