CW: very brief mention of rape (as a comparison)
After putting Lana to sleep, the Doctor checks on the other Doctor first to make sure he's not still experiencing Lana's memories. He isn't—just in shock. "She—she just—and then—"
The Doctor grabs him by the shoulders "Damien, she's bleeding out on your table. Are you good?"
Doctor Damien seems to shake himself. "Right, of course, er... I'll just make sure the serum is working correctly."
Once the Doctor is certain the other man is focused, he checks on Donna, who seems to be pulling herself out of it, though she looks rather pale. "Are you all right?" He asks.
She looks unfocused, then abruptly furious. "Am I alright? Am I alright? Did you see what I just saw?"
"I did." The Doctor says, grim.
"It doesn't matter if I'm alright or not! I want to go back to that Matron woman and make her wish she'd never been born."
"As much as I would love to see you do that, it's out of our hands now."
Donna gives him one of her terrifying scowls—he almost pities the Matron if Donna could have gotten her hands on the woman—then turns it on Doctor Damien. "Fix her!" She shouts.
"The serum is working correctly," he says quickly. "It's healing the arteries as we speak."
"Will it be healed in time?" The Doctor asks.
"Yes, it will."
After a nerve wracking ten more minutes, where Lana is still unconscious from both the Doctor's help and the blood loss, Doctor Damien declares her out of the critical zone. "Luckily, O positive is the most common blood type, so we have supplies to help her regain what she's lost. I'd recommend at least three days of bed rest, but we have a few rooms open here, so I'd be happy too—"
"No, that's alright." The Doctor interrupts, smiling tightly.
Doctor Damien frowns. "I really must insist—"
"My ship has an advanced medbay. I'll take her now and we'll be out of your hair."
The other man looks unhappy but agrees. He orders a stretcher to take her into the TARDIS and she doesn't stir from the movement. The Doctor thanks the mayor for his help and he, Donna, and Lana dematerialize, leaving New Earth behind.
He takes her into the medbay, which is normally hospital white, with multiple beds, tables, and cabinets containing medical supplies for various species and time periods. This time, however, when he opens the door, the walls and ceilings are colored deep purple and blue, and the Doctor has a feeling he knows why.
The Torchwood facility was completely white—now that she's out it makes sense that she wouldn't want to wake up in an all-white room again. The TARDIS realized that and adjusted. He sends her a feeling of thanks in his mind and gets warmth back. It's unusual for his ship to do so much for someone so new. But she doesn't quite have a concept of time, so maybe Lana isn't new to the TARDIS.
The Doctor hooks Lana up to the vital measuring systems, does a quick, shallow glance of her mind to glean about how long she'll be unconscious for, and asks the TARDIS to alert him when she wakes up. He leaves the medbay to head to the console room and is waylaid by Donna.
"So what are we going to do after this?" She asks him, crossing her arms. "Are you planning on just dropping her off to live a normal life on Earth, or will she be traveling with us?"
"I'm not sure." The Doctor admits. "I don't know which would be better for her."
"Do you want her to travel with us?"
The Doctor pauses, thinking. He never takes on a companion lightly, and Lana is very different from anyone else he's taken. She's been through something extremely traumatic, after all, and she's clearly affected by it. Everything from her fear of stating her opinions to the way she positions herself near the exits everywhere she goes.
He almost doubts that she would be able to function properly in normal society—at least in her state now. If she had someone to teach her... but it's unlikely she's going to be going around making friends.
"She's been through a lot." The Doctor says quietly to Donna. "I don't know if you've noticed, but..."
"She's scared to say her opinions. It's like she thinks we're going to kick her out or something."
There's that, and he's also noticed her way of manipulating people. It doesn't seem to be out of malice, but because she thinks that's the only way she can survive. "If she travelled with us, we would teach her that that's okay, along with other things, probably. Are you alright with that?"
Donna seems to hesitate. "I wouldn't mind it, but if you think she's not a good fit..."
The Doctor sighs, thinking. It isn't just that he doesn't know if Lana would be a good companion—he feels as if she would be. Despite her relative youth, she's mature, probably from her upbringing. He can tell that she's smart, and he would love to be able to see where she could go in an environment that doesn't treat her as less than human.
