Title: Blood Calls To Blood
Pairing:
Saxon/Lucy
Rating: R
Disclaimers: I don't own Doctor Who, for I am not EVIL enough. Spoilers through ONLY "Sound of Drums". I finished this story before I watched tonight's episode, my Betas are my witness.
Author's Notes: Part V of the Bless - A Mad Love Story, my Saxon series. For previous stories, see below. Also, RTD can now have my soul.
Summary: Every couple has to spend the holidays with the in-laws.
Here Come The DrumsDevil InsideDomesticityBassinet ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s just like Charles to ruin the holidays for the rest of us,” his mother-in-law proclaimed bitterly, as he stepped through the doorway of the elegantly decorated living room, “He always hated any occasion which kept him from being a skin-flint to his own family, and on top of all that, he sends the servants home! Home! Well thank God he thought to ask Lucy to come home and handle the serving, or I don’t know what we’d do - Harold!” Her tone changed from harsh to simpering in a heartbeat. “Thank God you’ve come - you’ll be sure to boost Charles through his latest bout.”
He resisted the urge to grimace - even harder to fight the urge to kill - and instead dredged up a sympathetic expression for his gathered in-laws. “I’m here for the entire family, of course.”
“That’s so good of you, Harry,” his sister-in-law purred, folding one leg like it had been hacked off a giant chicken and attached to her hip, with a smile that was a poor imitation of Lucy’s own wicked one. She swatted her balding accountant of a husband, her voice painfully reminiscent of her mother’s. “Isn’t that right, Nathan?”
Nathan, with his backbone made of flatworms, wobbled out a near silent, “Yes dear.”
“Don’t know what you’re all bitching about,” Lucy’s brother grunted, while he cleaned one of his phallic symbols - whoops, he meant guns. “Old bastard will out live all of us, the bleeding evil wanker.”
He clicked his tongue against the top of his mouth, taptaptaptap. Rig-ht. “Well, I’m sure with the love and support of his family, he’ll get through this.” He pulled out the shopping bag he’d been holding behind his back, putting on his best mega-watt smile, “And to help the family, I’ve brought your Christmas gifts early.”
His smile widened as they crowded around him, with a chorus of, “Oh Harry, how sweet!” from the women; he got a meek, “Thank you Harold,” from the flatworm, and a grunt from the ape-like, sexually repressed brother, “What the hell is this, poof?”
“Cellular phones - latest models actually.” He grinned broadly, “I’ve already programmed my number into all of them - my own ring tone and everything.”
“A direct line to our future PM!” his mother-in-law cooed, “Let’s all hope we never have to use it!”
“Oh yes, let’s hope.” He smiled, covering quickly over their confused looks by adding, “I’d best see after his Lordship and Lucy. She was quite upset by the doctor’s pronouncement over the phone. She went right up to see him.”
“Oh, of course, of course. Our Lucy has always been a bit of a Daddy’s Girl,” his mother-in-law said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“So very true.” He flashed his own pearly whites, before turning to leave the room, waggling his fingers in goodbye. His expression turned murderous the moment he was by himself, muttering softly. “And so very fortunate.”
He reached the landing and slowed, holding himself back. Lucy had left the door to her father’s bedroom open, and he could clearly see the two of them together. He watched broodingly as Lord Cole touched his daughter’s cheek with one withered hand, his eyes flashing fire as he spoke. Lucy’s eyes never left his face; her profile was set in intent concentration, and her eyes burned back into her father’s silently.
It suddenly occurred to him that he didn’t remember his father - or his mother for that matter. It made no sense to him to mourn the passing of someone anymore. Was it because everyone he had ever had a glimmer of feeling for in his youth were long gone, disappeared into the voids of the universe? Or was he truly just that callous? The thought settled with others, sending a silent chill through him.
Lord Cole looked up then, and saw him standing out in the shadows, and Lucy’s gaze followed her father’s. They stared at him with matching gazes of careful watchfulness, and he couldn’t help but feel even more alien than he already was. The moment broke the moment Lucy smiled tiredly, and her father waved him in weakly.
