Fight or Flight ( Doctor Who Fanfiction )

Excerpt from Versailles

It was my mother's voice haunting me as I tossed and turned.

What did you do, Omara?

Nothing, I wanted to scream back at her, but I couldn't speak, or even open my eyes.

Those five words continued to ring in my ears.

When the voice finally faded, I jolted at the sound of a new one: the Doctor. I could hear his footsteps, and Amelia's.

"How is she?"

"The same," a stranger said, his accent distinctly french. "If you'd let me use leeches, perhaps - "

"That's enough, thank you," the Doctor said, a dismissal if I'd ever heard one.

"She'll be okay," Amy said anxiously once the door clicked shut behind the retreating stranger. "Won't she? She has to be."

"I really just think she needs to rest."

"Heh, rest. She's never been very good at that."

"No?"

"Mm-mm. Doesn't like sitting still."

"Well. She'll be all right."

"It was a moment before the Doctor spoke again. "Omara is... strange."

I could practically hear Amy's eyes widen playfully as she replied, "She's the strangest."

"Yes, but why?" He insisted. No longer pretending like this wasn't an interrogation.

"Why are you asking me?" She deflected. "She just is."

"Hm. Was she always like this?"

"You're asking your questions to the wrong person, Doctor. Omara has never made any sort of sense to me."

"But you've been friends for so long."

"And it's never gotten any easier. Wake me up if she changes, won't you?" And with that, Amy's steps retreated.

*

My fever broke in the early hours of the morning, but I still couldn't force myself out of the trance-like hell I was in until there was just enough light to turn my room from black to blue.

When I finally felt conscious enough to lay still, I stared up at the vast golden canopy above me.

I began to remember pieces of what had happened to me, gathering up memories in bits and fitting them together.

As it turned out, I was not back to normal after my stay with the vampires in Venice. Perhaps I was allergic to their venom, or perhaps this is what a recovery from it felt like - there was no medical literature on the subject that the Doctor could find. Apparently this was the first time in recorded history that the people of Saturnine had attacked any humanoid species. There was no way to know how this would go.

That was one of the only things I could remember hearing him say after I collapsed in the middle of King Louis XIV's court, in front of all the gilded courtiers. And at that point, I already had a soaring fever.

At first light, I requested a bath to be drawn, and drowned my exhaustion in the foam of a floral-scented soap. Then I sent for a dress and allowed myself to be trussed up like a doll, laced into a corset, petticoat, and gown, and my hair curled and mostly piled on top of my head. I didn't enjoy a single second of it, but it might allow me to blend in a little better. Then I went off to find something to do.