"Again, Rose. Who is the Doctor?"
Rose, tied gently but firmly to a chair, blinded by the bright light in her eyes, answered the voice. "Love 'im."
"Good. And? What is the Doctor?"
"Time Lord," Rose slurred. She was tired, they'd woken her up far too early to bring her in here just to ask her the same questions over and over. "Time Lord? No, no! Not Time Lord!" She flinched away as the light changed from simple white to mauve. Mauve meant danger.
"No," the voice said without compassion. "Not Time Lord. Enemy."
"No! No!" Rose shrieked. Unsure anymore if she was objecting to the labeling of the Doctor as the enemy or the horrible creeping, itching sensation in her arms and legs. Low level electric currents were being run through her body, cramping the muscles by tiny, agonizing increments.
"Why are you here, Rose?"
She leaned into the chair, trying to get away from the voice. She turned her head, arching her back in a futile effort to merge with the hardwood behind her.
"Why are you here, Rose?"
Rose whimpered and switched tactics. Now she was curling in on herself, hunching her shoulders and trying to tuck her head away. It was always like this. They didn't torture her. Not really. There was no branding or thumb screws. No knives or hammers or the oh-so-creative Chinese water torture. They were always upfront and honest with her.
When she'd come to oh, so many days ago, it was to see unfamiliar faces staring down at her. Only one of them had spoken. An older woman with curly hair, dark lipstick, and an eyepatch. 'Call me Madam,' she'd said. 'I'm going to break you, Rose Tyler. Then I'm going to put you back together. And then you're going to kill the Doctor.' When Rose had objected, said she loved the Doctor and would never hurt him, Madam had leaned forward and smiled gently at Rose. 'Wonderful,' she stroked back hair from Rose's face. 'I was hoping it was love.' Then she'd pulled out a gun and shot Rose through the heart.
Her return to consciousness had seen her strapped into this self-same chair, possessing the body of a five year old, but the mind of a twenty-six year old. Then, as now, there was a light in her face. Then, as now, they asked her three questions. 'Who is the Doctor?' 'What is the Doctor?' 'Why are you here?'
"Why are you here, Rose Tyler?" Madam asked implacably, showing neither impatience or frustration in her voice. "Who is responsible for making you the target of our attentions? Why are you here, Rose Tyler?"
"No! Please don't!" Rose cried, shaking her head wildly from side to side. Everyday they did this. Made her give them the answers they wanted to hear.
"Why, Rose Tyler?"
She whimpered…and cracked. Same as the day before. And the day before. She held out as long as she could. But eventually the light hurt her eyes and the heat was too intense and she was really very thirsty and how long had it been since she'd last eaten? And the electricity crawled through her body, tensing and relaxing her muscles in unnatural patterns. Surely it wouldn't hurt to say it? It wouldn't make it true.
"The Doctor." Rose said in her little girl voice.
"Good. Very good, Rose Tyler. Say it again. Who put you here?"
"The Doctor," Rose repeated in a stronger voice. It was always easier the second time.
"Wonderful. See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"
Rose shook her head, sighing in relief when the mad itch from the electricity shut off and the locks on her arms and legs were released. She staggered to her feet, her knees unsteady, and leaned against the wall. Anything to be out of that chair.
Beyond the bright circle of the light, Rose could see Madam approaching her.
"Are you alright, Sweetie?" Madam wrapped her in her arms, sincere concern in her tone. "Oh! You're shaking!" Madam led her from the room and down the hallway of the comfortable house they lived in. "Come. We've got a masseuse waiting for you, and then a hot bath. You did good today! Only half an hour. A few more weeks and you won't be hesitating at all."
Her words were so kind and her arms so soft and welcoming. There was no deception in Madam. When Madam said that she did good, she meant it. And there was something maternal in the way she cared for her. Ensuring that she ate enough vegetables, coming in at night to hold her when the nightmares got bad…and there was something in Rose that soaked it up. Even as the rapidly dwindling voice in the back of her mind shrieked that it was wrong. She cuddled closer to Madam and told it to shut up.
They entered the massage parlor and Madam lifted her up on the table, offering her two pills to help with any pain that might develop from the strained muscles. With it came a glass of chocolate milk. Usually, she wasn't allowed chocolate milk. But Madam passed it over with a wink and a whispered comment of, "Our secret."
She accepted the glass with a giggle and downed it, and the pills.
