As per usual he waited until she had left the bathroom, a rose-red colour suffused across her skin- courtesy of superfluous jets of burning water- and her long, leucous hair was freshly dried. It had come to reach her mid-back at this stage.
A powder-white gown tied tightly around her waist, she left the small en suite that joined her bedroom, only to be blinded by a thickened length of material that was suddenly and swiftly tied around her head.
She was not unaccustomed to this so she didn't yelp or swear as she had the first time.
She simply fell limp against the feeling of his cold, ferine hands on her shoulders.
The beast that she could not see pushed her to the edge of the bed and applying the slightest of pressure, he silently coerced her into sitting. She didn't protest and he knew she wouldn't.
This had become their routine.
If it wasn't after her shower, it was after she said her nightly prayers.
For reasons unknown to her, he never attempted to follow her into the bathroom as he did, so many other rooms she had pleaded with him not to. True, she locked the door- muttering that there were some things that he couldn't possibly want to watch her do, morbid curiosity regarding humans or not…but what difference could that have made?
She knew a locked door couldn't possibly prevent a monster with his brute strength from entering the bathroom after her but he never attempted to force entry.
And she had come to know that he wouldn't.
She felt his great weight sink into the mattress beside her and a gust of air abruptly licking the exposed skin of her face and neck signalled him folding his wings away.
His hand wrapped around her wrist, constricting the thin skin as he forced her hand into her lap.
Her pulse suddenly throbbing in her neck, Cassidy winced as the Weeping Angel raked his cold, clawed fingers through her hair. He pressed against her scalp and temples, winding and pulling her hair with the unashamed, unabashed curiosity of a toddler pulling at a cat's whiskers.
Michael could see that he was causing her discomfort but was far too amused to care.
As always, he made no sound- though the faintest of growls would threaten to spill from his lips if she resisted his ministrations or attempted to free herself from his hold.
Eventually he moved away from her hair and began to trace her face and neck. He would occasionally move to the skin of her forearms and collar but would not seek to touch any skin that was not already exposed.
Cassidy was thankful for that…but she still felt herself recoil slightly when his fingertips neared the seam of robe.
She hadn't forgotten what he had tried to do to her in the Honeymoon Suite at Summer Bank.
The Honeymoon Suite…
How perversely macabre could her alien captor manage to be?
He had assured her on more than one occasion that it was intended as an act of dominance. A carnal, brutal ritual of claiming as it was in most predatory species.
As per his culture, it would indefinitely and physically establish her as his submissive and he as her superior.
Michael had not acted on this intention a second time though.
He would repeatedly survey her form every morning and every evening and in a hushed, analytical tone proclaim that she was still: "too thin, too feeble, too weak…"
And then Cassidy would give an emphatic cough and only allow herself to eat half of what she wanted to that day.
If he thought she was too sick and too thin to "dominate"…she intended on keeping it that way.
His talons were tracing her face now, his thumbs finding the corners of her firmly closed lips and tugging them out to the sides, stretching them.
She groaned, suddenly feeling rather indignant. "If you're trying to make me smile properly again, I told you already…" Her voice was embarrassingly distorted by the Angel's fumbling with her mouth but Cassidy was becoming far too annoyed to care; she was tired, despite a long day of doing nothing. She just wanted to go to bed. "…you'll have to plant an entire damn forest of roses for me before I'll fucking smile like that again."
The Angel's thumb suddenly came to press over her lips, silencing her.
"Such coarse language, little mouse. I thought we trained you out of that already."
"Why do you call me that?" Cassidy asked him, ignoring his condescending reprimands. "Why do you keep calling me little mouse? Human? I understand. Slave? I understand. Pet? I understand. Darling? Yes. Female? Yes. But why "mouse?" I hardly look like a mouse to you. Do I?"
"You remind me of the tiny field mice that used to run to take refuge in at my feet whilst I was chained into the ground in the forest," he replied, his fingers running down her neck and tracing the lines of her arteries as they went. "So small, frail and utterly defenceless but so bold all the same…and in response to your request, roses do not grow in large quantities in forests. There is not enough light for them to blossom fully. One would have to clear foliage from the treetops…why do you favour roses at all? I heard you mention that it was the colour that drew your attention but there are plenty of other red flowers. Roses are difficult to grow and covered with thorns, so they are no friend to whoever wishes to pluck them."
They were playing the questions game again.
This was a game where they would ask each other a question and try to gauge who had the upper hand through the amount of and depth of information that the other was forced to give.
"Maybe that's what I like about roses. You have to actually put in a little effort to find, pluck and care for one," Cassidy challenged, her tone cooling down before becoming neutral again. "And the symbolism that the roses themselves carry…roses are used as symbols for remembrance, loyalty, love…" Her voice trailed off as she felt Michael cup her face, pulling her head against his chest.
The cold smooth skin of his pectoral muscle pressed against her cheek caused her to shudder.
"And do you know where the word "rose" comes from, my human?"
Cassidy shook her head, feeling slightly sick when she felt the pulse in her neck quicken.
The Angel laughed. "I have a better grasp of you own mother language than you do, it would appear. The word rose comes from the word "rise." Those who named it wanted to remark on how it appeared to rise from the ground, rising above all around it…beautiful despite the uneven, coarse ground from which it springs…"
"How do you know that?" she asked him in hushed tones, stifling her trembling by biting her lip and allowing her mind to wander slightly.
"I overheard two humans speaking of roses when I was hunting in the forest of Nottingham, in the years of my youth. The male was attempting to present one to the female but the female would not accept it…"
One of his hands lifted to firmly and possessively stroke her cheek, the other still keeping her tightly held to his side.
"What were you like when you were young, Michael?" Cassidy asked him, her dry mouth becoming uncomfortably itchy when she spoke.
She hadn't expected a quick answer but his response came swiftly.
"I was ambitious…curious…hungry…my mother raised me separately from the rest of the tribe. She kept me isolated. No doubt she feared my strength even at my tender age…"
"Do you think about your mother often? Do you miss her?" she asked him.
