cat people
"This," said the Doctor as we strolled through pleasant green fields, "is a planet undergoing an evolutionary rrevolution." He rolled the r with relish,
"What are we talking here? Legs were a revolution, lungs were a revolution- oxy-breathing was a revolution," something like a butterfly flapped past, "wings were pretty good too."
"It's taken billions of years, thus far- but it's pan-species."
"Something's gone into the DNA- it's equivalent- here?"
"Yes, in potentia, it's been manifesting in families of species ever since it's inception, moving through the population with increasing rapidity as the complexity of lifeforms increases."
What? I stopped walking, DNA can hold an immense number of genetic instructions not implemented, changes not manifested- fair enough; beneficial change spreads through a species with rapidity as the changes benefit individuals; pan-species changes have a pan-species trigger- not environmental- or it would hit all species at once; it's spread like a virus- changes in one population triggered by changes in another- why complexity?
"What is it? Is it a disease?"
"No."
"Parasitic?"
"Beneficial."
"Viral?"
"Prrobably."
So, a viral form whizzes in from space- probably riding a space rock- inserts itself into host cells- gets incorporated as useful- like bacteria being incorporated to become mitochondria- the powerhouses of nearly all terran cells- all of a sudden everybody's gotta have one..
But mitochondria aren't in potentia,
"What is it?" the intensity of the interest on her face put the Doctor in mind of a hunting cat fixated on a mousehole,
"Watch." He strolled into a group of Chimera moths feeding on small white flowers growing low among the grass, pale wings winking in the light as they moved, they rose is a spiralling column around him- their wings looked blue in the sunlight- then they all shaded into yellow, then red, with a jerk I realised they weren't butterflies- the green had been almost right, the tiny square petalled flowers could have been stitchwort, the long, ribbony leaved ground cover -grass, but this wasn't earth, I felt a pang of homesickness. The butterflies' colour shaded abruptly into mud and they streamed from the Doctor to spiral around me- for a second my skin crawled at the proximity of something alien, the butterflies flashed black, then I got ahold of myself.
The Doctor was watching me with a slightly worried expression, the butterflies shaded into a slightly muddy yellow, the childish part of me went "Toy! What colours can I make them go?"
Unease made them black, sadness mud- brown, how? They little creatures' wings went green at my curiosity- followed by orange- surprise, they shaded back to a mottled tan/brown,
"How do they do that?"
He was watching me intensely, "They're empathic."
Empathic! Around me the flying cloud flashed orange!
How the hell does that work? Any empathy in humans is triggered by reading demeanour, by imagination; pheromones even- insects on my world read pheromones- do they here?
My mind darted off in ten directions- different sections of the insect whorl began flashing different colours, the Doctor was watching me with what looked like approval now,
"How does it work?"
"It's a low level psychic field." While that sounded like horseshit, the Doctor's species were psychically talented, and so were species here... I couldn't imagine the organic structures involved-
"How is it detected?" the butterflies began spiralling off in little tired groups, back down to the flowers,
"By having a structure that rresonates to the field, in the same way most terrestrial species possess iron rich structures in their brains to detect electromagnetic fields."
I stared down at the quiescent butterflies, "What structure resonates to psychic fields?"
"Oh, that's more complicated, it involves sensitivity to things influencing thought processes."
"Doesn't that require a certain degree of self- awareness?"
"That is why it takes the form of empathy in less self-aware creatures- rresponse rather than analysis."
The Doctor strolled up to an ornate pagoda structure- apparently the gate house of the rambling compound beyond, he rapped lightly on the elaborately scrolled door with that stupid umbrella of his, shortly it was opened by a bewigged guard in a shiny uniform,
"Yes, sir?" The Doctor raised his hat,
"We're here for the exhibition." He said.
It was a large rectangular frame, enough to accommodate several people standing- a lattice of metal bars wound around with glowing tubing, I couldn't decide if it was sinister or a bit Heath-Robinson,
"That's a prototype, isn't it?" I muttered to the Doctor,
"It's a Faraday cage," he walked up and examined it closely, he looked like he was sniffing it, "lined with matricite, if I'm not mistaken." He turned to the coiffured dignitary beside us, "I say, this is rrather extraordinary! And you use it to..?"
"To block out the beast thoughts. Really, it's unbearable here in the forests without relief! It's the Castellans's very latest model, very à la mode, do you like it?" the Doctor declined to answer that question, the fop seemingly missing his restrained expression of distaste,
"Do you have many of them?"
