Her Madman | Doctor Who [11th Doctor/Reader]

Hope

Hope feels much better than waiting for the choking end. You want the spark of it to flare and burn away the darkness inside you, so much so that your skin seems abnormally hot to the touch. Or maybe the feverish symptoms you feel are the beginning of the irreversible end, your discovery of the parasitical force inside you too late to stop it.

The Doctor doesn't think so, dashing about the controls with a tight, nervous energy. As the TARDIS rattles and groans around you, he keeps glancing over to meet your gaze, as if to reassure himself that you're still here. That you're still you, not a shadow-filled husk masquerading under your name and features.

The TARDIS lands with a jolt, the engines wheezing to a stop in a way that almost seems panicked. Like this glorious machine was rushing, sensing the Doctor's worry and straining itself through the loops of time.

You pat the console and murmur, "Get some rest."

"Right," the Doctor says, bustling around to you. He pushes his hair out of his face, though most of the strands flop right back down a moment later. "This should be interesting, considering that technically these Time Lords aren't called Time Lords just yet. They're just a race that climbed out of the black stretch of space with a knack for galivanting about outside their born-time."

He's rambling as you walk out of the TARDIS, the rapidity and erratic way of his words betraying his emotions more than usual. He's rarely this unhinged outside the blue doors, and this makes you feel both happy to know that he cares so much but also strange for causing the Doctor to change because of you. You feel terribly powerful and you don't like it.

"Stop!"

Suddenly, the air shimmers and tall, red-cloaked figures stride out of nowhere to lower long silvery rods at you. Not the Doctor—just you. Their weapons seem to hum, the noise vibrating the air around you and growing a scream in your throat.

"Whoa! Whoa, all right! All right!" The Doctor lifts his hands in a show of peace. "We're not here for trouble."

"But you bring trouble with you," one says, words muffled by the silvery masks all the figures wear over their features and hooded by the cowl of their robes. "The female is heavy with decay."

The Doctor tosses you an apologetic grimace, while you gape in horror and offense at the figures.

"Ah, yes," the Doctor says carefully. "About that."

"Just who do you think you are," another figure challenges, "thinking you can traipse into here with a Destroyer lurking in her veins?"

You share a look with the Doctor. Well, at least the thing inside you has a name even if you're no closer to understanding exactly what it is.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor has settled his mask in place now, his blithe attitude singing across his demeanor. "Sorry. Totally didn't think about it . . . ah, what exactly is a Destroyer again?"

"They're jumpers," yet another figure says, though this time to one of their one. The rod in its hand wavers and the hum in the air directed at you ripples with discordant harmony.

The thing in you roils, and you cringe with it against the off-key sound. The humming is growing in pitch, crowding your ears, turning you wild as the darkness inside fights for control to run. It was happy inside the protection of the TARDIS, just like you. And so you want to run back inside the blue doors, shut yourself away from these weird beings and the horrific noise of their weapons.

". . . here for help," are words of the Doctor's that you catch, slipping past the overpowering hum.

"Come with us," is the last thing you hear before you fall into the darkness.

~

This story is just dragging me along with it. I have a vague idea of where it ends, but other than that, each chapter is as much a surprise to me as it probably is to you.