[...] the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances. In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in many ways a magnificent one. We do not know the limits of a man's capacities for supreme effort or willing degradation, for agony or glee, for pleasurable brutality or the sweetness of reason. But in our time we have come to know that the limits of "human nature" are frighteningly broad.
-The Promise, C. Wright Mills (1959).
She let out a weak laugh. "I think the joke is supposed to go, 'you're going to die in seven days.'" She was referring to a famous line of an old horror movie. The Doctor's face was grim, and he didn't join in her tense laughter. The dread that was beginning to pool in her stomach became more pronounced. "Oh, God," she choked, feeling ill. "You're serious."
"I would never joke about something like this," he informed her before extending his hand out to her once more. "Come on, we don't have much time before the radiation sickness really begins to set in with you." She didn't take the proffered hand, didn't even so much as twitch. Her face was frozen in an unreadable expression, the tinted glasses covering half of her face the main cause for it being so indiscernible.
Internally, she was torn between believing him out of fear for her life and deciding that he was a complete lunatic out to kidnap unsuspecting women by calling himself a doctor, preying on the very fear of their mortality. Besides of which, who was to say that this wasn't a sick form of payback on this tall man's part as a revenge for almost getting him incarcerated? The more Gilly thought about it, the more the odds were against that the man in front of her was speaking the truth. He really wasn't inspiring any confidence in her based on her impression of him thus far.
She wondered how likely it was that she would be able to outrun him, if she would be able to sprint close enough to the town to be within hearing range and be able to scream loud enough before he caught her… The odds were decidedly not in her favor. Gilly most certainly couldn't fight him, not with her delicate and nonathletic frame against his lean and likely muscular one, especially if he was used to apprehending women on a regular basis.
Anything that would be useful in her plight was contained in her absent purse and, therefore, not of any use to her. This was a ghastly no-win situation. Her only choice would be to play along and hope for an opportunity to present itself where she could conceivably escape with any degree of success. As soon as she did get away, of course, she would go to the nearest clinic for a checkup. Just in case.
Reluctantly, she asked him with a cough as her stomach clenched uneasily, "Not saying that I believe you, but how do you know?"
The Doctor's expression shifted between irritation and impatience before he let out an exasperated sigh. "Humans, always asking questions, even when their life is in peril," he muttered without nearly as much bite as the words themselves suggested… among other things. While Gilly was not going to let one odd little comment distract her, she still absently filed away that information for later. The man continued, "I first found out by a massive spike of chronon energy coming straight from the Rift, which triggered nearly countless alarms on my TARDIS, especially after the first time it opened… I usually have Jack to watch over the little things, the misplaced beings, random bits of technology, and the occasional Weevil leaking through the scar, but this was on a scale unheard of since the Rift itself being widened by a Slitheen! At some point, the Rift must have fractured, considering that I find you in Brecon instead of Cardiff proper…"
The young woman could only look at him rather helplessly, precious little of what he said made any sense to her at all. From what she did gather, he seemed to be more of a scientist or a technician watching the monitor for any unusual deviances. Likely he was someone from the government come to collect her because she was irradiated with this chronon energy. Somehow, she found herself liking the idea of him merely being a kidnapper more than him being a government agent, because then at least she had a chance of getting away.
The Doctor was still talking. "…got within ten meters of you, my sonic short-circuited! But by that point, you were close enough that I could literally smell the artron energy being produced by the chronon radiation. Still can, actually, it's taken some getting used to, especially with the amount increasing the longer we stand here. But more tangible evidence for you being able to see for yourself would be to remember how the sheep reacted around you, how their behavior suddenly changed to avoiding you completely. They were detecting the dangerously high amount of energy being emitted from your person. And, most incriminating of all, you've been coughing."
"'Coughing'?" Gilly parroted back numbly, the fear that she had been barely managing to keep at bay returned full force. Her stomach, churning with what had to be nerves, took a bad turn, and she felt like throwing up.
"It's the first sign of radiation sickness," came the somber reply. "And it's only going to get worse from there, if you don't trust me."
Despite herself, Gilly took a couple of steps towards him and his still outstretched hand before she realized what she was doing and, once again, hesitated. His gaze on her was intense, watching her every movement with great scrutiny. She would not even be able to turn around to run before he would be upon her and cutting the escape short. She swallowed thickly, trying to quell her nausea that had to be stemming from her fear but was finding it to be an impossible task. Gilly winced from a twinge of pain before she doubled over and threw up everything she had for lunch mixed in with drops of red.
