The unseen hand

"I knew you'd be alright."

"What? How?"

"With the Frandiskalpiaen Urdogendi."

"What?"

He gave me a disdainful look, "With the cats."

My eyebrows must've nearly met my hairline, "How the fu..(language, Kate, please!)..did you know that?"

"You're a low level psychic, so are they. The Urdogendi have a quite fascinating family structure, three adults form the core of a psychic bond..."

I felt shellshocked, "They were never going to eat me?"

"Oh, they might have done," he said imperturbably, "if you hadn't been able to bond with them."

"That man, " I swallowed against sudden nausea, "could he have bonded with them?" I could recall with absolute clarity the dark haired head, and the terrified breathing,

"Unlikely, many of the Frandiskalpiae have ceased to train or, indeed, value their natural telepathic and empathic talents."

The sounds of a man being killed and eaten by Urdogendi played in my head, "No shit." My eyes burned, "Could I have bonded him with them?" It was hard to speak, the Doctor put a hand on my shoulder, as we sat there with lizards twittering above us, and the gentle breeze making the russet grass wave,

"No, I don't think you could have." He said softly.

I leant back against the grassy bank, putting a hand over my eyes, the tears poured down my face when I touched my eyelids, "Wuh- " I swallowed, and started again, "What if I was stronger?"

"Yes, " he said, with a strange hint of satisfaction in his voice, " it's possible."

It was clearly going to involve an unfortunate amount of meditation, and general mental discipline.

The Doctor held up a finger, "Concentrrate! Put your attention on the pah of the Tardis, and nothing else. Locate it. It is all arround you, but below your attention, it is separate from me, and you, and all of spacetime around us."

This far from the control room of the Tardis, there's almost no vibration of machinery, you'd never know you were in space, in transit anywhere. We sat on the floor of a darkened room currently somewhere between the library and the arboretum. Eyes closed, I looked for things my senses could categorise: the sense of gravity, the smell of dust, the feel of the carpet, the rise and fall of my own chest and the rushing of air in and out of it, the thump of my heart ringing in my veins; the scent of the doctor (lemon and bay), the faint susurration of his horrible paisley silk tie against his linen shirt as he breathed; and a distant booming like a muffled gong. My eyes sprang open, is that my heart again? But my heart sped and the gong stayed steady. He watched me, with almost disinterested patience,

"What is that? Like a muffled gong?"

"It's the time rotors."

I closed my eyes, but there's only silence, stretching out. Ok, not hearing then. I reached out with the sense of familiarity I use when I want to ask the Tardis for something, and there, is the faint twitch of her usual response, I don't think that's what he means tho.

"That's her communicating, not her pah." I get the impression he's smiling.

But the speech comes from the self, no? I figure maybe I can trace it back, I try and feel around that usual response, but it just makes the Tardis respond again, I raise my eyes to the ceiling, "Sorry, old girl, I'm not a very good aim." The Doctor is definitely smiling now.

"Keep looking." he says.

I couldn't fathom any edge to the Tardis' presence, no outside to compare it with, no not I could use to define what was. I sighed, discouraged, perhaps my mind is just not powerful enough to perceive beyond the Tardis' influence, or something, perhaps it's all hooey? Hooey that made me think five cats were my family. I wondered about that feeling, there'd been so much fear, hunger, pain, it was hard to remember anything else, anything subtler, when I tried to examine the memories the most striking impression was the smell. That actually made me chuckle, the Doctor looked across at me questioningly, I shook my head and smiled, "Nothin'."

"Well," he said, "perhaps a cup of tea." popping the p and t, it made me smile.

My tea is usually strong enough to jumpstart a tractor, but what the Doctor served was, well, genteel, it almost demanded fine china, even that made me laugh. I rubbed my eyes, I must be tireder than I thought, it's rare I'm so whimsical.

"Sleep on it." Suggested the Doctor.

I dreamed about the bloody cat cage, I'm curled up on the floor in the front cage, by the bars, I'm scared, and very, very tired. I have to sleep, but I know someone's watching me. Then I get an image of both the big cat in the cage and me from above, then it all gets very blurry, and I think we get out at the end, we're running towards light, I'm trying to keep up with the big cat, I woke up with a yell, reaching out in an effort to make it wait for me, like a cub?

What?

I was still thinking about it while sat drinking tea in the kitchen, and it hits me- I felt like the adult cat was my parent, I felt like a cub, I felt it's presence in my mind. Oh bizarre, my hand shook a little, I put the cup down in it's own puddle of tea. It was seeing them in your mind, like having them constantly in your sight, always there. That's what it feels like to be mentally bonded? Weird. Nice, maybe. Odd.

"Good morning!" The Doctor trilled as he walked in, "Ah, tea."

Could I find the Doctor's pah? Who's got a bigger pah, the Tardis or him? And that started me giggling again.

In the quiet I tried to find the Doctor's pah against the background of the Tardis', I looked for irregularities in the fabric of what I could feel around me, I thought I could place a difference some distance beyond my head, to the right of where I lay. I tried comparing it with what I felt when the Doctor had touched my mind, but that had been too different, too direct and full. I went for a wander, following my sense of difference to see if it led me to him. Straight to the console room, where he was frowning at a readout,

"Hallo Kate, " he sounded preoccupied, he hadn't looked round, "found something?"

"Yes." He straightened up and looked at me, "You."

He nodded. "Good."