Soul's Shadow (Doctor Who - SI)

Part IV (III)

"So, what are we gonna do with the two of you?" Ida thought out loud as she visited us in the canteen. "The Ood do most of the nasty tasks around, and the rest is handled by us, obviously." She sat next to me and eyed the untouched food, then gave me a smile. "You'll get used to the taste."

"'m just not hungry," I mumbled.

"No? Well, maybe you should eat anyway, you're pale as a ghost." Ida chuckled. She had no clue.

I gave her a small smile, but still didn't touch the food, only drank the cup of water that sat nearby.

"Doctor, I'll put you in the laundry. We need tall people there, the racks are quite high. And you, Lucy... mhm... not quite sure. What have you learned?"

"Uh..." I startled a little and straightened in my chair. Not this again. "N... nothing. I mean... nothing helpful."

"Well... time to change that, huh?"

Perplex I blinked at the woman in front of me, the reassuring wide smile on her face, as if my incapability was no problem at all.

"You could become a trainee, too. No problem at all. And when we get back to the colony, you have a certificate and all that. Sounds good?"

For a second I was about to ask what colony she was talking about, but then decided this could wait, and I simply nodded. Was that my chance to finally become useful to the world?

"Okay, great!" Ida smiled even wider. "What are you good at?"

Shit... maybe not my chance at all, then. "Oof, I don't know," I confessed. "I'm really not good with people... that rules out almost every..."

"I asked what you're good at." The blond chuckled amused. "Come on. Don't be shy. Everyone has some talents."

But what where mine? I cast a puzzled glance in the Doctor's direction, but he only shrugged and smiled. "I can't answer that for you."

"Guess... I'm good with my hands." I glanced at them, once more stunned at how pale my skin was right now. "I used to help my Dad repair all kinds of stuff. Small stuff likes watches and our household items. And..." A reassuring nod from Ida made me continue, although I wasn't sure this was even important, but I wanted to mention it anyway. "I'm really good at detecting patterns. In general, I mean. Probably not helpful..."

"Oh, of course it is! That can help quite a lot with finding errors in the systems." She contemplated for a few moments. "I'll bring you to Danny. He has not much to do here, and before his job as ethic committee, he was an electronic engineer. I bet he'll be happy to show you the basics. Guess we can schedule some maths and physics lessons in, every few days... hm... Well, yeah, let's start with that, okay? Sounds good?"

"It does!" A weird spark of excitement went through me all of a sudden. "When do we start?"

Ida laughed at that. "Not today. It's late already."

"Ah, you set up an artificial clock to keep your biorhythms intact," the Doctor concluded. "Well, must have. There's no real days around." He stood up and waved at us. "Alright then, see you tomorrow!"

With that he left the two of us alone. Well, almost alone. As he exited, Danny came in, tossing a quick hello at us. In an instant I felt my chest tighten slightly. Being among strangers was stressing enough, being all alone with two at once, though, spiked my anxiety quite a bit. Luckily only for a moment. It had gotten easier to calm myself down over the past years.

"Hey Danny," Ida called out and stood too. "Lucy will train with you from tomorrow on."

"Me? A trainee? Are you sure?" he asked as he got himself food.