Trap of the Toymaker: 3
Chapter 3: Darkness is More than Night.
“He was very kind, in his vague, erratic way, and she was very fond of him. But he did seem to have a knack of wandering into the most appalling danger.”
--Victoria musing of the Second Doctor, The Abominable Snowmen novelization by Terrance Dicks.
The Darkness was everywhere.
If the planet had been gloomed before, now it was a Void; a cavern of the Universe by which all marking of time and spatial awareness had simply ceased to exist.
There was nothing to see...and nothing to be.
Nothing.
A spark of light struggled against the gloom, winking out.
Who are you?
Zὅe knew she was small, but she rarely felt as small as she did in the force of the delicate, whispery dry voice in the darkness. She shook like a leaf under its power.
What are you?? It sounded impatient now, puzzled and interrogating.
Who are you?? She didn't know if she was thinking or speaking; the Darkness was too...too thick about her.
She was shocked when her answer was a moment's surprised silence...
...and then...
laughter?
No; laughter was one entry in a thesaurus. What she was hearing in her mind was every possible definition of the word in every language possible. Amusement, diversion, distraction, contemplation, musing, reflection...and beneath it all...something very strange and intangible. She had no idea what it was.
So the toys look up? So they do, so they do, once in a while, once in a great while...And such a toy! A clever-child toy for a Child-Clown. A good little clown for a good little game.
But, it paused, and menace gathered in the new and thoughtful rumination in its observations, does he share his toys? There's the question. I, for one...do not.
And that quickly, the voice was gone.
Zὅe could have wept in relief. That brief contact had plugged her into something so much greater than herself that even her intellect shivered before it-and like being against a hot wire of electricity, its absence left her unspeakably relieved and bereft at the same time.
She couldn't move.
She couldn't even think.
For a woman of Zὅe's intellect, where her brain was equal parts comfort and curse, she was doubly terrified. In these ways her own mind had betrayed her.
She couldn't think!
Why?
All she could do was exist!
*
The Doctor was just outside the boundaries of her mind, and she knew viscerally that his arms were wrapped about her in a warm embrace, but she couldn't seem to feel this; it was all her skin's language, reporting to her in vague, distant terms that there was pressure about her waist and shoulders and cheeks that felt like lightweave woolen coat, and there was a smell that could only be the Doctor.
Zὅe blinked, her eyes heavy and quivering. Against the Doctor's warm coat she was shaking like a leaf-until now she didn't know what that meant. The phrase had only been a phrase in bland words. Overcome with too much input, she buried her face in his shoulder, breathing in the familiar smells of the TARDIS. The Doctor only looked shabby and disreputable; in reality he was neat and clean as a pin. His TARDIS was as sterile as anything she had found in outer space. That sterile neatness reminded her of the Wheel, and soothed her when she was troubled past her ability to control herself.
“There, there, Zὅe. It's all right...it's all right...” He was talking, soothing, but though she could hear it she couldn't put it all inside her mind.
*
Unaware that a rescue was on its way, the Doctor “eyed” his blackout situation with mixed emotions.
Zὅe's scream had been so unexpected that his regrettable gift for panic had caused him to stumble at a crucial moment; with that stumble had come the drop of his torch into the tall grass. Zὅe had already dropped hers with her scream, but she wasn't the least aware of doing anything.
As the torch slipped out of his fingers, the Doctor had less than a second to make a choice-drop Zὅe as she lived one of the most terrifying moments of her young life and grab his torch before it rolled out of their range for good...or hold on to her and let the torch go.
He'd chosen with his instincts instead of his intellect.
The Original Doctor wouldn't be pleased, would he? He rocked the sobbing young girl back and forth in his arms. That old gentleman had been everything but indecisive! It was one of the few things he remembered reliably from being that Doctor...mostly because that incarnation's mental voice had chosen to stick around for a bit, just to make sure he was doing it all right...or at least not too terribly.
The Doctor was partially grateful that his predecessor had been able to give him ghostlike echoes of advice and warnings as he struggled to adapt to his new and very strange body-all the stranger because it felt so RIGHT to wear it. But at the same time, he had been relieved that the echoes had faded over the gradual wear and tear of his new form. The old gentleman had known his time for being the dominant personality was gone and had made a rather Imperial decision by counseling him here and there in place of the absence of other Time Lords who really should have fulfilled that duty.
Is this ethical? He remembered asking himself awkwardly, timidly even. Are you supposed to be counseling me?
