Authors Notes: I actually have a direction for this story now and an end goal and with a few plot twists I hope people will enjoy.

[13/11/18] Re-wrote the last few bits because I realised I repeated something I explained in a previous chapter.

[19/05/19] Added Raven and Star Fires interaction.

Cheers

-TimeLordParadox

BOOK 3

TINY TERRORS

Plot:

When the Doctor is attacked by an unknown force, Raven has to take the Doctor to a hospital ship for him to recover. But while he is undergoing treatment the ship is attacked by one of the Doctor's deadly enemies. With the Doctor comatose Raven has to do everything she can to fight off these creatures, though weirdly she is still able to get aid and advice from the Doctor.

How can Raven, with her poor social skills, convince the captain to trust her and save as many people as possible from a fate worse than death?

Chapter 13

The Time Lords' Search.

Star Fire was gob-smacked.

"I am so sorry for you, Friend Raven!" She said.

"What for?"

"I thought the Doctor was nice. Always nice. I didn't know he could be so scary, even to you." Star Fire was just overflowing with sympathy for Raven. But Raven just rolled her eyes.

"Star, I deserved it. All of it. I had killed a new species. I..." she hesitated, but she could trust Star Fire to not think of her as weak for this. "I thought what I did was good. I thought it was a good deed. That it would please people." She stopped. She didn't want to admit it, but at the time she was motivated to show that she could be a good person. That she wasn't totally evil. So it was a slap in the face when the Doctor told her she'd done something bad. "What I did... it wasn't evil, exactly. But it should've been a very last resort, only." She paused. "And I shouldn't have gleefully enjoyed doing it, at all."

Raven sighed. She was younger and less experienced with life. She was still beholden to silly concepts like Good and Evil that she'd later realise weren't as clear cut as she had been taught. She wasn't totally convinced she was much wiser now, but she always desired to be better. But not out of desperation for peoples admiration. That she couldn't care less for. But out of a need to uphold her principles. She accepted not everyone would agree with her. But she'd learnt from the Doctor that sometimes in the act of doing 'Good' you can become so heavy handed as to just cause more Evil.

"I admit our relationship had soured." Raven spoke, "I honestly thought the Doctor hated me, and I hated him for hating me. But I hadn't done enough for him to cast me out and abandon me, and soon I'd have another chance to prove myself." She laughed a little throaty laugh.

Star Fire lent forwards, totally enthralled again.

I've never talked so much in the whole of my life. Raven thought. It feels... good.

Subconsciously, Raven waved her hand across her face when she heard the buzzing of a fly near her ear. She hated flies, somehow they always managed to get into the tower.

It had been a few days since Raven and the Doctor had last spoken. After he'd finished not a word escaped Ravens mouth. He simply said sternly, "Go to your room" and she had obeyed without another word. No one had ever spoken to her like that. Azar was always level headed and calm. Her mother was mostly loving but never raised her voice. Some of the other Monks on Azarath had tried to speak to her like that but she always gave them an attitude or a taste of her powers. But the Doctor? She didn't mind admitting to herself that he actually frightened her just as much as her own father did.

And he'd sent her to her room! She has the powers of a God and a Time Lord mortal had just sent her to her room? And she'd obeyed?!

Something in the way the Doctor had spoken to her as they debated gave her the sense that if he truly wanted to, he could destroy her, and she'd be powerless to prevent it, nor see it coming. But though his eyes showed fury they also betrayed a deep sadness that Raven didn't understand.

She sat in her room, now in total pitch darkness and tried to make sense of these mixed emotions she was feeling that swirled around in her head. Her powers had returned and they were out of control as she let the storm in her head manifest through them.

Her possessions, or those the TARDIS had used to decorate her room, now flew freely around her. Some just floating, others zooming around like they had somewhere to be. A couple of objects had already been blasted to atoms by her powers as an emotion ran wild and escaped through her powers. But she didn't care. She couldn't control herself, and it hardly mattered since weirdly her powers were unable to reach beyond this small room. She was safely contained in here.

She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. She was angry, Angry because the Doctor had not listened to her at all, he had just dismissed her like she was just a child and sent her to her room like one. He did listen, her mind said, he just didn't agree with you, and it's the fact he dared to disagree with you that's making you angry. This thought didn't help Ravens mood. "Who's side are you on?" She asked her brain, but it didn't reply.

She remembered that she had morphed her form into the most intimidating and creepy thing that usually frightened the children of Azarath, and most adults too. But the Doctor had just looked at her like a kid having a tantrum and didn't react. It made her angry, but it also frightened her.

It frightened her and she didn't know why. It wasn't because she took the Doctors threats of being able to end her seriously, because she found that she did. But it was just... she couldn't explain it in so many words. She had a kind of respect for the Doctor and what he did despite her dislike of his almost preachy nature. For some reason there was a part of her that wanted his favour and feared losing it forever. Almost like he was Azar, or even her mother. Still it didn't make sense to her. How could she admire someone she barely knows, dislikes and finds irritating?

Sometimes she felt like she didn't even know her own mind.

As she meditated she began to contemplate the Doctors words and the more she thought about them, the more she began to understand them in ways she didn't before.