He walked towards the bedroom, just as Lucy was moving away from the bed. They met at the door, and he let his gaze scan over her face, but whatever secrets her father had divulged to her, she was keeping to herself. She spoke briefly, “Father wants some eggnog. I’ll be back in a little while.”
She stopped, and then touched his cheek, rubbing one finger down the side of his face pensively, before smiling again. “Keep his spirits up, will you? He could use a laugh.”
“Of course.” He gave her the smile she liked best, the little one, watching as she walked away, her arms folded over her chest, before he turned to look within once more. Lord Cole was watching him, the faintest of knowing smiles on his face. He closed the bedroom door, and leaned against it, offering the same sort of grin. “Hello, old man.”
“Hah!” Lord Cole snorted softly. “That’s quite a stretch from you, Time Lord.”
He looked down at his shoes, letting out a faint snort of amusement, before ambling into the room. “I suppose so.” He moved around, plucking up varying knickknacks. It had been a great deal easier to watch from the outside - this final death.
“Don’t quite know what to do with yourself, do you Harry?” Lord Cole answered for him, and he felt his gaze sweep back to the wrinkled old man in the bed, who hacked out a laugh. “As many times as I’ve imagined you’ve escaped Death, in one way or another, it must be quite the thing, watching someone stare her straight in the eye.”
“I have to admit, I am a coward.” He felt his smile appear, lopsided. “I’ve been running from her since I was a tiny Time Lord lad. Don’t think I could have your gumption, Charles.”
“That is your blessing, and your curse, I’d imagine. In the end, you don’t have to look down the short road, and see where your sins will land you. You’ve got all the time in the world to redeem and damn yourself, a thousand times over.” Lord Cole lifted his hand, coughing roughly. Finally, he could rasp out breath again, and those cold blue eyes rested on him again. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it? The drums - your madness?”
He didn’t answer right away, but instead he moved over to the window, peering out to the long, empty miles of garden. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, forcing his voice to lightness. “It looks like snow. What do you know, Charles, you had to die on a White Christmas. Your wife will be incensed”
“My wife has been the least of my worries for three quarters of our marriage.” Lord Cole answered dryly. “You are a more immediate concern.”
He felt the tension tightening his body, all the muscles in this young and strong body, and he stared out the window listlessly as he answered, his voice barely above the whisper. “It just never stops … over and over and over again… sometimes I just feel like clawing out my own brain…”
“You’re scared of it. The insanity. What it’s made you do. What you might do in the future.” Lord Cole’s voice was solemn. “What you might do to Lucy.”
He leaned one hand against the window, forming into a fist, not daring to look at Lord Charles Cole, of Tarminister. He’d never been afraid of any human being in all his long life, but he couldn’t look this old, sick man in the face as he spoke. “Yes. I’m losing more of my senses, every day. I can’t promise you she won’t get hurt anymore, Charles. Especially if I have to protect her from myself.”
He listened to the old man sigh. “The Great and Almighty Time Lords … and they never thought to invent Lithium. I don’t think much of your ‘ageless’ brethren, Harry. They didn’t seem to prepare any of you very well for the possibility that you would go completely bonkers.”
He couldn’t help it, he laughed, and that was when something occurred to him. He frowned and finally turned to look at Lord Cole, “I’ve just told you I might snap, and I might very well do something detrimental to your daughter’s well-being. You’re taking it surprisingly well.”
Lord Cole smirked, and blue eyes that were so like his Lucy’s shone with all the cunning of a maddened wolf. “Don’t be addled, Harry. Open your eyes and see what you stumbled into. I’m just as much a monster as you are - I just never had the time to perfect it as you have.”
He folded his arms over his chest, acknowledging the truth of it silently. No other human being could understand him so well, without hearing the beat of a different, relentless drum. Arching an eyebrow, voicing his fear as blandly as possible. “You won’t be around to protect her from me, much longer.”
