go to hell
He'd started by materialising the TARDIS outside a low rise block of four flats, boring, ordinary, sixties built, roses and dwarf conifers in the shared garden no-one ever went in. Unusually he had the ship's perception filter on.
Not unusually the Doctor was uncommunicative about where we were going- but more than that- he was quiet, almost watchful, I was completely confused by this unusual behaviour, he could be quiet but he was wont to witter- this was like he was afraid of whatever was outside the door, either way- I wasn't going out first. He opened the doors remotely from the console- they swung open to frame a square, dull, brick built lowrise set of flats in a communal garden with anonymous roses and conifers, doors, curtains, and a view inside one flat.
I know this place.
There was a grey haired woman sat at a table in a high backed wooden chair, in a dressing gown, glasses on her nose, plate and cup in front of her, book held flat on the table under the plate...
No No No No NO!
The woman twitched in her chair like she'd hiccuped, and then was still.
"MUM!" Strong arms grabbed me from behind- wrapped solidly around my throat and waist and pulled me back in through the TARDIS doors, despite my struggling and screaming, the doors slammed shut, the grip turned me loose, the time rotors sprang into action. I turned on the Doctor,
"That was the moment, then. The moment your mother died of a cerebral haemorrhage." he said. I threw myself away from him, into the depths of the TARDIS, half sick, half blind, old memories and grief twisting inside me, I couldn't outrun it, I braced my arms against the wall in a darkened corridor, I put my head back and screamed.
The Doctor sat in his library, tapping his finger on the armchair arm, grim, waiting. He told himself this was necessary, inevitable, two forced regenerations in quick succession were going to markedly improve her synaptic processes, access to memory being one very double-edged sword. The human brain didn't store memory patterns with anything like the accuracy or persistence of Time Lord physiology, she was going to find her memories coming back, quite possibly to haunt her. She was going to have to face them.
Better now.
Oh, I knew this well, curled up in the dark, arms rigid around my knees, hugging myself with all my strength as the pain raged through me, thoughts raging, yelling maybe, moaning? Hanging onto myself to stop myself beating the walls with my fists, or my head with my fists, or the wall with my head, to MAKE IT STOP!
It felt like several hours had passed, I was jammed in a corner, my thoughts whirred ceaselessly round my head, my blood whooshed audibly in my ears, I was cold and tense, empty and worn out, but very, very wired. It was clear the Doctor had done this deliberately- which made it hurt more- the motives obscure and malevolent, I felt that familiar sick feeling of betrayal- it had been a mistake to trust him. It seemed more intelligent people were more dangerous.
I had to get away.
I was surprised to find I could walk quite steadily, and think quite clearly, I had expected the bout to throw me into an unpleasant fog of dissociation- where it was hard to think, nothing was quite real and nothing meant anything. This full awareness hurt more, the bitterness was ice and knives in my belly, there was nothing to hold me back. In the empty white console room I input a search for the nearest habitable planet with a calm timestream and targetted the TARDIS at it, for a ten second materialisation. The sound of the time rotors changed and then the console pinged and a countdown started. I walked to the doors, and out.
Into a starship corridor {absence of planetary mass; engine vibration through the deck}, I barely heard the TARDIS dematerialise behind me because the ship's alarms started going off, I could hear blaster discharge past the intersection, and the whole vessel shuddered, more alarms joined the first. Through an open door to my left I could see hazard lights flashing on a control board, I went to look. The freighter was beginning to list into the local gravity well, the control of one engine seemed to be damaged, I rerouted the control protocols to the board and resynched the two engines, the technology looked to be Vestan, circa 35th century, (Vesta, Vesta...why does that name have a connection to hazard?) There was more shooting in the corridor, and now screaming, there was weapons fire, hand-to-hand and attendant damage to systems going on all over the ship from the lights and monitors on the board, I flipped through the camera views and stopped, one, two, three...twenty-two sections of the ship showed familiar narrow barren cells with the occupants screaming and pounding the walls. Footsteps rans up the corridor and a figure appeared in the doorway, raised a blaster and aimed it at me,
"You!" Snarled the dark-haired man savagely, "What have you done to my ship?!"
