The Doctor wakes to a dull throbbing in the centre of his skull. Drowsily, he rolls onto his side, feeling for his sonic, for a hand, for something familiar. His shoulder aches when weight is pressed against it, and he winces. As his vision clears, he reaches up and touches the sore spot, feeling for the ache of a newly formed bruise, which he finds right on the edge of his left shoulder bone.
The light is dim around him and he squints his eyes in order to make out any characteristics that could inform him of his current location. At the moment, all he can make out are bricks, towering high above him, high enough that he can't quite make out the ceiling. One of the walls is a solid pane of glass, similar to the one at the observation deck, though he is unable to discern anything further beyond it. It's then that the Doctor's gaze falls upon a heap in the corner, one that moves in the same sluggish, heavy way that he is. Chestnut curls are strewn across the dusty floor, and he feels a pang of regret for the companion that he's endangered. Just one in a list of many, he supposes.
From across the room, he hears Belle take in a shaky breath, and he realises that if he can barely make out her shape, her human eyes must be seeing nothing but blackness right now. The thought concerns him.
"D-Doctor?" he hears her murmur, hands pawing blindly across the floor. "Are you there?"
Forgetting the pain in his shoulder and his general drowsiness, he rolls onto his knees, half-upright, reaching out. "I'm here, Belle. Follow my voice. Just follow it."
Her hand finds his in the darkness, and despite the dreadful circumstances, he smiles. "There you go. You okay?"
"Yeah," she laughs shakily. "Not my first time in a cell."
Though he suspects there's a great story there, he doesn't enquire further, though makes a mental note to perhaps bring it up later. If later were to ever arrive.
"I don't suppose you have any idea where we are, then?"
"'fraid not," he answers, scratching the back of his head. He can't even find his sonic to cast a little more light. "No idea how long we were out, either. Could've been days."
She sighs, drawing her knees to her torso. "I should have told him where I was going," she whispers. The sudden thought of her wasting away here in the dark, a million miles away from home, her love never knowing what had happened to her, hits her in the chest like a freight train.
"Him?"
"My, um ..." She doesn't know how to phrase it; there is no singular word to describe Rumplestiltskin. "... boyfriend, I guess." Belle frowns at the naive, youthful term. It doesn't seem right on her lips.
"You guess?"
She chews her bottom lip in thought. "Would 'True Love' be too ridiculous a term?"
He laughs softly. "Not at all. Well, maybe. Bit of a myth, really."
"You don't believe in True Love, Doctor?" Belle asks, looking a little hurt.
"It's just…" he tries to recover, noting her expression. "I've travelled too far and wide for all that. Circumstances shape the way people are far too much for the Universe to decide that there's one perfect person for everyone; for that mythical red string to be attached from birth. Even…" he hesitates. "Even if two people were meant to be together, who says the Universe'll let them at all?" He's lost in thought now, having rambled his way into a memory. Belle reaches over and touches his knee empathetically, and he's startled by how well she reads him. "I mean, don't get me wrong, there's love, and I believe in that. Greatest force on Earth, that."
"Or any realm," Belle adds with a smile. He smiles back at her, not pondering long on the peculiar choice of word. "Who was she, Doctor?"
He puffs out his cheeks and runs a hand through his unruly hair, not sure he's ready for this conversation. "Not so much a 'was' as an 'is'…"
"Oh," she falters. "Then, why aren't you with her?"
The Doctor feels his pulse speed up. He hasn't thought about it in such simple terms in a long time.
"I'm sorry, Doctor. That was pretty forward of me. I just love a good story."
"Well, if it's a story you want, we had a hell of a time." A nostalgic smile crosses his face.
"What happened?"
"Come on, Belle. You can't start from the end."
"Maybe it's not the end."
He thinks it over, running his tongue over his lips. His head still throbs from earlier. "Circumstance. Circumstance happened. Pesky little bugger. You'd like her, though, I bet. She's brave, like you. Capable of more than she could ever imagine. These eyes you could just lose yourself in…Rose, is her name."
"Rose," Belle tries, smiling. "Pretty."
"Yeah," he replies, staring at the ground. Belle had been talking about the name, but she's not so sure he is.
