Chapter 6

Acclimatising.

Over the next few weeks Raven tried to be civil with the Doctor. It was difficult because the memory of what she had done was still fresh in her mind and she was still on edge waiting for any sign of betrayal, or disapproval from him. But the Doctor remained as civil as ever. Why did he trust her? She could squash him like a bug, she could do it in her anger and yet the Doctor not only trusted her, he didn't fear her. What does it take to get a rise out of this guy? There must be something, and partly she was curious what that rise would be.

There was something child-like about the Doctor, like he was a big kid minus the irritating parts like whining, moaning, bullying and being judgemental. If Raven had to compare the Doctor to someone it was Peter Pan, the boy who ran away so he never had to grow up. He was rarely serious especially when it came to himself and his remarks were always flippant, and what's more he was always showing off some trick or other whether it's how he cooks, constantly juggling the ingredients, sometimes literally, or explaining some scientific concept to her at a million miles an hour that even she couldn't understand it. She was tempted to place a time spell on him to slow him down so she could catch up.

Raven still refused to open herself up. What did she have to talk about? She didn't go on adventures, fight monsters, save planets. She'd only ever known Azarath and the inside of this machine, nothing else. So the conversations were pretty one sided.

After a long winded explanation where the Doctor finally asked her what she thought, Raven said "I think you talk way too much." and the Doctor replied "That's only because you're such a great conversationalist."

Raven did something she rarely did. She smiled, and her diaphragm convulsed but she fought it back. She'd almost laughed but it had stalled on the way out. She could tell the Doctor noticed. He must be feeling pretty smug after raising a smile and nearly a laugh from the 'ice queen' as she was sure some called her.

Now in the control room, and since Raven refused to leave the TARDIS, the Doctor was using the TARDIS console to show her the galaxy outside and some of its wonders.

He pulled a big lever on the console and the impossibly high ceiling adopted a projection of space outside. The stars, and wisps of colour from nebula. Quasars, worm holes, and a host of other scenes of galactic beauty. But none of them impressed Raven, she had seen it all before and to her what she was seeing was just a different arrangement of things she could look up in any book on space. Though Raven wasn't impressed, the Doctors enthusiasm was enduring and a little contagious. She found herself paying more attention than she otherwise would.

The Doctor would make a terrific teacher Raven decided, he just had a knack for grabbing your attention and making it hard to look away from him.

Raven couldn't understand what the Doctor was trying to do. Teach her? Communicate with her? Domesticate her? Make her a 'real girl'? She got angry at the last two conclusions but she doubted they were correct. The Doctor may be many things, weird, eccentric, irritating at times but he was always respectful, mostly.

"This is pointless" Raven said folding her arms giving the Doctor a look that was a mixture of boredom and scowling.

"In retrospect, everything is ultimately pointless" the Doctor said "Breathing in and out is pointless, sun sets are pointless, eating your favourite meal is pointless. The universe is both ordered and chaotic based entirely on the laws of nature and physics, it has no direction or will, and eventually it'll all run down. Time and Space will lose meaning as every atom, photon, neutrino, in the universe evaporates into nothing. Just clouds of energy that'll red-shift into utter meaninglessness. Everything is pointless, everything dies, me, you, the TARDIS, everything you love or hate, no matter how much and how fast you build it'll all fly a part at the end of the Universe."

There was weight to that comment as if the Doctor knew that concept of pointlessness much more than she did herself. Raven was speechless, not because she didn't want to speak, but because she didn't know what to say to that. The Doctor had described how she felt almost perfectly, though a lot more scientifically.

"Okay, what do you want to do?" the Doctor asked leaning against the console. "What is meaningful to you? What does the demon daughter Raven want to do?" He wasn't trying to be insulting, he was attempting to be playful. It didn't work on her though.

"I want to be left alone" Raven replied flatly.

"Then why are you here?" the Doctor asked, "Listening to me?"

Raven sighed irritatingly, she didn't know herself "I wish I knew."

"I'll tell you why." the Doctor said smiling.

"I'm sure you will" Raven rolled her eyes.

"Because the human spirit is not designed to be confined. You're trying to shut the universe out because you think it'll make you feel safe, or that the universe would be safer without you." Raven was getting irritated again and she didn't know why, "You're here because your brain wants company, though your mind insists that it doesn't. An interesting paradox. Your brain is curious. It doesn't understand the meaning of anything because it thinks it has no meaning to exist itself. In short, you're having an existential crisis, and its clashing somewhat with your own anti-social philosophy of total nihilism." the Doctor finished.

"None sense" Raven groaned, the words resonated in her brain but she refused to recognise them, she knew what he was talking about, but she denied their truth. "I'm..." she refused to use the words 'happier' because it sounded 'mushy' "I am... content with being alone."

"You'll have to grow up some day" the Doctor said, Raven took that one badly.

"I AM grown up!" she insisted. "I just see the world for what it is!" Though the Doctor had his back to her she could tell he was laughing, laughing at her. But she kept her anger in check.

"What is the point of this conversation? This entire debate?" Raven asked.

"That's the nihilism speaking again" the Doctor joked.

"What are you trying to do to me, what do you want me to say?!" Raven exploded getting irritated, she composed herself and continued on in a mocking tone "Do you want me to say 'Oh, Doctor, you were right, I see now that my life now has meaning?!'" The Doctor just continued to work at the TARDIS console as Raven vented.

"Technically, you just have." The Doctor laughed. Raven felt like a vein in her head was bulging with frustration.