"Oh, they're quite the thing, you know?" the dandified figure raised a finger to the grey coronet twining around his elaborate locks, the heraldic badge on the front sparkled,
"Ah!" The Doctor looked mildly alarmed, "Oh." He hadn't expected the technology to move that fast- from cage to individual units, that could make things a bit tricky.
"How extraordinary!" The Doctor exclaimed, he turned to me, "Where there's rrevolution, there is rresistance to it." he remarked under his breath,
"Why are we here?" I said quietly, these extremely rich people- somewhere between Louis IV, elizabethan england and Guillermo Del Toro- made me uneasy, you didn't have to look very hard to see they were predators- they got where they were by using others and ruthlessly oppressing weaker beings, visitors were a sort of fresh meat.
"To dismantle this atavistic technology," the Doctor said soto voce while smiling at our host, "otherwise they will exterminate the other life forms on this planet willy-nilly rather than acknowledge their kinship."
"How are you going to do that? Tech doesn't exactly go back in the box, you know." Technological advances spread- even when they're not good ones.
"This technology is the product of one individual's endeavours at this time, he guards it jealously."
"He's going to have a change of heart? Or mind?" I asked pointedly,
"I'm sure he'll be open to persuasion." The Doctor said coolly.
"You don't think that such devices might be standing in the way of the natural progression of living creatures?" the Doctor commented to the Castellan of the complex,
"Aha! Another depraved subversive!" Shouted the Castellan, to my horror two hulking guards stepped forward and seized the Doctor under the arms, he seemed to sag in defeat, "You anti-tech perverts really think you can stand in the way of progress? Throw him in the cage," he flung an arm dramatically in the direction of the matricite box, "he's clearly the brains of this operation, throw the subby in with the urs," he flicked a finger in my direction, "we shall see what their perverted desires come to." He trilled a laugh and turned away in a swirl of brocade.
One of the guards jammed something hard under my chin, it felt like boiling water poured over me, I couldn't stand up, hard hands held me up under the arms, my world contracted to pain that wouldn't let me breathe, blotchy vision and nausea. Hands jostled me along to a darker place, bootsteps rang off bare, narrow, metallic corridor walls, not like the stately plush suites behind me, I was thrown against bars so hard they clanged, I bounced off and collapsed to the floor. It smelled strong, rank, here. Dark figures opened a heavy squeaky gate and rough hands pulled me to it and threw me in, shoving my legs in with their boots, they laughed like something bad was going to happen, and the gate clanged shut.
The floor's hard and dirty, slimy, with stuff on it that abruptly makes me gag, shit, very strong smell [carnivore], worse different smell from the corner, low light shows lumps with bits sticking out [decaying flesh, I think], there's a rumbling noise and a growl. My heart practically stops [felinoid, canid..?], I have to not be dangerous, not be food...Right: they feed humans to them, stay on all fours, don't be sickly,.. faintly outlined movement, furred, sinuous [felinoid], I make a small growl that turns into a frightened whine without my control, hunker down, making myself as small as possible, elbows around my knees, forearms on the floor, flick my gaze around, avoid the eyes..resign myself that dying will be quick and I can't prevent it. Three big lion-size cats enter, one growls very loud in my ear, I don't know if it's the nose deadening stench exhaled, or the bladder loosening prospect of immanent death that makes my eyes leak tears. Don't wail like a baby, I choke and whine, duck my head as more bodies weave into the room and around me, there's loud sniffing off to the right and the next growl is toned with frustration and the football size head turns away [I am not food]. My heart starts beating again. Now what do I do..?
I watch them.
The shock of the pain had actually taken the breath out of him for a moment, now he sat in the matricite faraday cage and probed the edges of the blank space in the psychic continuum, prrimitive technology, but it blocked the most dirrect access, subtlety was still possible but might rrequire time, he hoped he had enough.
The largest two cats flop down, then the third, the smaller two pace, making noises that, for the life of me, sound like whingeing. One of the bigger three yawns. I start to relax slightly, I dare not move yet. There are five cats, three big, two small(er),their coats are caked with filth, they look a bit long bodied to me, with massive neck muscles under the mottled brown skin, and the elbows and hips aren't quite right, the legs look bowed, but the teeth are razor sharp, there appear to be several rows of them..[redundancy, like a shark? Or holding ability? neck muscle - they hold and shake to kill. Why are their legs so short in proportion? Duh- forest area, they're tree climbers, they drop on prey, they don't have to chase them down. Then why the pack structure? They don't need to cooperatively hunt.., are they a family group?]. The big ones are dominant, they're relaxed at the moment but the smaller two defer to them, one of the three is slightly bigger. One of the smaller ones has different genitalia, I've only caught sight of one of the larger one's genitals, but it's different again [pre-pubescence in the smaller?] I really hope they feed them, or I'll be the food til the next victim is thrown in. I hope to hell the Doctor is sorting this out.
