oOo Doctor, oOo
You're about ready to sleep. Just after the trial, they hung you up by the wrists (one broken, still - oh, it hurt). At least your feet were touching the floor, but after a while, your knees gave and then the pain was dizzying.
But you've kept your eyes open. Because it's easier to see light when your eyelids aren't pressed down. And you don't want to sleep. The nightmares would be worse than they normally are. Heaven knows you don't want that.
You're to have a visitor, they say, and you hang, trying to convince your legs to prop you up every now and again, counting time.
Blink up at the whiteness of the ceiling, of the cell, and then a door is opening and she's stepping through.
'Course, it would be her.
"Hi," you greet the Healer. "How's it going?"
"They've let you off nicely, so far," she observes.
You lift your eyebrows. "Yeah. I suppose. Wait, no, not getting it, how is this nice?"
"Just fingernails?" She says.
You laugh. "Just fingernails. Right." Just fingernails.
"This afternoon probably won't be a very pleasant experience. They'll want to know why you're on Gallifrey."
"I can hardly wait anyway, you don't have to get me all excited. Appreciate the thought, though."
She takes a breath. "I told them I don't know anything."
You blink, laugh, choke. "Thank you."
"It wasn't a service," she says. "I don't know anything. The less they know, the more they'll need to get from you. I don't see why you should thank me."
There's a pause. Are you just hoping too hard, or does it seem like she's covering up for a moment of kindness? There are things she could have given away.
Not much, though.
She starts again, like she never stopped. "But I'll keep the baby. And those humans. I do my duty to the council, but I don't see why they should know about your family -"the word is an insult in her mouth -"As well. They don't need them. Of course, the ones you brought will be killed in the last."
"Not if I can help it," you say, face set.
"But you can't," she says.
"You do your part, I'll do mine," you say.
"You deceive yourself."
You decide not to answer that. "Do you think you can heal him? Theta?"
"I know I can," she says.
You beam.
"So worked up over a half-breed baby," she says.
"Can I tell you about River?" You whisper. "His mother? How amazing she was?"
"No," she says, and turns around.
"They're worth it," you say. "Every bit. They all are."
Her laugh is short, more of a sigh than a chuckle. "Goodbye, Theta," she says.
You stay still, heavy, wondering. That title. And before she reaches the door, you speak.
"Why'd you come?"
She acts like she doesn't hear you, and the door closes, locking behind her.
oOo
It's night again, and you've forgotten that they don't want to kill you, because every one of your nerves is saying that's what they're doing. You're strapped to the table again, and if you could spare a moment of pain and think, you'd agree with the Healer: the first wave of torture doesn't hold a candle to this second session. Your eyes are open so, so wide, and you're screaming against the blackness because you can't help it. For the second time in three days, you're sure you're going to die. Your back arches and when it slaps against the marble table again, a spray of blood goes up - you taste it on your tongue as it lands. How long has it been since relief? You don't know. You don't know. Only know you're going to die.
A coal runs across your arm, and your body jerks. For all the fire of pain, you can tell when your skin is actually being burnt. Round, rolling a track first across your arm, then across your chest. Every time it hits a cut, your brain overloads, and the lightheadedness that comes before a faint soaks you in sweat. Blink rapidly to clear your vision, which only sends your eyes rolling up and the world flickering in rainbow colours that all drip with red.
You feel the firebrand bumping up over the lips of a particularly huge wound near your neck, hesitating for a second … then tumbling over, touching the exposed muscle, wedging underneath the skin of your chest.
Your scream rips through your raw throat, sandpaper on tender flesh. Someone is pushing the fire along, further under your skin, and your eyes water with the agony. "Stop, stop, please!"
It advances another inch.
Anything, anything, tell them what they want. What do they want? You hardly remember. A name (mercifully not yours) bubbles up to the front of your brain - you resist. It'll all stop if you say it, why don't you just - no, no, you can't. But your mind is slipping. Why should anything matter more than stopping, stopping them, escaping this? You regain control for a moment, and then something white-hot lances through your flesh and you latch on to the name, grasping at a way out, and for forgiveness. (Because you should have let him die back on the TARDIS, instead of dooming him and everything else to the end of all things). "Theta, Theta!" you scream. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
The crime and the repentance of it all in one. Even though it isn't exactly what they're looking for, a pause is almost guaranteed, now, as they pass on the information you've thrown up.
Yes. The ongoing agony relents, and you let your head loll to the side, eyes squeezing shut as the torturers' instruments rip their way out of your flesh, as someone digs the coal out from under your skin. Tears ooze out from under your eyelids to slide, stinging, down your temples.
Theta, Theta honey, daddy's here.