There's a lull, and he bites the inside of his cheek. If he knows one thing from all his years of travelling, it's that love can do wonders. It can save a life. It can save a million lives. It can even mend the hearts of a war-torn wanderer. But it can also damage them beyond repair.
"Anyway, it's not like I gave you a chance.
"Hm?"
"To say goodbye. I never do. Far too impatient. One of my faults."
She doesn't reply. The Doctor can't see her eyes clearly enough to read her, but hearing a shaky exhale, he wonders if she might be crying. He's struck with a sudden determination, resolve settling over him like a storm cloud. He's not going to let anything happen to Belle; he can't. Not this time, not again, not after-
"Belle, I swear I'll get you out of here. If it's the last thing I do, I'll get you home safe," he says sternly. He sees her lift her head to face him in the dark.
"Thank you, Doctor," she says, fiercely holding back tears. Do the brave thing, she tells herself. But she doesn't know what the brave thing is, not when she's stuck inside a cell. Grounded, sealed in, she is useless, though she wishes she wasn't. Silently, she promises herself that she will be her own hero, and that she will not reservedly accept whatever fate approaches her next.
Though it does seem to be approaching her rather quickly, she thinks as the doors to their cell burst open. Belle pushes her body back against the rough, cold wall, and beside her, she feels the Doctor's body tense, instinctively reaching for his pocket but finding nothing.
Harsh light pours in through the open doorway, through which a creature in shadow appears. Opening her mouth to speak, Belle finds she has no need, because the Doctor is already in full hostage negotiation mode.
"Just tell us what you want," he implores, hands outstretched in surrender. "Maybe I can help you. There's no need to hurt us."
The creature, whatever it may be, makes a sound that resembles a low, rumbling laugh, causing the hairs on Belle's arms to stand on end. Yet it doesn't speak a word, and somehow that is infinitely more terrifying than anything it possibly could have said. Belle reflexively leans closer to the Doctor, inwardly chastising herself for the fear she feels coursing through her body. In that respect, she wishes she were more like the alien man; strong and fearless even in the face of immediate danger. He's like the hero that fights so selflessly against evil in the books she loves, and right now she's feeling more like the useless damsel in distress.
All of a sudden, Belle feels a strong force draw her to her feet against her will, though nothing touches her physically. It tugs at the back of her mind, lurching her body forward as if it were being controlled by puppet strings. Her feet begin to move obediently, carrying her out of the cell one foot after another, and she can hear from the reluctant shuffling beside her that the Doctor is being forced to move as well.
"Doctor," she gasps, trying to resist the pull.
"Don't fight it, Belle, just walk. I'm right here with you," he responds as gently as he can under duress.
Once outside the dank cell, stark white light burns Belle's retinas so much so that even as she's forced to scrunch her eyes shut, tears leak out the edges. Whether they're truly just from the brightness of the light or not, she isn't sure. She forces herself to wrench her eyes open and let them adjust, so that she can at least gather some idea of what her captors look like.
They appear to be in some kind of corridor, Belle quickly surmises, blinking ferociously. She can feel the Doctor's presence at her side, and it's comforting if anything, but from what she can tell, whatever is leading them walks ahead. She attempts to focus on it.
Her gaze drifts in the opposite direction.
Frustrated, Belle tries once again to get a look at their kidnapper. All she's able to see is flickering and a blur, and noise like television static fills her ears before her eyes are once more forced to float in a different direction, relocating the shape to her peripheral vision. Her head begins to throb in pain.
"Stop trying to look at it, Belle, it's not there."
Belle snaps her head toward the Doctor.
"What do you mean it's not there? Of course it's there!" she huffs.
The Doctor scratches the back of his head as they continue down the seemingly endless corridor. "Weeeelll... in a manner of speaking, yes. But it's also not."
"Doctor, if you don't stop talking in riddles, I promise I am going to hit you. Really hard."