"Hardly. She means very little to me. Unlike you, I would not openly weep over her grave if she were to die."
The human woman swallowed the urge to make a venomous comment. "How long has it been since you saw her last?"
"Approximately two centuries."
"How do you know she's even still alive then?"
"I know with reasonable certainty. She is in an area where she would be well-fed and she was always very durable…very adaptive…impossibly stubborn…"
Cassidy rolled her eyes beneath the blindfold. "Congratulations, you take after her." She turned her head up towards the Angel. "So you don't feel anything for her? Nothing?"
Michael grabbed her by the head and forced her to face forward again, none-too-gently wrenching her neck into an unnatural twist. "Unlike you humans, we Angels do not feel illogical emotions in needless quantities. I have no reason to feel anything for my mother and thus, I do not."
"Hmmm," Cassidy replied after another few quiet moments of him running his fingers through her hair. "Illogical emotion in needless quantities, yeah? Well, correct me if I'm wrong but your utterly divine race seem to collectively have a lot of problems with aggression, jealousy…and you derive unnatural amounts of pleasure from utterly destroying the lives of others…"
"Are you still intent on whining about how I supposedly tore your life asunder?"
"Supposedly?! Ok well let's forget my life for moment. That crowd in Summer Bank probably killed hundreds of humans every week, at least, from what I could see. It was also pretty damn obvious that they got a good kick out of it too..."
"How many different species do humans kill on a daily basis in order to feed and survive?"
"I'm pretty certain that forcing people to race with their lives at stake isn't quite a form of feeding."
"I have seen human beings torture and manipulate other species for the sake of entertainment…"
"Well then let's take you as an individual then. You murdered one of my friends without a qualm and not only that but you made her count down to the second of her death and don't try to deny it either. I heard what Louisa was saying in her last few minutes….she…she was counting! The Doc-…" Cassidy coughed, strategically changing her phrasing. She wasn't as afraid of Michael's anger anymore: she knew that the Angel would not do anything to risk damaging her beyond repair- she couldn't be his perfect little human doll then. However, his claws stung and she didn't want to bleed tonight. "…I found out that that's what your kind like to do to their victims."
Michael growled, exhaling in a manner almost akin to an exasperated school teacher as he held her head in his hands. "In the first order, our victims are sent back in time. Anything that we do to them after that is for sport and it is an idiosyncratic behaviour not a marker of my race's behaviour. In the second order, the effect that you are clumsily attempting to describe is a psychic defence mechanism that we Angels possess. It is usually instantly triggered by a person staring into our eyes for too long. Our minds telepathically link to theirs and imprint our image upon their optic nerve. The projected image can then grow and be controlled by its creator. In females, the effect is more delayed but they have greater control over it…"
"Are you really about to use the excuse that you "couldn't control yourself" as a reason why you had to torture Louisa to death?"
"No, I am simply telling you this to illustrate the point that if your friend had been smart enough to keep her eyes from mine for a mere few seconds, my mind wouldn't have instantly latched to hers…and once I had her mind, how could I not take the opportunity to savour her demise? I despised the way she fawned over you…"
"You need to learn a better way to vent your damn jealousy," Cassidy snapped bitterly, prompting the Angel to run his fingers down the side of her face and grip her jaw. The human girl groaned in discomfort at the feeling of her face being compressed, lifting her free hand to paw at Michael's wrist. Even when in flesh, the Angel's grasp was still as solid as stone. "Mmph! Ok, ok…I'll st-…I'll stop criticising…just stop yanking my head around…"
She was in no mood to feel the physical brunt of his annoyance towards her.
Much to her surprise, Michael's grip slackened and his hand slipped to the back of her neck, his other hand still sifting through the ends of her hair. She relaxed her eyes beneath the blindfold, letting her hands fall loosely into her lap as she became his doll again.
"I looked into your eyes before," Cassidy recalled quietly. "That pain I felt in my head…"
"That was me," Michael told her. "That was me, inside you. Inside your mind…"
The human woman shuddered. "And the gravel that fell from my eyes…"
"That was no more than a perception compensation illusion created by your own mind to somehow signal to your body that something foreign had entered your eyes…"
"Then you licked my eyelid…and it stopped…"
"Applying a hormonal secretion from my saliva that counteracts the electronic pulses that give the imprinted Angel its power…"
"You could have let me die."
"I could have let you die plenty of times before…but I didn't…" He ran one hand down her cheek, his claws lightly scraping against the plump, pink skin. "I couldn't lose you." She twitched as his fingertips traced the lines of her neck. "I couldn't lose my Cassidy…"
His tone was mockingly tender but the message was bitingly possessive nonetheless.
The Angel laughed at her shivering. "So frightened still, Cassidy? Even after all of our time spent together? Even if I was willing to apologise for all I've done? Just to please you?"
Cassidy blinked, confused for a moment at his offer of an apology but instantly sensing it to be just another hollow manipulation technique.
"You're a murderous, psychopathic monster from another dimension," Cassidy eventually replied, carefully and slowly. "How could I ever feel safe around you?"
The Weeping Archangel laughed again, suddenly tugging her so that she fell back against his chest. "If I were a human man…would you continue to quiver when I touch you?"
Cassidy wanted to say that it wouldn't matter.
Cassidy wanted to say that if a human man had almost caused her to lose her job, terrorised her friends, murdered some of those closest to her, kidnapped her, systematically tortured her, attempted to rape her, held her against her will…she'd still fear and hate him.
Cassidy wanted to say that kind of human man would still make her tremble with disgust whenever he came near her and that no amount of diamonds or roses or trips into the past or hollow apologies would ever change that.
That was what Cassidy wanted to say.
But her mouth dry and her hands shaking, the first words to tumble from Cassidy's lips were:
"I…I don't know…"
A shiver ran down her spine when Michael laughed at her again and her insides burned with shame and revulsion.
