Colours Part Six B
Title: Colours Chapter 6b
Author: mogamus_ii
Rating: PG13
Pairing/characters: Finn/Kurt, Burt, Kurt’s mom (Katherine Hummel) Brittany and other Glee members, Amy Pond, Donna, 9th, 10th and 11th Doctor (phew).
Spoilers: Up to Furt (AU from there on) and mentions various episodes from new Who.
Wordcount: (this part) 2000
Warnings: AU (telepathic!Kurt). I started this a while ago, and assumed that Kurt was living at Dalton. Possible tissue warning for this part? I don’t know. Minor character death.
Summary: Crossover with Doctor Who. A strange man tries to stop Kurt going to Dalton. The Warblers are not what they seem. Finn is struggling with strange feelings for his stepbrother and really doesn’t know how to deal with Kurt’s suddenly cold behavior.
masterlist
The Doctor peered doubtfully into the crib.
‘You called him Kurt?’
‘Yes,’ Burt looked a little disgruntled at the Doctor’s behaviour and he folded his arms defensively.
‘That’s a mixture of both your names.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s, well, it’s a bit… cute.’
‘It’s normal in Katherine’s culture. A tradition,’ Burt huffed.
The Doctor pulled a face at Kurt, who stared up with big blue eyes.
‘He’s inherited his mother’s healthy glow, hasn’t he,’ the Doctor said, taking his screwdriver from a jacket pocket and pointing it at the baby. Kurt began to grizzle, his face screwing up as the screwdriver’s whine grew louder.
‘Will you stop that?’ Burt snapped at the Doctor, scooping his son out of the bed as he began to wail.
‘I’d only just got him settled down. Didn’t know a baby would cry this much.’
‘It’s probably the telepathy,’ the Doctor said. ‘Even if he’s only half Daethion he’ll be sensitive to thoughts, particularly at this age. Humans are noisy creatures. I’m guessing he cries less when his mother is here?’
Burt nodded, ‘If she’s holding him, yeah.’
‘Yup, that’s the telepathy.’ The Doctor bounced on the balls of his feet, his long coat flapping. ‘We’d better get on with this, then. I would have done it sooner, but the TARDIS wouldn’t park in the right year.’
‘What are you going to do? Are you going to give him a perception filter like Katherine’s or…’ Burt looked at the Doctor expectantly, and the Time Lord ran a hand through his hair.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. You can’t expect a child to understand why he has to wear that necklace or wrist strap all the time,’ he hesitated for a moment, before continuing, ‘there is something I can do, though. It’s a little more…permanent a solution than the filter. Or long-lasting, I should say, ‘cause it’s not necessarily permanent as such…’ he trailed off when he noticed the look that Burt was giving him. It was a look that suggested that it would be a very good idea to explain right now precisely what he was babbling about if he didn’t want a very angry and overprotective parent on his hands.
‘As you probably know, Daethions are very close to humans physiologically,’ the Doctor explained. ‘The real difference lies in the brain. That’s where the telepathic abilities come from, and in turn the telepathy causes the all the excess energy, from which you get the glowing and the rapid healing.’
Glancing at Burt, the Doctor could see that he was losing him.
‘Or in a way that a 51st century mechanic might understand: Daethions have a special section in their brain. If I can block that off- which I can- then he will function pretty much like a human. He won’t even know that he’s a different species from all his little human friends.’
‘So you’re saying we should… rummage around in his brain and lie to him about who he is.’
Burt was obviously not impressed. The Doctor laid a gentle hand on Burt’s arm. True, they hadn’t always got on very well. There was a kind of friction there, but the Doctor cared about all his companions. He didn’t travel with people he didn’t like.
‘Burt, I wouldn’t ask you to let me do this if it wasn’t necessary,’ he said, trying to emphasise the importance of what he was telling him. ‘Daethions are prizes. Fuel sources. Your son could potentially power a small planet. All it would take would be one bounty hunter passing through and you wouldn’t have a child anymore.’
Burt met the Doctor’s sad brown eyes with an even gaze.
‘We’d better get this over with then.’
It didn’t take long, just five minutes over the Doctor’s finger tips resting on Kurt’s forehead.
‘That’s it?’ Burt asked when it was over, as if he’d been expecting fireworks and explosions rather than just a sudden absence of glowing.
‘That’s it,’ the Doctor nodded. ‘Now, just a bit of warning- if the barrier I just put in his mind breaks, I can’t rebuild it. This sort of thing can only be done to someone when they’re very young, which is why I didn’t do it to Katherine. And it can’t be done twice, so be careful.’
He held out his hand for Burt to shake, then used it to pull him into a hug.
‘Maybe I’ll see you around.’
‘Won’t you stay until Katherine gets back from her lunch? She’d love to see you again.’
‘Sorry. I don’t stick around in one place for too long anymore.’
There was something terribly sad in the Doctors eyes. Burt remembered that redhead from last time and wondered if she was the cause. Donna, wasn’t it? Something like that. Burt gave the Doctor a warm smile.
‘See you around.’
*****
‘Aw, baby what is this? It’s beautiful.’ Katherine held up the t-shirt to admire it. Kurt beamed up at her, the bedazzler still in his hand. Burt made a mental note to keep an eye on it, because he didn’t trust his six year old not to start bedazzling the wall that he’d just finished papering if one of them took their eyes of him for more than a moment.
‘D’you want to show this to Mrs Peirce when she brings Brittany round for tea?’