Your head's a muddle, isn't it? Yes, yes, there has been precedent in the past...several cases I...we...used to review back when things were all respectable with us... There was a firefly flash of memory-image between them: Red-orange Prydonian robes (the grim joke being that Chapter steeped in blood more than others), sitting in a jury and debating cases of unscheduled and emergency regenerations.
Yes...yes...he was remembering now...most of the cases were permissible, but a few had been re-written by the Court when the original personality overrode the new, vulnerable personality (most of them still shaken and dazed from the emergency circumstances of their regeneration).
It's going to take far too long and too much precious time to consult the past whenever you're trying to remember! The Doctor pointed out in an exasperation that was aimed at them both. I have a diary, you can still read, can't you? Hmn? Well keep it with you!
That was his first day as The Doctor, though it took him months to stop thinking of the younger one was “the Original,” and for weeks he saw the old face in the mirror so he stopped looking at all. For his part, the sleeping Doctor was still quite capable of knocking loudly and speaking even more loudly...but those times were now rare.
Right now, if he were capable of speaking, he would surely be voicing his disapproval for sacrificing their only illumination for a frightened girl.
Because she isn't Susan?
The thought was so troubling it terrified him as much as the dark terrified Zὅe.
No one was Susan. He would have both moved heavens and earths to spare her...The Old Sir would have clutched for Susan before the light...but would he have understood that Zὅe was as important to him as Susan had been?
I'm not made of spun sugar, you know!
The Doctor gasped out loud, softly, and clutched at his pounding chest. It had been a long time since he'd heard the Old Sir's querulous voice-much less that clearly!
And why are you so surprised, hmn? Did you think you were the only one to learn something? Well? That just as you've learned from your new body, you think I can't learn from it too? We are still the same person under the skins!
Perhaps, but I can't remember you so well! It's not fair!
There were many things The Sir had said to him in the privacy of their mental communications, but a deep-throated, gleeful chuckle was unique.
One is not a slave to one's memories unless they choose, my boy! This is your turn; mine is past! Your new life, your new experiences! You are free from the limitations of my past. Didn't you pay attention in school when they were making us sit through that health class?
No more than you were!
Another chuckle. Very good. Gratifying to see I haven't lost all of my wits...
The chuckle faded; turned dark. You can't rely on your memories all the time, my boy. I understand the temptation, seeing as how we're in the rouge circumstances we're in...but it's too Time Lord to rely on your memories. You have to do better than that! Start exploring your own paths; find the box you're in and think your way out of it! You decided to Get Involved with the Universe and its troubles, so you can't risk thinking like a Time Lord now-they'll find you all the faster!
The Old Sir's mind-voice was fading, reflective as it returned to its sleep. You have a lot of work to do, my boy...if our futureselves have a chance, you need to make it easy for them because they won't have the luxury of Time...give them Experience! It's your best bet!
...Your best bet...
...bet...
...et...
...*
Gone.
Confused at the freshness of this conversation, the Doctor rubbed at his brow. Inside his embrace, Zὅe's trembles were finally stabilizing. She was so small, he thought with a bone-deep ache. Small like Susan. His arms remembered how Susan would cling to him as a baby, burying her tiny face in the bend of his neck.
They are dear things. He'd said it once, watching Polly and Ben with a smile.
Yes... He didn't have the comfort of Susan's hugs now...but Zὅe was real and she was here and she needed him as much as little Susan did in the early nights of their exodus when she cried out for him and asked him when her mother and father would stop being dead.
Night was always the worst, he remembered. Oh, dear. Oh, dear....
He didn't ask Zὅe questions about her life and family-she never volunteered! But what if...
His thoughts were broken as the tiny body in his arms stiffened with a shuddering gasp, and, without warning, arched in a blind panic.
“Let me out!” She cried. “Let me out!”
“Zὅe! You're perfectly safe!” he exclaimed, pitching his voice in vain to be heard over her terror. She lashed out and by luck, struck him across the nose. More stars than were natural to this planet's sky sparked over his vision and his head snapped backwards, instantly realizing the trouble they were both facing:
Zὅe was smaller than he was, and she was panicking. She was still capable of using her mind, and she knew not a small amount of marital arts.
“Zὅe!” If he could reach her before she broke free and ran off...
She screamed, a high-pitched note that disavowed any intelligence at all, and the scrum was on. As desperate as his young charge, the Time Lord threw himself over her torso, using his much-heavier mass to pin her into the prickly grass. She screamed again, but her panic had taken the edge off her ability to hurt him with deadly force.