Oh, they have broken your mind. Almost. It's bleeding out into nothingness, staining what it meets along the way. And it's found what it was looking for before they snapped it. The tiny, dormant bump of light that is your son's little soul.
The connection is so much more vague than the one you had with your mother, this morning (a thousand years ago). But you don't care.
Daddy's here. I've got you, love.
This'll be the first thing your baby hears when he comes out of stasis. If he ever does.
I'm sorry. It's my fault, but I only wanted you safe.
Let the kid alone, he doesn't know what you mean when you explain.
Daddy's here. Daddy's not going to let you go.
.
It started with lies, it ended with lies, but you want him safe. Happy. You'd tear the sky in half for that. Maybe you can bargain. Let the Time Lords use your name if they take the child with them to safety.
What are you saying?
.
Starts with lies, ends with lies.
I'm not going to let you go.
oOo
They've stitched you back up. That was part of the torture itself, because, just like your mother, they didn't bother with anaesthetic, and, unlike before, you desperately needed it. But you're glad of it, now, because being healed - however crudely - is a relief.
Thank goodness your body is young. It's recovering faster than it would be if you were still in your first or third forms; you can actually breathe without your throat - so torn up with your cries - causing you too much pain. But your mother was right. Before - Earth metal splitting your skin open, it just didn't have the same effect. Now, you're still bleeding where your injuries would already be invisible, scar-less. A few of these cuts might even carry through regenerations as white, twisting lines - but what are you thinking? You don't have any regenerations left.
You're lying, splayed, on some floor, somewhere. You honestly don't know. They dumped you in here after they were finished with you, and you haven't moved. Everything hurts too much to move.
The view you have consists of a white, blank ceiling as far as your eyes can see. What's the point of looking around, anyway? You don't even want to gauge your injuries.
You don't think. If you thought, your mind wouldn't know where to turn first. Would it worry about future torture? Mull over the past few hours (heaven forbid)? Would it go to Theta? Amy? Rory? The Healer?
River?
It hurts less to just let the voices of fear fade to white noise.
So you stare up at the ceiling, eyes empty.
.
"Sweetie?"
.
If you were ever in danger of having a heart attack, it would be now.
She's here.
Has your reasoning clogged up, in the time you've just let it lie, or does this make as little sense as you think it does?
Her face moves into sight, half-covered in curls. River Song, dead as earth, and yet very much alive, right here, in the middle of the most fortified prison of the most formidable Citadel of a planet locked in war and time.
That's like her.
"I'm going mad, aren't I?" You say, voice cracked in a thousand places.
"No!" River puts her hand on your cheek, pushing up your hair. It should hurt. But it doesn't. It just feels like bliss. "No, I'm real. Sweetie, I'm here. I've got you."
You move your arm, and it hurts like hell, but it's worth it when your fingers meet the smooth skin of her arm.
"I don't believe you," you say.
Her expression breaks, eyebrows pulling together in compassion. "It's me, it's me," she says, and leans down.
Her full, firm lips meet yours. She runs them over your mouth, across your cheek, down your neck where she kisses a jagged cut, disregarding the blood. "What did they do to you?"
"I don't want to think about it," you say. You still haven't moved your head, you can't, you couldn't stand more pain.
"We're going to get through this," she says.
You smile.
"I love you," you say. "I love you, I love you. Please, be real."
"I am." She returns your smile, a few tears shining on her cheeks.
"Have you seen Theta?" You move your hand over the soft, soft top of her head.
"No," she says. "Where is he?"
You look away, eyes focusing on the ceiling again. In the quiet, you can feel her stroking your forehead. "If it's really you," you say, "You could prove it. Say it, River."
She looks confused. "Say what?"
"You know what I mean."
Silence.
"River, what's my name?"
"Where is Theta?" she says again.
"I can't tell you," you say, and there's a lump in your throat that throbs like the coal under your skin.
"Why not? What's wrong?"
You pull her down, kiss her, force yourself to let go and then kiss her again. It's the guiltiest of pleasures, but you can't stop, you can't stop. Dizzy lack of breath, mouths meeting and again, and again -
And then you gently push her away. "I miss you."
Her body goes slack, turns to wax, then to water - colours blurring together, air swirling in where there should be solid shapes -
And you squeeze your eyes shut.
You should be rushing around, putting up barriers, concentrating on hiding the Ponds, hiding Theta. That was a mental attack, the cruelest kind, and it could happen again, any second. Someone invading, bending perception, using memory to weave a static soul. Torture's not over. It's just started.
But you can't shake it off.
Precious seconds slip by, and with them memories.
Try as you will, you can't get the feeling of her hair back.