“Protect her? I’ve never needed to protect Lucy. She’s my heir, my progeny, my finest masterpiece.” Lord Cole tilted his head back. “I’ve made her fit to be the Empress of the most powerful man in the world - who just so happens to be you. But I’ve made her fit to survive, too. Oh, you’ll try to break her, Master. You might do everything you fear, and worse. Just remember though, my daughter is a monster too, a human monster. You might not like what comes snarling back at you, out of the corner, when her patience finally snaps.” The old man looked at the ceiling, and then coughed out a laugh, “Then again, you might like it, a lot.”
He smiled himself, moving closer to the bed, “Stop it, Charles. You’re making me blush.”
“Hah.” The old man gestured him closer. “Come closer, Harry. You’ve bared your demons, at my expense, and I’ve absolved you of all future sins. Now come here, sit. You’ve got work ahead of you tonight.”
Curiosity drew him forward, and he sat himself at the old man’s side, one eyebrow lifting. “What do you mean?”
“You need to kill me, Harry.” Lord Cole looked at him with terrible solemnity.
He stared at the other man for a long, long moment, before he put his hand to his chin and rubbed it in confusion. “You know, sometimes I really don’t get you or your daughter. You two are the only ones in your family, quite possibly the world that I don’t wish bodily harm to on a daily basis, yet you two are the only ones lining up at my own personal guillotine.”
“Insanity, Harry. It’s not just for megalomaniacal aliens anymore,” the old man murmured, “But you had to know this day was coming. You must have no ties to this earth, either one of you. It’s the only way you’ll be able to go through with it.”
“I can understand for Lucy, but are you really that worried for me, Charles?” He asked, knowing the answer before he said it, yet dreading it all the same.
“You know I am. It would be easy to be weak now, when you know how it could all go so horribly wrong.” The old man reached up, his fingers wrapping around his coat sleeve. “This is why the timid and the sane do not conquer, Harry. They cannot possibly grasp what it costs to be great.”
He found his hand covering that wrinkled and old one, even though it revolted him to do so, “You should be coming with us, you know. Watching on with that glimmer in your eye, as the world burns. If I could only give you more time…”
“I’ve had my day, Harry. I’ve done dark things that would turn my wife’s hair white, if she knew.” The old man sat back again, his hand sliding away. “I’ve had a good run of it - no complaints. Now it’s time for you and Lucy to let me go.”
“All right, Lord Cole, of Tarminister.” He shifted on the bed, looking at this sickly shell of a human, wondering at the stirring of feeling in his voice. Ah, but of course. Respect - perhaps, even love. A father figure, found far too late. He smiled then, a glimmer of the old madness, “I take it for granted you want this to be clean. No, y’know.” He made a gesture like he was slashing with a knife, humming the theme from that interesting movie with a young Anthony Perkins, making his eyes wide with a devilish smirk.
“Oh yes, that’d play well with the press. ‘I swear, he asked me to hack him to pieces! Vote Saxon!’” Lord Cole smirked, before he nodded towards the I.V. in his other arm. “I’m sure a smart lad like you can figure out how to work a morphine pump.”
He leaned over to look, pursuing his lips. “Two minutes, tops.” He got off the bed, walking around to kneel by the pump. “Well, I suppose I should ask if you’d like a priest, or something…”
“A priest would take too damned long.” Lord Cole snorted, and when he looked at the old man with a shocked look, he grinned a shark’s smile. “Dark, dark things, Harry. You’re just the last in a long list of sins.” He coughed a little. “I do have a last request, though.”
“And what would that be?” He eyed the controls of the morphine pump, shaking his head. It’s like they wanted people to overdose. Humans, he’d never understand them.
“Kill them - those worthless pieces of flesh who have the temerity to share my name, my blood, or at least my bank account,” he lifted his eyes to meet the steely gaze of the invalid, who whispered, “Annihilate them, so loudly that I can hear their screams all the way in Hell.”
“Annihilate. That’s a good word.” He rose, thoughtfully, before a smile flashed across his face. “But why wait for Hell?”
Lord Cole raised an eyebrow, “What are you blathering about, Harry?”
