Koschei let me sit on the edge on the roof beside him and caressed my back. I clanged to his arm.
"I won't let anything happen to you" Koschei smiled and kissed my forehead.
Except for yourself, I thought to myself.
I bristled with anger. What was wrong?
"Koschei, I don't like it here" I mumbled, still unwillingly to open my eyes.
"You should aim to loosen up" replied Koschei and snuggled up against me. "I don't think I need to" I mumbled "You're already aiming to loosen me up."
Or tying me down...
I sighed and opened my eyes. I was annoyed by myself. Those bad thoughts kept returning and rerunning. And I kept thinking about those spiteful remarks...
"Theta, your thinking too much" said Koschei beside me bluntly. I turned my head towards him and tried not to stare down at the ground, the far beneath ground.
"I don't understand why you're thinking and what you can be thinking about all the time" Koschei went on "and besides, it's bugging me. Your mind is really hard to read when you keep having those spontaneous chains of associations."
"I've got so much on my mind" I mumbled, focussing on the sky again.
"You're not the only one" added Koschei in a low voice. He leaned back a bit and slipped nearer to the edge of the eaves gutter. I watched him nervously.
The darkness spread out and enclosed us slowly.
While the stars started to brighten up the only thing that shone in the dark were Koschei's glistening amber-coloured eyes.
"Your favourite solar system had been the one that'd formed the Truncated Octahedron constellation" mumbled Koschei quietly. I nodded.
"Pity you missed its collapsing" added Koschei a bit more encouraged "It was really colourful."
"I wish I'd seen it" I sighed and searched the sky for the stars that'd been gone while I hadn't been observing "I really wish I'd seen it."
"It meant a lot to you" explained Koschei and lay an arm around my shoulders "Although: I don't know how a solar system can mean anything to you."
"It was far away" I replied and swallowed the dry knot in my throat "it was beautiful."
"Things are dear to you because they're beautiful?" asked Koschei unbelievingly.
"No" I interrupted him" Because I'd always wanted to go there. To see what it actually looks like; to see it with my own eyes, to stand on its planets with my own feet; but I can't." I shifted and thereby removed his hand from my shoulder. I folded my arms.
"It's gone" I finalised and breathed out deeply.
"You shouldn't bother" replied Koschei "it had been inhabited by primitive creatures only."
"Why should I care about it?" I asked without understanding "So what? It's their planet. They just live there." I corrected myself by adding "lived there".
"I told you, Theta: It's not important what things are. It's important what you're going to do with them."
"And you wouldn't know what to do with them?" I asked unnerved.
Koschei smiled. "Of course I would" he replied grinning "but I guess you wouldn't approve."
Children are cruel, I reminded myself of that again. Children are always cruel. In their childish naivety and innocence they want to discover how things can be damaged beyond repair; everything that lives has to be stopped from living just because you can't imagine why and how "being alive" works. Children like stuffed animals because they're beautiful yet immobile. And they remind them of dead animals, but unlike them their aloud to drag stuffed animals around as a toy.
Everything alive is a toy. And every toy has to be broken in order to find out how it works.
At least it was this way with the children on Gallifrey.
But I guess children are the same, throughout the universe, no matter whom or what they descend from.
Children are cruel; Innocent and cruel.
Koschei shook his head. "You were never cruel."
I gasped, but remembered his ability shortly afterwards; eventually I shook my head as well.
"Maybe that's why we worked together so well" I pointed out, staring at the gleaming stars "I was innocent and you were cruel. That's the way it goes."
Koschei nodded. "We are children. I'm cruel. And you're innocent."
I sighed and was close to giving Koschei a push.
"Please stop calling me that" I begged and added in a lower voice "It brings back bloody memories."
"Why?" he asked "Hasn't your father stopped calling you that by now?"
He chuckled. I grasped his shoulders and shook him, more brutal than necessary I expect.
"Stop talking about my father!" I yelled at him.
Koschei stared at me in surprise. I let go off him and sighed, while turning around and slipping away from him. "You're making me mad" I hissed and descended down in order to get back to my room before it was getting too chilly.
I shivered.
Cold... it was getting cold again.
"Doctor you're covered in sweat. Please Doctor, wake up! You need help."
The Doctor managed to open his eyes slowly and saw a dark figure against the bright light above it. "So... cold" he mumbled barely audible. "You're freezing Doctor" sighed the well-known voice "please, let me help you."
The Doctor squinted but he couldn't see its face, he couldn't see the silhouettes face.
"Rose? You're not Rose, are you? No, you can't be... she's gone and... But you sound like... Martha? Is that you? Are you Martha? But I thought she was..." The Doctor closed his eyes again and felt the world turning upside down. "You're dehydrated" explained the voice firmly and pressed a cup against the Doctor's lips. He wouldn't open his mouth. "...and still you're refusing to take a sip." "I can't drink" hissed the Doctor "I can't swallow." There was a sigh beside his ear and he felt a hand stroking his cheeks fondly. "Doctor, you have me really worried" whispered the voice. The rarely visible figure had squatted down beside him. He felt their stare.
"Who are you?" whimpered the Doctor. Tears filled his eyes again, but they seemed to evaporate as soon as they'd touch his burning skin.
"You've screwed up two clinical thermometers already" whispered the voice beside his ear. The Doctor tried to turn his head; but he'd had to realize that he was too weak to move.
"Donna?" he asked dizzy "Selahkeana?". The sounds kept changing and the room would twist and rotate every moment, changing the interior every time the Doctor blinked.
The Tardis was revolting against something. As if it tried to shake something off...
The Doctor's eyes closed shut and he lay there in the bed, stiff and lifeless while his inside burnt up and must have deflagrate to ashes any minute now.
The porcelain cup had been pressed against his lips again.
"Please Doctor... you have to drink!"
"I can't" the Doctor's voice was a mere and distant whisper. His mind turned upside down and inside out and would have turned other directions as well, if it had known them.
Something was flaming up and tried to devour him alive from the inside.
"I hate tea" he mouthed while he was pulled into an upright position.
"I'm sorry, but there's nothing but tea within your Tardis" explained the well-known voice and tried to comfort him: "Just one sip. You'll be back to sleep any minute. Just take one sip." It added, a bit more desperate than before "Please Doctor! I don't know how else I could help you. And you're getting weaker..."
"You can't kill me" whispered the Doctor and managed to turn his head aside, which side it ever may have been "I'm already dead."
The Doctor's jaws got forced open and the disgusting liquid got flushed down his throat. He tried to cough and struggled for air.
I shouldn't struggle. I was powerless against him or her, whoever it may have been. You have to accept things that you can't fight.
"No" moaned the Doctor quietly and shook his head with great effort "it can't be... you... you're..."
Dead?
The Doctor's eyes widened and he gasped for air.
Two hands grabbed his cheeks and pulled his face up; he stared into the light.
"Doctor?"
That's not my name.
The Doctor coughed and shook his head. "Get out" he whispered weary, tears running down his cheeks.
Don't be so rude.
"Doctor?!"