trans_9 | Reflection [Open]

It doesn’t make sense. Or, rather, to be entirely truthful, it makes just enough to bother him and that basically amounts to the same thing.

The Doctor paces in front of the blast shield in the Observation Deck. Right now, he thinks he needs a good pace, something to help him think. No sign of Amy or Rory yet, which is surprising, in its own way. Amy has a habit of managing things all on her own, whether it’s saving him from that stint with the Time Vortex and the Entity or the whole of reality. Rory couldn’t be in better hands. If she is on the ship, he would have expected her to come dragging Rory after her by now. So no, it’s not really like Amy there. As for Rory…actually, the Doctor can see him getting lost here; between forgetting to check for gills, the plant-suits and meeting a load of aliens in a huge living ship, a human like Rory might feel slightly overwhelmed. Probably a bit distracting, yeah…

The howling nothing is still out there, the Doctor turning to look past the shield at it. It’s pretty, in the making-you-feel-slightly-nauseous kind of way.

Or maybe that’s just him.

Vaguely disturbing to look at or not, the Doctor glances out at the void outside of Stacy. It’s hardly the first time worlds, plural, have been destroyed or just generally threatened or in a peril-like sort of state. It's actually quite common. But there are signs or it’s meant to happen (history) except he knows as a fact that this isn’t one of those times. Amy and Rory's Earth has a very specific date of death and "death by Ohm" isn't right. This isn’t just a rogue black hole swallowing a dynasty’s system of planets or a quasar misbehaving. It’s…different. The Doctor turns away from the window, holding up the omnicomm in one hand. By now he’s stopped calling it a Thingie, even if it’s a much better name in his opinion. Useful thing, this omnicomm. Helps to keep in touch. He’s been trying to hack into it and get a direct line to Stacy but so far, no luck. Deadlocked, he supposes. Or maybe the new new sonic is still adjusting. Working out the bugs.

The sonic buzzes green in the Observation Deck as the Doctor continues to pace without looking before the blast shield. Occasionally he stops to twiddle around with the omnicomm, long fingers blurring, before he reads another setting on the sonic and then the cycle starts over. Every now and then he might make a full circle of the room, by some miracle not tripping over the fleshy seats, and might try listening to the walls or poking at where they meet the floor. Or what stands for a floor in a techno-organic ship.

[The Doctor is either poking around or looking serious business at the view, whatever works for you]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"The one assigned to me. Yeah. That's..not really his name, his name is a number. But it makes more sense to call him Iniss." He sighed, staring into the darkness. "...tell you the truth, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. It all just sort of snowballed, and then everyone knew and..it just got complicated fast. My brother made a deal with him, I should be keeping that deal. I think. Shouldn't I?"

He looked back at the Doctor, grimacing faintly, lips still twisted in a smile. "There's a difference? He kept the deal, or whatever it was. I'm not. That makes me less honest than Parasitic brain slugs from space." He pressed his hands against the window, bowing his head and looking away.

Like a believer come to confession, right? Being free meant he alone was responsible for his choices, for what happened. Things could go wrong and there was no one to blame but himself. Things could go right, and there was no one to interfere if he wanted to indulge in them.

Was that selfish? To want that. Even if he failed, he wanted to try. He had the chance to try, if he didn't give it back.

For once, since this entire stupid thing had started, he just wanted to live. "I'm selfish."

Under some circumstances, and depending on the deal, he'd say yes. But not all deals are the same. Despite Tom's insistence, it still came out as just a threat wrapped up in the pretense of a deal. Pretenses could be good, useful, even, but really, here it still struck the Doctor as a regular, cut and dried threat underneath that fake choice.

Surprising one, though. So this brother knew too. Odd thing to do, have the brother make a decision like that for Tom. The Doctor stood by, watching Tom’s face in the light from the void outside.

“Not much of a deal to keep, I’d say,” the Doctor said quietly. Seemed like Tom was still determined to be selectively clever; not that the Doctor could blame him. Human, right. Yeah. Usually a trait of the species, for everything else that was beautiful about them. “What else could you say, ‘sure, infect my family and then infect me while you’re at it’? If everyone had your attitude, they wouldn’t have needed to invade quietly.”

All they had to do was just walk right in -- not that a space slug could walk -– and make a few threats. Watch humanity throw themselves at their nonexistent feet. Maybe there were some species out there that were like that, but he’d expected better from humans.

"Not much of a chance to keep them free, otherwise. If I fought, broke through for a second, warned them...well, that'd be it then, wouldn't it? They'd know, and then they'd kill them or infest them and there'd be nothing I could do while my hand shoved their heads into the pool." He curled his fingers against the living view port. "So long as I kept my peace, didn't cause trouble, Iniss made sure no one took notice of them. No one pushed them to become controllers. Unwilling or not. They'd leave them alone." His freedom had already been lost, what more could fighting have done except put them at further risk?

He swallowed, turning and smiling, though it looked more like he was trying not to be sick. "Jake made a deal. At the end of six months, Iniss moves out. I-he-there was this girl-she-they...were...are...friends." He swallowed, feeling like his mouth was full of glass, hardly able to force the words out. "She wanted to protect him. It didn't seem like a big deal. I should keep it. It's just a little longer, right? Then I can come back to my friends."

He should keep Jake's deal, and Dani's deal, and everything that came between. Not run off and be reckless and stupid and selfish.

Reflection [Open]

no subject

no subject

no subject