It's been several hours, everything aches; my jaw, hip and shoulder, both knees, elbows, bladder. I shift and the biggest cat's head whips up to fix it's eyes on me, I break the gaze and keep still, I hope that was a warning. The cats are all still, but I don't think they're sleeping, I couldn't be that lucky, one of the smaller ones lashes it's tail, bored, fretful? [I may have to watch that one]. Finally the light gets dimmer, like a distant light being turned off, the bigger cats grunt and stir, slowly shift and make themselves more comfortable among the filth and refuse, [I'd guess the day is over and no chance of food now]. Very slowly I shift closer to a corner, strip my jeans down to my thighs and pee, hopelessly adding to the mess, one of the bigger cats lifts it's head and sniffs, then ignores me, I am grateful to live another day.
The Doctor had an opportunity to have a long conversation with the Technician when he turned up to maintain the cage that night.
"This rreally is the most marvellous invention, the blending of generrated electrrical energy with natural mineral rradiation, it takes a rremarkable mind to think so laterrally."
The smartly coated, slightly chubby, un-bewigged man didn't answer, just continued taking readings around the structure, but the Doctor was sure he was listening,
"A man capable of such broad vision and novel solutions must be able to turn his hand to any number of important prrojects. You must be highly rregarded for your work."
The Technician continued on his round but the Doctor didn't miss the furious scowl that flicked across his face,
"You must be internationally acknowledged for your grround-brreaking inventions!"
The Technician paused, muttered, "No, not internationally."
"So you're rreduced to prroviding party trricks for this bunch of intellectually- challenged layabouts, philistines that control your work!" The Doctor growled, the man blanched, staring at him,
"How many vital prrojects have they prrevented you pursuing?" The man's hands were white on the meter,
"How much ground-breaking, paradigm-changing, beneficial work have they stymied?"
"Too much!" The Technician was shaking, almost crying with anger, "How can they be so...small-minded?!" he shouted,
"Do you know," said the Doctor, "I think I can help with that."
Somehow I dozed, jerked awake in alarm as big bodies shifted, there's a growl that scares me stiff, but none of cats pay attention to me, bodies settle. I can see better again, someone's up and about maybe, switching on a light? Windows seemed scarce in all of their buildings, from what little I'd seen, the cats are lying down but looking around. One of the big ones gets up and pisses copiously against the wall behind it, I wonder if it would be a good idea to get that smell on me, revolting, but simple, then the big head swings my way, the tongue flicks out [is 'he' smelling the air?] and he pads into the back room, after a few seconds I hear lapping, [I need to get in there], the pain in my throat singles itself out from the whole body chorus and I pant audibly, making a show of trying to swallow, but stay still. No way am I going to crawl through these cats just yet, much, much better to let them all drink first. I curl up and lay my head down again, I won't be adding much urine to the mess today. One of the smaller cats gets up and bats fretfully at what has to be a bone, chews it half-heartedly, drops it with a fretful noise and ambles over to me [He?] hisses at me and then bats me lightning quick on the head, it sounds like being hit with a wooden bat, and light explodes in my head, I yelp and then the pain hits me with a wave of nausea, I curl up, I hear a deep Yowrr and the sound of bodies moving, but nothing else hits me. For what must be hours I don't move, my head throbs deafeningly, all I can do is wait. It's darker again when my head is only throbbing in time to my heartbeat, I feel sick, everything is a haze, something in me has decided that I have to get up now, it doesn't extend to fear of death, it just has to be now. I crawl forward, there are grunts and Hrunghh from either side but it has no importance in my personal world of misery, I have to get to the water. A huge dark body heaves into my way in front of the way to the other room, and then it heaves away, I don't care if there's snarling, I think I might die if I don't do this. There's a smaller cat in the back room, but it's lying away from the raised basin of water and just looks at me, I reach the water and drink. And drink again. Finally I try and crawl away from the basin, the cats will want it, I curl up against a wall.