He guided her head to rest upon his chest and in that moment, Cassidy noticed for the first time that the Angel's skin wasn't as smooth as she had once thought.
It was almost segmented; level at an initial touch but graduated into millions of finely lined lozenges.
Like scales.
Even the folds of his toga felt more like extra folds of skin than the satiny silk that she had initially felt brushing against her.
Before Cassidy was even aware of it, one of her hands was tracing the strange epidermal hide with curiosity. Suddenly realising what she was doing, she abruptly pulled her hand away but Michael caught her by the wrist.
Wordlessly, he guided her hand back to where it was, pushing her at the wrist and leading her to touch his skin.
Soon her hands met with soft feathers that were familiar to her touch.
She was unable to see if she had found the wings by natural movement of if Michael had lifted his wings to be touched by her.
What was certain though was that he made no protest to her physical exploration.
"Amusing yourself?"
"Your skin…your wings…they…I…"
She was stumbling over her words and with a pounding heart, Cassidy dared herself to be brave and to ask the question that was veering on the tip of her tongue.
The question that was begging to be asked.
"Would you treat me like this?" she finally managed to say. "Would you treat me like this….like your prisoner…like your slave… if I was a Weeping Angel?"
His strange foreign scent flooded her senses, seeming to grow stronger as he shifted beneath her. He chuckled, suddenly running his hand down the back of her neck. "Mmm, I wouldn't need to…" His finger traced the shell of her ear. "Though, if you were a female of my kind, I probably would not find you as interesting and as entertaining as I do now…"
Michael suddenly seized her by nape of the neck, tilting her face upwards. "But…" His voice became more hushed and Cassidy's face started to heat up when his cool breath drifted over her face. "…you would make such a pretty fledgling…" A growl rippled through his throat and his hand suddenly came to rest on her collar-bone, in the gap where her robe fell around her shoulders. "You would be so beautiful…" His fingers suddenly skimmed down to the collar of her robe, fingering the seam and causing her to let out a breathy gasp of surprise.
"…I would be very tempted to keep you for myself…"
Cassidy instinctively grabbed the robe and pulled it up and around herself but to her bewilderment, Michael made no attempt to stop her.
Instead, the Angel's form vanished from around her, leaving her sitting alone on the bed.
"I must hunt now," he told her, his tone neutral as ever once more. "You can sleep now. That is not a direct order- more a suggestion- but I will lock the door to ensure you do not leave this room. That is a warning; do not attempt to escape in my absence, human. I will find you again."
She heard the sound of a door swiftly opening and closing and it was only after the familiar sound of the lock clicking that Cassidy slowly took the blindfold from her eyes.
Her bare body was trembling beneath the loose confines of her robe and her skin was aflame. Putting her hand to her neck, she felt her stomach tighten when she felt her own rapid pulse, pounding beneath her heated skin.
Her head was spinning and her fingertips were numb as she dragged them across the cloth surface of the blindfold in her hands.
The psychological torture was the worst of all.
One moment she would hate him, despise him, scorn him…be willing to give up her own life just to escape him…
And the next moment, she would almost feel empty when he left her.
It was as though their little battles- sick, snide and sarcastic at the best of times and downright depressing at the worst- were making her feel alive again.
And then sometimes when he touched her…
Cassidy pinched her own arm, watching the skin redden in the painful vice of her fingernails, until she was rid of those thoughts.
Her heart still pounding and her face still flushing, she slipped into bed.
She was unable to banish Michael's words from her mind.
And her last thought before she succumbed to sleep was merely to ask him where he was getting all the blindfolds from…
…and she also realised that Michael had been the first man, (of sorts), to ever call her "beautiful."
She had not had any of her recurring cave dreams in the last while but waking from the dark, dreamlessness was often just as unnerving as the nightmares.
It was probably a very good thing that no one happened to be walking past Edmund Potter's apartment block at that very point in time…one could only imagine how an inner-city, passer-by might react to the sight of a blue telephone box suddenly materialising on to one of the balconies.
The hard-wood panelled box appeared right out of thin air, followed by a sonorous whooshing of air and seemed to have chosen to land right in front of the door of apartment 518.
Only seconds later, the owner of apartment 518 stumbled from the door of the police box, grasping at his heaving chest and doubling over as he struggled to regain his breath.
"Why!?" Edmund demanded to know, his glasses now quite lopsided on his face. "Why, why why couldn't we just take a taxi?"
The Doctor frowned slightly as he stepped forth from the TARDIS, bending over to further inspect the archaeologist's flushed pink face.
"That's three trips in the TARDIS now and you've still not warmed up to her?" He lowered his voice, narrowing his eyes. "Are you just boring?"
"I am not boring," Edmund insisted indignantly, standing up straight (or at least making a very good attempt to) and staggering over to the door of the apartment, fumbling with his keys. "I'm just careful. I've always been careful."
"Well, he's got a point, Edmund," Clara commented, following out of the TARDIS, closing the door and stretching her arms beneath the folds of her red jacket. "You've just taken a ride in a dimension crossing time machine and travel-sickness aside, your capacity to be mundane is quite shocking."
Edmund pushed the key into the lock, jamming his shoulder against the door and pushing it open. "Oi, I'm not completely travel sick. I'm mainly just concerned about the damn head of the building. He hates any kind of noise on this floor because we're all right above him…" He wrinkled his nose. "And trust me when I say that this man is not someone whom you want to go toe to toe with. He's a rough old geezer called Purcell…stereotypical crooked landlord…even has the stereotypical pet bulldog that he brings around on a choke-chain when he goes door to door."
"A bulldog?" the Doctor echoed, swivelling on the spot to survey his surroundings, his eyes slowly widening as though he had just realised something. "A landlord with a bulldog…"
"Does that mean something to you, Doctor?" Clara felt the need to ask, watching his evolving expression as she followed Edmund in to the apartment. "Have you…been here before or something?"
