Sorry for the long wait. I'm definately going to update weekly from now on.

BTW: This chapter is dedicated to Bilyarra (†) and Mirra Li.
That's right; I'm dedicating it to the two koala bears I observed at the zoo in Vienna (great zoo, by the way). They were an important inspiration for this chapter and were kind enough to let me stare at them for hours without getting mad or annoyed.

I felt kinda obliged to do so... I know, I know, cut it out and get on with the story...

There was a sound from above, as if constant rain was falling down onto a skylight window, as he woke up.
Slowly, the Doctor lifted his head.
The air was damp and smelled mouldy, just the way it smells in an old room you havn't set foot in because you had locked it years ago and totally forgot about its existence.
Or like an empty birdcage that hasn't been inhabited for centuries; even if it was clean you came to notice that it smelled of wild animals.
And there was a slight beastly scent in this room as well.

The Doctor lay on a stone floor. Music was playing quietly over a few loudspeakers near the ceiling.
They looked dusty and somehow clotty. The music was barely audible. It was meditative.
But it was forcing its way into the Doctors brain, calming him, even though he knew that he should trust his instincts and find a way out of this strange room as soon as possible.

The sound from above became louder. The Doctor looked up and saw the thin rain drumming gently on the glass of the misty windows.
The room he was currently trapped in (he figured out that he was kept imprisoned after banging his palms against the solid dark walls a few times) didn't seem that bad. In fact there was nothing he should be worried about, he found himself thinking for a moment.

But that was something to be worried about.
Something tried to calm him. And he assumed that it was for one reason only: something much worse was going to happen soon.

The Doctor's hands slipped into his own shirt and he found himself searching his bruised skin for new injuries or incisions. But he hadn't been touched, he figured, because there were no wounds. In fact it seemed as if the old ones had already healed up as well.

Only his stomach felt hard and slightly swollen.

The Doctor's fingers froze and he turned his head aside in disgust.
He felt something.

Nauseated he pulled his hands away and lay down on the floor again, curling up into a tight ball.
He had felt something. There was something inside of him.
The Doctor took a deep breath and touched his lower abdomen cautiously; he feared the worst.

There it was. He'd felt a kick.
He closed his eyes and pressed the hand against his lower abdomen.

A kick. He had felt a kick.

It felt revolting, it felt terrible and it felt unbelievably wrong.
But the Doctor couldn't deny it.
And it dawned on him.

He had been kidnapped and injured and tortured for one reason only: Someone had chosen him to carry their child. He had been impregnated days ago; probably even weeks ago; the Doctor had lost track of time.
He had been fecundated; either by getting raped or by the strange operation which had been performed on him while he had been half asleep; he figured it'd been some kind of artificial insemination.
And now the Doctor was forced to carry a baby.

The Doctor rolled over to one side and spat out curses in the language of his home-planet while smashing his knuckles against the stone floor.
It was too horrible to be true! He couldn't be pregnant! He simply couldn't!

The Doctor let out a cry of despair and arose, bashing against the solid dark walls in desperation. It was of no use. No matter how many times he tried, the wall wouldn't budge, it wouldn't break or crack. He wasn't even able to knock out parts of the surface. He couldn't scratch it – it felt like plastic. But it wouldn't move. It didn't seem to be easily destroyed.

The Doctor crouched into a corner and pressed his back against solid stony wall, facing the dark wall beside him tiredly. He could see his own reflection (supposing that the wall had to be laminated somehow). The Doctor felt his own reflection staring back at him with bloodshot and weary eyes. And with the small bulge, which had used to be his stomach until recently, he looked even more disgusting than ever before. He stared himself in the eye, his gaze drifting slightly downward, running over his skinny, long and thin body; he could see his ribs, at least nearly, he could see every muscle even through his garments. And then...

There it was. His stomach. His revolting, swollen and hard stomach.
He stared at his own reflection in horror. His slim, filigree and thin body disfigured by his arching abdomen.

And he could feel it.
He felt it every minute, every moment; it, inside of him, annoying and disturbing him with its two additional heartbeats.
His body had already started to expand around the lately inserted foetus. The bulge must have been growing over the past few weeks without him even noticing it. And it evolved fast – it seemed to grow faster than it actually should.
The Doctor didn't dare to touch his disgusting body again and turned his head aside thus being unable to take a look at his distorted abdomen once and for all.

The constant crackling and pelting from the rain above drowned out the noises from the outside.
But there were sounds on the other side of the wall. The Doctor pressed his head against the cold thought-to-be plastic and listened carefully.
Dull thuds and noises were fading in the distance; a muffled voice spoke in a language he couldn't quite understand.
He sat up.

There was someone outside; the Doctor could feel someone staring at him. Someone was observing him; someone was waiting outside, waiting for the right moment...

The Doctor noticed right now that the music, which had descended over the loudspeakers, had stopped. It must have stopped minutes ago. The sounds from the other side grew nearer and louder, different voices muttering quietly; innumerable footsteps indicated several beings approaching.
And all of a sudden the sounds died away.

The dark wall vanished and a corridor appeared in front of the Doctor as it got illuminated. Several people stood in front of the Doctor, observing him through a Plexiglas pane.

"Please take a step back." "Don't scare it." "What's it doing?" "Be quiet."