I wake up when a cat shifts away from me, my head pounds and my stomach cramps painfully with hunger, but my side is warm, one of the smaller cats is lapping at the basin. A larger one comes in, nudges it aside with it's nose, and drinks. After a quiet time, I edge forward and drink, then to a corner away from the remaining smaller cat and the water and pee. Then back to the wall, carefully away from the water, I don't want to be nudged again by a cat. The day is interminable, the stench interspersed with a cat adding to the piles of filth, the gnawing hunger, and the smaller (male?) whingeing once. The cats waited. A great clang of metal and the cats were up, there was snarling, sounds of movement, and then sounds of eating. I stayed put, after all, lions will kill cubs who try and push in at a kill. After maybe several hours I look round the doorway, almost nothing remains of the food [there wasn't enough], and I'm angry for the cats and myself, deliberately short fed by the poseurs above. I wonder if the cats think about eating them.
Maybe around midmorning (midday?) hunger drives me to sidle into the main room, I find an ignored bone with some scraps of meat hanging of it, I take it in the back room and chew at it til my jaw hurts, I drink some more to try and fill my aching gut, and scuttle out of the way when a bigger cat comes in. It (he?) growls briefly at me and lowers it's head to drink, he flicks his ears and looks moody, before flopping down by the basin with a grunt. How long can they keep this many big animals in here? I can see a drain in the middle of the floor, and there's dung spread over everything, I've hardly seen a cat groom itself, I saw a (cub?) smaller one, lick a foreleg once, then quickly stop, they're all covered in their own filth, and I will be soon too. I look around to see if there is fresh dung, how quickly does it pile up? Do they clean this place? If they get in, I can get out, and I will close my jaws around them... My stomach rumbles.
Another dark, another light, and the hunger is digging it's nails into me, I growl when my stomach spasms, bile in my mouth, find a corner and lie down with a grunt. The little male comes over to me whining a little growl, he gets too close and I lash out with a snarl, suddenly angered beyond endurance by the pain and hunger and imprisonment, I smack the back of my fist across his nose, he yelps and jumps back, shuffles off into the front room, the big male and the females lower their heads and ignore me. Time passes, metal clangs, I jump up, all the cats do. [Is it food?] There's a blinding flash, a deafening horn, the cats snarl and jostle past me as they crowd into the back room, with a rumble a door slides across the access to the front room. They're going to put a human in the cage.
Clang. And the door rumbles open, I can't be first through, I can't push past the adults, I kneel up and look- a man's head, dark curly hair- and speak, keeping my voice low,
"Kneel down, keep your head down, don't stare, don't scream, keep still." The cats are so close to him now, "You can survive, I did."
I can't see him, I can hear his panicked breaths, the leads male sniffs him, and growls, I despair, tears run from my eyes, it's a long growl, and ends in a snarl and a crunch, the man doesn't even have time to scream, the cats start eating him immediately. They are hungry, and he doesn't last long. I don't stop crying til the crunching ends. Much later, there's an abandoned legbone by the doorway, there's blood on it and a little bit of meat and cartilage, I take it without thinking. I am so hungry, I put it down in front of the young female, she flattens her ears at me, I forgot to go on all fours, I drop back down to my hands and curl up by a wall.
Dark, and light again. I get up, I feel distant and dizzy, I crawl past an adult female into the front room, and there's a chewed pelvis abandoned behind the male, I flop down by it and chew on it furiously. I need more food.
Dark. The young male is whining, he's petulant, and when he gets close he smells funny, his breath smells wrong, he flops down next to the big male who purrs, just once, at the boy, who leans against him. He will die in here if we do not get out. Someone leans against me in the dark, I smell immature female, I let her settle against me.
