InsaneJournal

Who: The Doctor, a pair of locals and some Toclafane. Later Reinette.
What: The Toclafane leave the Mister Master a present. Reinette finds it. Two narratives.
Where: Outside the apartment.
When: Early Thursday morning.
Rating: R for violence and character death.
Status: Complete.

Though the Doctor was known for being reckless and thoughtless and a bit of an idiot at times, he knew he couldn't fight the Toclafane. They were human, so he couldn't bring himself to harm them. The knowledge of what they were had destroyed him the first time, when he was a captive on the Valiant for that year that no longer existed for anyone but a handful of people. Besides that, there was nothing he could do. He didn't have a way of harming them and he refused to use the sorts of weapons people were making. Guns had never sat well with him, even ones that shot lightning rather than bullets. And anyway, he had selfish reasons for holding back. Or maybe they were selfless. He couldn't quite be sure and maybe it was both. But he was in love, in a way he hadn't been in other crises, and he didn't want to risk dying and upsetting Reinette. Or, infinitely worse, having her follow him into danger and get killed. He had lost so many people over the years, far too many, but he felt certain that would break him. That would be the end of it.

But there were limits even to how much the Doctor could stay out of a situation, not at all surprising considering he found it harder to stay out of a situation than to get involved. And he couldn't stand by where there were innocent people in danger. The woman was young with ginger hair that made him think of Amy and wide frightened eyes. A little girl, no more than three or four, clung to her leg, her hair the sort of brownish copper of old pennies. He wondered, as he watched them huddling in a doorway, if Elspeth would have hair like that when she got older, a nice middle ground between her parents. They seemed so scared and he wanted to help them desperately. So many people were dying, more and more with every day, and he just wanted someone to survive. He wanted this woman and her child to survive. It was so little in the grand scheme of things, and yet so much to hope for when things seemed so consistently hopeless.

He didn't even think about staying, or waking Reinette who was still sleeping in their bed. He paused at that thought. Their bed. It wasn't something he could have said at many points in his life and it was nice. But he had to focus because there was trouble to be had and running to do and he needed this one little win to remind him that good things could come from these dark times. Because otherwise, he didn't know how he could carry on with this place like it was. He didn't bother with his jacket or his bowtie, and his braces hung down beside his legs, but there were more important concerns than how dashing he did or didn't look. He'd have leapt out the window to save time if he hadn't known for a fact that the fifth floor was a bit high for jumps. No use having to regenerate just because he couldn't be bothered to take the bloody stairs, after all.

He ran out of the building, carelessly making his way to the pair. "It's all right," he told the woman when he reached them, giving her a reassuring smile. "It's all going to be all right. I'm going to get you two somewhere safe, I promise. I'm the Doctor, just the Doctor, and I'm going to help you." He looked around. "What's your name? No...never mind. Tell me later. For now I just need you to trust me, because I'm going to get you to safety. But we need to run. Can you do that?" At the woman's nod, he crouched down to the child. "Hello there," he said gently. "We're going to go somewhere safe, okay? Somewhere away from all these bad things. But I need you to be a brave girl. You can be brave, can't you?" The child nodded as her mother had and he scooped her up into his arms and settled her against his side. He took the woman's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze before taking off running. He could hear Toclafane nearby but he was sure they could make it. Then they were close. Too close. And he was shocked as the woman let go of his hand abruptly. "Go, Doctor!" she shouted, pushing at him, and he realised she was sacrificing herself for the sake of her child. It was a sort of nobleness and goodness that he found so often in humans, and one that surprised him even when it really shouldn't.

He ducked into an alley so the child wouldn't have to see her mother dying, but he could still hear the sounds and he had to hold himself still to stop from running back to her. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. The child gave a wailing cry and he felt his eyes dampen with answering tears. He just wanted to help him. "Hush," he told the girl, soothing the girl even as she struggled to get out of his arms, crying for her mother. "We need to go. We need to get out of here. Get somewhere safe." But the girl broke free of his grasp and ran back the way they had come. He chased after her, freezing in horror when she reached her mother's body. No child should have to see that. The horror faded to a terrible numbness at the sound of a laser and the sudden pile of ash where the child had been.

"No, no, NO!" he shouted at the Toclafane, forgetting about everything else in the wake of this growing feeling horror and disgust in his hearts. "She was a child! They weren't doing anything to hurt you! She just wanted her mother and you killed her! Why would you do that? What reason could you possibly have?" He knew the answer, had heard it from them before, but he desperately wanted some logic in this awful, wretched situation. He wanted a reason why that young woman and her child had died. The woman and child so like Amy and Elspeth that it was hard to breathe when he thought of them dying like that. When he thought of the look he would see on Rory's face if he let something like that happen to them. He needed to understand and, more than that, he needed to stop it.

"Because it's fun, Doctor Doctor!" came the lilting voice of one of the Toclafane. "It's all so much fun."

"We're playing games," said another. "You can play too. I bet the Mister Master would like that game!"

"Stop it!" the Doctor yelled. "Just stop it. You don't have to do this things! You can stop. There's no reason for any of this. You can all just stop."

"But we can't."

"We can, but we won't. Too much fun."

"Yes, you can," he insisted desperately. This couldn't go on or more people would die and he had a stake in things that he never had before. He'd always been invested in humanity, but never so personally. He just needed to convince them that they didn't have to do these horrible things. There was a chance, however small that chance might be, that they would listen, and so he had to try. "Listen to me! Please just listen! You can stop. Please stop this. I'm begging you, please! You're better than this! Whatever else you are, you're human beings and You. Are. Better. Than. This!"

Those were the last words he said before one of the Toclafane moved behind him and bladees stabbed through both his hearts. He gave a choked gasp, not having expected that, then collapsed to the ground when the knives were pulled out. Around him, the Toclafane giggled merrily, whirring around and chattering about how much fun they were having and how proud the Mister Master would be when he found their present to him. And as they left him there, distracted by other things, the sun came up, slightly dimmer than usual, on another morning in Colligo.