The Time Lord blinked as if suddenly pulled from a trance. "What? Here? To Edmund's apartment? No, of course not…" He raised an eyebrow at her as though her question had been quite a ridiculous one. "I've only just met Eddie-boy. How could I possibly have been to visit his apartment before? And if I had, you can be sure I'd have a spare key to show for it at the very least…"
"That's not what I meant…" Clara started to say before the Doctor delicately edged past her, moving into the hallway of the apartment beside her. He was already
The young woman sighed.
He had been like this for too long.
Telling her parts of stories.
Telling her half-truths.
Even when he confided in her, Clara couldn't help but feel that the Doctor was constantly keeping her in the dark about important things. She knew that there were elements of his past that would always be too hard for him to talk about: memories that were as vulnerable and tender as an open wound.
But more often than not, the Impossible Girl would silently wonder if the Doctor thought that she was a lot more fragile than she actually was. Maybe he was trying to protect her, but Clara sometimes found herself wishing that the Time Lord would stop trying to be everyone else's hero for a moment and willingly let someone take care of him.
Thousand year old Time Lord or not, he was as capable of breaking as a human man.
And Clara could see that.
Clara had seen that.
"So, why are we here again?" the companion asked as they filtered into Edmund's living room. Talking was good, Clara decided. Talking kept her distracted from her more turbulent thoughts, making her feel a little more engaged and lot less self-absorbed. "I thought all we had to do was give her a ring? Couldn't we do that from the museum?"
"I need Stanford's approval before I send anything on to Cass," Edmund explained, gesturing to the couches and fruit bowls, wordlessly trying to be hospitable. "The museum has already sent out a letter to Cassidy saying that her appeal to return to work has been approved of but I don't know whether Stanford has invited her to return to work straightaway or not. So if I ring Cassidy and tell her to come in tomorrow and she bumps into Stanford- who hasn't authorised her return to work yet…"
"…She'll get suspicious and when she acts out of the norm, she'll either bolt out or Michael will bolt in," Clara slowly inferred, nodding as she sank down into the love-seat. "I see."
The newly appointed head archaeologist lifted a stack of thickly stuffed files left on the mantel piece. "So I need to send an official e-mail to Stanford from my work account and I can't bloody well access it from my office at work because of the bloody Wi-Fi…" He sighed. "Plus, we need a safe place to meet this River person according to Doc Brown over here," Edmund added, jabbing a thumb in the Doctor's direction. "Who is this woman anyway?"
"She's just the person we need to sort out a problem involving the Weeping Angels," the Doctor muttered absent-mindedly, examining the fruit bowl on Edmund's coffee table with cautious curiosity.
"River Song," Clara echoed. "That name is vaguely familiar…" She raised an eyebrow, crossing her legs. "Have I ever met her before?"
"No," the Doctor said sharply, sifting through the objects in the fruit bowl. He pulled forth an apple and frowned. "How disappointing…" Tossing the apple over his shoulder, he continued his rummaging.
"Would you prefer a pear?" Edmund asked dryly, shooting another is-he-serious look in Clara's direction.
The Doctor's jaw briefly dropped, looking scandalised. "A pear? Are you quite mad, Mr Potter?" He returned to bowl and suddenly pulled forth a banana, his eyes lighting up with glee. "Ah, now you're talking…"
Clara caught Edmund's gaze and shook her head, silently communicating the message: "Don't even try to understand."
She looked to the Doctor, sitting back in the carpet armchair. "So when is this River arriving?"
The Doctor looked up from his prized yellow fruit, his eyes wandering to the clock on Edmund's mantel piece and the lines on his forehead briefly stretching. "Well…knowing her…if she's still always one to be just that little bit fashionably late…in about three, two, one…"
Suddenly a blinding flash of white light engulfed the entire living room and when everyone's vision had a moment to re-adjust, three pairs of eyes were immediately drawn to the voluptuous woman standing before them.
Her lightly tanned skin was almost entirely covered by a dark blue cat-suit, complimenting gloves and boots keeping her shielded from wrist to fingertips and from knee to toe.
Her curly cloud of blonde hair ruffled slightly as she pulled a set of goggles from her eyes, blinking and looking around the room.
"Ah, that's much better. I think I've got it this time..." Her eyes slowly travelled from a gobsmacked Edmund to a wide-eyed Clara. "Let's see here…gawky and clueless looking young man…pretty but confused young woman…you two have got "companions" written all over you." She chuckled. "Where is he then?"
"Over here, River," the Doctor signalled from behind her, between mouthfuls of banana. "Nice of you to arrive on time."
Professor River Song beamed, her glossy lips stretching into a perfect grin. "Hello sweetie…" She checked the dainty gold watch adorning her wrist. "Nice of you to notice my punctuality. I would have been earlier if it weren't for all those extra holes in the time stream…" She prodded the chunky black object next to her watch- an object that was also strapped to her wrist, bound by a length of leather. "This thing is quick but it's far from precise. It'll take a year and a month and latch on to the closest date with an opening in the time stream. I was prepared to assume that the hole that I fell through was made by the beauty in blue herself…but wasn't I mistaken?"
The Doctor squinted at the chunky black device, blinking with curiosity. "Is that a dimensional transporter? How in the universe did you manage to smuggle one of those into Stormcage?" His eyebrows suddenly popped into his fringe and before River could provide an answer, the Doctor spoke again. "Wait a minute. New question. Better question. What other hole in the time stream could you possibly have fallen through? What could have-…?" His eyes widened in realisation and then narrowed to a glare. "Oh no…no…no…tell me that you haven't figured out what our…" His lip flared slightly. "…little problem is?"
River smiled faintly and sighed, shaking her head. "If the problem in question is the one I think you're referencing…then sweetie, this problem is far from "little" in any way, shape or form..."
Edmund gawked at the dimensional transporter, his jaw slightly slackened. "You…you used that watch to jump through… t-time?"
The female time traveller whipped her head around, raising her eyebrows at Edmund and chortling. "I did indeed, darling." She looked to the Doctor. "Pretty boy is pretty new, is he?"