The door opened. "Now that's what I like to hear! Laughter." Anna, the redhead masseuse came in with her typical smile. "So it went well today, I gather?"
"Yup! Half an hour!" She chirruped, then froze. Something dark and wild inside of her had howled…
"Hey, it's okay to feel proud of your accomplishments," Anna came over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "We knew this would be hard going in. But if you just stick with it, you'll be stronger in the end."
Unsure if she should hug Anna in gratitude, or spit in her face, she settled for nodding dumbly.
"All right, then. Let's see what we can do about these arms and legs, shall we?" Anna turned away to gather her things.
"Okay, Sweetie." Madam gave her a quick hug. "I'm going to start lunch. Your bath will be ready when you're done here."
She nodded again and Madam kissed her forehead.
"I am so proud of you." Then Madam turned and left the room.
"Here we go!" Anna came around the end of the table, warming oil between her hands. "Left arm first!"
She pushed the sleeve of her shirt up to her shoulder and lifted her arm.
ooOO00OOoo
The sound of powerful kicks and punches hitting a target was overlaid by the questions being hurled through the air
"Who is the Doctor?"
"Lover."
"What is the Doctor?"
"Enemy."
"Why are you here?"
"To kill the Doctor."
"What do you want for dinner?"
She stopped her assault on the bag and turned to stare at Madam, who was smiling at her. "Pizza!" She ran over and threw herself into Madam's arms.
"Ohh! You're too big for this now!" Madam said, giving up on attempting to swing her around.
She was eight now, and her time was almost done here, her conditioning complete.
"Come on, Sweetie. I've got something to show you."
She followed Madam down several hallways until they stepped outside a plain metal door with 'R&D' carved into its surface. "Research and Development?" she asked with a tinge of excitement. "You said I wasn't allowed!"
Madam tapped her on the nose with one finger. "That's because we were making you a surprise! And now it's ready. Go see!"
She dashed through the doors then skidded to a halt, her face flush with excitement. "A spacesuit!"
ooOO00OOoo
She was breathing hard. Trapped inside the Spaceman, she felt like she couldn't get enough air. Cocooned inside its heavy mesh and layers of fabric, she was cut off from everyone. Unable to touch her own skin, she was detached even from herself.
"Help!" she cried, frantically clawing at the straps over her chest with stubby fingers. "Somebody help me!"
"Now, stop that!" Madam said harshly. "You need this, to protect you. So stop fighting it."
"But I can't breath! He ate me! He ate me! The Spaceman ate me!" She was panicking. She didn't understand what was going on, the heavy crush scrambled her brains, brought out a fear from the Before Time. Before Madam. Before the Three Questions. A fear of a violent wind that would pull her into an endless black and then crush her. As she was being crushed now. "Oh god! Oh god, somebody save me!" She was caught. Lost in hazy memories that had not lost their power over her for being indistinct. "Where is he? Where did he go! You can't!" She thrashed about, and they were forced to restrain her, tie her down to a table even as she was contained within the suit. It only increased her dementia. "We have to leave! We can't leave him! He's gone! Where-oh god! It came with us! Save me from the devil! Somebody…where are you? Doctor!"
A blow to her head rattled her bad enough that her head lolled sickeningly to the side and for a moment, they thought they'd killed her. Again. The visions in her head left and when she came around she was free from the Spaceman. But it was across the room, being worked on by the R&D team, and when she saw it splayed open, waiting for her, a cold fear settled over her. Movement to the right drew her attention and she saw Madam.
"Mam!" She cried, and hurled herself at the woman, seeking comfort. But Madam sidestepped the move and allowed her to hit the ground, hard. "Ma…Madam?" She said softly, utterly lost.
Madam gave her a harsh stare. "You will go back into that suit. You will behave. And you will kill the Doctor." Then she turned and left. Shortly thereafter, the R&D team left as well, leaving her alone with the Spaceman. She shivered and looked around, carefully avoiding the corner where the empty, for now, suit lay. They'd moved locations while she was unconscious. No longer in the space station, it appeared that they had taken up residence inside of a house.
She huddled in the corner of the room for hours, positioned in such a way that she could keep one eye on the spacesuit and one on the door. Her fear of it was irrational, she knew that. But that didn't stop the quaking when she thought of having to go back inside it. Something in her deeply feared it; it was almost instinctual. And without being able to remember why she feared it, how could she control it? Since the change, she needed less sleep than she had (but how did she know it was less? She remembered nothing of the Before Time.) and so was still wide awake when the visitors came.
