The door to the meeting room looked well battered, and a few small burn holes were showing, but it seemed as though Scorch had mostly kept away from it. She must have been able to restrain herself to some extent.

The Doctor unlocked the door and slipped inside. The room was destroyed. Not merely wrecked, destroyed. The meeting table and the chairs were disintegrated. Any sort of light fixture had been torn out, leaving small sparking wires. Patches of fine black dust was all that remained of the flooring. The concrete walls to either side of the room had ragged holes in them, showing that the rooms to either side were in similar states of disrepair.

The Doctor looked through the hole to the right. Scorch was in the corner of the room furthest from the opening, huddled on the floor with her arms wrapped around her stomach. There was a faint glow still coming off her as the energy spike continued to work itself out. It was enough that he could see the blood on her forehead and throat, as well as a few of the holes in her shirt, just as he had expected.

He sat down against the wall next to her, his long legs tucked up like a half-formed pretzel. He looked at Scorch. "How many?"

"Seven," she told him, pointing to her forehead. Drawing a hand across her abdomen she said, "Three." She gestured at her chest. "Five." Finally she flicked her throat. "One."

"Emptied the entire clip into yourself."

"And destroyed the gun. Had to. Took a lot less energy than I hoped to come back each time."

"I didn't know being shot in the throat would kill a person outright."

"I was tired of hearing myself scream." Scorch looked down at her hands, obviously thinking about something. "How long did it take? After I shot myself in that main room, how long did it take me to come back?"

"Less than a minute."

"How long did the nothing last?"

"Two sets of hearts beats."

Scorch looked slightly confused. "Translate that into human heart beats."

"Two."

Scorch sighed deeply. "Oh, it's getting worse. Now I know I've got a lot. Usually it takes three beats, and over a minute after I actually die for it to happen." She flexed her hands, still bothered by something. "Did you see him?" she asked.

"Who?"

"The man that poisoned me. Gregory Bradsford. The ambassador."

"I think I saw him as he was going in. Why?"

"I never realized just how good the Jahra are. He did such a brilliant job of acting his part when he saw me the first time. He did really well at completing his assignment though. Coffee with epinephrine in it. A natural energy buzz to kick off a much, much larger one."

"I probably would have just given you a shot."

"But I would have seen that, and that's not in character."

The Doctor gave her a look. "Why does it matter?"

Scorch took a deep, shuddering breath. "I told you he was gone. And he is, oh, he's gone."

The Doctor was silent, knowing precisely what she meant. He didn't want to ask the next question, but felt he had to. "How?"

She continued staring at her hand. "Kathryn," the Doctor snapped. "What happened?"

"I couldn't see straight," she answered. "No, that's a lie. I could see very well, almost too well. I saw everything, and energy, both views at once. I felt…furious. I've never been so angry in my life. But…but I wasn't angry at him for some reason. I wasn't really angry at anyone or anything, I was just…angry. And then I wasn't. I didn't feel anything except…" Her eyes widened as her voice petered out.

"Kathryn," the Doctor said, his voice firm. "Finish."

"Want. I felt intense want. I wanted so badly to kill him, to drain the life from him. I saw the whole thing play out in my mind before I did it. And then it happened. I punched through his chest wall and crushed his heart. I stared right into his face as I watched him gasp in pain and I felt his life rush into my body and…and…" Scorch drew her legs all the way up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, looking terrified. "And I enjoyed it! He turned to dust because of me, and I stood there wishing it had lasted longer, desperate for more energy."

She closed her eyes, tears of shame and fear leaking out of them. "What kind of a monster am I?" she asked, her voice shaking on the verge of a sob. "What sort of a creature am I supposed to be? I took someone's life and I loved it. When I opened the door and yelled at you, I immediately sized up the entire room and thought of seven different ways I could take the whole place by force. I could see the temporal energy of every single person there, and I wanted so badly to take it." Scorch shook her head. "What am I?" she asked again. "What could possibly be the reason I was made? What sort of idiot would commission, or even want, a thing like me?"

Scorch shook her head. "I have to leave. I've got to get off this planet."

"Kathryn, we'll find a way out of this."

"Have you even been listening? Even if…even if I wasn't some psychopathic pleasure killer, I have two feuding races ready to incinerate an entire planet to get me back. People are dying because I was created, real people with lives and thoughts and families." Scorch gasped painfully. The glow her energy had been giving off had gone out, leaving the two of them in the dark.

"My family. They're out there now." She began hyperventilating as more words flowed from her mouth. "They're on the other side of the planet, asleep, and the sky is falling in on them. They could be dead. All of them. My mom with her love and my dad with his teasing and my brother with his grin and Aunt Lydia with her advice and Uncle Roy with his motorcycles and my cousin Andrew with his art and Laura with her books. They could be dead right now.