He could practically hear the questions she clearly wanted to ask as the TARDIS had taken off from Earth but had kept her mouth shut because of fear. There's also the fact that he wants to figure out what makes her so psychically powerful, if she's completely human. He's never seen anything like it.
When the braces had been taken off, he had been able to almost feel the energy in the room change from her full abilities being unchained. The room practically vibrated. She was so strong that she had burst through the shields he always keeps on his mind.
And it does feel cruel, after all she's been through, to drop her off on Earth and expect her to live the rest of her life. Especially now that her psychic abilities have been unleashed. Someone that powerful really needs training, and there's no one on Earth that could do that for her. And he's left people behind before. It never gets easier.
No, it's not that she doesn't think she'll fit in with their lifestyle. It's that he's afraid. He's always afraid to take on new companions, because it's his life is always too dangerous—they get hurt, they change, they got lost, they die. Humans are just so fragile, so breakable.
And he always knows, can feel it, when a companion just fits.
The Doctor can't see the future; even Time Lords don't have that ability. But sometimes when he looks at someone, it's like he's remembering backwards, like he's looking at someone and he already knows them, even if they've never met before.
And he feels that with Lana, now that she's grown.
(He thinks about what Rose would say, if she knew he was considering not helping someone, helping himself, because he was afraid.)
"Doctor?" Donna prods him, and he realizes he's been silent for a long time.
"I think we should offer." He says, surprising himself by how certain he is. "Take her on a few trips, at least. See if she likes it."
Donna smiles. "Doctor, of course she'll like it. It's incredible, traveling with you."
The Doctor gives her a half-smile, remembering the costs to his other companions."I'll talk to her about it when she wakes up."
Lana wakes up disoriented and groggy, feeling like she's had a truly deep sleep. It's the first one she's had in a long time, and she's not sure what to make of it. She blinks up at the ceiling and, feeling as if her thoughts are moving through syrup, processes that it's not white.
The ceiling isn't white. She's not in her cell. Where is she?
Then she remembers. Energy floods through her and she tries to sit up straight, but limbs feel like lead. Something's different, something beyond the colors of the walls and ceilings. She feels heavier and lighter at the same time.
"Don't get up too fast," A voice says, and she sees the Doctor, sitting down on a chair near her bed, closing a book. Had he been sitting here watching over her, waiting for her to wake up? The thought makes her feel strange. "You might not remember, but you lost a lot of blood."
Yes, the surgery. Then it hits her, what feels different.
"The shackles are gone." Lana breathes. She looks at her wrists. There's light scarring on them, as well as pale, lined imprints where the edges of the metal had bitten into her flesh. Something tells her that those might not ever go away. "Wait. You..."
She makes herself scramble up on the bed, further away from him. He doesn't look surprised, only resigned. "You made me sleep. You used your psychic power on me!"
Somehow, she'd never even considered someone else having the same powers she had, despite the aliens from her youth having them. But the Doctor looks so human. She has a fuzzy memory of living in foster care and being so used to being able to keep people away if she was scared. And she'd tried it on the Doctor and Donna, but it hadn't worked on him.
He'd just kept staring at her until she'd stopped trying. She hadn't really known what she could do, back then, but she should've remembered that, should have thought that he'd have power over her. She's not going to let anyone have power over her, ever again.
"I did." He admits. "And I'm sorry for it."
She stares at him. Sorry never stops anyone from doing anything.
"You were hurting Donna and Damien, stopping him from keeping you alive. You were going to die if hadn't done it."
Hurting them? But she's never done that with her psychic powers on accident. She's not even sure if she can. Can you cause pain? That might be useful to know how to do. "What d'you mean, I was hurting them?" When she thinks back, she only remembers a blur of fear and then the sharp clarity of the Doctor's voice in her head.
