Chapter rating : M, best play it safe. Bellatrix is insane and likes to swear. She's Captain Swears-a-lot… *giggle* … hm I might need to sleep for a bit…
The Doctor's Child
04. They Will Steal Your Souls
The Doctor appeared slightly disgruntled but not too hurt by the attack. He looked on with curiosity as Amy and Rory took the woman by the arms and restrained her quickly and efficiently.
He tried to open his mouth again to speak but was interrupted again, this time by a cold snap of wind that send shivers through his spine as the temperature dropped just low enough that they can see the fog produced by their breaths.
"They're coming!" The restrained woman moaned, trying to shrink into herself while laughing a bit madly and resisting the hold the two other humans had on her, so much that Amy, fed up, gave her a quick goose on the head, making her shut up.
"What is coming?" The Doctor demanded, but realizing he wouldn't get any information from the woman.
He then turned around as he felt the sickness of despair in the pit of his stomach suddenly strengthen and nearly lock him into place, crushed under guilt and anguish.
He let his eyes roam into the hallway of the prison and found the undeniable source. A couple of beings shrouded in long black cloaks were making their way into the hall, going from cell to cell. The pitiful moans and cries quieted suddenly at their passage before continuing seemingly even louder and more intense.
"So these are the jailors…" He muttered under his breath as the two continued their round, not seeming to notice them.
Turning to his companions, he let his eyes take in the two and the third. The woman was bleeding, she needed immediate attention, attention that she'd been lacking for what seem to be at least a week if the brown-ish colour of old spilt blood on her dress was to go by.
"Rory, Amy, we need to go back to the T.A.R.D.I.S., take her with you!" He ordered them, glaring at Amy when she tried to open her mouth to protest.
They started making their way back, the two with the slightly dazed woman in front and the Doctor bringing the rear. He was thanking all the deities that the emotion-feeding jailors hadn't seen them leave, when a high-pitched screech coming from the floor they just left made him rethink his theory and he pressed his companions to run faster.
Strangely enough, the trip back up seemed shorter than when going down the stairs and they soon reached the safety of their beloved blue box.
Just as the Doctor closed the door of the ship, the mad woman seemed to come back to herself, sitting on one of the stairs in front of the console boards, Amy and Rory standing guard behind her. The Doctor looked on as a myriad of emotions fleeted over her face one by one, confusion, bewilderment, fear, realization, fear and then all encompassing anger.
In a movement so swift, her two guards didn't have time to react, she stood up, marched up to the Time Lord and gave him a resounding slap, that could have been seen as a punch for all its strength if it hadn't been given flat-handed.
"YOU BLOODY DIM-WITTED PRAT! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING!" She screamed at him with the fiercest glare before trying to go around him to leave the T.A.R.D.I.S.
"Oy! Where do you think you're going, lady? You need to be patched up! And explain where is the child we're supposed to help?" Amy demanded, marching to the woman, just as angry as her as she gripped her arm and turned her around brusquely.
"YOU LEFT HIM YOU TROLLOP! YOU LEFT HIM TO ROT IN THAT CELL!" The prisoner woman immediately replied, breaking Amy's hold and trying to jump at the girl's throat, only to be stopped by the Doctor. "And don't call me lady like I'm some commoner, you can call me Mad Belle"
"What do you mean, Mad Belle?" He asked her with a feeling of dread as she sneered haughtily at them.
"The Little One was under the cot! I couldn't have him in my arms if anyone were to see him…" Mad Belle started, the wind having seemingly been taken out of her sails.
The Doctor paled slightly and turned to Amy who looked on the verge of tears and Rory who looked slightly sick.
"You two, stay here with her, I'll go fetch him." He said gravely.
"But Doctor… I know this place is creepy but why do you look so stressed? There wasn't anyone in the hallway when we moved out of the cell!" Rory wanted to know.
"You didn't see them? The two creatures, looked a lot like those Wraiths in The Lord of the Rings…" The Time Lord explained with a frown.
"There was noone, just a drop of temperature and the feeling of despair getting worse…" Amy replied with a shake of her head.
"All the more reason why you two should stay inside the T.A.R.D.I.S.! I'll go get the baby and come back as quickly as possible!" The Gallifreyan continued with a nod.
"You're not going anywhere near him without me!" The mad woman snarled at him, glaring hotly at him.
"You're bleeding on my floor!" The Doctor retorted with a glare of his own.
"Tough! I don't care! I can see them too, unlike your two pets, now we have to go back before any of those abominations decide to feed on his soul!" The woman screeched at the man who paled a bit more at her pronouncement.
"They feed on human souls?" He asked in a batted breath.
"It's like the dessert for them of course, they usually just feed on all humans' positive emotions and memory and leave nothing but despair and death... now are we going or WHAT?" The woman replied with a snarl.
Seeing quite clearly that he wouldn't be able to change her mind, the Doctor just nodded and both of them were out the door and back in the descending stairs before either Amy or Rory could protest. From the corner of his eye, the Time Lord could see that the woman was working on the last threads of her adrenaline pump, she looked slightly better than she did before but it still looked like she would crumble down at any moment. They arrived at the right floor, not even in the hallway yet and they could already hear the baby's cries from the cell.
Immediately, both started running to the small chamber where they saw one of those wraith-like creatures, bend down above the cot.
It was like something switched in the mind of the woman, one moment she was just worried and miserable and suddenly she threw herself at the tall figure, sending both of them crashing a little away from the cot, letting the Doctor see the small bundle of damp, ratty clothe that was moving under the cot. Without missing a beat, the Time Lord ran to the mattress and took the baby with him, he was about to put the small bundle on the floor off the side and go back in when the feeling of dread he'd come to associate with those vile creatures seem to come back with a vengeance. He turned around, his arms trying to protect the baby in them as much as possible as he saw 5 more of those soul-sucking creatures gliding toward him.
He started hesitating on what to do next, not wanting to leave the woman behind, when a head full of dark curls masked the approaching creatures from him.
"Go, they won't follow you, it's me they want…" The woman told him calmly.
"What? What do you mean!" The Doctor asked her as she continued staring ahead at the approaching forms.
"I'm a prisoner, I am not allowed to leave my cell, they came to investigate…" She replied curtly.
"I'll … I'll come back to get you out!" The Time Lord said desperately before taking a step back when she started laughing, a cold, seductive, menacing laugh.
"Run along, little man with that thing in your arms, if we catch up to you, we will eat you UP!" The woman sang, turning around slowly, letting him see her eyes.
There were tear-tracks under her eyes, but they'd lost all signs of the care she'd had in them not moments before, all that was left was despair and madness, a large menacing grin playing on her lips, looking almost amused.
Taking another step back, the Gallifreyan was startled when the creatures reached Mad Belle and, putting a decomposing hand on her shoulder, pushed her roughly in her cell, making her cackle madly.
Backtracking, he ran back up, the small body against him held securely in his arms as he practically flied up the stairs, the haunting sound of the woman's laugh following him, soon replaced by her voice, screaming in agony, but he kept on running as fast as he could, as far as he could.
Weirdly anticlimactic isn't it?... yeah I know…
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