Hi, guys! I know this is a long time in the making, but I have been doing other things - like writing essays, preparing to move house, etc. However, I'm back! Hopefully this chapter will answer some questions and keep your interest keen. It's fairly long, and the contents of it, plus the next chapter, make it a bit of a horror story.

Anyway, enough from me - enjoy!

Chapter Five: Veils

It loved the taste. Oh, how it relished it!

What felt like decades spent as a mere essence, drifting through the empty vacuum like so much space litter, a crude rendition of existence, a flutter beneath the single cell organisms aspiring to climb the evolutionary ladder.

Of course, there were advantages to being merely a wisp of reality. It had found its way to a blue planet, and landed in chaos. It liked chaos. Above the seething dirt there did not seem to be air, but rather a boiling mess of fear and pain and smoke. And agony, desperate and deep. Sometimes there was gas, which made the former all the better. The things nightmares were made of.

Oh, this place was bliss.

Feeding on the scraps of space was no way to maintain itself; a crashed ship here, the last song of a dying planet there, no sustenance to it at all. Which, of course, was why this place was so wondrous.

Ypres, it discovered this bountiful place was called. And it fed, gorged itself until its essence grew too fat to remain a mere wisp. The officer it found was in the last throws of life, his eyes fading in the mud and the blood of their war. And it had launched on him like so much of their artillery. He had been terrified, which made it all the easier, creating a direct channel into his head. The heart gave out, serving to fuel it further as it adapted its essence into a shape, a cell for cell imitation. The imitation was not perfect: its own cells mimicked those of the dead man to such a height that they too began to exhibit the signs of death, without actually dying. This, it found, was highly useful.

The dying, it discovered, saw this body almost as a friend … which made it easier to feed when they eventually realised; something to do with the numerous holes in the torso, it thought, and the blue tinge alighting the rapidly cooling flesh. Their terror knew new heights then when the hands of a dead man pressed against their skulls and an invisible force ripped at their emotions like a frenzied wolf. And so it continued, growing in strength and employing fresher bodies to help it limp through existence. The ability to change itself was skill that was difficult to hone. Imitations of human dead were difficult to maintain. Soon, though, if it was conservative enough, it would be able to form its own body…

But something happened then that it neither planned for or thought was even possible. The bounty ended.

Not through the end of the war, but because it was caught feeding by a higher power, a being that laid eyes on it feeding and knew exactly what it was. And it knew that this new creature warranted fear and respect, but also loathing. And this being, this greater power, had taken it away, ripped it from its larder with a rage fierce enough to put Ypres' guns to shame. The choking fog of the battlefield was replaced by pressing nothingness as it was cast back into the cavern of the universe, at the very edge of existence. It discovered the sensation of hate then, ice-hot and vicious.

But it found itself hauled to a new planet. It was barren, no atmosphere, no life save for the humans scurrying around their rickety station. This world teetered on the edge of oblivion like an egg at the lip of a well. But what there was on the impossible rock was a manifestation of an Idea, and it was the Idea that taught it patience.

--(0)--

Hours passed. His dwindling energy reserves were spent, empty cartridges rusting in the rain; the Doctor had found that that pleasant bolt hole had lost its peaceful appeal, the promised mindless tinkering cemented shut against him. Rather than disappearing under the grilling, the Doctor positioned himself in the captain's chair and watched the monsoon over the exterior monitor, chin resting on steepled fingers. How he had wanted to show her the rain…

The Doctor sighed, clicking his back with a role of the shoulders. Hours were gone between them, whole and allowed to stretch. Unlike the Doctor's stiffened back, Time could flex in any way it wished.

He needed her to break down the barrier he had managed to throw up so foolishly. Just a couple of ill-placed words, and that was it, the length of corridor between the consol room and Rose's bedroom door became a No Man's Land that both feared to tread…

The need to do something constructive pushed him up: sleep threatened to take him again, and, though his mind and body cried for its healing hand, he feared the shadows behind his own eyelids. Unwilling to commit himself to his room, and without the required mindset to disappear under the grilling, the Doctor's focus came to the most pressing task in the room, and he sucked on his teeth as he regarded it. Cleaning up his own blood was not his idea of thrills and chills, but the shear volume of it that confronted his eyes when he raised the grille made his eyebrows raise. Looking at it, it was a complete mystery to him that his body had not pushed for a regeneration.

Cleaning. What's more, cleaning with the screwdriver. He couldn't take water down there, there was too much circuitry, already damaged by the blood it had found itself coated in. A mundane task, nice and guaranteed to numb his brain enough to stop thought on subjects he did not want to breach with himself. Brilliant.