The Doctor coughed, stretching out his arms beneath the plaid of his jacket. "Ah, where are my manners? Introductions…introductions…" He jabbed a thumb in the direction of each companion as he pointed them out. "This is Clara Oswald and this is Edmund Potter…" The Doctor paused for a moment, scrutinising River's expression with practiced inference. "You haven't met either of them before…have you?"
There was a brief pause as River's gaze ghosted from Edmund's slightly glassy gawk to Clara's perplexed visage, where it lingered for a moment, before zipping back to the Doctor. "…I can't say that I have, sweetie." She smiled faintly at the two youths. "Pleasure to meet you."
The Impossible Girl felt the weight of River's stare on her.
She had felt every inch of her face being analysed.
And she couldn't help but feel an uncomfortable and familiar knot start to grow in her stomach: there was something that she wasn't being told again.
In the wake of this sudden wave of confusion, Clara could only manage a polite nod in response to River's cordiality.
"Pleasure's all mine. Welcome to my humble abode," Edmund said, leaning forward and offering the strikingly beautiful older woman his hand to shake- wearing a grin suited only for the greeting of strikingly beautiful older women. "Miss-?"
The Doctor cleared his throat audibly suddenly pacing through the path of the handshake, (prompting a bemused eye-roll from River).
"I told you who she is already…this is Doctor-…" The Time Lord paused for a moment, catching River's eye and watching as her eyebrows rose. "…er…Professor? Professor River Song. Professor of archaeology and resident veteran when it comes to the exploits of the Lonely Assassins."
River waved a hand before placing it on her hip. "Well, I wouldn't say veteran, per se…I'd say the word "expert" is a little more fitting here, sweetie." She winked, laughing. "Veteran makes me sound old and I'm not old. Well, not as old as you might think…"
"So, how is it that you two know each other?" Clara asked River, realising numbly that the Doctor had never quite explained how he had come to know the beguiling "expert" before them.
River's lips pulled back into a smile that revealed a set of very white teeth. "Oh, I'm his…"
"Friend," the Doctor said quickly. "River is a very, very good and quite an old friend of mine…"
River and Clara were suddenly both staring at the Doctor, both bewildered by his response but for different reasons entirely.
One of the women, however, overcame her bewilderment at a much quicker rate.
"Not that old," corrected River, pulling a thick, leather-bound book from the satchel that hung from her shoulder. "While it's on my mind to do so, buddy, now might be a good time to synchronise…"
Edmund craned his neck as both the Doctor and River pored over identical leather notebooks. "Synchronise…your…diaries? Why-?"
"Time travel!" the Doctor reminded him. "When River and I meet, it's rarely in the right order and the progression of time can be tricky so to make sure neither of us give up any premature revelations about the other's future, we have to know where we both stand in our timeline…have we done Easter Island yet?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow to River and allowed her to make an earmark in the corner of his notebook.
"We have indeed," River beamed before skimming a finger along the curve of the Doctor's pronounced chin. "And you haven't got any bruises down here so we haven't done the Izokhian Nebula Dust Festival yet, at all…"
The Doctor pulled a face at the word "bruises" but forced himself to keep to the task at hand. "I didn't think you'd come so soon, if at all," he murmured. "I'd thought they'd have cracked down on you in Stormcage after the whole hallucinogenic lipstick doodle incident…"
River gave a snort of laughter. "You know what they say, sweetie: can't keep a good girl down…" She caught him by the collar, staring up into his eyes with sudden intent. "And I always come. Always for you. You know that."
The Doctor nodded, his eyes not leaving River's. "I do."
Clara watched in incredulity, (while Edmund wrestled with an extension lead for his fax machine). She had never seen anyone speak to the Doctor in such a manner and nor had she ever seen the Doctor behave in such ways in front of anyone else.
Her staring eventually alerted the Doctor and, with a hint of rue in his eyes, he broke away from River's intense gaze.
"So that hole in the time stream you fell through," he said quickly, straightening up and squaring his shoulders; all business again. "If it was one of our new friend's, you must have seen him then?"
"Indeed, I did," River told them, sitting down on the loveseat and stretching out her legs before crossing them neatly. "The transporter sent me to a hospital. I was standing right in the middle of the gift shop and I was certainly lucky that no one was around to see me pop right out of thin air…" She shrugged. "A girl walked out of what I imagine was the stock room. Took one look at me and before I could say a thing, she tosses me an apron and tells me she'll be back at five to take over my shift." The woman smirked, rolling her eyes. "It's always nice to have the bystanders make up your alibis for you. Anyway, I ended up behind the register and before I could say the words "out-of-the-ordinary", this little blonde girl appears out of nowhere, right in the middle of the shop floor, right in broad daylight…"
"That's Cassidy," Edmund said suddenly, signalling that he was still listening. He resurfaced from the drawers he'd been rootling in, a length of cord now wrapped around his shoulder in a curved loop. "So he did take her back to the hospital then…was she there to see her mum?"
River shook her head. "I don't know. She just looked worried for a moment and asked me about the time and the date. She did seem far too concerned with that information for someone without a plan…I didn't let on that I'd seen her sudden appearing act and made myself scarce. I wanted to see what she was up to, so I ducked into the stock room while she wasn't looking and looked out the hinges of the door…" Her lips pulled taut for a moment and River's eyes became a little more serious. "That's when our dear friend the Archangel showed up. A male Weeping Angel…I've only ever heard stories about them. They're rare enough to find and Rastan wrote very little about them in his journal. The Archangels are few in number due to the birth ratio of the Lonely Assassins and they usually don't venture out among the average rabble. Usually, they'll stay with a large group of Weeping Angels and command them, letting the females do all the hunting and feeding off their time energy. The males rarely hunt: they usually only act as leaders of sorts and well, I suppose, they aid in conventional reproduction."
"Like lions," Clara commented. "If they're so rare, that would explain why there were no other male Angels in that hotel…though it didn't seem like Michael was acting as their leader…"
"Michael? Is that the Angel's name?"
