Part One: An Empire's Criminal

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." -Edgar Allan Poe

Chapter Two: Psychosis

Seven Years Ago, December

John held his mother's hand, so delicate in his, and yet he knew she was strong enough to withhold his tight grip. She was dying, and he knew it, and yet his mother still held the ability to smile gently at her own son as his tears blurred his vision. "It's okay John, it's going to be alright." she would repeat, and albeit its repetition, it had its difficulty on making even the slightest bit of an impact on him. The hospital had such a forlorn, ghastly scent to it, one that swept through you until you practically became a part of it yourself, like wind rushing thorough pipes. The coughing, the mutters, and the smell of flowers, how he dreaded their fragrance. He hated being there in the first place, and he swore that he would never return, not even if he were dying himself.

And yet, he was there, not once, but a second time, and this visit around, he'd be losing the other parent. His father had lost his life to broken glass cutting his skin and a steering wheel suffocating his chest, for John, only twelve years old, had then been informed that vodka, driving, and swerving eventually lead to death. And now, he learned that waiting too long to seek medical assistance also lead to death. So there he knelt, in front of his mother's fading soul, tears coming down from a feeling that he hardly ever felt.

His mother was simply beautiful, even in the state that she was in. His mother's long brown hair slowly faded into a glistening silver, her face aging even more so only because she smiled so much. Mary Jane Smith had lived an ordinary life, not too terrible and yet not so perfect either, and she didn't see death as her son saw death, she saw death as waking up from a dream. Some lasted longer than others, and dreamers, she knew, were scared of watching their world fade to white, if that's what death was really like, she didn't know yet. But she was going to find out, she knew.

She looked over to her son, his eyes hidden from her view, as if he was embarrassed; as if he was angry with the world for taking his mother away from him. The corners of her lips curved into her last smile as her right hand was weakly raised up to cup her son's delicate face, his eyes meeting hers hopelessly. And then it happened. His mother died, taken into a place of pure paradise, the hospital walls fading from into the walls that she couldn't understand, the walls of an infinity, the endless stars that led her further and further away from where John wanted her to be.

She lay still, as if all the energy had vanished from her, as John choked down his sobs in disbelief, for yes, it was unforgiving and yet the truth to say that his mother was dead. He stared at her in a forlorn state of being, carefully placing her motionless hand atop of her stomach, for this, this was not his mother anymore, just a dead corpse without life. John wanted to crumple on the ground, hiding his face from sight as the tears defiantly flooded, for he was a combustion of things: depression, anger, and the one that he could sense the most, confusion.

But as the depression subsided, anger took its place, and anger could never be tamed by a man such as he. John moaned in the agony, leaping onto his feet, pulling at his long hair and tearing at his skin, wishing that the blood would just seep through already, for he, he wanted to wake up from his dream. He wanted to die. His back slammed against the weak wall of the hospital room as he sank to the floor in defeat, the tears drying as his growls became louder, wanting to scream. "Damn it, damn it..." he repeated, for he was jealous, he was envious of the people who didn't have to face the death of the people that mattered the most. His mother was his everything, and without an everything, he felt as if he had nothing. He felt angry, he felt puzzled, but even more so, he felt lost.

He stood up in vexation, pushing the vase of flowers off of the bedside table, the glass shattering into pieces that he knew would never be counted, leaving the flowers to die of thirst themselves. The sound from the break was piercing, it was loud, but not loud enough. Not loud enough to bring her back, to let her eyes open again. And with that being the last sound he'd ever remember in that retched place, he ran out of the door.

The nurses weren't too pleased either to see that he hadn't paid for the vase.

People taking a stroll down the sidewalks turned to look at the wailing complain of UNIT's sirens as John was whisked away within their vehicles, silver handcuffs making imprints on the skin of his wrist. The towers seemed to be looking down on him too as he sat still, his eyes fixed onto the road up front as if he were driving himself. He didn't try to fight against the protagonists, that is, if John were to be considered as the antagonist, it could could go any other way. The people couldn't see his face through the tint, and besides, even if they could, they wouldn't recognize him anyway, but that was soon to change. The media around Gallifrey would be releasing his name, they'd be releasing his image, they'd be telling the nation what he had done so that people could only look down on him in disgust. John was rather fond of the fame that was to come. He knew what he was getting.

Yet as the city buildings that scraped the sky started to subside into what looked as though ordinary warehouses, his somewhat unenthusiastic chauffeur muttering something into his receiver, as if he didn't want anyone else to hear him. John rolled his eyes. "Two minutes." his chauffeur spoke promptly to someone that John wasn't aware of, him turning the steering wheel with a swift ease as he pulled into the driveway of a steel walled warehouse with a broken in exterior. The car rolled into one of the numerous parking garages, the light fading from a blazing gold to a dim and ghastly silver. As the vehicle came to a complete and deafening stop, the chauffeur taking out the keys, another man in a UNIT uniform opened the left door and hastily dragged John out by the chain connecting his handcuffs. The criminal grunted as the skin of his wrist turned red, the officer leading him to a series of elevators, one conveniently open with a woman standing inside.