Light. I walk into the front cage, on knuckles and knees, hrrunh at the female by the throughway as I pass, going up to the gate. I sniff it, I can't help it, I can smell iron, traces of paint, and, faintly, oil, and fresh human - guard human. Behind the bars I can see a nozzle and coil of material, hung on the wall somehow So, they sluice this place out. I imagine they chase the cats out like they do when they throw in humans to be eaten. My stomach rumbles. I look around, they warn them, and then they what? Shock them? Metal in the bars, I sniff the walls, then the floors, they smell like stone and metal. That's weird. It isn't cold like metal, how can it transmit -say- an electric charge- if it doesn't transmit heat? That's down to atomic structure. I shook my head. I had no way to ask, and didn't want to wait, if that tubing was non metallic it was going to hold me off the floor when the shock came. I stalked to the corner and found a long bone (femur, someone's femur), and poked it through the bars at the hose, the loops of material came off easily, the nozzle caught in the hook, but I worked it free, pulled the whole lot towards me. The tubing didn't smell metallic. Bonus! The human (guards) didn't come down here when they didn't have to, there were a few piles of shit around the room that had avoided being trodden in, but I'd seen none when I first came in, I would gamble they'd sluiced it some time before, and that they didn't bother often. I looped the hose tightly round the upper crosspieces of the bars and spied my purchase on the other side of the cage, a tiny connecting aperture to the back cage, with a vertical bar running across it. I laughed when I saw it, and the big cats stirred uneasily, they didn't like the human noise. I said hrrunh. I crawled back across the room, and stood up to loop it through and tie it, and back to another crosspiece on the front of the cage. Nice long hosepipe. That I can balance on. I almost grinned like a monkey, then I closed my mouth, the cats wouldn't like it. There was a pipe running across the ceiling, carrying the wiring to the shock warning light in the centre, I tucked the hosing up behind the pipe in several places to make it unobtrusive. I smiled again, and then I sat and waited.
Blaring horn, blinding light, racketed through the small chamber, the cats howled and scrambled into the back cage, I yanked on my 'hammock', and I climbed up the cage bars and crawled out onto it, wrapping my arms and legs around it, and easing away from the bars, as the door to the back cage rumbled across. I felt good, I felt so excited I forgot about the ache in my belly, I wanted to laugh. I was going to enjoy chewing their bones so much. There was a loud snap and big waft of ozone, and my hair stood on end all over my body, the hose around the bars spat and smoked just a tiny bit. I dropped down, I could hear the boots ringing down the hallway, and I poked the bits of hose up behind the wiring conduit, and backed into the darkest corner by the bars, I picked up my femur. It felt strange in my hand, bite them, crush their skulls and lap their blood. The guards arrived at the gate in an overwhelming cloud of human scent, all of them were afraid, and one had soiled himself, they pushed him in, and I came over him and out, rammed one in the face with the end of the bone, kicked the other in the knee before I swung the bone down on the back of his neck. The other one still seemed to be conscious, he looked at me as I turned back towards him. Crush his skull. I swung the bone.
My cats, my family, how do I get them out of this place? I couldn't see any buttons, I ran down the hall, scared because I didn't know where the controls were, what if there were more guards? I mustn't be stopped. Corner at the end, and one uniformed guard at a keyboard, I hit him so hard with the murdered man's femur he spun right round and fell over. I hit the button marked 'Cage door release', I heard a faint rumbling sound and I called HRRUNH HRROW HRROOW like calling kin to the kill, and the adults growled in return as they ran. I didn't know which way to go, they wanted to go left, towards the smell of many humans, rich, well fed meat.
I ran after them, I couldn't follow on all fours that fast, and I had my bone, I ran into a room of screaming humans, running every which way, my cats needed daylight and fresh air, water and trees. I looked around for outside doors, there were guards backing into another room, firing guns, my family! I ran towards them, a pale clad figure emerged from the crowd and yanked me almost off my feet with the handle of his umbrella, he grabbed my head and stared intently into my eyes, "Doctor!" Thank gods he was safe.
"We should be leaving now." he said firmly,
My family! "My cats, Doctor, they must get out." He nodded once, and dragged me through the panicking crowd, I could hear snarling and human shrieking, and smell bloody meat, my belly growled. The doctor ran to a panel by double doors, operated it and doors swung open, blessed air! And light! And beyond the shaved grassland I could see trees. I called HRRUNH HRRUNH HRRUNH HRRUNH, and they came: the adults, and then the cubs, and they were gone, swift as deer, over the grass and into the trees. The Doctor grabbed my arm and ran back into the building, I didn't want to leave the gate to the outside, but he pulled me along, he knew where the Tardis was. Away from the humans, round a corner, and there it was, in an empty room. We ran in, and the door slammed behind us. "Emergency takeoff!" The Doctor yelled as he launched himself at the console, slapping buttons, twisting dials, and honking a horn. Why a honking horn, for chrissake? What does that actually do? He ran around the console, muttering to himself , as the central column wheezed into motion, and the timeship took off into the vortex. I sat down on the floor, against the wall, he was still muttering and tinkering, I was safe here. I curled up with my back against the wall and slipped into sleep.