"Right. Sorry," he amends quickly. "Whatever that creature is doesn't have a physical form. It's running off energies projected from some kind of larger power source... but I can't tell where from. It isn't even completely sentient, so it can't tell we're talking about it, but it has to have some kind of telepathic power because I can feel it rummaging around in my head." He stops for a second, brows knitted together in thought. "Feels really weak though, like it isn't even sure exactly what it's looking for... more of a scan than anything... wonder why it's doing that..." The Doctor trails off into silence and Belle lets him, realizing that somewhere along the way he'd stopped talking to her and begun simply voicing his rambling thought trail aloud.
All of a sudden, the force yanking them obediently forward pulls them to an abrupt stop in front of two identical doors in the wall.
The Doctor turns and looks at her with panicked eyes, knowing what this means, and she stares back, terrified. "I'll get us out of here, Belle!" he shouts quickly, the last thing she hears before she's shoved roughly through one of the doorways and the Doctor disappears through the other. Quickly, she regains her balance, ready to combat whatever danger is about to come her way.
And Belle finds herself face to face with Rumplestiltskin.
The Doctor is greeted with something he hadn't been expecting after being so roughly thrown into the room: he is greeted with a smile. Albeit, a gruesomely smug smile, but a smile still the same, emanating from a surprisingly youthful face. A young man, at least half-human, pale flesh embedded with patches of coloured blemishes - the mark of a not-so-seamless blending of genetic material. A crop of dark hair rests atop his head, and small, beady eyes stare intently at the Doctor, observing him carefully like a bird of prey. The grin on the boy's face only grows in size, exposing teeth that appear to have been sharpened to gleaming points, whether by genetics or hand. He leans casually against the back wall of the otherwise empty room, a stark contrast between his dark attire and the blank white paint.
"The Doctor! Oh, it's really you!" he exclaims gleefully, hands clapping together with joy. "Oh this is excellent, just marvellous really. You've no idea how long I've been waiting for this moment. I might just shed a tear." The boy mimes wiping said tear from the corner of one of his birdlike eyes.
"What have you done with Belle?" is the first question to leave the Doctor's lips, as he glares expressionlessly in the overgrown man-child's direction. He titters, clearly unimpressed.
"Now, now," the boy says smoothly. "That's hardly of any importance now, is it?" His beady eyes narrow slightly, but the unsettling grin does not leave his face, reminding him of a twisted Cheshire cat. "All will be revealed in due course."
Deciding that he is evidently not going to get a proper response to the question, the Doctor tries a different approach. "Who are you?" he asks instead. The boy waves off the comment disinterestedly, but pushes himself off the wall with his hands to pace slowly toward the Doctor. Now that he's closer, the Doctor can see that he's shorter than previously thought, the top of his head barely reaching his tenth regeneration's chest.
"Oh, I'm nothing interesting," he says coolly, his voice almost a purr. "Let's talk about you! The famous Doctor... last of the Time Lords." There's a touch of something in his tone that the Doctor can't quite place just yet, something that feels almost like a dangerous kind of cynicism. He's never seen this man before in his life- in any of his lives. Yet it seems his capture was very deliberate, and the only question left is why.
"I'm sure you're far more interesting," the Doctor presses, attempting to switch the subject back to the stranger.
"Oh?" He stops a few feet short of the Doctor. "Well, if that were true, I would've spent my entire life hearing tales of my own heroics and genius, rather than all of yours. You and your... TARDIS, flying haphazardly about the universe doing good and changing worlds." He rocks back and forward on his heels gleefully, and had the Doctor been anyone else, he probably would have been frightened by the display. Fortunately, he is in fact a Time Lord, and Time Lords have better things to do than be afraid of little bird-boys with height complexes.
"So why haven't you?" he asks instead, hands flexing into fists.
"Beside the point!" he snaps quickly, eyes flashing with something dangerous before being replaced by a cool mask of total composure. He begins pacing circles around the Doctor, like a jungle cat. "You know, my father claimed to have encountered you once."
Rassilon, here we go, the Doctor thinks. Unresolved daddy issues.
"The rest of us never heard the end of it, naturally," he continues. "'You may be clever, my boy,' he'd say, 'but not as clever as the Doctor.' Never as brave, or sharp, or cunning as his precious Doctor. Never as powerful. Well..." His grotesque smile widens. "We'll just have to see about that now, won't we?"
The Doctor's tolerance for the boy's silly games begins to wear thin.