The Doctor searched the observers' faces irritated and looked around panic-stricken. He arose quietly and stepped away from the pane in front of him.
The muffled voices continued talking fast and at once, leaving the Doctor confused and with nothing but isolated scraps of conversation.

"What is it?" "Something new, I heard." "It doesn't look interesting." "What is it doing?"

A small, mirror inverted sign was glued to the pane on the outside. "Please be quiet" it said on it.
The Doctor looked back and forth between the observers and the sign.

The sound of music, accompanied by a raspy voice, snarled on the other side and spread over the dimly lit room in front of him over loudspeakers. The observers closed ranks and became quiet.

"...this species could be discovered in nearly every century for the past three thousand years; though records show that those specimen seem to travel alone, or at rare occasions, are accompanied, but by other species only; two of that kind have never been sighted together. It is therefore assumed that the species you're looking at right now is a dying breed, and it is possible that what you are staring at is the last of its kind. As already mentioned, what we have here is a travelling species, known to be capable of travelling through time and space."

The voice became silent while innumerable faces eyed the Doctor up closely. Several people were leaning against the wall, smiling, talking, pointing and doing what every average visitor of a zoo does.
The Doctor was locked in a closure. Irritated as he was he crawled back into the corner that seemed the furthest away and pressed his back against the wall, surveying at his prison with unbelieving eyes.

The Doctor was locked up like an animal. To those who had kidnapped and caged him he was an animal. Or an alien. Or a beast.
He ran his fingers through his hair. His heart rates increased – as well as the heart rates of the foetus inside of his lower abdomen.
He clenched a fist and punched the bulge on his body once or twice before curling up and whimpering in pain.
There was no sense in hurting himself, the Doctor figured. If he dared to hurt the foetus he'd only hurt himself.

"Even if the creature seems confused or unsettled right now there's no need to worry. Usually caged creatures need at least two weeks to get adjusted to the new environment and we'd like to give it the time it needs to settle down. Our new closures are a significant innovation; not only that they're an exact copy of the natural habitat of the creatures, by means of the Plexiglas we can provide useful insights, granting the observers the privilege to take a look at a creature they'd probably never set eyes on in the wild. The enclosure is the ideal way of presenting a creature to the public; it reflects the natural as well as the scientific aspects. The creature is monitored outside the opening hours and watched over around the clock by specifically trained personnel."

The Doctor buried his face in his hands and pressed his body against the wall restlessly, helplessly trying to escape the spectator's view.
He told himself over and over that it was all a dream, that it couldn't be real because simply was too horrible to be real.

The people outside kept talking, footsteps neared and edged away; the Doctor felt countless eyes staring at his back. He sobbed as the tears started burning in his eyes. He had a hard time moving his pelvis as close as possible towards his chest – his swollen stomach got in the way. The Doctor knelt on the floor, his upper part of the body collapsed and he pressed his face against the cold stone floor.

The crowd dispersed, the enclosure of the Doctor was now brightly lit and the voice over the loudspeakers was fading.

"...whenever possible...and of course we're looking forward to the creature to become part of our research program. After all a dying breed needs to be observed and documented in the most accurate way. It's possible that we're lucky to have the last of its kind and we are really looking forward to have it as a part of our captive breeding program, as well. We're really looking forward to investigate further details of the natural behaviour of..."

The bright light above the Doctor blinded him as he tried to squint. The voice had died away and he rolled on to his stomach, in order to protect his eyes against the unnatural and burning light.

"The sedative effect is wearing off."
The Doctor couldn't raise his head due to the pain that had struck his whole body seconds ago. He shivered all over.
"He's going to wake up soon." A familiar voice emerged from beside the Doctor's head; he was too weak to open his eyes and replied with a soft moan.
"He is waking up" corrected another voice "Let's get it over with."

A sharp pain seared through the Doctor as he screamed and he felt several metal instruments being forced into his abdomen as well as his chest.
Someone patted him on the hand and whispered "Soon it's over... soon you're..."

The Doctor cut off the voice by panting and screaming like mad.
But he came to notice that it became darker around him and though he kept on screaming and shouting he didn't feel any pain anymore.
He didn't feel anything.

Except for collapsing onto the floor and getting dragged out again...

"Doctor?"

The Doctor opened his eyes slowly. Jack knelt beside him and stroked his temples carefully.
The Doctor let out a long drawn-out moan and tried to sit up. Jack pressed his hand against the Doctor's chest carefully, hindering him from arising. The Doctor flinched.
"You're too weak" whispered Jack and caressed his cheeks. The Doctor pressed a hand against his chest, palpating his skin and searching for the stitched wounds he knew he'd discover.

"I'm sorry" whispered Jack after taking a quick glance at his fingers; they were smeared with blood, he'd touched the Doctor's chest carelessly causing one of the wounds to burst at the seams.
The Doctor closed his eyes. The warm blood which emerged from the wound warmed up his maltreated and cold body.

"Doctor" Jack's pleading voice caused the Doctor to burst into tears. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed heart wrenching.
Jack grasped the Doctor's hands and squeezed them gently. He looked the crying Doctor deeply in the eye and felt the tears welling up in his eyes as well.
"Doctor you need help."

I know, bit of a confusing chapter. But I'll update soon (sooner than the last time, I PROMISE!), so stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion.

And please let me know what you're thinking :)