I woke up on my back in the white sterility of the medical bay, I felt scrubbed and sore under the blanket, but the thirst and hunger were less, and my clean scabbed hands felt numb when I flexed them.
"Ah, you're awake." He sounded pleased with himself, came round the head of the bed into my view, smiling broadly, rolling his sleeves down as he came.
"Doctor." Even my tongue felt numb as I tried to speak,
"That's the analgesic wearing off." He glanced aside at a panel. "Hungry? We should really get some food into you. Intravenous fluids are no real replacement for food in the stomach." He slid an arm beneath my shoulders and pulled me up into a sitting position, my head span and I huddled there, gasping, til it settled a bit, I wasn't sure I could stomach anything, in the end he just held me, touched my head and let me lie down again and sleep.
The next time I woke up I was parched, ravenous and had a burning need to pee. He helped me off the bed, practically held me up, altho my head wasn't spinning as badly, sat me in the bathroom, and went off to get the food. I was on my feet when he came back, but wavering, he wrapped an arm round me and guided me back to the bed. He sat beside me with an arm around my shoulders and held a cup of water, and then lumpy broth up for me. The water tasted gorgeous, the broth tasted like gravy and mince, "What is this, Doctor? You know I don't eat meat." he hrumphed,
"You just get that down you, young lady, ("I'm 46!") it's plant protein, and let that be an end to the prrotestations!" He tutted.
"Thank you, Doctor." I said, and drank, I gnawed a man's pelvis. The memory brought a rush of nausea, but the soup was too good, and my body needed it too much. He looked at me intently, but said nothing, letting me lie back down when the soup was finished. "Rest." He said, and took the cup off with him when he went.
"My dear, you need a shower." He was right, hard as the Doctor has tried, he couldn't get all the filth out of my hair, the lingering stench off every fold of my body, it was vile, pervasive, even to me. I tottered to the shower with his hand on my shoulder, he hauled the long t-shirt over my head when I fumbled for the hem. He had to brace me as I stepped over the edge of the tub, I couldn't reach the opposite walls to hold myself steady against slipping, "Here." he said, stripping out of his shirt, and dropping his trousers to the floor, he stepped into the shower behind me, wrapped an arm around my waist, flicked the temperature dial, and switched the water on. I am standing here, starkers, with a Time Lord in his trolleys, they were old fashioned voluminous white underpants, it looked so incongruous, it would have been hilarious, if I did not feel so weak and unsteady. He met my eye over my shoulder and smiled, amused, he didn't seem non-plussed at all. But I was. No one's helped me wash since I was six, now a strange man was helping soap my body with disarming disregard for area, I actually grabbed the hand with the soap as it moved down across my belly, and took it off him, I think I felt that blush go all the way down past my shoulders, and I heard the bastard chuckle in my ear. But I still needed him to hold me up as I washed one handed with the other braced on the wall. Then I realised I couldn't bend to reach my legs, he had me prop myself in a corner, and he bent down to soap them, and rinse them off, it was alarming to realise how intimate it felt to have another person's hands move gently over my feet. I was still processing that unexpected information when the Doctor straightened up, and said "Ok, turn around." Hands smoothed soap down my back, oddly they didn't feel cold to me, his hands rarely did, but I've always had a low body temperature. Then he put his thumb gently into a knot of muscle on my shoulder and moved it in a circle, my eyes felt like they glazed over, my throat dried, and when the other hand joined it I moaned, I would have died of embarrassment on the spot if those gentle hands hadn't kept working down my aching spine producing such limb-loosening bliss. Then his hands reached my hips, and he turned me round, "Sit." he said, to my dazed face. He washed my hair, I hate having my hair washed, all that having no control over when the water and shampoo go in your eyes and up your nose, I hate it, but he was quite careful as he ran his hands thru my hair, especially over the place where the cub had hit me. And then the water was switched off, and I blinked as he dropped a towel on me, "There you go." He grinned and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist and whipping off the his wet trolleys so quickly I missed it. Bustling around half dressed, with a towel to his head the Doctor looked even more...alive, energetic, like the clothes were masking something. He was short-ish, only just topping my height, not quite entirely hairless torso, slim with softened contours and he can pick me up with one hand. He was putting on a tie by the time I went to step out of the shower, he grabbed my free hand to steady me and put a bundled up shirt in my arms,
"Here, I think you'd better return to bed for the prresent. Scrambled eggs?" My stomach growled, he beamed.