The Doctor sprawled himself on the floor and pushed his arm down, listening with little interest to the steady whirring of the sonic and watching the blood flake. He guided the fallen bits into a pile, his fingertips turning russet. The process was oddly satisfying, but required little thought, and the mind of a genius is not so easily stayed from thinking. He blinked at what he had accomplished so far: eighteen circuits and twelve coiled yards of cable looked good as new, though a further forty-six circuit boards remained dull and dark, along with four transistors, nine malganated trectonate fuses, and a bolcobarious reactor. The Doctor liked to call the last one BOB. BOB was particularly fiddlesome, and the task of cleaning it did not sit well with him. The screwdriver sang again as he got going on the fuses, and he could not stop his mind straying into thought, even if he had truly wanted to…

The lioness came into his head, gold and scarlet and edged with blackness. He had been so sure, so very sure that he knew the creature that had attacked her. The way the kill had been made was typical of a beast he had encountered before in the Klaxus System. Only, he had seen that one – difficult to miss, actually. If this was the same animal, exactly when in its evolution did it become invisible? And the way the lioness' brainwaves had been airborne, practically ripped from her skull, indicated some kind of neurological wave scavenger. But why here, at this particular time? A creature of that strain enjoyed places inhabited by civilisations that could emit higher brainwaves, civilisations that warred. That moment before death when pain takes over and overwhelms, when the mind tries to fleet from the plight of the body it is bound to. That's what these things feed on, that moment.

And there was something else perplexing him. What had happened to his relationship with Rose? Since when had it become so tense? His words in the kitchen had spilled over her defences like acid and left her throwing shoes at him. Why? He regretted every syllable, and felt shamed that he had spoken to her in such a manner, but she really should not have been so sensitive. He'd called her a stupid ape. But he'd done that before, and she had not been nearly so offended, even though he had actually meant it back then.

The Doctor hauled himself to his feet, rubbing his hair absently. What was more, why had their pursuer given up so easily yesterday? A couple of bangs into the TARDIS' flanks, and that was it. Silence. Having seen the lioness, there was a blood lust to the beast that was apparently difficult to satiate, so why, after wounding him, had it given up? Defenceless severely injured humanoid being compared to the ruling predator of Africa. The Doctor knew which one he would rather put more effort into killing. He had gotten off lightly – though his shoulder protested against that statement.

Of course, it could be waiting for them outside, lulling them into a false sense of security.

The Doctor pulled the monitor round and requested an external life signs scan. The scan informed him of what he had hoped for. Notable life forms, immediate exterior: 1: a lone male hyena, snuffling curiously at the base of the blue box it had found in its territory. That was it for half a kilometre, where there were more hyenas, and then beyond that, Africa's wildlife in all its poacher-free glory. Hyenas were not a problem, so long as they did not decide to set up a den outside the Doctor's front door. He knew it could not be inside the TARDIS, but the Doctor ran the check anyway.

Notable life forms within interior: 3.

The colour fled his face as he read the figure, so calmly offered to him by the screen. That couldn't be possible. The reading was wrong. He did another check. Again, that number blinked up at him from the monitor.

It was in the TARDIS, had probably been there for hours, and he had not seen her for so long-

The Doctor's feet pelted him along the corridor, throwing up grilles under the pound of his furious need. There was no cautious knock, no request for permission. The door flung back so hard it bounced back at him.

Rose did not spare him a glance. She was squashed against the headboard, arms thrown out behind her. Her breathing was rough, and her eyes wide and fixed on the small creature sat directly on her chest.

It looked like a cat at first glance, a black cat with a rough coat, similar to that of a deerhound. But it had no eyes. Two dark pits practically swallowed Rose in their emptiness as it stared fixedly at her.

"Doctor?" Her voice shivered. "What is it?"

"Stay absolutely still," he warned softly, edging into the room.

He knew now. He had seen it before, many years ago. He remembered casting it out into the stomach of open space after discovering it feeding in France. By the hatred he sensed from it, he knew it recalled him also.

"It's an Incubus: a type of daemon that feeds on the distressed neurological waves of nightmares that it creates in the head of an independently thinking being. They're normally happy with nightmares, but this one's developed a taste for death. This," the Doctor stated very softly, "is what attacked the lioness and me."

The Incubus turned its angular head at the Doctor, peeling back its lips and giving him a throaty hiss, a sound that pushed Rose's fear higher than she thought possible. "But it - it's not big enough."

"It's a shape shifter," the Doctor answered simply. "A dissolute, gorging parasite that leeches off anything it can get its claws into." His voice gained the sneer that dominated his face. "A wretch of the universe designed to take and take and take until there's nothing left."

Have you ever existed like every hour is a grudging allowance, Doctor? Like every heartbeat is only allowed because it would be immoral to withhold it?

He was surprised with the communication it initiated, but even more so by the fact that it spoke in his head. Apparently Rose heard it too: her brow knitted briefly, her breath hitching in her throat.

The Doctor recovered quickly. "You don't have to kill."