‘Yes please. Can Brit make one too?’ He asked, lisping around the gap where his first baby tooth had fallen out the previous week (an event accompanied by much drama and alarm on Kurt’s part because of the compromise to his smile).
‘Of course you can baby,’ Katherine ruffled his hair affectionately. ‘I bet you can’t wait to show her your new room?’ She finished nailing the last picture hook to the wall and turned to talk to Burt.
‘Are you going to move those gas cans in the hall over to the garage later?’ she asked. ‘Brittany will stick her hands in anything and I prefer the children to be less flammable, if I can help it.’
Burt was about to answer when there was a loud knock on the window.
‘What was that?’ He asked, looking up from his sheet of colour samples.
‘Bird,’ Kurt replied, wobbling to his feet. Burt realised he was wearing the heels again. After the first pair on his third birthday, Kurt had always requested new ones every year to keep up with his rapidly increasing shoe size. Despite his misgivings, Burt always ended up buying them.
‘What bird?’
Kurt wobbled towards the door. ‘A bird hit the window. I’ll go and see if it’s alright.’
Burt rolled his eyes after Kurt had left the room.
‘Let’s hope that this isn’t going to end like Dorothy did,’ he said with a sigh.
‘Oh, I don’t think I could cope with another Dorothy,’ his wife moaned. ‘Maybe we should get him a pet. Then he might not rescue mice from the neighbour’s cat, that then up and die in the middle of the night.’
‘Poor old Dorothy,’ Burt grinned.
‘It’s not funny. You’re not the one who stayed up while he sobbed his little heart out.’
‘Mommy!’ Kurt walked carefully into the room, something small and feathery clutched in his hands.
‘Sweetie, you know what we said about mortally wounded anim…’
Burt saw her face go white.
‘K-Kurt. Can you put that down, baby?’
Thankfully, Kurt seemed to recognise the frightened to in his mother’s voice and obeyed immediately, carefully placing the bird on the new blue carpet.
Only it wasn’t a bird, Burt realised. Black slimed oozed from under its feathers and its beady eyes were pinned on Katherine.
‘What do we do?’ Burt asked shakily, pulling Kurt away from the Myre on the floor.
‘Call the Doctor; I have his number written down…’ She started searching through her pockets.
Kurt screamed.
Phone numbers forgotten, both parents turned to look at what had frightened their son.
Hundreds upon hundreds of Myre were clinging to the glass of the windows, staring silently in.
Suddenly, the sea of birds began to move, swarming and clattering against the glass. Frozen to the spot, the little family watched as the windows began to crack.
‘What do we do?’ Burt asked again. ‘We can’t call the Doctor. Last time he didn’t arrive for months!’ he was panicking, he knew, but he couldn’t help it.
‘Get me matches,’ Katherine ordered, hugging Kurt to her chest tightly. ‘In the small box in the kitchen.’
The glass of the window crackled and crunched under the strain.
Kurt didn’t understand. He was six years old, at an age where monsters were confined to the small space under his bed (where his mother could check regularly that they were behaving in accordance with their tenancy agreement that she’d helped him write on his best letter paper). Yet here they were, in broad daylight, their shiny eyes filled with the expression that the nasty boys at school had sometimes when they spotted him sitting by himself.
Only the boys at school weren’t monsters, they were bullies. There was a difference, even if he didn’t quite know what it was yet.
Kurt snuggled his face into his mother’s shoulder. He would be fine as long as she was holding him.
Burt tripped on the can of gas on his way back from the kitchen. He realised then, with a sick feeling, what Katherine planned on doing.
‘Get him as far away from the house as you can,’ she said, bundling Kurt into his arms. One look into Burt’s eyes told her that he knew what she was going to do.
‘Don’t try and stop me. This is the only way.’
The window groaned, glass splintering, ready to break at any moment.
Burt was crying as he nodded and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before turning to the door.
‘Why is Mommy staying?’ She heard Kurt whimper as they left the house. She spotted a few of the Myre peeling away from the main body to follow them.
Katherine ripped the perception filter from around her neck with a sob, letting her glow a deep, sad purple. The sudden rush of energy drove the Myre into a frenzy, and the few that had left to follow her son flew back to the crowd at the window.
Crying hard, Katherine ran into the hallway and grabbed the gas can. She returned to the room, fumbling at the lid with shaking hands and sloshing the fuel over the carpet, all around her. The fumes made her cough and choke.
The window broke open just as she dropped the can. The Myre swarmed into the room, shrieking and screaming.
When they were all inside with her, Katherine closed her eyes and struck a match.
No matter how loud Burt yelled for the Doctor that evening, he didn’t appear. It was worse than grief, the pain in his chest and in his head. Breaking a love-bond with a Daethion can do strange things to a person. Burt was, in a way, lucky to get away with a slightly weakened heart and a desperate feeling of loss.
Ten years later, a blue box arrived in his living room. He knew it meant that it was time to tell Kurt everything.
A/N:
1) Well, that turned out nice and happy, didn’t it? Sorry for ending on such a positive note.
2) I’m going with Kurt’s mother dying when he was six rather than eight, but only because it fits my timeline a bit better. You’ve got to love the Glee continuity, though…
3) Please let me know if you spot any Briticisms I’ve missed. Ones where the Doctor is talking are intentional (probably) but I know that the Glee characters shouldn’t be using them. Being a Brit myself means I don’t necessarily pick up on them, but please tell me if you’ve spotted any that I can correct.