"Who. Are. You?" he presses through gritted teeth. "Tell me your name."
The boy giggles. Yes, giggles. "You always did love your names, didn't you? Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. Healer of worlds," he mocks, before face becomes stony. "Destroyer of his own kind."
The Doctor's expression hardens even more.
"You want to give me a name? How about 'The Scholar'? Rather fitting title, don't you think? Seeing as despite what some people may believe, I'm every bit as intelligent as you. Every bit as wise and strong and powerful. Perhaps even more... most likely even more."
He doesn't respond, totally caught off guard by the sheer arrogance of the man who called himself 'the Scholar.'
"You see, Doctor," he continues, pacing back and forth, reciting something that, frankly, seems a little rehearsed. "It appears my father was right. You are clever, and I do respect that, I do. Knowledge is power after all, and power is what man inherently seeks. But you misuse your intelligence. You allow your emotions to overcome you, making you far less clever than you could potentially be."
"What is it that you want from me?" the Doctor sighs, suddenly bone tired. "Information? Guidance? Technology? What could you possibly want that demands all... this?" He gestures to the barren interrogation room around him.
"I seek nothing from you, Doctor." The Scholar stops, seemingly pondering something. "Although now that you mention it, a TARDIS wouldn't be such a terrible acquisition after all. To exist outside of space and time is... a power that ought only be bestowed on the most intelligent of beings, a title of which I shall prove worthy." He brushes his hair idly with his fingers, puffing his chest out fractionally. The action reminds the Doctor of a peacock preening its feathers. He's hit with a sudden wariness.
"And just how do you plan on doing that?" Ah, the old 'trick-the-arrogant-bad-guy-into-revealing-his-entire-evil-scheme' tactic. 99.9% effective, the Doctor thinks vaguely.
"I will prove it, with a little test that I've devised. If you pass, you go free. But you won't," he sniffs. "If - when - you fail... well, the effects of the testing should take care of the burden you refer to as your sanity. You and your little companion shall remain my pets."
"You kidnapped us to prove a point?" the Doctor responds angrily.
The Scholar merely pushes up his sleeve and touches a button on a contraption strapped to his wrist. A beam of green light erupts from the device and then suddenly a projection is displayed on a nearby wall. It's Belle, backed up against a door. It looks as though she's talking to someone, but she claws hopelessly at empty air.
"It's amazing how incredibly easy it is to distort reality within the mind," says a smug voice behind him.
The Doctor clenches his teeth and his nostrils flare with anger. "What have you done to her?" he demands, all quiet fury.
"Look again, Doctor. What do you see? Or, perhaps more accurately, what do you not see?"
He takes a closer look at the projection, and suddenly that blurred, flickering space makes itself apparent to him once more, drawing his gaze away from it against his own will.
"What are they?"
"Creatures of my own invention," the Scholar states proudly. "A digital existence, feeding off the ceaseless power of human emotion. Incidentally, that is also their weapon. You can't talk your way out of this one with your clever words, Doctor; there's nothing there to empathise with."
On the wall, projection-Belle's eyes begin to fill with tears, as whatever she's looking at manipulates her mental and emotional state.
"If you're as clever as my father always said, then you'll figure out a way to destroy it," says the Scholar airily as he approaches the door. "If not, then good luck, Doctor. You'll be needing it."
With an arrogant air, he leaves the room, and the projection of Belle disintegrates into atoms. The Doctor can feel the rummaging in his brain again, low-level consciousness scanning his mind for something, though he can't tell what. It is a busy and cluttered place inside his head. He turns away from the door, only to stop dead in his tracks.
The TARDIS stands before him, tall and gleaming and proud as ever.
The Doctor guffaws happily. His girl had managed to find him after all! Though... he's not exactly sure where he is. What feels like a dense fog settles over his mind and he tries desperately to remember... something... He was definitely meant to be fighting something. Or saving someone. He's not quite sure. Anyway, all that really matters is that his TARDIS is with him, safe and secure and very, very blue. He strokes the outside wood affectionately before opening the doors to welcome himself home. And then his blood runs cold.
Facing the Doctor are three identical walls, blank and blue and utterly lifeless.