Green
From what I could tell the Doctor was in a foul mood, his movements at the TARDIS console were abrupt and jerky, I'd never seen him slam the induction control- but he did now, he chivvied me out the TARDIS door and into a warehouse filled with uniformed people and banks of equipment, racks of lights pointing at nothing in particular, which was strange, stacks of crates with U.N.I.T. stencilled on them, and glass-sided booths. The Doctor marched straight past the lot of them like he was in charge, up to a tall blonde man in a beret and snapped, "Yes, Captain Zbrigniev, what did you call me here for?"
I trailed behind the Doctor, massed ranks of people in uniform make me nervous, I saw the captain turn and point behind the Doctor at one of the steel and glass booths,
"That, Doctor! It ate several civilians and one of my men before we managed to contain it."
The Doctor stepped up to the booth and peered in. I sidled slowly up, there was nothing to see, I didn't really want to know what had eaten people, but there didn't seem to be anywhere else to go. I couldn't see anything in there at all, the captain was staring grimly in at something, when the Doctor turned away to ask a soldier a question I moved round. There was a green glistening lump on the floor, about a foot across, it looked like someone had sneezed,
"Deadly snot?" I murmured, the Doctor shot me a withering glare, turned back to his questions about protoplasmic processes with the plain uniformed man beside him. I put my fingers on the glass and the thing rippled, then it heaved and shot into the air, landing splat on the glass where my hand was, I shot back, nearly falling over, "It's alive!"
"Of course it's alive." Snapped the Doctor,
"It's thinking!" It was thinking..distress, disorientation, hunger...The Doctor stared at me.
"It's clearly sentient." The Doctor said,
"Can we communicate with it?" Said the captain, the Doctor frowned,
"I don't know. It's obviously lost, if I can find out where it's from.." He pondered,
"How are you going to transport it, Doctor? It's very dangerous." They stood in a huddle, glancing over at the creature,
"If what you've detected is correct it's got a preference for chlorophyll based food ingestion, but- clearly- has some latitude in that respect. There are places I could take it. " He said thoughtfully,
"We've got the small containment vessel we brought it here in, we used liquid helium to slow it down so we could capture it, we could flood the chamber, scoop it back into the travel containment."
"Very well." The Doctor came to a decision, "Let's give it a try."
The Doctor watched owlishly as they connected the hose from the helium tank to the booth, I shivered,
"Won't that hurt it?" I blurted, the Doctor's gaze flicked to me, the silver smoking liquid was already pouring into the chamber, I swear I heard a shriek, the chamber filled with a roiling freezing cloud. After a few seconds a soldier cracked the door of the chamber open and a man in a cross between armour and a hazmat suit shuffled forward into the opening with tongs, the suffering green blob hit his faceplate with a splat, he reached up to prise it loose, I saw it heave in preparation to leaping and started backing away shouldering people out of the away behind me, a soldier stepped smartly forward with a sparking rod,
"No!" The Doctor yelled, the thing was going to die, or kill, then die. I ran forward, reaching out, the creature hit my face and wrapped around it, I ran blindly straight into the containment booth til my hands met the back wall, then I sank down in the chill mist. I could hear yelling, shouted orders, the Doctor's despairing cry, "Kate!" My face already felt like it was burning, I could breath out of part of my mouth, I walled off the pain as hard as I could and felt for the hunger, distress I'd felt earlier, I concentrated on the sense of disorientation -where did it want to be? The images I received were disorienting to me - spinning through space, approaching a planet which looked icy, another rotation and a familiar giant striped planet swung by- Jupiter,
"Moon of Jupiter." I spluttered, I held the picture of the travelling containment vessel in my mind, of the Doctor taking it into the TARDIS, the TARDIS landing on the moon and the Doctor opening the container and the creature leaving, I kept repeating it, the pain was becoming extreme, I kept pushing at the creature that the Doctor would do this thing because I was sure he would. I forced the pain back as hard as I could, giving up trying to communicate, it was pouring through my barriers though, I tried to absorb it but it was over whelming me, heat and pain blocking out everything else, I couldn't seem to get any air..
The Doctor was horrified, he grabbed the containment vessel and pushed into glass cage, he ripped off the lid and held it to the protoplasmic sentience,
"Please," he begged, "you're hurting her. I will help you, I promise." adding his earnest mental repetition, a second, and the creature releashed it's hold, shuffled slowly into the small barrel. He put it carefully down, not shutting the lid on the protruding fringe, and turned Kate's head in his hands, there were some nasty burns, deep, the eye, the cheek, the skull.
An orderly edged gingerly into the booth behind him, extended a container, "Acid neutraliser, Doctor." He said, looking sorrowfully at the ravaged face.
"I have to get her back to the TARDIS." Said the Doctor.
There was time: to take the space travelling alien back to it's intended destination; to carry Kate, unconscious with an automed strapped to her arm, from the no-room to the centre of the TARDIS, where artron energy sparkled around them; to funnel it down through his hands to the injured cells with their tiny time lord DNA component- that would eventually spark into regeneration.
Time was immaterial to him.
All was quiet when I woke, I could tell the Doctor was absent by the quiescence of the TARDIS, hopefully taking the Ancillia back home. Everything seemed in order, I felt a little worn, dishevelled, different, but unable to pin it down. I was drinking tea and wondering if it tasted different when I felt the ship react to him re-entering. He came to find me, he looked serious, sober.
"Sorry." I said, "The alien sorted?"
"The Ancilliamarinta'Plya?" That was more of the name than I got, "Oh, yes."
"How did it get to Earth?" The Doctor poured himself a cup of tea.
"Hitched a lift on an asteroid, miss-timed the sling-shot round Jupiter, missed Titan and hit the Earth." It must have been after the microbial growths on Titan's surface. The Doctor took the seat opposite, leaned forward lacing his fingers together. "Kate, you put yourself in the way of mortal danger," he stared at me, "true- you saved lives," the grey eyes bored into mine, "but I suspect your motives were a little less than entirely altruistic..." Oh, busted....I looked at the floor, the Doctor sighed, "I think it's time we had a little talk."
He spread one hand along the side of her head, braced himself for chaotic emotions and touched- as lightly as he could. It was still like having a tank of water emptied over you, but not enough to drown in anymore. I floated, then gradually settled, my feet crunched on the ground which spread, yellow, gravelly and glinting, to the horizon. This looked a lot like..the planet Ryanax. And what a dump that was. I noticed the sky wasn't altogether empty, it was looking at me, examining me more closely by the second. It was like having him standing behind me, talking in my ear, I could feel his mind weighing mine down as he combed through it. Certain unpleasant memories began to spark, he was close...
"Be careful." I begged, he did not pause.
Here. This was the centre of the damage, it looked like a trauma, fairly nasty, with some mental derangement, loss of control facilities. Very painful, but ultimately survivable. While her present unhappiness was trivial by comparison, this was the source of her low self-esteem, her disingenuous drive to self-sacrifice- validation and abdication all in one, he tutted softly.
Busted. Oh yeah, that's what it was, an act that made my life mean something and that I could stop trying- didn't seem like such a bad idea..
"Nonsense!" Something smacked me round the back of the head, "Do you think limiting your thought processes is productive?" He rolled the r fiercely, "You are in a unique position to observe and affect the universe!"
Unique? That sounds...fun...
"And what is more- you are not alone," we were back in the kitchen, he was staring closely into my face, he lifted his hand from my shoulder to my cheek, saying with determination, "you will never be alone."