Chapter Six

A Matter of Revenge

I noticed that they paid me not that much attention once they determined that I lacked weapons, allowing me to do something that smart people would never let me do. I ate my banana. I was most of the way done with eating my banana when my captors led me to what I believed was a lab. Buckled into a table of some sort was the Doctor, who glared at me once he saw me.

"I told you not to follow me," he snapped.

"Hey, I didn't follow you here," I stated with a frown as I finished my banana.

And this is why no one should ever let me eat a banana while they want to keep me captured. I used the length of my coat to my advantage, letting it obscure the banana peel as it fell to the floor. The one behind me slipped and I spun around, seeing that they had dropped their weapon and I grabbed it and pointed it at its head, seeing that it was an alien.

The alien was clearly alien. It wasn't exactly the stuff of nightmares, but it certainly didn't look like a green-skinned human. It looked vaguely humanoid, but was clearly not humanoid. Its facial muscles made it look like it was a failed experiment in trying to get a robot to emote like humans. If I had to say what it looked like in terms of my thinking, I'd be comparing it to somewhere between Bowser from Mario, Orochimaru from Naruto, and Voldemort from the later books of Harry Potter. But with short fur and reptile tails. There was nothing about them that scared me.

"Shouldn't have let me eat my banana," I told the alien with a frown as my anger and rage and wrath bubbled up to the surface and I shot the alien's shoulder, making it cry out in pain.

"Stop that!" the Doctor shouted.

"Tell me everything I want to know," I said to the alien as I glared down at it, "let's start with what you expect to accomplish using humans as lab rats."

"We are expecting to use your race as a means of expanding our empire by turning every member of your race into our race," the alien said.

"Ya wanna know something? That's not gonna fly and this is why: I'm gonna stop ya. Singlehanded if need be. You took my only family from me. The only family I truly had in my life. Gone now. You shoulda realized how tight-knit family groups are and how vengeful the human race can be when you push us into a corner. Because here I am. I've got no qualms killing every last one of you all cause you killed my father," I stated with a frown.

"Please don't kill me! Mercy!"

"Mercy? Mercy?!" I spat in fury before calming down, if not in my expression, then in my tone and volume. At least my voice was calmer before I continued, asking, "Where was mercy when you were the ones doing all the killing? Where was your mercy when I watched as what you did caused my father to wither away and die? Where was your mercy as what you did destroyed not just my family but countless other families? You have no mercy. Thus you don't deserve to beg for it, nor do you expect to find any from me."

It was then that I closed my eyes. I knew that the weapon was pressed against the alien's skull. In a split second, I felt that I had come back into my right mind. I hesitated and pondered whether this was really the right thing to do. I was scared if I was doing something I'd regret. That what I'd do next would scar me in some profound way and that I would never be able to take it back or redeem myself if I were to take a life. As I was about to pull back, my wrath and anger returned, reminding me that there was no other choice. They had to be stopped and the only way I knew was through brute force. If not to avenge my father's death but to prevent the deaths which would follow if I failed to stop them.

I squeezed the trigger as if it was a stress toy. I felt the weapon shake my hand in recoil moments before the deafening sound of the blast of air expanding. Then came the one sound that caused me to feel my very soul shatter. The sound of the last, rattling breath of someone who had just died. I opened my eyes, staring at the body. I etched the gruesome scene into my memory. If this was to be a regret, I wanted this to be what my nightmares were made of. I wanted this to haunt me for the rest of my life. I wanted to be reminded of just what kind of person I now was.

I wanted to remind myself in my nightmares that I was the kind of person who will kill if pushed into a corner. That I was the kind of person who will kill for revenge. That if someone messed with or harmed anyone I cared about, I will kill the guilty party.

But the real question wasn't over the kind of person I had become. The real question was the one that echoed through my very being. Was it worth it? Did that do anything to improve my life in any way? I didn't want to deal with it at the time. I pressed all of the confusion, all of the emotion I felt back into the inner bottle I kept everything that bothered me while I was around others. It was ingrained into my psyche to keep my emotions, especially the troubling ones, deep down and away from my face.

"There was no reason for you to kill him!" the Doctor exclaimed, sounding quite irate as I turned to face him.