"It's what he's calling himself," the Doctor mentioned gruffly, have sank down into the black armchair by the television set. "I'm assuming you don't need to a mugshot of him then?"
"No, I got quite a good look at him from my hiding place," River assured the other three occupants of the room. "Every inch of stone and every inch of bulging muscle…he's a big boy even for his kind from what I can gather. He's also quite young…"
"Young?" Edmund echoed, raising an eyebrow behind the frames of his glasses. "So he's like…the young of his species?"
River gave a soft chuckle. "No, no, no…I mean he's a young adult. He's definitely fully-fledged: you can tell by his wing-span and the shape of his wings as well as the length of his garb…but he hasn't reached peak maturity yet…" Her smile slipped again and she sighed. "I'm afraid Michael's still got some growing to do…according to what little sources there are, Weeping Archangels can grow to be nearly seven or eight feet tall at full height…"
The museum-worker's eyes just about popped out of his head. "Seven or eight feet? Blimey, it was a good thing we didn't keep him in the museum's gallery floor. The room wouldn't have been bloody big enough to hold him..."
River looked to the Doctor. "Did you say that you had a mugshot of Michael? How on earth did you manage to capture an image of an Angel that isn't hostile?"
The Doctor tilted his head in confusion. "With the technology that you gave me…wait, don't you remember giving me transmission blockers?" He stared at her, confused for a moment before his eyes widened in realisation. "Or you don't remember giving me them because you haven't given them to me yet…"
Professor River Song grinned widely, wiggling her eyebrows in the Time Lord's direction. "Spoilers!"
"So you've encountered these Weeping Angels things before, River?" Clara queried, leaning forward a little to speak to the woman. "You know how we can fight them?"
"Mmm, I know how we can counteract their abilities. "Fight them" is too strong a phrase. The Weeping Angels can't be fought against directly…they have to be outsmarted…"
"Maybe I'm just stating the obvious here," Edmund interjected. "But wouldn't a sledgehammer or a stick of dynamite be a pretty fair defence against this lot? I mean when you're looking at them, they're just stone…"
"They're just the hardest brand of stone in the universe, when they're healthy," River corrected him. "And when they're in their quantum lock and capable of feeding, the Angels can regenerate themselves and regain health. I've seen Angels come back from mere fragments and with their ability to draw energy from virtually anything around them, I wouldn't risk getting too close- even with a sledgehammer in tow. Trust me when I say that they don't go down without a fight…" She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. "And have you actually got a sledgehammer or a stick of dynamite on you, Edmund?"
Edmund turned slightly puce and shook his head. "Point taken."
"We've been thinking of trapping the Angel," Clara told River. "Using Cassidy as bait of sorts to lure him into the museum and then seizing him somehow…the Doctor said that you could help with that…"
"Hmm…clever girl…trapping dear Michael is probably the best option at our disposal at the moment…" River mused. "And I can help with that but…we'd need to able to do something with him once he was all locked up. Starving him to death- which is also our finest choice here- is going to be a long process…"
"I actually might be able to help with that," Edmund said quickly, clicking his fingers. "But I'll need to pull a few strings. I'll get on that right now…ah." He adjusted the extension lead that was wrapped around his shoulder. "Though I'll need someone to keep an eye on the fax machine while it's working. This model's a bit on the dodgy side."
"I can do that," the Doctor said slowly and finally, his mind apparently having been somewhere else for the last few minutes.
"No you can't," Clara corrected him sharply as she stood up. "I'll look after the fax machine. This one…" She pointed in the Doctor's direction accusingly. "…tried to attack my gran's printer on more than one occasion…"
"That thing was ready to bite," the Doctor insisted petulantly. "And I'll have you know that there are very few differences between a computer printer and an active Cybermat…"
River looked to Clara with a knowing smile. "No, there aren't."
Clara returned the smile. "I figured as much."
"Well, pardon me for wanting to be helpful," the Doctor grumped, folding his arms.
"You can put the kettle on, sweetie," River offered with a slight laugh. "With the kind of tech I'll be calling in to properly trap this bad boy, we're going to be here for at least the next hour…" River waited until Clara and Edmund had left the room before she spoke again. "An old friend?" She looked to the Doctor with raised eyebrows, standing and folding her arms. "I would have thought at this stage that our relationship was a little deeper than that…"
"Our relationship is complicated, River," the Doctor exhaled, meeting her eyes and frowning. "I could be here all day telling those two about you and I but we're already moving at a slower pace than we need to be and we need to keep the focus on saving Cassidy…" He sighed, slumping his shoulders at her expression. "I will tell them about us eventually. Just at a better…nicer time…when there are less…big…scary…kidnappy stone Angels walking about…"
River's lips were immediately prompted back into a smile and she returned his sigh. "Alright then…" She gave a snort of laughter. "Big, scary, kidnappy , stone Angels? Sweetie, your vocabulary gets more and more extensive every time we meet."
The Doctor reached into his pocket, brushing off her laughter with an insulted-looking eye-roll before he handed her a small red notebook. "Here's everything you need to know about Cassidy Albright's story so far…"
"Hmm, handy. I'll be sure to start on this when I've finished the latest Khubandner novel," River noted, tucking the book away before taking a step closer to the Doctor, her voice lowering. "Now, sweetie, cards on the table. What's not in this book?" She patted the notebook in her pocket. "What haven't you told Clara and Edmund? I've never seen you so serious or so definite about any kind of plan before…this is way beyond your usual policy of "make it up as we go along"…what do you know about Cassidy that you're not letting anyone else know…?"
The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment, as though composing himself.
When he opened his eyes again, they were filled with an intensity that River, herself, hadn't seen in a long time from her estranged husband.