"Avon." I spat, "Slaving again!" Anger burned through me, I felt a desire to beat his head bloody against the wall, then it was gone and I felt hollow, although my hands on the control panel were shaking, my heart pounding with adrenaline, and sweat broke out at my hairline, Avon took two steps forward and jammed his blaster up under my chin, the ship shuddered- lights flickering on the board, "That was a missile firing."
"What?" Avon seemed to come to his senses, "We're in deep space." He looked down at the images and alarms, "What the hell is going on?"
"Did you feel what I felt just then? Raging anger?" He looked at me like I was as crazy as the crew, "My pulse is racing." He short focused on the barrel of his blaster, pressed against my neck, another wave of rage boiled through me- I could see my hands around his throat in my minds eye- but it passed just as quickly, the hand holding the blaster began shaking, "I think this is a psychic attack." The pressure on my neck lessened. "Do you have the ship wired with euphoric gas?" He hesitated, "Well, do you?" The screaming in the corridor was louder now,
"Yes." he leant over and input a sequence, a faint hissing began, he reached under the console one handed and pulled out two air masks, tossed one to me, I pulled it on. As the gas took effect on the humans I could feel a direction to the emotion, down, and forward. The sounds out side were tailing off, I heard a thump- like a body falling,
"Come one, I think I can trace it." I went out into the corridor, there was someone slumped on the floor- they didn't appear to be hurt, just stoned, Avon followed closely, blaster at my back,
"How did you get on the ship?" he asked,
"Same way I got off last time."
"And where is that man?"
"Not here." The gun made contact with my back,
"Why," he said with some emphasis, "are you here?"
"I jumped ship." I said, and kept walking. Two sections forward and three decks down by access ladder, we passed a number of supine people, only two bleeding profusely, one already dead, I wrapped my outer shirt tightly around the surviving man's wound. Avon leant against the wall, covering me with his blaster, behind the mask he looked rather pale. The last ladder led down to a deserted hold, I could feel an almost physical pressure on my mind, I pushed back as hard as I could, behind me I could hear Avon's breathing become ragged, harsh. I looked back at him, he looked like he was keeping a grip on his rage by will alone.
"The anger it's giving out has grown weaker, I need you calm, you have to not be angry or you feed it. Give yourself a dose of narcotic, I'm going to see what it is." He stared at me unbelievingly, and then he took one of those small vials from his pocket, twisted a tiny control at the back, and sprayed it into his mask, almost immediately his eyes looked clearer. "Let the anger go." I said, and walked into the hold.
It was cold, this close to the outer skin of the old ship, the dim light filtering in from the corridor contrasted beautifully with the aura of glowing sparks around the entity {particle decay, indicative of transdimensional or transtemporal motion}, it really didn't belong here, the ship's course had been passing through a dark nebulae, a hazardous place- quite possibly to avoid detection, what it had picked up in it's passage might suggest why the area was so seldom travelled. It was like walking into a high wind that hate- hated me, wanted me to die/kill, images flashed in my memory, betrayals, attacks, oppression, fight back, fight BACK. It wasn't sparking off me because I felt dead inside, hollowed out, with nothing left but a faint bitterness. It was easy to distinguish the invading emotions, I walled them out, pushed them back as far as I could, and realised I would have to purge my mind of resentments to starve the creature. I imagined being dead, my dust one with the universe -and I felt a profound sense of peace. With a noise like crackling the aura defining the edge of the creature convulsed, I walked towards it, my mind as clear and empty as a starless sky, there was a crackling sound in my ears- then it was gone.
I walked out into the corridor and Avon stood there, clear sanity in his eyes, he holstered the blaster, pulled the front off a junction box on the wall and began to input control commands directly into the ship's electronics. He really is very clever. With a whoosh of air the gas began to clear, he pulled off his mask, I pulled mine off too.
"Now," he said calmly, pulling out the blaster and aiming it at me, "what are you doing on my ship?"