A man stepped in, wringing his hands and looking around as if afraid of his own shadow, followed by strange mouthless creatures wearing business suits as if it was natural for a person to look that grotesque. She screamed and bolted. But one of the creatures caught her.
"You will, kill, the Doctor." It told her in halting monotone.
"No! No! Put me down!" She wriggled and scratched at it, too out of her mind with fear to use the techniques Madam had taught her for taking down a larger opponent.
"You will, kill, the Doctor." It hissed at her.
"Perhaps…the girl will…come…with me." The shrinking man said. "I can…take her…to her room…" he stared blankly up at the creatures. "Yes?"
The creature slowly lowered her into the man's arms and despite herself, she clung to him. Eaten by a spacesuit that brought out her worst nightmares from the Before Time, abandoned by Madam, captured by creatures...any human was comfort. Perhaps he could save her from the monsters.
He couldn't. Or wouldn't.
ooOO00OOoo
The spaceman came back. They left her inside it for hours on end, hoping to desensitize her to its touch. It only heightened her hysteria. Just seeing it would set her to screaming, and when she was removed again, she was a gibbering wreck for days on end. But they kept at it. Kept allowing the Spaceman to eat her, slowly breaking down her psyche to the point where, when she saw it, she would just retreat into herself, vanish inside her own mind and allow them to do whatever they wished with her body.
Which is how she found it. Tucked away, deep inside the recesses of her mind was a segment that glowed like concentrated starlight. A soft golden river that resisted the chains across the rest of her being. It would not be controlled, but it could not escape. It shifted and moved as if it were alive, flowing from one side of its corner to the other and back, like a pacing animal. "Hello?" she called when she got closer and the light responded. Shrinking into itself, it gained definition, a shape congealing out of its formless mass.
She came close enough to touch and was startled to recognize the form of a massive golden wolf staring in at her. "Wolf?" she said with confusion, but not fear.
BAD WOLF
The word had not come from inside the portion of her mind that she controlled; the parts wrapped in Madam's training. So it had to have been the wolf, inside its glowing prison.
"Bad…wolf…" she murmured, reaching out to touch the beautiful animal. The wolf took one tiny step forward, stretching its nose out to sniff her. Then it lifted its head, and stared intently past her at something with frighteningly intelligent eyes. She turned to look, but saw nothing but more of her mind, the links of Madam's teachings holding her together. She turned back and the wolf was staring at her. Staring, but not like she was prey. Like…
The wolf lunged suddenly, latching onto her hand with crushing jaws. She cried out and instinctively tried to pull away, but that only made it worse, the move causing sharp teeth to dig into her arm. But instead of drawing blood, the golden dust circling the wolf streamed into her wounds, lighting up her skin from the inside. "No!" She pulled again and was released.
She stumbled backwards landing harshly on her butt. The wolf and its golden light stayed outside the reach of the conditioning. She stared down at her arm and saw the light still inside her hand. It swirled gently, causing intricate lines and swirls to shine mesmerizingly across her skin in ever changing patterns. She looked back up at the wolf only to discover that it had completely dissolved again, now nothing but a flowing river of light.
"Bad. Wolf...?" She said, rubbing her hand.
She emerged from the depths of her mind and found herself, as usual, laid upon her bed in the orphanage run by the shrinking man. But her mind was a little clearer, and though she did not understand what had happened, she realized that Bad Wolf had somehow managed to remove a little of the fog from her mind. A fog that she hadn't realized was there until it had lessened. She had a feeling that Bad Wolf could help her clear out more of the fog, help her think better. But she had to get out of here first. Had to get away from the Spaceman.
She ran away. Once devoted to Madam and her mission, now she wanted nothing more than to escape. She tried for weeks to get out, but always blacked out. Getting away from the shrinking man didn't seem to be difficult, but somehow she always found herself back in her room. But one day, she did something right, and she escaped. She was so happy, so relieved. She found an abandoned warehouse to hide in and she tucked herself in between stacks of rubbish to keep warm. When she woke up, she screamed.
The Spaceman had followed her. It always followed her.
"No!" she screamed, and dashed away, running down the trash littered hallway on grimy feet. "No! Stay back! Leave me alone!"
