When we approached the pods again, I stayed close to the Doctor. Just like he'd asked. Just how I knew would be safest.
We came to the one next to the damaged chair, and the Doctor examined it. It was visibly mistier, and the mould thickness left the facial features indistinguishable. They simply looked now like snow figures sat in chairs, some melted and frozen again around the chairs.
"Are you feeling ok?" He peered his dark eyes over the rim of his glasses again, and I smiled automatically. "Of course."
"They should be coming out of it soon...if the process continues this rapidly."
I nodded, and looked up at the empty window. Some of the anger in me had disappeared from before, and I felt...not weaker...but pitying. While the Doctor was presumably begging the entity to let me go, I was lost. I was lost, and wandering in whatever the entity was showing me. Burning worlds, skies blue with fire and trees glowing violet, smoke a black so deep I was almost lost in the void of it. I heard shouts, screams from frozen faces of angels, watching one another in panic and simply unable to move in doing so. Quantum locked by fear.
Was that what it was like for them? The Krillitanes? I knew only a handful were left when the Doctor killed them, because of what they were doing. But what for the ones before them? Were they so evil? Would they have been under Finch's influence?
My head buzzed with questions, but the Doctor's voice pulled me out of them.
"Mia?"
His voice was so quiet, and the word so small. But I heard something in that word that i'd only heard glimpses of before. Familiarity...caring. My stomach fluttered at the idea that this extraordinary man could care for a human girl, even a little.
"Sorry, just internally muttering."
He nodded to himself. "Well, when you feel your eyes stinging, tell me. I don't want them dropping out."
It sounded partly like a joke, so I laughed, and he smiled in response. But once I was laughed, I could barely stop. It felt good, and familiar. Then a loud crash forced me to sober up.
I had no time to look to the Doctor in question, because what I did see set my eyes in stone, my feet frozen. "Wh...what?!"
"Run!"
The hand grabbed mine and dragged me until I was running on my own, and we rushed back into the alcove and closed the door behind us. The creature was flying around frantically like a caged bird aimlessly.
"That's a krillitane?" I asked, staring at in from the shadows through the hole in the door. The doctor nodded. "In original form. I've never seen one in original form before."
"What about Finch and the one's with him?"
He stared in awe at it, occasionally crashing into a desk and screaming at it. Actually screaming in anger. "There are some characteristics quite different. This one's wings are much bigger, and it's only an infant."
I followed the krillitane's every movement with my eyes, and drew closer to the Doctor to see properly. Flying aimlessly. Trapped, an eagle in captivity.
"Beautiful."
It wasn't the Doctor's voice. It was my own. Because it was, in a way that was unearthly and unfamiliar. Untainted, not deformed like Finch. A raw creature, unaffected by Finch's hate and thirst for power. As of yet, anyway. It was an alien in the truest sense of the word, but not in a bad way.
"Do you think?" I nodded. "We need to get it away from Finch."
After a couple of moments, the Doctor whispered. "I have an idea. You're probably going to hate it."
Before I could protest, he opened the door in a swift motion and closed it behind him. I thought about shouting after him, but I didn't want to alert the creature. "You're crazy," I simply said to myself, but he turned and grinned. Then he looked up to the blacked out window, and I instantly caught on. I watched, frozen in fear, as he jumped on a desk, and stood to prepare himself, defiant. He removed his coat lodged the sonic screwdriver in his mouth, and his coat fell to the floor as the krillitane finally noticed him.
"Food," I thought to myself. That is what it sees. I smacked my mouth to conceal the scream as it flew towards him.
In one motion, he grabbed a wing and flipped himself up on the creature's back, and it was smaller than I expected in relation to the Doctor. About the size of a large horse...with wings.
It flew around, panicked, and eventually past the window. The Doctor, ever calm, aimed the screwdriver at the window. It smashed, and the Doctor jumped, too soon. He was grabbing the edge with his bare fingers.
Finch appeared from the shadows.
...
"Ah, how delightful! You could easily die from this height."
The Doctor could feel his fingers slipping, so he tried with all his might to pull himself up. "Finch, don't...if they get out, they'll die."
"Don't you think I know that, time lord? I was simply making an observation. Help him up."
His two henchmen appeared, and tugged the man into the room, dropping him on the smashed glass behind the wall. "Thanks," he cursed sarcastically. He thought of Mia, whom he'd left trapped in the alcove. Defenceless against a frightened new born Krillitane, one he'd just aggravated by jumping on it.
Im so, so sorry, Mia. But I'll get you out of there. I promise.
...
I breathed a huge gust of relief as I watched the Doctor being helped into the room. I was quietly betting on two outcomes; one, they would let him fall and risk the lives of the newborns on the confidence of luck. Two, they would be smart enough to realise that the Doctor was more powerful than luck.
"Please, whatever, or whoever is watching," I whispered under my breath, "help me get back to him."
I closed my eyes as I rested my hand on the door, feeling it under my hand as I prepared to let its anchoring nature go. It made me feel safe, not as safe as the Doctor. But it was wooden. If the sonic screwdriver couldn't suss it, I wouldn't let anything else. I laughed at how the Doctor would feel if he heard me say that. I let the door go, and lunged one foot before the other, into the now trashed arena.