Don't I? And how do you know that, Doctor? From what authority are you that you can judge my actions when your own are so skewed? You forget that I have seen your mind. I know you, Doctor, and I have waited such a long time to show you that I am not the weakling you dismissed into the cosmos. I have power now. The Incubus punctuated this by furling its talons into Rose's chest, not deep enough to wound her, but enough to show that it could demonstrate if the need arose.

"Oh, I know you're powerful, I absolutely agree with you that you're powerful, I mean, shape shifting, that's quite a talent you've acquired there," the Doctor's tone strengthened as he simultaneously talked and struggled in his head to find a way of getting the Incubus away from Rose. "You've made yourself evolve to survive, and that's brilliant, that's raw instinct, kind of like a super-virus.It's what you do with that power that I'm bothered about. Y'see, I don't view slaughtering a lion as powerful, I see it as a cowardly show-off stunt.

"And as for authority," the Doctor continued, now pacing slowly, hands in pockets, "try last of the Time Lords. See how your foot fits in that one."

Rose registered it. That tone.The drop of his timbre gave the warning that his speech did not. It spoke salvation in her ear, and doom in those of his enemies. She had seen so many laugh in his face at his words, but the certainty always petered out. The thing on her chest, she could tell, was definitely regarding him differently – if 'regarding' was the right word.

"She isn't the one you're after. I didn't even know Rose when I found you in Ypres. I'm the one you want. Leave her alone, and I can find you a planet where you can exist without trouble."

You will not give me food.

"What I'm giving you is a chance. Take it. You only get one." His eyes darkened, matching the black he stared into unwaveringly.

The Incubus did not move. He did not teach me to be weak.

The Doctor's brow buckled. "Who's he, what do you mean, he?"

The Dark Master. He who waited millennia for release and fell into the Black Eye at your hand.

"What Dark Master-" Then it clicked. The Doctor's mouth formed a wide 'O' and a hand pulled through his hair. "Oh, I see. You landed on Krop Tor."

A ship spilling fear into the emptiness was impossible to resist. There was no resistance, and I fed on their dreams, though not to the death as I wanted, because he would not let me. I found Him, and he taught me vengeance and hate.

"I think you already had the hate thing down to a T," the Doctor remarked humourlessly. "And you sensed me and latched on, correct?"

The black pits grinned at him. Always a pleasure to be reunited with an old enemy. There are terrors in your mind that are too delicious to leave. You are a feast, Doctor.

"If I'm such a feast," the Doctor said slowly, softly, "come and feed."

Rose's eyes widened in horror. "Doctor, don't you dare!"

The grin deepened, and the head turned back to Rose. Oh, I don't think so. The Incubus leapt, cat-like feet angled straight at Rose's face. She screamed out as the thing disappeared into her head.

"NO!"

The Doctor grasped her by the shoulders and hauled her upright, pressing a hand to her face, fingers stroking the skin under her eyes in a desperate attempt to hold on to what he knew he was about to lose. Black bled through her irises, her face tugged with pain. "Help me," she breathed, clutching his hand.

"Rose, stay with me, stay here! Rose -"

Her eyes rolled back into her skull, her head lolling into his palm. Her body relaxed completely.

"No! No, no no no no, Rose come back, come on, please, don't leave me..." Even as he begged her, his mind already knew that there was no level of pleading capable of bringing her back to him. Trembling, the Doctor laid her limp body back down on the bed, positioning her on her side, one hand between the pillows under her cheek, just as she normally slept. He was only too aware that this was not a normal sleep…

Within seconds of being arranged under the cover, Rose's facial muscles began to twitch. The Doctor tensed at the first signs of dreaming, watching as her eyes moved sporadically beneath their lids. Her breath hitched, strangled moans escaping her lips.

Frighteningly, this was too similar to one of his nightmares. Now that he knew the Incubus had been instigating his bad dreams and sculpting them into something that was more harmful to him, he understood what it would do. It knew what his worst nightmare was. It had drunk in his despair like a fine Chianti. He could cope if the images stayed in his head. But coming out into reality, being acted out in front of him, that went far beyond what he could handle.

And the Incubus had known this. It had known as soon as it had discovered the existence of Rose, and the Doctor's deep and concealed feelings for her. Now, it took his affection and turned it into a shadow he had to fear, turned it into Rose herself as she writhed in front of him.

She was beyond him. There would be no grand sweep, no grinning rescue from some ridiculous advantage he managed to attain. The Incubus sought its revenge by forcing him to watch as it slowly killed Rose with her own nightmares.

Giving up was not an activity the Doctor liked to participate in, however. He laid himself down on the bed beside her, face to face. His shaking hand smoothed stray strands back from her eyes, freeing them from mascara. "My demons, Rose." He held back the frightened sob as his long fingers spidered over her temples, one leg hooked over hers in an attempt to maintain physical contact. He breathed in the scent of her for what he knew could well be the last time. I'm coming, he promised.

The Doctor closed his eyes, and passed into nightmare.