"I'm pretty sure that you had a flashback and thought of us as threats when he tried to put you under. You lashed out with your psychic powers, which are much more powerful now that those are removed, and basically threw the memory you were experiencing at us and forced us to relieve it. For Donna and Doctor Damien, who had never experienced anything like that before, it was debilitating." He stands up and runs his hand through his hair.
She's never lost control like that before. She's never been able to afford to. She hears the Matron's voice in her head, you're dangerous, darling. We need to keep you suppressed, for everyone's safety. She shuts her eyes for a moment, then processes something he hadn't said.
"But for you it wasn't? Debilitating, I mean?"
"I'm more used to the sixth sense."
She frowns. "So you're psychic. But you said it was rare in humans."
"It is rare. In humans. But I'm not, I'm a Time Lord."
Lana opens her mouth to ask a question and then realizes that she's been asking a lot. This is usually when people start to hit their limit with her questions. So she shuts it and nods. She doesn't want to antagonize him, especially if he's more powerful than her. She glances at the door behind him. She still feels weak, but could she get out still? She doesn't even know where she is, what if she's still on a completely different planet and—
"You can ask, Lana. I don't mind." She looks up and sees the Doctor's gaze on her, intense, like he's seeing right through her.
"No, it's fine." She says, keeping her eyes down.
"Hey, can you look at me?" His voice is gentle, and her surprise from the question makes her look up. "I'm not Torchwood, alright? You're not in prison, you're not trapped, you can leave any time you want. And you can ask me questions, and I'm not going to get angry. You can express your opinions and I'm not going to kick you out. You need to know that what you experienced is not normal. Most people are not going to do... whatever it is Torchwood did to you when you did those things."
Lana stares at him, unsure what to say. "I know it wasn't normal." She says quietly. "That's why I escaped."
"You might know it was wrong on some level, but you were still raised there since you were a child. That was your normal. But it's not anymore, alright? That goes for Donna, too."
Lana nods, avoiding his eyes.
He sighs. "It's okay if you don't believe it yet. Just... you can ask me about my species, alright?"
She takes a breath, hesitating over what to say. "So you're a Time Lord. What does that mean? You look like a human."
"No, humans look like Time Lords." The words have the ring of something he says often, and he beams at her. Is he happy because she asked something?
"Well, we're different on a lot of fundamental levels, but some of the main ones are that I have two hearts, two brainstems, and we live a lot longer than humans do. And we have a lot more senses than humans. We can sense time, and we have psychic senses. That's why I was able to resist your psychic suggestions when you were a kid."
Lana nods, trying to process all this. "You said without my shackles I'm really powerful. Is that just in terms of humans, or...?"
He seems to understand her question. "Your abilities are greater than many Time Lords I knew, but you're definitely not the most powerful."
"Who was the most powerful?" She's testing out the questions she can ask—this one she doesn't even need the answer to very badly.
A shadow seems to pass over his face. "There were a few."
She knows that he avoided the question, but he still answered it. Maybe it was too personal? Speaking of personal, Lana remembers what he said about her showing one of her worst memories to strangers. "Did you, er." She clears her throat and tries again. "Did you see my memories?"
"I'm afraid that I did." He walks over to her bed again. "Your attack was so sudden and powerful that it went through my shields."
Lana closes her eyes for a moment. "I'm sorry."
"No, Lana, I'm sorry." He looks at her straight on. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that."
"It wasn't your fault."
He's silent for a moment. "It was. They were intending to use you as a weapon against me. Because of what I'd done to Torchwood in the past. That's what your Matron told me."
"Oh." She doesn't quite know what to think about that. "Why would they want a weapon against you?" She's only seen him twice. Is he more well known than she'd thought? But then, he had said that Torchwood didn't like him.
"Some people consider me dangerous." He admits. The shadow from before hasn't left his face. "I try to help people. Sometimes... sometimes it doesn't work like I want it to."
"And are you? Dangerous?" It seems like he's not talking about just the way he'd put her to sleep psychically.
He looks away from her. "I don't try to be. I'm—sorry that you were hurt because of me."
She feels a wave of something deep and dark, like anguish, and a deeper grief than she's ever felt and—then it's gone. She touches her eyes and realizes they're wet.