"I've met Cassidy before this. Her name wasn't Cassidy Albright though. It was in my past but it was in her future. In her future…" The Doctor's lip twitched. "She was still with him…the Angel…and he was still governing every aspect of her life, still controlling her, still ruling over her…she'd even changed her surname as some kind of mark of loyalty to him…" The Doctor shook his head. "He had her completely brainwashed. Never…never…in all my years had I seen anything like it…even when the Ood were liberated, they returned to their lives happily…Cassidy…she…she didn't even want to be rescued anymore…she kept saying that she was happy with him…happy about being bruised and broken and beaten…" He looked disgusted as he spoke, as River's expression slowly turned blank. "And she said that it was all necessary. How necessary is that, River? How necessary is it to be so content in complete slavery?"
The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair and his shoulders heaved beneath his coat. "I couldn't save her in the future. I couldn't make her come with me…and even then, that was before I knew what the Angels were really like…if I had known back then, I wouldn't have left…I would have spent so much longer trying to save her…"
"And you eventually came to realise that you couldn't save her in her future," River said gently, with a slow nod of realisation. "You would have to save her in her past…but why not tell Clara and Edmund all that?"
"Edmund is Cassidy's friend. He doesn't need to hear that. I don't know him well enough to know what will turn him into an emotional wreck…and as for Clara…Clara knows time travel…she knows it like you and I, River…and she'd just tell me the exact same thing that you're about to tell me now…but if you don't think I've realised it and you don't think I've considered already then you're wrong, River. You're wrong."
"…sweetie," River said, placing her hand on his shoulder. "It is…very difficult to change an event in the future…if both Cassidy and Michael meeting is a fixed point in time, as I'm sure it is because if it wasn't you would have prevented it already…then maybe…you have to accept that…" River paused for a moment before continuing. "…except that you're setting us all up for a rather great fall."
The Doctor looked at the floor for a moment before returning his gaze to River's and saying hoarsely. "I know. But I have to try…for the sake of the girl that I didn't save…I have to try…" His face slowly creased. "Something I never told you, River, is that a long time ago…back when the Great Time War was raging across the stars… I met another girl called Cass on a ship that was doomed to crash…and she wouldn't let me save her either…"
"And what happened to her?"
"She died…I can't …I can't let another life be taken because of my own failures…people can die of their own accord when they refuse help but…as long as I'm capable of helping people, I'll never be able to forgive myself if I don't do everything that I can to do just that…"
River was silent for a moment, simply staring into the eyes that had seen over a million stars burn, flare, die, fade and re-ignite again. The eyes that, even with stuttering voice, wrinkled cheeks or one hell of a chin, never looked upon a person in need with anything but a desire to help them.
The eyes that belonged to the man whom she'd follow to the very ends of this earth, the wider earth, the earths beyond and indeed, the very edge of the universe itself .
Then she squeezed his shoulder.
"In that case, sweetie…I really will be needing you to put that kettle on…and I really hope Edmund's on a good network package because I have quite a few long distance phone-calls to make…"
"So a fledgling…is that what you'd call a young Angel?"
Cassidy looked up to Michael's face from where she crouched. He hadn't moved an inch the split second that she had looked away to pick up her fan-brush.
Michael had started to develop small cracks along the sides of his arms and the hem of what Cassidy had supposed to be his toga. He mentioned something about attributing these cracks to a lack of nutrition.
Apparently he wasn't consuming the amount of time-energy that he should be.
All Cassidy cared about was the fact that now he expected her to assist in his healing process by repairing him as she had before.
It was a very good thing, Cassidy noted, that she had a spare leather case of hand-tools in the house because her original kit had been in the Summer Bank when it had apparently faded from existence.
She was in no mood to try and figure out what had become of it and she was very much in less of a mood to argue with Michael when he was even more irritable than usual.
"Yes. Fledgling is the term that we use for a young or an adolescent Angel."
"And what would Angels consider to be an adolescent age? I mean, apparently you're over hundreds of years old and you don't exactly come off as old…"
Cassidy dusted another layer of grit away from a miniscule crack in order to get a better sense of how deep the tiny trench went.
She had initially had a radio on to break the silence between them as Michael usually didn't complain about Cassidy's tastes in music, but it wasn't long until the human and the Angel realised that they had something else in common.
They both very much disliked Christmas music.
The radio was promptly turned off.
The powerful blares of "Fairytale of New York" had reminded Cassidy that Christmas was coming soon. She had been trying to ignore that fact for obvious reasons and had been putting off accepting an invitation to spend it with Nancy and Christine.
Avoiding her own thoughts had become a necessity so conversation was soon instigated.
"In terms of age, a fledgling usually hasn't reached their first hundred years. Fledglings are marked by having smaller wings than fully grown Angels. They have smaller, rounder features and their external drapings are much shorter than that of an older Angel…"
Cassidy tapped along the crack with her thin scalpel, suddenly pausing- realising something.
"So when you dressed me up in Summer Bank…you had me dressed up as a fledgling Angel?"
"I dressed you to equal what I perceived to be your age…"
"You had me decked out like a pretty, little girl version of your kind."
"The gesture was intended to mock you by dressing you like one of my kind. It did not have the provocative undertones that you are implying."
"Yeah. Uh-huh. You basically had me dressed up as the Angel equivalent of a schoolgirl…"
"…A…school…girl?"
"Never mind, never mind," Cassidy said, rolling her eyes and waving her hand before she filled the cavity with a layer of silicone glue. "So with your kind…it goes cherub, fledgling, Angel for a female, Archangel for a boy …"
"Precisely."
"What's the significance of calling you Angel Michael then, instead of just Michael…is that an interchangeable thing?"
The more Cassidy learned about the culture of the Lonely Assassins, the more she wished to learn even more. Her curiosity had been piqued despite her distaste for the entire race and their ideals.
"Archangel Michael. Calling an Angel by their full title is a mark of respect. It's acknowledging them to be one of the superior race and a noble strain…it is similar in concept, I suppose, to you humans calling each other by both of their names...Cassidy Albright."
"Well surnames aren't really about showing that you're part of a superior strand of humanity or anything but…actually, I guess they can be…yeah, maybe it is almost the same thing…"
The archaeologist frowned beneath the curtain of her hair.