Red? She wondered in a dazed manner as she stared at the puddle of sick in shock. I didn't eat anything red, and it's a primary color, anyway. She swallowed again, tasting the acidic taste of sickness and the metallic taste of—
Her eyes widened in realization, and she threw up again in revulsion. There was more blood than before. Gilly began to tremble in fear. He was telling the truth. Oh, God, he was telling the truth. I'm going to die. She began to collapse to her knees but was prevented by strong arms grasping her. She didn't find the strength within herself to struggle. I'm going to die.
The Doctor lifted Gilly into his arms and began to run back to where the TARDIS was parked. He thanked his lucky stars for not ending up parked back in the pasture, as precious time would have been wasted trying to climb the fence with the ill human in his arms. He didn't try talking to Gilly to keep her aware because he knew more than anyone else that in her condition, if she fell unconscious, none of the words in the world would work to keep her awake.
Not to mention, it appeared that her mind was so delicate at the moment, that even the simple hypnotic suggestion of trusting him was too much for her body to handle. The onset was always quick, he remembered having been told in the academy. That if there was a cure, it would have to be administered very early, within the first twenty-four hours, before the damage that was done was irreversible. As soon as there was enough artron energy manufactured by the chronon radiation to start changing the antibodies, hope for a cure was completely snuffed out.
Gilly had the fortune that he found her within the first quarter of an hour. However, she also had the misfortune that a cure for acute chronon radiation poisoning, let alone one for artron poisoning, was unheard of. It had never before affected a human and with Time Lords, the window of opportunity was nigh impossible to pinpoint since exposure was over centuries and built up over time. The latent period stretched over so long, it was too late by the time anyone found out what was happening to the afflicted Time Lord in question, artron poisoning would have already set in.
The Doctor's mind whirled at high speeds as he raced to his time-and-space ship. Trying to come up with an idea that might yet work to save this human's life. He didn't know her, but he didn't want her to die. He had already lost so much, had willingly given up everyone that meant something to him. Mickey, Jackie, Martha, Donna, Jack, and Rose… The level of wretched loss not necessarily in that order. He felt as if he had failed them, failed her, in what he had been forced to do to his best friend. Rose would have been so furious with him, for not being clever enough, not quick enough, not strong enough to find some other way to help Donna.
He would carry that guilt with him until the day he didn't have any more regenerations in him and finally died. Somehow, he felt as if that day was closer than he thought. He was in what was his twelfth regeneration, if he included that one regeneration that he dared not call 'the Doctor' and the Metacrisis.
He wouldn't fail this human, refused to. If she died under his care… Well, the Doctor didn't want to think about what might happen to him, what he might do, if she did.
Once he came to the door of the TARDIS, he had trouble trying to readjust the barely conscious woman his arms to get at the key in his pocket. Feeling frustrated and impatient, he snapped the fingers on one hand that he managed to free enough for the act before he strode inside, the doors closing behind him. He wasn't quite sprinting down the halls, but his pace was noticeably rushed and urgent.
The Doctor realized that he would likely have to synthesize a remedy himself, a sort of anti-radiation pill designed to target chronon radiation specifically. Unfortunately, that would take too much time, precious time he didn't have unless he found a way to buy himself more time. In the back of his mind, he was darkly amused that he, a Time Lord, would be strapped for time of all things.
He considered using an emergency cryo-charge on her. It would lower her body temperature to absolute zero in about half a second, literally freezing her on the spot. It was an effective safety measure when someone's life hung in the very balance and time was needed before assistance could be readily available… However, the Doctor realized that even if she was frozen solid, the chronon energy wouldn't be effected by this and would continue to increase. The moment she would be unfrozen by the time the Doctor had synthesized a cure, because he would create one, it would be too late. Death would be nearly instantaneous.
He also couldn't place her within the Zero room, as the type of treatment she needed was not covered by it. A cellular regeneration vault would not work either, as while it treated almost all cases of radiation poisoning by absorbing said radiation from the patient… This was one of those cases where it would not be of any use. Chronon radiation was one of the few types of radiation unable to be readily absorbed by the device. It wouldn't even slow down the effects long enough to be worth an attempt.