"Oh," The Doctor says, looking at her like he's realizing something. "You-we need to work on your shields."
"What did I just feel? Those weren't my emotions." She frowns, and he sighs.
"Your sensitivities are much higher now, and when people are feeling strong emotions, without proper shielding, you might feel them too." He explains, but doesn't say outright that those were his emotions, she knows they were.
"But I think lesson one should be about psychic etiquette. It's obviously not taught on Earth but intelligent species that are psychic generally agree on a few rules: one, never look in someone's mind without permission or control them. In some societies, it's, well, it's compared to rape."
Lana's eyes widen. She's done that countless times, and it's never felt so violating, but she wasn't the one being violated, was she? And she's done it on purpose, as well, and who knew how many times in her childhood—she suddenly remembers doing it to the Doctor and seeing someone called Rose, if it's like rape in his society he must hate her—
"Hey." He snaps his fingers in front of her eyes, and she's brought back to her body with a jolt. She realizes she's been struggling to breathe.
"I'm-I'm sorry, I didn't-"
"Don't apologize," He says sternly. "You're alright. You're not being judged on laws you didn't know. And you did things like that in Torchwood, right?"
She nods, not trusting herself to speak. She remembers the first time she'd realized that someone could hijack her body against her will, she'd lain awake for hours in her cell, thinking of all the male guards that could get into her room at any time and she wouldn't be able to fight back, the crippling fear that came from that until she realized that Torchwood wouldn't want their goods damaged and shoved it out of her mind
"That was in self-defense. That's okay to do. They were holding you against your will, Lana. We've been over how wrong that was."
She takes a breath, realizing the sense in that. "But-I'm pretty sure I did it as a kid, too. I think..." She stops herself from finishing the sentence, that she'd done it to him. Surely he'll kick her out if he remembered that.
"You couldn't control yourself as a child." He reassures her. "Even in societies where everyone is psychic, that's overlooked as a simple mistake."
She nods, feeling guilt in her stomach.
"And I remember that you did it to me, too." He says, his voice gentle. "Few weeks ago for me, remember? I promise it's all right. You were eight years old."
She looks down. "I'm still sorry."
"Well, that's why I'm going to teach you how to control your abilities." Seeing her face, he amends his statement. "Poor choice of words. I'm guessing the Matron told you she was controlling them, too."
She looks away, not trusting herself to say anything about the Matron. Her emotions are too complicated at the moment. (She'd shot her in the foot, and she'd considered doing worse.)
"Let's say, use them to their highest potential without hindering you. At least, if you're alright with me teaching you. You'll need to relearn using your abilities since you've become so used to working past the restrictions." He gives her a look, almost seeming nervous.
Lana notes that, wondering why he would be nervous. And she'd already thought that she'd have to be taught more after hearing that she'd accidentally forced one of her worst memories on the people who were actually being kind to her but had assumed she'd have to figure it out through trial and error. "Where am I right now? Are we still on New Earth?" The other planet.
"No, this is the TARDIS medbay. Doctor Damien finished the procedure, though it was a little dicey there at the end. You should still take it easy for a few days while your blood levels steady."
"Your ship has a medbay?"
"Yeah, it's a lot bigger on the inside." He looks around. "The room normally doesn't look like this, though. She must have changed it for you."
"She?"
"My ship is alive. She has a consciousness and will sometimes help out the people she takes a liking to, which it looks like she's done for you. So why purple for the walls, do you think?"
This is getting madder and madder. "Purple's my favorite color, I think."
"You think? Why?"
She shrugs, having only the vaguest memory of the walls of where she slept once being purple. "I'm not sure."
"Fair enough, I suppose."
"Is Donna alright?"
"Oh sure, she's fine. Spitting mad about what was done to you. She wants to blow up that building all over again."
"And are you?"
"Am I... what?"
She looks down. "Er, mad. About what happened."
His eyes darken, suddenly looking much older. She's reminded of the feeling of age that had come from him when he'd touched their minds. "Oh, I'm much more than angry."
(She also remembers the comment about him being dangerous.)
Lana clears her throat after a moment of silence, where she actually looks around the room she's in.