"Stowing away?" He smiled beatifically.
His hands lingered decidedly too long as he frisked me for weapons,
"So, unarmed." He smiled as he holstered the blaster, "That means you can't stop me doing this."
His skin was warm from the drug and emotions, one arm pulled me flush against him and the other hand threaded into the hair at the back of my neck, pulled me in and kissed me. Even in my enervated state the bastard threatened my self control. That was when I heard the time rotors, and tore my face away from his realising I had never felt the absence of the Doctor's pah, he had been here the whole damn time.
The door of the box was open almost before it was solid, a decidedly grumpy looking Doctor leant out of the door, fixed Avon with a gimlet eye and said in that cold, contemptuous tone he used when furious,
"You know your brother is still alive in that prison? I would have thought someone with your skills wouldn't hesitate to get him out." Then the umbrella handle shot out, and hauled me sharply away from from Avon's stunned body, the Doctor grabbed my shoulders and all but threw me in the TARDIS, as I was spun about I caught one glance over my shoulder, Avon looked like he'd been stabbed, grief, shame and guilt etched on his face, the TARDIS door slammed shut and it dematerialised, the time rotors never even missing a beat. I stood panting in the middle of the console room, the Doctor went calmly back to the console, "You know he tried to drug you again." He said quietly.
"What?"
"Self-dispersing gel caplet under the tongue."
I ran my tongue round my mouth, I couldn't feel anything, nor did I feel stoned in any way, "How the hell does that work?"
"He takes a blocker." Which way had he twisted the dial on the back of that spray vial?
"Why..why aren't I stoned?" Why am I here?
"It doesn't work particularly well on you any more." He sighed and walked round the console towards me, "Can you taste it?"
There was a faint woody taste in my mouth that I hadn't even noticed, it seemed to have been there for a while, I was stunned when the Doctor grabbed the back of my head stole a kiss, before I could stop myself I had his shirt front in one fist and the other accelerating toward his face from my shoulder. With a wrench I pulled it before my arm extended, dropped him and turned my back,
"There are traces of hypercannabinoids." He said gently. After a beat he said, "Kate, I did it to prove to you you can survive," I was going to kill him, "and that you will never be the victim of a life-threatening depression again." He said mildly, the angry beast in my head stopped, said Never again? and diminished.
Never again?
I turned back, "Why did you to do it like that?"
"Because I was sure that way would work."
"WORK!" I screamed, outraged, I grabbed him by the hair, yanked his head close to mine, "LOOK! Have a look at what this feels like!" I picked his hand up and crushed it to the side of my face, he let me do it, just stood there with a slightly pained look on his face, seemed hesitant to do anything, til I realised I was on the verge of inflicting what I had suffered on another, I really wanted to, but I couldn't justify it. I swept his hand off my face, shoved him away, stalked towards the inner door.
"I do know what you felt." He said softly to my back. "I've had a telepathic connection with you since Frandiskalpia."
I turned back, realisation dawning on me, "You persuaded the cats to accept me."
He nodded solemnly, "And influenced your acceptance of them. I provided the telepathic link between you and them to allow you to function as a group."
"You've been spying on me ever since?" I felt a bit sick, I felt invaded- violated,
"No! No, it isn't like that!" He was appalled, he held his palms wide, came towards me, "I thought you could hear me back!" He stepped within arm's reach, "You can't, can you?" I almost didn't hear him say, sadly, "I never meant for you to be alone."
He held up a hand, close to my head, "Please, let me help."
My head jerked away, I stepped back, swallowing hard, I couldn't help myself.
He waited until she was exhausted, sitting dazed on a bench in the arboretum, brain still spinning but close to sleep, he sat quietly down beside her, put a hand to her temple and eased down the cortisol concentration in the hippocampi at the base of her brain. Almost immediately she began to relax, slumping forward, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders pulled her to her feet and guided her in the direction of her room, dropped her on the bed, covered her and then lay beside her, hand snaking out to check cortisol levels, he wanted her to rest peacefully.