"You just don't get it!" Raven tried to keep her voice level but she was fighting back a lot of anger "You dismiss me but you don't have the first clue about me, do you?!"

The Doctor stopped fiddling with the console and leaned against it and listened to Ravens rant.

How could the Doctor possibly understand her? Looking at him he seemed like the kind of person who was at the top of his class, probably had millions of friends looking up to him, respect him, love him, he maybe even had Gallifreyan girls falling over him. His cute looks and regal nature told her he was probably born into some kind of prosperity. Where as she was born a demon, was treated and shunned like a demon and was told her very nature is wicked and evil, and worst of all to know your destiny, it just... it just... How could the Doctor possibly empathise with that? The happy go lucky traveller, so bouncy and happy, and it irritated her that the Doctor would judge her behaviour when he didn't have a hope in hell in understanding anything about her.

The Doctor looked sadly at her, and Raven felt herself turn red because she hadn't just thought this, she had blurted it all out, every word of it. The candles dotted around the control room had all been blown out by her power escaping as she had vented and the TARDIS control room was almost pitch dark except for the glow from the console, the tall time rotor casting everything in blue. The Doctor was silent, not another word passed between them. The only noise was the slight, echoing groan of the Time Rotor as it rose and fell inside its glass column.

Raven took the silence as conformation that she was right and he had no defence, nothing to say back to her. Which makes a change! She thought. So she spun on her heel and walked back to her room leaving the Doctor in the darkness.

She didn't see the Doctor again for days. She didn't want to. Who was he to tell her what she thought was wrong?! How dare he try to manipulate her like that. What sort of traumatic life could the Doctor have had to produce such a happy go lucky person? In Ravens mind there was none. If there was, then the Doctor would be more like her, trying to kill all emotion inside himself so he didn't have to feel the pain anymore.

Each day Raven's mind returned to the subject of the Doctor and how he could be so arrogant and condescending towards her. It was an obsession she kept pushing aside but kept coming back, even meditation didn't seem to get rid of it. Why wouldn't it go away?!

"Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the Dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed, and eats you when you're sleeping." it was that rhyme again? Where was it coming from? "Zagreus at the end of days, Zagreus lies all other ways, Zagreus comes when times a maze, and all of history is weeping." It was replacing her chimes, the words were just spilling from her mouth and she didn't know why.

"Zagreus taking time a part, Zagreus fears the hero heart, Zagreus seeks the final part, the reward that he is reaping." The more of it she said the more familiar it seemed to get to her. Weird. "Zagreus sings when all is lost, Zagreus takes all those he's crossed, Zagreus wins and all it costs, the heroes hearts he's keeping." Who or what was Zagreus? Weirdly the turmoil in her head seemed to slowly evaporate as her emotions came back under her control and she was at peace again. She didn't know what that rhyme was, but it seemed to do the trick for her.

With a clear mind she began to rationalise that though the Doctor may have been arrogant and condescending, he was good at heart. Maybe even foolishly so; and she wouldn't let her life and her behaviour be dictated by that man, nor her emotions towards that man.

Later she found herself returning to the console room but only to change books again, and leave. But she stopped as she realised, the Doctor was out. The TARDIS was still and she effectively had the whole TARDIS to herself, she had the control room to herself, which meant she had the library to herself.

Instead of walking the distance back to her room Raven sat down in the Doctors antique reading arm chair. It was quite comfortable. She didn't stretch out her feet to the foot stool though. Instead she curled up, raising her feet onto the chair and pulled her hood up so she could focus on the book and not the flashing lights of the console. She didn't realise her form looked very defensive but consciously she didn't notice. She began to read.

The peace of her mind was disturbed only by the chinking as a cup and saucer was placed on the table next to her. She was brought back to reality and to the realisation that the Doctor was back, the TARDIS was in flight again, and he'd just left her a cup of tea.

The demon girl looked at it, some part of her wanted to smash it, to focus all her power on it and shatter it into a million pieces, because it was her nature, she was a destroyer. But for whatever reason she just didn't. She didn't drink it either and intended to let it go cold, but several chapters into her book the cup was still steaming.

The Doctor was still busy at the controls. As he moved around the console his gentle voice quietly hummed a tune. It was a slow, relaxing tune. Amazingly, Raven didn't find this distracting nor annoying. In fact, it was rather soothing to listen to. She didn't know why. She just liked it.

Raven could leave, she could get up, walk out and go back to her room. But she was already comfortable where she was, and leaving would just be her emotions dictating to her what she should do instead of her mind, so she stayed. Plus, she did kind of like listening to his gentle humming, she didn't know why, but she just liked it. Her eyes briefly rolled to look over the top of her book at the Doctor as he piloted this insane Time Machine to its next pointless destination and its next pointless adventure.

To Be Continued...

[EDITS] A great deal was chopped off and replaced in this chapter because as I continued the story I felt what was about to happen was better suited to later in the story instead of here at the start.

[EDITS 02/11/19] One thing I noticed about the Eighth Doctor that no one ever picked up on in the TV movie was that he hummed quite a lot. After listening to the audio story Dalek Trap where Paul McGann does hum it suddenly clicked for me that in the books and audios the Doctor is never shown to hum a gentle tune, and like Paul McGann's performance the humming can be quite soothing to listen to. So I decided to make that part of the story overall. Since this is early in eights life its possible he fell out of the habit later. For this minor edit I've had to go back and edit it into chapters further on than this. It doesn't alter anything major, it just gives something about the Doctor for Raven to like about him. Plus, its kind of poetic for gentle music to sooth the soul of the monster within.