But the Spaceman ignored her words, pacing after her with infinite patience. It wasn't as fast as she was, but it didn't need to be. She couldn't run forever, and it always knew where she was. Sweaty and exhausted, she stumbled to a halt, her knees shaking so bad she collapsed instantly onto the ground. The scuff of feet alerted her to the presence of the Spaceman behind her. "No…" she croaked, her throat dry. "Please, no…"
Once again, she was engulfed. And the hazy memories began. Ever since Bad Wolf had bitten her, they'd been slightly clearer. Slightly easier to understand. But that made them all the more frightening. An impossible planet. A black hole. Monsters with tentacles on their face. A demon, immensely powerful, after their lives. And a man. One man there to save them all. A broken soul who saved everyone he could and grieved when it was never enough. She didn't know his name, that was hidden from her. But his face…she knew his face. She focused on his face as long as she could. He kept her fear at bay. But it morphed, as it always did, to another man. One with strange runes crawling over his skin. And the hysteria began to build.
"Somebody! Anybody! Save me from the Spaceman!"
The auditory interface on the inside of the helmet lit up in response to her voice.
She brought her hands up and slammed them against the front of the mask. This was new. There was something inside the suit with her!
The screen fuzzed momentarily from the force of her hands, and when it flicked back on, she was presented with a question.
Proceed: Y/N ?
"Yes!" She shrieked. Anything to get out out. Outoutoutout…
There was a faint buzzing in the headset and some long dormant part of herself stirred long enough to identify it as a ringing telephone. Then there was a click and an unfamiliar man was speaking to her.
"This is President Nixon."
There were people here. People who weren't Madam, or the shrinking man. They frightened her. With their urgent voices and quick feet, they dashed about, disturbing her quiet. Didn't they know that the louder they were, the faster the Spaceman showed up?
"I knew you'd be here."
She spun in place, terrified of being found. "No! Don't take me back. I don't want the fog. I want Bad Wolf." She crouched down and lifted her teeth in an almost snarl, trying to imitate her inner wolf.
The strange woman with curly hair raised her hands to show that they were empty. "It's okay! I'm not taking you anywhere. I'm not even going to touch you."
She relaxed marginally as the woman crouched down onto her heels several feet away. The more time she spent away from Madam, the less fog there was in her mind. She'd gone searching for Bad Wolf many times, but had never found it again. She had been hoping to hide from the Spaceman in this warehouse and look for Bad Wolf. But then this woman and her friends had appeared, and…
"I'm not going back." She warned the woman.
The woman smiled. "I don't want you to. Just wanted to see the beginning. You'll understand someday." The woman looked up, and a brilliant smile crossed her features. "He's here." She looked back at the girl. "He's worth it. He's worth all of it."
"Who?" The girl asked warily.
"The man from your nightmare." Then she stood and swept away.
The girl wanted to follow the woman. To find out how she knew about the man in her nightmare. But she rejoined the three men and the woman she'd come with, and the men made her nervous. Something about one of them just wasn't quite right. It was like he wasn't human somehow…
She hovered on the edges as the people tromped around her sanctuary. They found the spaceman and she watched as they poked and prodded at him. Last time he'd eaten her, she'd actually managed to escape. But even now, he was healing up. Just waiting until the moment when he could come back and eat her again. She almost hoped that he would eat the not-human man. A feeling she ascribed to Bad Wolf warned her away from him, and she trusted Bad Wolf. But the Spaceman lay dormant around them. Maybe the Spaceman only eats little girls, she thought.
They were beginning to look for her, but then something happened. Something that had happened to her a few times and frightened her deeply. She began to find herself in places without knowing how or why she'd gotten there. She would know she'd been running, but would be unable to say what from. And it was happening again. She appeared in different places, as if scooped up out of time, and it only frightened her further. But gradually the time jumps slowed, and there were whole minutes where she knew exactly where she was. Even so, she kept running, putting more and more distance between her and the people with the woman.
She moved out the back and through the part of the warehouse that looked like a machine shop. And that was where she saw it again. That was where the fog lifted entirely.
"TARDIS," she said in wonder, moving closer and placing her hands on the panels. There was the faintest of hums running through the wood, and she imagined a greeting in the sound. "TARDIS," she whispered again, and placing her cheek upon it, closed her eyes. Deep in the buried place of her mind, Bad Wolf threw back its head and howled.