After a further moment of consideration, the Doctor decided that her best bet for survival would be under the influence of a stasis field. The artificial force field kept the effects of time and other outside influences from affecting the area within it, so it would be as if no time had passed at all for her, a state of suspended animation. Gently placing her on a gurney, the Doctor began to securely strap her in. She would need to remain within the field's boundaries at all times for it to maintain temporal equilibrium. Even one finger outside it would 'pop the bubble' so to speak. He would be taking no chances.
A quiet moan of protest drew his attention over to his half-conscious patient. She was clearly afraid, her tense body silently screaming at him. Whatever specific message her body language was trying to convey, however, was lost in the translation. She was in pain, the Doctor deduced, and likely afraid for her life. It was all the motivation he needed to continue.
The first to go was her camera, a model considered very high-tech for the mid-2010's, he noted absently before setting it aside. He carefully removed her floppy sunhat revealing colorless hair, and removal of her glasses, which revealed grey eyes. These two things added with her pale, colorless skin hinted toward albinism, an interesting fact that he stored away for later thought when he had time, when he knew for certain that she would live. Loose objects successfully removed and the girl snuggly strapped down, the Doctor rolled the gurney over to a wall where there was a metal door in the middle of the wall.
It appeared much the same as one of the cold chambers that cadavers would be placed inside while they were being stored at a morgue. This was actually not that far from the truth, as that was the main function of a stasis field in a TARDIS sickbay. It would prevent the corpse from decomposing and stop any natural degradation until it was ready for burial or incineration. For the most part, though, it was to keep the body preserved so that their Bio-Data Extract and mind of the deceased Time Lord could be uploaded into the Amplified Panatropic Computations Network of the Matrix, as per his people's custom. But, that wasn't to say that it couldn't serve other uses, such as it was now.
The Doctor disconnected the mat of the gurney that Gilly was strapped to and started to slide her in, feet first, when she once again gained his attention. "No," she breathed. "No… not… dead…" Her voice was faint, but he heard it nonetheless.
"I know," he assured her. "But you will be soon if I don't initiate this. I'm sorry, but it will be as if no time as passed at all. I promise." Then without further ado, he slid her inside the strongbox and sealed the door. Making adjustments, he set the interior so that air flow would be recycled continuously within the stasis field. With that task done and the field active, he left her alone to go to the laboratory within the TARDIS to attempt to create a remedy.
It was to Gilly Hopkins's misfortune that the Doctor didn't take into account the possibility that she would be aware the whole while she was in the stasis field. As it was rather uncommon for the stasis field to be used this way and most Time Lords put in the same position were unconscious through of the whole duration. To make matters more unbearable for her, she was a mortician, of all things. It had been her job to handle the dead and prepare them for burial. She knew a mortuary drawer when she saw one, and there was no doubt in her mind that was exactly what she was inside of.
Never before had she been claustrophobic, but this was as good an opportunity for it as any. Gilly couldn't move or talk, she could only breathe and lie there in terror, wondering when her air could finally run out and she would suffocate. A coffin has about two hours' worth of air, she recalled. So does that mean I only have two hours to live now instead of, what was it, forty-eight? This struck her as unfair, but further consideration proved it to be unlikely. No, if he wanted me dead, this is hardly the most effective way to go about it. There's got to be something I don't know about. He said he didn't want me dead… Or, well, at least, he implied as much since he had been going through all of this effort so far.
It was hard for her to know what to think anymore, especially in the given circumstances. There was an upside, fortunately, the agonizing pain that had stolen her voice and ability to stand originally had disappeared, cut off as if it had never been or someone had found a figurative pause button. Gilly was hardly going to question or scrutinize it too closely. She wasn't a superstitious person, but even she knew the danger of certain key words or trains of thought that always seemed to jinx the heroes in all the stories she had read throughout her lifetime. She certainly wasn't going to tempt fate with this.
Still, even with the hope that she might not die within the next two hours from asphyxiation, a cold feeling of an innate sense of fear settled upon her. A primal fear of being trapped in an enclosed space in the dark was hard to fight, especially if one was immobilized and, therefore, unable to fight or run. Not that she would have been able to if she hadn't been strapped down, but it was the concept that really mattered to her at the moment, the principle of the thing. She was liking this tall man less and less.
Him and his perpetual tussled brown hair. It looked as if he had never been introduced to a hair brush or comb in his life. He probably rolled out of bed, smoothed his hair down with his hands, and called it a day. Somehow, Gilly felt, even that much was more effort than what he really did each morning. His mother would probably be horrified at its state of untamable wildness. She most certainly would never let her hypothetical child go around the house like that, but it would have been excused as young children don't know any better. Now, if they were talking about Greg, a very fine specimen of man who was the corner, and if she were married to him, she doubted that she would ever have to worry about his hair as it was finely cut. If she did have to, though, she wouldn't let him go around the house like that either.