The showman in him just couldn’t resist, and he did a short little run across the polished hardwood floors to slide over to the bedroom door. He opened it wide, and walked out into the hallway, leaning over the railing to listen intently below. Ah, mother and sister blabbing away still in the living room - the sound of the back door closing hard meant ape-man had gone back to his natural woodland habitat - and Nathan was probably in his favorite place, secretly sucking down scotch in the old man’s library while he pretended to go over the books.
He grinned slowly, closing his eyes, before he swaggered back into Lord Cole’s room. He did a half spin around one of the bed’s long wooden posts, before dropping down on the mattress next to the old man, plucking out his cell phone out of his pocket, singing cheerily, “Happy Christmas to you, Happy Christmas to you, Happy Christmas, my dear homicidal father-in-law, Happy Christmas to yooooooou.”
Lord Cole looked at him, and responded deadpan. “Oh God. It’s happened. You’ve gone completely around the bend, haven’t you?”
“Pah, you mock genius. Don’t start pumping that morphine yet - I plan on sending you out,” he turned on his cell phone, making sure it had signal, “In style.”
“And you plan on doing that with your cell phone.” Lord Cole stated dryly, but his curiosity had caught him, because he let the remote rest in his palm.
“It’s a funny thing how great minds think alike. Of course, I planned this for an Election Day surprise … but eh,” he waved his hand dismissively, as he tapped on the keys. “Christmas is the time for giving. All right, pick a member of your brood. Any member.”
“Harry, if I wanted to speak to any of my family on my deathbed, I’d make sure I had a semi-automatic rifle under the covers. Or possibly a grenade.” Lord Cole sighed, “However, I’ve always wanted to tell my son he should just get out of the closet and get himself well and bloody fucked before he starts raping himself with his own guns, so why not him?”
He stuck his tongue out between his teeth, selecting his ape brother-in-law, and hitting ‘Send/Call’. “Oh, trust me. You’ll like this way much, much better.” He held the phone in front of Lord Cole. “All right, when he picks up, and you’ll be able to tell because of the video, just say, ‘Jelly Baby’.”
Lord Cole snorted. “What, will it squirt jelly into his eye, or something?”
“I keep telling you. It’s better.” He was so excited, he was practically bouncing on the bed as the phone answered.
“Hullo?” The brutish voice through the phone growled, as they could see the whole of the ape’s face, his face illuminated from the light of the phone, as he stood somewhere on the grounds. “Oh, it’s you two. What the hell do you want? I’m working on my stalking.”
Lord Cole looked at Harry, and then at the phone, where he said very distinctly. “Jelly Baby.”
“The fuck you - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Over the small video, the phone suddenly sparked thin, vicious bolts of blue lightning, and the ape fell on the ground, screaming as he convulsively held onto the phone as it electrocuted him to death. The arm flopped around, finally resting on the final shot of the ape lying dead on a pile of charred leaves, completely fried throughout.
Lord Cole’s mouth dropped open, and he stared at the screen, and then over at Harry, before he looked back at the screen again, “But how the hell did you…?”
“Oh, simple matter of putting a small electrical pulse generator inside, which of course was voice activated and especially coded,” he beamed, delighted it had worked so well, “Pretty slick, eh?”
Lord Cole took the phone in his hand carefully, glancing over at him shrewdly, before a truly glorious evil smile pasted itself onto his face. “This is literally, the best gift I’ve ever gotten.” Blue eyes gleamed. “Who should we off next?”
He pursued his lips, scratching his chin, before looking over at his father-in-law, no, his father, for this is only an activity between fathers and sons, vengeance against one’s enemies, no matter how innocent those enemies might be. “I’ve never liked Nathan.”
Lord Cole’s eyes were truly something to behold, as he slowly skimmed through Harry’s address book. “Neither have I.”
It was thirty exhilarating minutes later of wholesale slaughter, when the front door opened, and Lucy’s footfalls could be heard echoing through the mostly silent house. He and Lord Cole were just about to queue up the video of Lord Cole’s wife falling face first into a fruitcake, and the eldest daughter trying to grab her and electrocuting herself, falling over into the Christmas tree - again - when they heard her climbing the stairs. They had kept the doors open - all the better to hear the screams in stereo - so they watched her walk down the hallway with a quizzical expression on her face that was completely darling, a brown paper sack in hand.
