Child of the void (Doctor Who)

Part VI (V)

I couldn't have been out for long. When I regained consciousness the soldiers still walked, just sitting me down on a wide sofa. One leaned closer to inspect my wounds, but shot up as soon as he saw my eyes open. I counted five or six people buzzing about in the room. They had another priority.

A sting in my shoulder made me wince; the arm hurt too, but not as bad. Pain radiated to my back, so the bullet had gone completely through. How strange, I always thought this would hurt more. Maybe it was the adrenalin.

No time to process. Where was the Master? What sort of room was this anyway? Shelves lined the walls, all of them filled to the brim with books and trinkets. A large desk stood proud in the middle of an expensive carpet; notes and open documents littered the surface, a pen, carelessly left behind on scribbles of round symbols.

I only had seconds to take everything in, then Vienna stumbled inside, still helping with carrying the Time Lord and flanked by another pair of soldiers who trained their weapons on her, following every movement.

"Don't you have somewhere else to put him?" she asked. "A med bay of sorts? And is there a doctor around? I have no clue how Time Lord bodies work." Vienna almost carefully dropped the Master down on the sofa I had occupied just moments before. "Not that I'd help him anyway. And put those guns down, for fucks sake!"

"Keep them up," I mumbled and met her gaze. "But don't harm her!" I added as an afterthought. They weren't hypnotised, but I had no clue how far their loyalty would go. And I had no authority over them and also...

They... listened.

Surprised, I watched as they exchanged looks and kept their weapons up before two turned to the Master. He laid on his back, clothes drenched in the wet sheen of fresh blood. His breath came in shallow bursts, rattling painfully through his ruptured lungs. Someone came into the room, kneeling down next to him with a stethoscope and a bag. Blood dripped down to the ground. Not much, but it didn't stop, didn't get less.

The Master's eyes snapped open, he gasped and tried to curl together, but instead just groaned in pain. The other man tried to hold him down, struggling in vain because the Time Lord was too strong, even hurt like he was.

"Hey, hey! He'll help you. Let him!" I begged.

A gurgle of blood came as an answer. His eyes flickered, a sliver of recognition? The Master tried to say something, but nothing but red foam came over his lips.

"There is nothing I can do for him," said the doctor. "The lung ruptured and one of his hearts got shot through. No one can heal that."

Nothing I didn't know already. And as if to agree with him, the Master arched his back, writhing and crying out with pain. A small cloud of mist emanated from the shot in his chest, hovering there like a threat. My mouth dropped open, admiring the mesmerising spectacle. Each particle glowed in a slightly different colour, melting together in a golden hue, like the magic of old forgotten times.

But this was no magic at all.

He would die.

He would die and I could do absolutely nothing about it. More blood, golden mist and a groan of pain. He gasped out more particles and even his skin seemed to glow now.

No, no, no! It couldn't end like that! I knelt down next to him and grabbed his head, pressing my forehead to his, trying to reach him somehow. Just somehow. Let me do something, anything. Don't die, don't die, don't die! I begged those words, pressed them against him like a prayer and-

Pain. It seared through every vein in my body the moment our minds clicked together. Not my pain, his. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Everything drowned in red until the flickering light of... mind. Mine. He clung to it. A life line that lead nowhere and still he couldn't cease his grip of it.