The walls are, like the Doctor said, a dark purple, and it's a wide room, probably as large as the Distributer Room—she shoves that comparison down—with a domed ceiling colored deep blue with stars that she doesn't recognize from Earth. Granted, she hasn't really been outside in ten years.
There's shelves and containers on the walls, but instead of being made of white plastic like Torchwood, they're made from dark brown wood, giving it more of a homey feel instead of a hospital. If the ship is really sentient, it seems like it created this room to be the opposite of the Torchwood facility.
So despite the tube in her vein that's probably helping to restore her blood levels, it doesn't feel like a hospital. It feels... comfortable.
"Did your ship read my mind?" She asks.
"As much as you would say you read people's minds, then, yeah, I guess." He answers. "Do you like the room, then?"
She hesitates to say yes, remembering that talking about something she liked in Torchwood led to that being used against her. But then she reminds herself of what the Doctor said—you can express your opinions and I'm not going to kick you out. When did she start caring about not leaving this ship, the Doctor, even? The feeling scares her.
She realizes she's been silent for too long. "Yeah, I do."
"Good." He smiles. "She'll probably base your room after this design too."
"My... my room?" Lana pinches her lips together.
"Oh, right. Well, unless you'd rather be dropped off on Earth—wherever you'd like—I was wondering if you'd like to... travel. With me. And Donna." He rubs his neck self-consciously.
"I... what?" Her mind goes blank. He wants her to travel with him. In his space and time ship. Where she could go anywhere.
"It's all right if you don't want to, I just felt it would be unfair to you to just drop you off after everything you've been through because of me and you really do need training psychically and—"
"So you're just inviting me because you feel guilty." She says, then immediately winces. Why did she say that out loud? People don't respond well to accusations. She should have just said no.
"Of course not." The Doctor says, eyes widening. "No, it's not just that. I... There are certain traits I look for in my companions and you've got them. You're whip smart, and you ask questions about everything, at least I can tell you want to, and you've got morals."
"But I shot the Matron." She remembers his face when she'd done it, not quite fear, but dread and almost repulsion.
"You did, but not fatally. I saw you change your mind. And I think that you can learn from that. No one ever taught you it's wrong, really."
Is it wrong? She doesn't regret it. It was necessary. Should she tell the Doctor that? He'll probably take back his offer if she does. But what does she care? She really should say no.
But at the thought of saying no, a powerful ache rises in Lana's chest. She could go anywhere, see anything. It's the most freedom she could ever have—freedom from her planet, even from a time. Even if the TARDIS is the only thing that could take her away, she feels like she could survive anywhere, and she could learn to pilot it. Even if the Doctor doesn't teach her, which he probably won't, she can learn through observation.
And the Doctor and Donna were the first people who were kind to her. They saved her and the Doctor helped her get her shackles off, told her she can ask questions and express her opinions.
He's looking at her, seeming anxious.
"I don't regret it. Shooting her, I mean." She closes her eyes, certain the offer is going to be taken away, now that she's gotten her hopes up for it. She should have just lied—she's good at it, after all. But it feels wrong to lie to him.
"I know." He says, and she opens her eyes, staring at him.
Lana waits for the inevitable. When it doesn't come, she says, "And... you're taking it back, right?"
"No, I stand by what I said. Donna and I would love to have you travel with us. And there's really not a lot you can do to change that, even not regretting shooting your prison warden in the foot. I still don't agree with it. But I'm a firm believer that people can make mistakes and still come back from it. So what do you say? Want to come?"
"Yeah, I do." The words tumble out of her mouth, ungraceful, tripping over each other. She's surprised by the sheer want she feels—she hasn't felt it before. Or maybe she hadn't been allowed to.
He smiles that wide, beaming smile that makes her want to grin, too. "Brilliant."
A/N thanks for following and favoriting my story, that means a lot to me! (just btw, the last five chapters' titles come from the moon will sing by the crane wives.) anyway, i have about three chapters of buffer left before i run out of pre-written chapters, so we'll see how the schedule goes. until then, please review, they make my day!