"I have plenty of reason," I said with a frown as I walked toward where he was captured, "so how do I get you outta this?"

"If I had my Sonic Screwdriver, I could use that to get the latches to release," he stated.

"Would this help?" I asked, lifting up the object I found literally right before I had noticed the wall.

"Immensely," he stated right before I placed it in his hands.

I heard it buzz in a high pitch moments before the straps loosened, allowing him to get free. I turned around, seeing that there had been a scientist cowering behind a panel and I strode to the scientist, glaring at the cowering alien.

"I suppose you're one of the ones who done the alterations responsible for the death of countless people," I stated with a frown, almost spitting the sentence out of my mouth as if it was so bitter I couldn't keep it in as I aimed the weapon at him.

"This isn't worth it," the Doctor said, putting his hand on my shoulder, "revenge is never worth it."

"Stopping them is worth it," I stated, "and that's what I'm doing."

"What you're doing is murder!" he exclaimed, turning me around to face him, "you don't want to do this and I'll tell you why. One morning, you will wake up and you will remember that you became a monster on this day. You will regret it and you will realize that you can't live with yourself. Can you live with that?"

"If my actions saved more lives than the amount I'd take today, then yes," I stated, "I'm saving lives here."

"At least let me try to resolve this peacefully," he stated.

"If you think they can be reasoned with," I stated with a sigh, "but if they attack us while you're talking, I will shoot them."

"I don't like it," he stated with a frown.

"You don't like the idea that I'm prepared to defend ourselves?"

"Not with a weapon."

"Deal with it."

He walked over to the cowering wreck of an alien scientist and crouched down low to speak to it, saying, "I want to speak to your leader."

"We can communicate with her through the comms system," the alien replied, realizing that the one he was talking to the one who had kept me from killing him and ran to a console and started pressing buttons.

"Yes, Medic Kinoren?" came a voice from what looked to be a hologram of a female alien who had apparently noticed that the Doctor and I were free and that I was armed and asked, "and who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor and this is Miss Malcolm," the Doctor stated, calling me by my father's last name, "and we want you to stop your experiments that are killing humans."

"And if I don't?" she asked.

"Then I will hunt each of you down one by one. Or maybe I will start messing with your technology. I'm sure that there are a few things that I can do that will scare you. Maybe set your energy source to overload. Or maybe hack into your navigational computers and plot an unalterable course for the local star. Or maybe-"

"The point is, she is unstable from the loss of her only parent at your hands. She's barely within my control," the Doctor stated, "if you don't leave peacefully, I'll lose all control of her and who knows what one very unstable and highly intelligent human can do to your ship, let alone your fleet."

"We will leave the solar system once you leave my ship," the woman stated with a frown.

"And about those who are dying from your genetic experiments?" I asked.

"We will let out the code to reverse the changes, but there will be those who are too far gone to be saved," she stated.

"That's not good enough!" I shouted before I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"We will leave in peace," the Doctor said, "you have my word."

The hologram disappeared and the Doctor turned to me, saying, "you're going to have to leave that weapon."

I nodded, setting it down on the console moments before the Doctor started walking out and I quietly followed him. There was nothing to be said as I felt overwhelmed. So much had happened and so quickly. As I found myself back in the hospital, I couldn't hold everything in and tears started to fall. Before I knew it, I was caught in a hug.

"Your father may not be too far gone," he stated calmly.

"Sorry," I stated, almost sobbing out the word.

"For?" he asked, sounding curious.

"Breaking down like this," I replied.

"You've had a rough time," he said simply.

"Yeah, I have."

"And anyone who has gone through what you did probably would have reacted the same," he said, "so how about we head to your father's hospital room?"

"Yeah," I agreed as he let go of me and we started walking.

"So is this what you consider normal?" I asked him once we reached the elevators.

"Usually, there's a lot more running and I get shot at a lot more. But yeah, pretty much normal for me," he stated, "it's fun."

"I think you deserve an apology," I stated quietly, "I dunno what came over me. I just...snapped... I haven't had any violent tendencies since I was twelve."

"You cared about your family and you acted in defense of it," he stated calmly, "but I'm not the one you should apologize to. The one you killed had family too."