Like his Greatest Enemies the Doctor had made a call on her life, a gamble. He had convinced both the Azarathian council and the Time Lord High Council to let her live despite the dangers. He'd given her a chance and wanted at least for her to turn out 'good'.

But Raven guessed her actions, the fact that she had laughed with ecstasy as she wiped the Shaydes from existence -an emotion she couldn't even remember feeling at all- gave the Doctor a call to pause for thought, and wonder if Raven was capable of truly being good.

Raven wondered if she herself thought that if the Doctor lost faith in her ability to be good then she was doomed to become her father.

"I'm not evil" she told the darkness around her, and she sensed a chalice object floating somewhere in the darkness explode into atoms at her outburst. "I'm not evil! I'm not!" more objects exploded, others twisted into horrific shapes as the power escaped with her tantrum. "I'm not! I won't! I won't! I don't want to be evil!" She shouted. But the silence of the darkness would not reply to her. It didn't care, the darkness didn't care, the nothing she talked to didn't care.

She lowered her face into her hands. No, she would not cry.

Could you kill a child? A voice in her head asked her. A child you know will grow up evil?

"I..." her voice cracked as she considered and reconsidered "I don't know" she told the darkness.

Raven hovered at the entrance to the console room and waited for the Doctor to go out so she could get to the library.

She didn't want to face the Doctor just yet. But by the look of him he was back to his old self. His coat was draped over the console and he rushed around the console in his shirt sleeves talking to himself. Wondering where the TARDIS should go next, what they were going to see? He rambled off wanting to play a game called Ludo with some guy called Jor-El.

The Doctor was back to normal, but Raven knew if she went in there she'd spoil that positive energy in there. She'd just drain it all away with her presence like a 'dementor' in that book series she was reading about a magical school. She didn't want that, to drain away the positive energy. She was more content to just observe it, and mentally let it wash over her from a distance.

It sounded like the TARDIS was landing, but the Time Rotor still moved after the noise had ended. Instead someone had appeared in the TARDIS, a man in fine robes of a scarlet, velvet material and a big golden head dress and collar. It was a Time Lord! And a more official one at that. What was another Time Lord doing here?

"What?" the Doctor exclaimed "What are you doing here, Turlock?" his voice didn't sound inviting to this person.

"Doctor, I Turlock of the Celestial Intervention Agency..." the Time Lord began.

"Spare me the introductions, Turlock, and kindly tell me why you're trespassing in my home?"

"I believe you were in the Azarathian Dimension some months back." The Time Lord said.

"Yes, paying my respects to an old friend. What of it?" the Doctor asked and appeared to be trying to keep the console between Turlock and himself. Clearly the Doctor disliked this person.

"The 'Trigon Handshake' has gone missing." the Time Lord said.

The Trigon what? Raven thought.

"She has a name you know." the Doctor said. "And what do you mean she's gone missing? How do you lose a powerful psychic like that?"

Ravens mouth dropped when she heard this. The Doctor was bluffing to his superiors, and for her, the monster. After all she'd done that he found disagreeable and he was protecting her still. The Time Lord too also seemed taken aback by that question. Clearly he suspected something.

"Since the Death of the Azarathian, Azar, she appears to have gone missing." The Time Lord explained, "And we can't find her Time Trace."

"And what? The Time Lords want me to track her down. To bring her in?" the Doctor said, acting like he didn't know what the Time Lord was saying. "I'm rather busy at the moment. I about to mop the floors of the Cloister Room."

"Actually we just wanted to ask you if you've seen her." the Time Lord said looking around the TARDIS as if he was disgusted by its appearance "Our Time Trace of her vanishes the moment your TARDIS last left Azarath."

"What? You think she's on board?" the Doctor looked around.

"Or used your TARDIS to escape and jumped off somewhere." the Time Lord suggested.

"Don't talk rubbish. If she was here I'd have sensed her instantly." the Doctor said "There would be a log of her breaching the ship."

"Unless you know she was already here." Turlock accused. The two were now circling the TARDIS console like two dangerous creatures sizing each other up.

"Are you suggesting I'm harbouring her?" the Doctor asked, never taking his eyes off Turlock.

"You advocated most strongly in defence of her existence." Turlock said.

"That was then, four regenerations ago, and just because I advocated for someones existence doesn't mean I want them hanging around my TARDIS. You think I want Daleks in here as well? Don't be so silly." the Doctor assured him. "For the past few decades I've been travelling alone. I am used to solitude, the last thing I want is some explosive teen cluttering my TARDIS."

"You speak from experience?" Turlock asked, trying to trap the Doctor.

"You know what happened." the Doctor said, his jaw twitched.

"Yes, yes, very tragic." Turlock said "You took it quite badly didn't you?"

The Doctor just looked at him, trying to stare him down.

"Do you mind if I search your TARDIS?" the Time Lord asked.

"Do you have a warrant?" the Doctor shot back.

"I could get one." the Time Lord fired back.

"You'd just be wasting your time." the Doctor said.

"Doctor, if you do have her in your possession it would be better if you handed her over." the Time Lord said.