Her blonde hair was cut short, as if she had cut it because long hair was too stressful to manage with such a position as hers; she was not particularly young and yet, not particularly old. She wore a deep blue business suit, her hands neatly folded behind her back and her face emotionless as John stepped into the elevator. Once the doors closed, officers on either side of the two, was the time at which she had decided to start up a conversation. "Does it amuse you?" she asked like a professor reprimanding her rebellious student. "All of this? All of us? The officials of our base searching for you as you keep running away, you laughing at us at how we couldn't possibly get our hands on you?" her voice remained serious and yet it was calm, John looking at the doors before him. "If it amuses me so much as to see you become bewildered about my whereabouts, then I wouldn't be here." he said calmly.

The woman laughed, her voice sounding professional and in no way friendly. "Then why turn yourself in so easily? I was expecting a little bit more finesse." she replied. John stayed calm, however. "Maybe I felt pity on you for failing so many times to locate me." he retorted, which wasn't particularly true. The woman raised her eyebrow. "Well, the only good thing about you is that I don't have to explain what we're going to do to you." she smile determined. "Considering that you've already read, or should I use the term stole, our files on Regeneration." John stayed quiet for once, mainly because he knew clearly that this woman was not going to shut up. "Kate Lethbridge Stewart." she turned to meet his eye. "Pleasant to meet you, Doctor." she paused. "Or should I say John Smith?"

Five Years Ago, October

The sound of the secretary's heels coalesced into the sea of noises from Arcadia's Science Institution, what was known as the most intelligent corporation in the nation of Gallifrey, specializing themselves the the highest form of technological research. Emma Grayling was her name, wife of the well-known scientist and author Alex Palmer, a beauty and yet ever so peculiar. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she saw her papers being printed one by one, her eyes hastily skimming over the swarm of people in the cubicles, the sounds of typing and ringing phones the difference between noise and utter silence. Everyone was so fed up with themselves, horribly rich with families that they couldn't care less about, for their work was what held their true pride and false attention.

Emma grabbed her papers, hastily skimming through them for the purpose of making herself look busy. Her hands trembled from unease, as if she had walked in that morning and immediately realized that something wasn't right. Emma had a keen mind for things out of place. It seemed as if there was something horribly wrong, as if there were a noise being drowned by the chaos of the building, yet it still stood alive, lurking about as if it were to scream. It was as if there was something underneath her feet that Emma was too frightened to know about, and she could feel it, she could sense it as if it were contaminating the air she breathed. She didn't know what it was, but she knew that it existed, and yet she couldn't find out with all of the unforgivable noise.

The noise. She hated it, she couldn't think, she felt as if she couldn't breathe, Emma couldn't concentrate with her mind in state like this, with the constant noise around her ramming into her brain, pulling her away from knowing what was wrong. She stopped in her tracks, for it seemed as if she was the only one keeping herself still, her fellow coworkers bustling about and pushing themselves past her as she stood frozen, as if she were a statue. She looked over her shoulder at the building's fellow neighbors, as if they were all looking at her, as if they could sense the odd feeling too. Something was horribly wrong, and Emma could feel it, and yet she just couldn't think.

"Emma, are you alright?" Alexi asked, eying her pretentiously. The secretary turned back slowly to stare at him, a blank expression on her face, her skin pale with fear. "Something's wrong..." she said slowly, and by the somewhat 'normal' eye, it would look as if she were truly, properly mental. "Excuse me?" he snapped, perturbed by her act, his brow furrowing. Emma's facial expression remained unchanged, her lips pale and chapped, the ends of her hair tickling at her jawline. "Something's not right." she said, and like a clock, she kept repeating it. "Something's wrong, something's not right..."

"Emma, I'm very close to sending you home, if you don't stop-" Alexi warned, but Emma didn't listen.

"You don't get it." she interrupted calmly and yet warily, as if she were undergoing an ambiguous loss in a matter of seconds. Alexi, however, only gave her an odd look and turned away, the sound of his footsteps drowning into the sea of noise. The scream of the printers rang inside of her head as the patter of the coffee maker shifted her focus from what she was trying to find. The papers in her hands fluttered to the ground like dead leaves, the overwhelming chaos making her head spin and ineptitude intervene with her balance, the weight of her thoughts pulling her down as the noise overtook her mind. She suddenly screamed for quiet as it didn't come to her, people surrounding her and even scared to even come near her.