"I don't think they'd see it the same way I do. That they...were doing the same to me," I stated, "but two wrongs don't make a right as my grandma used to say. Same with 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind'. No, wait. That's my stepmom."

"You should listen to them," he stated as we walked out of the elevator, "they sound like pieces of good advice."

"Let's just keep it between us," I stated as we approached where my father's room was.

I looked into the room, seeing that it was empty. There was no bed, not even the belongings that belonged to my dad. It was all empty as if he was moved to another room or was released. A nagging feeling itched at me like I knew that he was dead but I wanted to believe that he was still alive. I wanted to believe that he was getting better.

"Excuse me," I said, grabbing a nurse.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I'm trying to find my dad. This was his room," I told her.

It was then that I heard the words I never wanted to hear. The same words I knew were coming, but I had wanted to think that he was fine. I wanted to believe that he was fine. I wanted to feel like I had accomplished something that day.

"I'm sorry, but Derrick Malcolm passed away almost forty-five minutes ago," the nurse said, trying to be gentle about it, "I can lead you to a private room so you can contact the rest of your family."

"Thank you," I said, holding back the tsunami of emotions I felt was about to toss me around.

The Doctor and I followed along in silence as we were led to a small room with couches lining three of the four walls and the nurse left. The moment I heard the door close, I let out all of my emotions.

I wailed. I sobbed. I threw things. Given that the only thing I managed to grab was a box of tissues, not much damage had been done. And all through that, he had been silent, if not apologetic.

"I'm sorry," he stated apologetically, "I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault," I said with a sniffle and maybe a small sob, "If it wasn't for you, more people would die."

Silence stretched out as I swallowed my tears and forced myself to calm down. Or at least give the appearance of being calm and collected even though I knew that I definitely didn't feel either calm or collected. I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and turned it on, selecting Pam from my contact list.

Pam was my younger stepsister who was only two years younger than I am and had already taken a wrecking ball to her life, turning herself into a burden on society who produced offspring like she was mass-producing children. I'd sent the message to her solely because I knew that she was the family gossip as far as that side of the family went.

If I needed to have my whole step family know something, I knew that all I'd have to do is tell her. Within an hour, everyone would know. And I do mean everyone. Through her and her curse of gab, everyone would know. So I quickly typed up the message through the keypad- "Dad died. Am in room 615 waiting for everyone. Pass it on."

I let out a sigh as the phone beeped, telling me that the message had been sent. I knew that it was going to be hard. Not just seeing everyone my father had collected over the years, but seeing everyone crying over him. Something told me that I wouldn't have anyone to cry over me. Not after what happened that day. I knew that what I had done was wrong and I would never repay yet another black mark on my very soul. I already knew that my karma account had filed for bankruptcy by the time I was ten.

And then I had a scary thought. Apparently, the Doctor noticed the change in my expression and looked at me.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I...it's nothing," I replied, not wanting to reveal my fears to someone I barely even knew.

He gave me a look that seemed to be equal parts intimidating, worried, and almost apprehensive. I didn't know how to react to that look. I wanted to back away and somehow try to reassure this alien time-traveler person that I was definitely not going to become some monster in the future. But in that moment, I knew that such a reassurance would be a lie. And I didn't do outward lying outside hiding my feelings.

"It's just that..." I said, trailing off as I tried to find my train of thought, looking away from his glance before continuing, "this isn't the first time I've done horrible things. Definitely wins the golden crown...but I've done...things. What bothers me most is that...the realization that any karma I have has fallen into the far negatives...and a part of me wondered... what's the point of...well...caring..."

"The point of caring is knowing that you're still human," he stated calmly, "without the capacity to care for others, you wouldn't be human any more. As long as there's even a sliver of humanity left, you would be able to care and you wouldn't be a monster or a killer. Because it scares you, it means that you still are human where it counts."

"I hope you're right," I stated quietly, looking down at the floor as I heard the door open.

"Melissa, like...are you okay?" I heard Pam ask in her annoying Valley Girl voice that has always driven me up the wall.

"Just peachy, Pam," I replied quietly.

"Well, I'll be off," I heard the Doctor say before he left, leaving me to be with the now-broken family I now had.