She leaned into the room, looking at both of them, “Is there any reason why my mother and my sister are roasting merrily by the fire?”
He looked at Lord Cole. Lord Cole, in turn, looked at him. It only took a moment before he burst into sniggers, and Lord Cole was huffing out strangled snorts of laughter. He laughed so hard that he actually rolled off the bed and fell on the floor, kicking his feet in the air, as Lord Cole literally howled.
Finally, they both managed to calm down long enough to meet Lucy’s wry expression, as she started to take off her neat gloves and coat. “Oh, you boys.” She wrinkled her nose - so very cute - as she replied. “It smells awful, and I don’t know what we’ll do with the bodies.”
He wiped tears from his eyes, pulling himself off the floor to flop next to Lord Cole again, grinning. “Oh, please. I’ll just call in. Tell them I’ve moved up the Post Election Celebration by a few months. There’ll be a clean-up crew out here in thirty minutes, tops.”
“Perhaps a bit longer, Harry. You might want to check your messages.” Lucy opened up the eggnog for her father, going to sit on Lord Cole’s other side. “Or just turn on the telly, and see for yourself.” Her lips curved up in her own kind of dark, personal amusement.
His eyebrows raised, he leaned over to Lord Cole’s nightstand, plucking up the remote to turn on the flat-screen TV, set up on the other side of the room. BBC News blared to life, as a newscaster said in fear, “… the star is opening fire on the people below in downtown London, and chaos is reigning as police are trying to...”
Lord Cole offered him the carton of eggnog, his voice impressed, “The best Christmas present in the world, and now, perhaps the only original Christmas Special I’ve seen in ages.”
“God, I love the holidays.” He murmured, taking the eggnog in one hand as he picked up his phone, calling into the Ministry immediately. “Thompson? Are you watching this? I want our people mobilized - tanks. I want you to open fire on that thing, as soon as they’ve got the shot. You’ve got my full authorization.”
He clicked off the phone, taking a long sip of eggnog. He glanced sideways to make sure that both of them were watching too, because quite frankly he couldn’t avoid showing off, just a little, with the tanks. They were, both of their eyes glued to the set, but Lord Cole had his hand on the remote now, pressing down on the morphine release button. He looked up to see the old man’s face, and found his wife’s eyes on him. Their gazes locked over her dying father, and she offered him a silent, knowing smile. No tears - oh no - not from his Lucy - but something close to grief.
He watched her hand slide around, holding her father’s hand, squeezing the remote with him, as she slowly turned to watch the television once more. He swallowed, feeling something hard and tight in his throat that he didn’t understand, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Instead, he let his hand fall, and covered his wife’s, as he too turned to watch as the tanks opened fire on the alien ship, stamping his name into British history books forever.
He kept his eyes on the television, until he heard the last breath rasp from Lord Cole’s lungs, and then he silently lifted up the remote, and turned off the television, staring at the blank television and hearing his wife’s soft whisper, “Goodbye, Father.”
His gaze flicked to her, as she rose from the bed, her arms wrapped tightly around her. Not a sob escaped her throat, not a whimper, as she walked over to the doorway and leaned against it. He turned to look, finally, on Lord Cole’s face. The old man’s eyes were still open, and they gleamed with a silent, fierce joy. He lifted his hand delicately, and closed them, kissing that cooling skin. It didn’t matter, that he was a Time Lord, and this man was a mere ape in clothes. Blood called to blood, in the end. He uttered softly, “Goodbye … Father.”
He pushed himself off the bed, walking slowly over to where Lucy stood silently. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, burying his face into her soft hair. She squeezed him back, her voice soft but not broken. “We’re all the family we have now, aren’t we Harry?”
There was something in the way she said that - something that eased some of the tightness, and took away some of the fear. He was never alone, as long as he had her. He kissed her sloping neck, “Yes, we are darling. Yes we are.”