She could hear it.

The noise, the one thing that bothered her, something so crucial and yet it acted so faint. It was the sound of ticking. Not a clock, not of course, but something else. Emma stopped screaming, the hands covering her face slowing lowering themselves from their place. She breathed heavily, her breaths faster than the ticking noise that she heard, and nobody else. Mutters and whispers arose from the crowd that enveloped her, rumors appearing like mist on a window, blocking her from what she really was. She shook her head frantically, for that ticking wasn't from a clock.

It was from something even more deadly.

"Bombs..." she whispered, trying to get up from her place, but her coworkers thinking otherwise. They sat her back down on the ground, clearly seeing her as insane, as if her words had no impact on them. They were all misled by themselves, all throwing the blame on her as she cried for help frantically, for she could hear it. The ticking. It was as if it was laughing at her. Nobody would believe her in the state that she was in. "She's a peculiar one, alright. That Emma..." she could hear people saying. "I wonder what's wrong with her..." another muttered. But put aside, if they would just look behind all of the noise and the talking, they would hear it too. Emma was just mad enough to try. They attempted to coax her as she continued to plea for help. "Please, please, stop talking...I can hear it...I can hear the sound of bombs..." She knew that she sounded crazy herself, and she already knew that nobody would take her seriously. Just another odd story to be discussed at the family dinner table.

But it was far too late for that.

The sound of the explosions and the piercing cry of shattered glass took everyone's focus away from Emma as the fire and smoke erupted from underneath their feet. Emma snarled at them as the smoke surrounded her, suffocating her as she wanted to yell 'I told you so!' out to anyone who had doubted her, and in this case it was everyone. The building was in chaos, the fire and the ruins falling down atop of them as the sound of even more explosions made Emma's ears ring in pain. She tried to run through the hallways, workers making headlong rushes towards the fire exits, the sounds of screams and pleads as desks were toppled over and ceilings collapsed, the sounds of loud and fading cries as people jumped out of the building's windows, hurdling towards their death below. She knew it was terrible, and yet she wasn't the slightest bit of surprised. She had seen it coming.

Officers on the ground floor searched his pockets and checked for any forms of weaponry on him, only finding his keys and his remaining pack of cigarettes. "You won't be needing those anymore." Kate noted as the officer placed all the items into a plastic bag, zipping it shut and handing it off to a man in a white lab coat. He was dressed simply, a silver waistcoat framing his lean body as underneath it he wore a smoke blue tuck-in, his slacks without a trace of dust; and overall, a clean appearance. John's usual quiff of hair fell into his eyes as he hastily flicked it away, muttering to himself at the fact that he couldn't smoke. "You will be assigned to a psychologist who will assist and supervise you while you take your tests and simulations, and your results will help the scientists conduct your microcircuit." she informed him as if a form of explanation were required.

"Don't I already know?" he retorted, earning a pretentious glare from the woman. "This way," she instructed, the officer tugging on his handcuffs as if he were a mutt on a chain. John obeyed, pacing himself down the desolate hallway that smelled horribly of a hospital. He was dragged into a simple room with a camera, a man with a lab coat writing scribbling on his clipboard as the officer pulled him in front of a bland background. "Smile." Kate said sarcastically as the camera clicked, John displaying a flirtatious and slightly exaggerated smirk, only to be dragged out of the room and forced down the hallway yet again. "We're creating you a new file to serve as basic information for your psychologist." Kate explained as she opened the door to yet another room, a simple table with chairs on either side, a girl with over-sized glasses and a knit scarf occupying on of them. "This is Osgood, she'll just be questioning you for the time being." she said as the officer led him in, John sitting down opposite of scarf girl. Kate closed the door as she left the room, only leaving him with Osgood and an officer to his right.

She started off by pushing up her glasses. "Alright, you will answer honestly, you got that?" she said in an uneasy voice. "Though I suppose it doesn't really matter, so what's the point in lying?" she asked, receiving no answer from John. She wasn't expecting one. "Full name?" she asked, clicking her pen, a pet peeve that made him want to snarl at her. "John Smith." he muttered. Osgood eyed him. "Unusually ordinary..." she noted, yet writing his words on the file. "Age and date of birth?" she looked up to meet his eye. "Twenty-seven, November twenty-third, year 3320." he stated, a little bit louder this time, and he was answering truthfully. He didn't see a point in lying. Osgood nodded. "Well, John, I see that you have something in common between you and your new partner." she stated; 'partner' meaning his assigned psychologist.

"Does that make a difference?" he muttered under his breath. "To anything? To any of this?"

Osgood only smiled. "Plenty."