The now, four of us sat on the couches, reminiscing and I found myself wishing that I was only six months older so that way, I had something to numb my pain. Anything to just make it all go away. My stepmom found another way to deal with the pain by telling funny stories.

"And then she dropped the chicken nugget right at my feet!" said stepmom said with a grin as she finished her story, causing all of us to laugh.

"I bet he wanted to skin her alive for tattling!" I exclaimed, trying hard not to laugh too hard when the door opened.

"The room is ready," the nurse said, noticing that she had a whole room full of people look at her, the room having fallen into silence once she was seen.

Everyone slowly got up from where they were sitting. Some downed what was left of their water, tea, or coffee. Others just didn't want to lead the way. I just wasn't in a hurry. But I had been sitting at the couch closest to the door. That meant that I was the first one to leave the sitting room and the first to enter the prepared room to say good-bye.

He looked peaceful as he laid there. I almost caught myself thinking that he was just deeply sleeping. I was able to put on a stoic face as I saw my father, laying in the bed, cold as the grave. It didn't last.

"Why's grampa sleeping?" I heard my three-year-old nephew by way of my younger stepsister.

"He's not sleeping," I heard Pam tell her son, a good kid she had named Jacob.

"But if he's not sleeping..." Jacob trailed off, sniffling as his voice wavered.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Pam said, giving Jacob a hug right as Jacob wailed.

It was then that my stoic act broke and my tears fell. All I could think at that moment was that I would see him again in the future, once I too, would become as cold as the grave. I turned away from the bed, being unable to take much more of seeing my dad's cold body. I was the first one to leave.

"Where are you going?" my stepmom, Abigail asked me as I grabbed my coat from the sitting room.

"The apartment. I know I'm not going to be able to afford it after this month. I'll have to find a new place. But for now...I want to leave before the storm comes in," I stated quietly.

"We'll help you pack once the storm passes."

I nodded as I walked away, not having any words that I felt that needed to be said. I felt that I had nothing I wanted to say. I was exhausted, emotionally and physically tired. I felt like I was put through the wringer and I lacked the strength to even feel anything anymore.

Once I left the hospital, a strong bitter wind bit through my trench coat. It was that moment that it all came crashing down as I walked. I was alone now. I had no real family. I had no one to be around me, not like my dad was. My friends had their own lives and I couldn't encroach upon their lives. I didn't want to burden them with my presence.

It was that time that I heard the sound. I was two blocks from the hospital when the sound that was a grinding-like noise came to my ears as large snowflakes started to fall and a familiar person walked into the street lights in the twilight of a dying day. The light made him look almost like a ghost as I approached him. He seemed almost different from the last time I had seen him, which weren't even six hours ago, more like two, really.

"I just thought that you could use a ride home before the storm hit," he stated with a friendly smile that didn't cover the sadness in his eyes.

"I think I could use a ride home," I agreed as I followed him to the TARDIS.

Silence stretched on as we entered the ship and I closed the door behind me as he, almost energetically, walked around the circular-ish console, pressing buttons, twisting things, pulling levers, and hitting what I'd have to think of as a stubborn part with a rubber mallet.

"Here you go," he said with a smile.

"Think we'll see each other in the future?" I asked, somewhat curious.

"If we do, I'll be different then," he replied.

"Everyone changes," I replied with a frown.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked, sounding concerned.

"To be honest, I don't know," I stated as I left the ship, finding myself across the street from the apartment complex.

The moment I closed the door behind myself, I could hear the TARDIS preparing leave. A strong wind hit me as I turned around, seeing that the blue box was gone. It was that moment, as the snow fell and it all came crashing down that my life had changed irrevocably, I knew that things will be just fine. I was going to be fine. For the first time in two weeks, I smiled to myself.

I now only had myself. It was all on me. Whether I would do something or not do something. Whether I had breakfast for lunch or leftovers for breakfast. Whether I would drink milk straight from the carton. It was all on my shoulders. It was both frightening and exciting. For the first time, I would be depending and relying entirely on myself. And I was going to make sure that each day was going to be an adventure.

I owed it to myself to live life like it was the greatest adventure there is. Because I only had one life and I wasn't going to let it pass me by. Not now. Not if I had a say in it. And since I was now on my own, I definitely had a say in it.