Having one thing in common in one day was bad enough. To find two things was physically sickening.
Cassidy ran her hand along her inner seam of Michael's toga and kept going until she felt the next jagged break- somewhere near his waist line.
"Can you feel that?" she asked, lightly pressing down on the crack.
"Yes," the Angel told her. "But it isn't painful. I do not succumb to pain as you do. Continue."
Cassidy gently grazed her finger over the start of the crack- the line beginning at the rise of Michael's chiselled abdomen and running down into the waistline of the toga.
It wasn't too deep but it was going to take quite a while to fill to perfection once more.
She had only just taken up her measuring tool when the doorbell suddenly rang.
In the split second that it took Cassidy to look away to the open door of her living room, Michael seized the opportunity to move for the first time in over an hour. His hand suddenly closed down around Cassidy's wrist, holding her hand down against his abdomen in a stone vice.
"If this is another attempted siege by your law-keepers or your kinsfolk…"
"It isn't. I'm not expecting any kind of call but I can see from here that it's just one car in the driveway." Cassidy winced, trying to pull away from his hand but felt only the burn of his stone knuckles as they kept her slender joints in lock. "Look, you can listen to whatever this person wants, I'll send them away straightaway and if they try anything dodgy- I'll let you send them back in time…"
A fleetingly sadistic part of Cassidy suddenly wondered how satisfied she'd be to see the smug smirk of a salesman or door-to-door preacher wiped clean from their face.
The Weeping Archangel was silent for quite a while; the doorbell rang a further two times but Cassidy ceased tugging at his grip.
Quietly, she raised her eyes to meet his. "You trust me to care for your body. Trust me to finally keep a promise to you."
Part of Cassidy knew that this was strategy: this was her getting Michael to let her have her own way in a situation.
But part of her also wondered if the Archangel would actually be prepared to put any kind of trust in her.
She was actually quite stunned when, as her gaze lowered, she felt Michael's grip on her hand slacken and eventually disappear.
It had worked.
What struck her more was the fact that even though she only felt his real skin against hers for a fraction of a moment, the sudden contact brought a flush to her cheeks rather than a sickness to her stomach.
"Go," his stolen voice commanded her. "Go but if you betray me, Cassidy, I will tear a layer of skin from your arms…and do not think that I will be shy when it comes to fulfilling this promise of my own."
The human girl nodded with a sigh, turning and heading to the door.
Her head was still swimming with thoughts as she reached for the lock.
The front door opened to reveal a short, portly and ruddy-faced man with a lined forehead and ivory-white hair.
He adjusted his horn-rimmed spectacles as he peered at the blonde woman who tentatively peeked around the door frame.
"Can I…can I help you…sir?"
"Ah, finally. Miss Albright. You are not an easy woman to get in contact with."
Cassidy raised her eyebrows. "Should I know you?"
The man coughed slightly. "Well, no. I'm your mother's lawyer, you see…and by default, I suppose I'm your lawyer too."
"Oh, I see," she replied gently, opening the door another fraction. "Are you here to talk about…my mother's will right now? Because now isn't su-…"
"Yes, it's about Maria's will, Miss Albright, but it's also about one small other…rather urgent matter…"
"…oh?"
The man sifted through the leather, filing bag that he held under his arms, eventually producing a brown envelope.
"Miss Albright, this letter was addressed to this location and came into my possession two years ago. It came with explicit orders to be given to you- Cassidy Albright, on this exact day- the twenty seventh of November, during this hour- three o'clock in the day. The letter also stipulates that hand delivery is necessary."
"Who is the letter from? Or do you even know that?"
"…a man named Stanley Patrick Quinn."
River looked to the Doctor over the TARDIS console, her eyes betraying a rare glint of complete seriousness as she put aside the notebook containing Cassidy's story.
"…well, he's certainly a deviant. He's fed from her already. An ordinary Angel would have no reason to want to do anything but to eliminate her now. Clearly he's found something about her that makes her more interesting to keep alive…"
The Doctor grimaced, scratching the back of his neck as he paced. "I know, I know…and when that "something" is no longer present, he'll kill her. Even if she's still alive in the next five years, it doesn't mean that Michael didn't lose interest in her immediately after I met her in the future…we have to get her away from him before the risk of him deciding to get rid of her reaches its peak and every day that risk heightens…"
"Sweetie…there's something else…that we haven't considered…that you haven't considered…" River was choosing her words as carefully as possible. "Michael's behaviour with Cassidy, from what I've read and from what you, Clara and Edmund have told me, follows a very precise pattern…it's a pattern that's documented as being quite typical in the behaviour of Weeping Angels and also other predatory species across the galaxy…but I've never seen it being acted upon in actuality…and certainly it would be unheard of between two different species with a typical predator and prey relationship…"
The Doctor slowly looked to River, his eyes turning quite hollow and his lip twitching slightly as he spoke to her. "…why don't I like where I think this is going?"
Sorry about the delay! Work has been a nightmare as of late and I'm doing my absolute best to keep writing! Thank you for all the AWESOME reviews and the follows and faves! It is really, really encouraging because I had NO idea that this fic would ever get such a good reception.
I've been getting a lot of PMs about the direction in which the fic is going to go, pairing-wise. I know that there are differing opinions on where Cassidy and Michael's relationship should go from here on out and these differing opinions have been super interesting to read, to say the least. It's actually amazing to see such insight and I love hearing the interpretations of others.
Though I don't want to reveal any spoilers, (following the rules of Prof. Song herself!), I WILL say that the ending will not greatly deviate from Doctor Who canon and that everyone will remain in character, regardless of the outcome.
Anyway! Hope you've enjoyed. ;) Drop me a review or a PM if you feel like it! I enjoy the correspondence.
The next chapter will feature some epic fanart of Cassidy and Michael linked to me by some equally epic readers. I LOVE seeing how the dysfunctional duo are being imagined by different people.
And finally: is anyone else REALLY EXCITED for August? Doctor Who is coming back!
Whovians unite! :D