Five Years Ago, October

Martha stared at the television screen, the newscaster speaking rather diligently into her microphone, nothing but ashes and ruins surrounding her. The words 'Arcadia Has Fallen' were seen across the nation, devastating thousands of citizens as they realized that Arcadia's most prestigious and impressive institute had been destroyed in a bombing, a small portion of people coming out alive, and those alive were either injured or on the verge of suffocation. Arcadia specialized in science and mathematics, coming up with new enlightenment and experiments to help improve Gallifrey. And now, all of that work, all of those people, gone, dead, and underneath the wreckage that caused acrid sights of smoke to be seen from miles away. It was a wound that would take a very long time to repair itself, and its scar would only leave pity on the ones who saw. The most lucrative institutions of Arcadia had all been destroyed by explosives, stashed away in plain sight, hiding behind all of the noise. Without Arcadia, Gallifrey would fall a from a tremendous height.

Martha shook her head, for though she lived nowhere near Arcadia, she still felt as if a portion of her life was swept away with the smoke. She hastily turned off the television and curled up on the opposite side of the couch, biting her nail and quietly thinking to herself. Some believe that it was terrorists, and some believe that it was somebody hiding in the city. Martha didn't know what to believe, for every story and explanation seemed plausible. All that she knew was that parts of Arcadia were in ruins, and that somebody was responsible for it's defeat.

Little did she know that it was the same man who would send her that pen drive.

He seemed to be sitting in the same chair for hours, for he couldn't seem to find a source of time in the tiny room. He presumed that it would be his new home then and until any memory of it would be erased, the life of a somewhat 'normal' human being would overtake its place. The room was simple, a wooden bed with thin weak sheets and a mirror for the vanity issues that he held, a long desk separating the room into two component halves, one half with his bed and the chair that he sat in, and one half with another chair.

His muscles became tense and sore, his hands still handcuffed behind his back, for even though he had only been in there for a time of ten minutes, it seemed as though he had already spent his life there. John couldn't imagine a simple life here at UNIT, and couldn't even picture the effect that his somewhat 'physiologist and supervisor' would have on him. Whoever it ended up to be, they'd probably end up being extremely uninteresting, as most people were in his perspective. They'd have to put up with him, but even worse, he'd have to put up with them. John wasn't much on mutual conversation, it usually consisted of silences and retorts.

That's when the door opened.

John's eyes widened at the sight, a figure in a white lab coat sitting down in the vacant seat across from his desk. He didn't expect it, he didn't expect how young they'd be, how unusually attractive they'd be either, but the one thing that caught his attention by a millennia was that they were indeed...female. The girl smiled politely back at him, a clipboard at hand as she smoothed out the dress underneath her coat. She was a petite girl, a mature face and yet a small physique, her brown hair tied into a neat ponytail atop of her head, her nose retroussé and her lips painted a subtle pink, the small dimple of her cheek remaining as she said, "A pleasure to finally meet you in person, Doctor." she raised an eyebrow at him as his confused face. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Yeah, well, I guess the media love me too much." he snapped back, making her laugh, which at the time John finally decided that he didn't like this girl. She, however, leaned her elbows on the clipboard that sat on her lap, her eyes curious. "I suppose they do." she said back calmly. "My name's Oswin." she offered back formally as she clicked her pen once, much to John's relief, as she sat back in her chair and read the information displayed on her clipboard. "Your real name's John Smith?" she asked, a keen eyed expression portrayed on her face as John narrowed his eyes at her. "Call my mother a bit unoriginal, but yeah." he said back, his voice clear and showing the greatest amount of apathy.

Oswin only nodded slowly, her eyes scanning the rest of the page. "Okay...so you're twenty-seven...and..." she stopped mid-sentence, raising an eyebrow at the next completed box. "You were born on November twenty-third?" she asked quietly. John only nodded his head. Oswin let out an amused 'hmm' as she said, "Well, I suppose that you and I share a birthday." she admitted, shaking off the uneasy feeling, for sharing a birthday with a criminal wasn't exactly to be taken as lighthearted luck. Don't worry. She had assured herself. He won't even remember you in five weeks. It was a thought that made her feel slightly better. "Alright, Doctor," she said, straightening her posture. "You will be taking several tests over the course of the next few weeks, and your first one is to be taken place..." she trailed off to shrug, a small scoff escaping from her lips. "Now, actually." she admitted, looking him straight in the eye. "You ready?"

"Do I have a choice?" he asked back honestly.

Oswin laughed. "No, I suppose you don't."

A/N: Hi there! Just a note that this is fictional and far from realistic, so if some aspects of this story seem kind of off to reality then there's a reason for that. ;) I'd like to thank everyone who's read so far! This story won't update very often I'm afriad, but once school is finished (Ugh I hate finals...) you'll see more updates! :D