Don't even get her started on those shoes. They were so very impractical, her honest opinion, and she should know since she had used to own a pair of her own until she found out, exactly, how unreasonable they were. You could hardly run in them for very long unless you wanted to gain blisters and sore feet. Despite being nicknamed 'sand shoes', they were hardly appropriate for walking on the beach with. And they were extremely time consuming to lace up or untie, whereas proper sneakers could be easily slid on and off.
And that pinstriped suit of his. How on Earth could anyone expect to do honest work in that thing? The pants he could maybe get away with if he took off the suit jacket. Surely, with how tightly it clung to his tremendously skinny frame, it would be hard to reach for something or stretch too far without worry of it tearing. Not to mention all the bills from the dry cleaners, especially if the suit was worn on a daily basis for work.
If this doctor was important enough to have an assistant named Jack, why was he not aware of these things that made him look somewhere between a homeless man, someone with no fashion sense, and someone who was merely a professional paper-pusher? It would imply work experience and getting his hands dirty to rise to that position of power while somehow still maintaining the status of man-child. Unless, of course, he was one of those people who, when they got into positions of power, they began to delegate everything unless it's something really important or would benefit them in some way. Didn't he say himself that 'Jack' usually took care of the 'little' things? She wondered why this Jack didn't complain about his superior before eventually deciding that the pay must have been lucratively good.
Gilly usually wasn't this scathing in her summation of a person that she just met, but, then again, she usually wasn't placed within a morgue cold chamber after being told that she was going to die in a very unprofessional manner. It screamed of someone who was making up everything as they went along. Improvisation was the father of vulnerability. If you had no clue of what you were doing and made up everything as you went along, how were you supposed to prepare for upcoming difficulties or avoid future failure? Future failure or difficultly that would result in her death.
Gilly hardly thought she was overreacting, likely she was underreacting if anything else. She was just one step away from being buried alive by being placed inside of a cold chamber. Perhaps her original assumption of him being a kidnapper wasn't too far behind, but now Gilly had elevated him to the status of 'serial killer', assuming that he's done this with multiple women before who followed her general type. Frail-looking, short, foreign, and eye-catching in some manner or another. Her fatal mistake of garnering his attention had been from calling him a criminal and somehow fooling a sheep breeder into thinking she was the livestock inspector. She was striking more in the sense of being utterly strange and novel than being stunningly beautiful or anything like that. But, perhaps, being an albino had somehow added on to her worth of being his next victim in his eyes.
She found it amusing that coming from the one state in America most famous for its cheese and serial killers would in someway increase the likelihood of her being the victim of one, whether by a limited sense of irony or the dark sense of humor that she occasionally possessed. And then when you added on to the fact that she was a mortician who dealt with dead bodies on a weekly basis and was currently sealed inside of a mortuary drawer…
Gilly tried not to smile. If she did, she would probably start laughing and wouldn't stop. Which would be bad, considering how limited her air supply likely was, especially considering that she was in a cold chamber, which she was most certainly not thinking about and didn't find it at all funny, and no, those giggles were definitely not coming from her. The only way this could possibly get any worse, would be if the 'Jack' that her kidnapper had referred to was Jack the Ripper…
She howled with mad laughter, the sound of it echoing around her in the cold chamber she was trapped inside of, and she was supposed to be the perfectly sane one.
A/N: Hmm, this hadn't quite gone the way I expected, but you'll hear no complaints from myself.
I finally got around to creating a proper book cover for this story. The model used for Glenda "Gilly" Hopkins, is none other than the albino model Nastya Zhidkova. Purely because it was easier to find useable images of her than anything else and how she fit the mental image I had of Gilly. The only significant difference is that Gilly's eyes are gray.
Well, only one person had noticed thus far, but I had been placing various hints around this chapter and the last one concerning Gilly. I addressed many of them and explained them outright in this chapter except for one. If no one catches the big hint I threw out toward the middle of the chapter, I'll be severely disappointed.
Also, concerning Gilly's name, there's another pop culture reference in it besides the obvious one. Care to find it?
This chapter is a day late due to my laziness. Beware the Ides of March... I suppose I was not the only one to enjoy a caesar salad?