"Even if I did have her, and I don't. I wouldn't hand her over to you regardless." the Doctor seemed to be discretely hitting switches on the console while Turlock was on the other side. "The incident with the Arc of Infinity is still fresh in my mind. Remember that? Do you plan to do the same to Raven?"

"None of your concern" Turlock said trying to stare the Doctor down, "if we find out she's knowingly in your possession, and you refuse to give her up. The price for you, Doctor, shall be very high, indeed."

"Oh yes, your threats usually are" the Doctor said adopting a mocking tone "'We, the self appointed bores in funny hats and collars that make walking through doors a chore, hereby give you a slap on the wrists because you are probably the most efficient, 'unofficial' agent we have and we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot if we ever disposed of you for good, and we'd be too scared of what you could do if we ever crossed a line.'"

"Don't overestimate your usefulness" Turlock warned sternly. "Or your power."

"Stop relying on me to solve your problems as if you don't have power, and I wouldn't have this 'ego problem'." the Doctor fired back.

Raven found this interaction entertaining as the Doctor stood up to his betters, but not with threats, or physical violence, but with debate and verbal mockery instead. Some of what he said, especially about those silly Time Lord collars managed to raise a smile from her.

"If you're done with your empty threats." the Doctor said, "Might I invite you to get off my TARDIS. Or must I put the proverbial boot up you?"

"Just keep an eye out for the 'Trigon Handshake'" Turlock said, why did he call her that? What is a 'handshake'? "You know how dangerous she is."

The Doctor looked like he wanted to say something, but bit his tongue before coming out with. "Wherever she is, I hope you never find her."

"If we don't, then not even the Time Lords will be able to stop that Trigon creature any more than we could stop, Omega." the Time Lord insisted.

"Yes, yes" the Doctor said, waving his hand dismissively "and I'm sure when that happens you'll call multiple incarnations of me together again and we'll defeat this Trigon creature for you before tea time." and he motioned towards the doors "Now, will you kindly leave the TARDIS?"

"We'll be in touch," the Time Lord said, and with the sound of a TARDIS taking off he'd vanished again.

"I hate personal 'Time Ring' technology" the Doctor said. He checked the console. "Good, he's actually gone, and not hanging around." He then began operating dials and switches again. "Let's put some distance between us and him, old girl, before he comes back with a warrant." The Doctor pulled on a lever marked 'brake' and the Time Rotor stopped. He typed some new instructions into the console and the Time Rotor fired up again.

"Raven, dangerous? Pah!" the Doctor scoffed. The TARDIS bleeped at him. "She's no more dangerous than a hammer." the TARDIS made a groaning noise. "A hammer can be used to build or used to inflict pain. If we viewed the hammer by the same standards they see Raven, then all hammers would be recalled and destroyed.

"If the Time Lords ever found her do you know what they'd do to her? Matter Dispersal!; and I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing I allowed her to be dragged into that chamber. Knowing the Time Lords they'll want me in for the front row seat of her trial and execution. I won't let them put that poor girl through that barbaric execution, or that boring and laborious process. I barely escaped it by the skin of my teeth last time."

He continued on with his one sided conversation with the console. Raven didn't know if the TARDIS could answer him back, or if he's just mad and talks to himself. "Raven was born to do a single act of evil regardless of her will. She was not born to be evil. I know she doesn't believe it, but she is nothing like her father, and I'm going to make her realise that." The console seemed to give a reply. "Because I am the Doctor, and whatever the odds, no matter how hopeless the situation I never, ever, ever, ever give up!" He said with the same conviction as when he'd said, 'Monsters learn to fear me.'

He was still protecting her? Did the Doctor care about her? That can't be right. No one cares about her! That's what she believes... or does she? She was so confused now. She groaned, she wished she understood emotions.

Raven felt like something was trying to click in head, but she just couldn't make the leap.

Did he love her? Actually love her? No, she didn't mean in a romantic kind of way she knew that wasn't the case. But what about in a parental kind of way. Part of her told her to immediately and aggressively push him away before he gets too attached. Raven needed no parental figure, the time for that was long gone.

She imagined her heart was like the TARDIS shell. Impossible to break into and she wasn't about to open it up for some strange vagabond Time Lord to take a vacant seat within. She won't allow anyone else in.

Raven was about to walk away when she noticed that there were two books at her feet, propping open the smaller door that lead into the depths of the TARDIS.

She put down the books she was going to exchange and picked up the ones on the floor.

'The Alice Compendium, by Lewis Carroll', and 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson'. She took both and replaced them with the books she had been carrying.

She glanced back at the Doctor one last time, then opened the Alice Compendium and began to read as she walked back to her room. Not once did she consciously question why the books were there to start with, though some part of her suspected who it was.

To Be Continued...

Authors notes: Of course the Time Lords would want to destroy Raven if she is a threat to the universe and their power. No matter how indirectly.

Raven's thoughts about her heart being impregnable also stretches to relationships and friendships, so don't go reading too much into that. ;)

The Arc of Infinity was a 5th Doctor story where the Time Lords nearly executed the Doctor for similar reasons they want to destroy Raven for. I'm thinking of exploring it in a future chapter.