"And my friends. Mari and Juana and Desiree. They all live in apartments. They could be dead right now. They must be." Katie moved, probably curling up tighter. "And it's my fault. It's all my fault. I just killed my family."

"It's only 2008 Kathryn," the Doctor said, trying to help. "You didn't leave until 2011. You'd remember."

"I should also remember the planet crushing itself, but I don't," she snapped, not in the mindset for consolation. "Time can be re-written. As long as I live past today, I can still be here."

She choked back a sob, still trying to not break completely. "They're gone. All of them. I know it. All of them. They were all I ever had. They were my life. That was the one thing that I could ever think, that they were still there somewhere living out their lives even if I couldn't be with them. And now they're dead. I killed them all." Katie drew in a shaky breath.

"I never said good-bye, Doctor. Even when you left, I never even got to say goodbye. And they're gone, they're gone, they're gone…" Katie lost the will to fight her grief, both at what she had become and at the separation from her family. She let out a deep moan that became a sob.

The Doctor sat next to Katie, not touching her or speaking but also not leaving her alone. A precious five minutes of the Earth's uncertain time ticked past before Scorch was able to force herself to calm down. The Doctor could almost see her stuffing her emotions into a bottle and firmly corking it.

"What am I Doctor?" her voice asked. He could feel her eyes burning into him. "What am I?"

When he still didn't answer, her voice sharpened. "Doctor, I know that you know. Don't you dare keep this to yourself. Tell me what I am."

"You are the greatest genetic experiment to ever come into existence. You have a piece of almost every major species in you. Sontaran, to make you love warfare. Human to give you feeling and your original appearance. Ihu, a race known for intelligence. Haxal, a thieving race. You have a bit of Grixzen, giving you drive. Dalek, to give you an underlying but ever present anger. Dozens of others, all for different purposes. Rahki to hold it all together. You are a giant scrapbook, a huge melting pot for everything that the universe has." The Doctor took a breath, debating for a moment whether or not to tell her the worst of it.

"You also have a triple helix."

"A what?" she asked, stunned.

"Yeah."

"But that's...that's…"

"Yeah."

The Doctor could feel the confusion radiating from Scorch. "But…but the only race with a triple helix is…you. How does something like me end up with someone like you in my DNA?"

"I've been everywhere, damaged and bleeding at so many places," the Doctor answered. "Not hard to get a sample. It would only take a single cell. It's not much. Not enough to count in any sort of circumstance, or give you anything but a triple helix."

Scorch made a sound of revelation. "Ahh, that's why you're the only one I don't absorb energy from. You're the only race with a triple helix. My body would recognize your cells as being mine. No reason to steal from myself."

"It's also just enough to ensure that we have a sub-conscious link."

"Just enough to keep me glued to your side, you mean," Scorch said bitterly. "Why would they need that?"

"I don't know."

"Don't you dare Time Lord. Fine and dandy that I make a marvelous genetic scrapbook, but you still haven't told me what I am."

"I really don't know Kathryn."

"Don't lie to me! What am I?"

The Doctor took a deep breath. "I don't know why they made you. The actual purpose they had in mind is still up in the air. I know what you could be."

"Then what am I?"

"A breeding ground." Even though she couldn't see him, he turned to look at her. "You are the perfect soldier Kathryn. Take out the humanity and you have the most magnificent killing machine you could dream up. The energy absorption guarantees that almost nothing can kill you, and it works as a weapon. You're incredibly smart. You're strong. Blood thrills you to no end. I think the Rahki are trying to build an army, and you've become their prototype."

Scorch was silent for a moment. "And putting me with you, a man who is constantly in danger and fighting, and then making sure I can't stand to watch him get hurt, gives me plenty of opportunities to fight and test my skills." She became quiet again. The pause stretched to the point that the Doctor felt the need to speak.

"Kathryn—"

"Don't call me that," Scorch said, her voice steady. "I don't deserve any sort of title but what I am. What I was made for is now very, very clear. I was made to burn people, to destroy. I can't ever be anything but Scorch."

The Doctor found Scorch's hand in the dark and clenched it. "We'll find a way out Kathryn," he said, ignoring her request. "I promise. The Rahki wouldn't risk anything. Your family is still alive, and I'm going to get you out. We'll save the planet, save the universe, and I promise I will find a way to save you."

Scorch held still for a moment. "I've never had to say this to you Doctor, and I hope I never have to again." She breathed in and out once. "I don't believe you."

Scorch let go of the Doctor's hand. He heard her walk through the hole in the wall before the door to the hallway opened and closed. She didn't look back at the Doctor, who stayed sitting, grateful beyond measure that the dark hid him so well.

*Constructive critisisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*