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Bereft
By Taleya
Oddly enough, It's Turlough who copes best.
Strangely similar to his native Trion, he finds the Russian language easy to
learn, pronunciation dips and tricks flowing smoothly off his tongue, the crazed
alphabet of thirty-three letters coming with ease to a man used to to far more.
He's clever and he's quick, eyes always seeking the opportunities.
But in an increasingly small world, and without an identification card, there is
little he can do. Only a small distance he can go. So he skulks in the shadows,
a trickster, a trinket seller, playing the tourists for shell games and small,
shiny things before the approaching Militsia send him scurrying home with
a handful of coins.
He doesn't mind. He likes the shadows.
He wishes he still had his fur hat though, as he trudges through the snow-soaked
streets. But it was gone, lost somewhere in the explosion that had destroyed the
remnants of the Somnus Foundation and left them marooned on this forsaken
planet.
The destruction of the Foundation had cut hard into the economy as well. It had
brought employees, and employees had brought money. The economy had flourished
and grown - a light against the dark days of the economic depressions of the
early century, but its brief light was fleeting, and when the Foundation had
died, so had the money, leaving Moscow once more in the grip of the dark
depression.
The rich have their homes. Their warmth. Their vids and housing systems, but for
the poor, the faceless, for those adrift in a time not of their own, there are
only the streets.
Turlough grips the meal pack under his coat a little tighter, fingers long gone
numb from the frigid temperatures. The winter is bitter and brutal here. But
they survive.
The Doctor is ill at ease on this planet. Lost, oddly vulnerable without his
TARDIS. His english is oddly accented without the telepathic circuits, softer,
more melodic, a voice used to a far more mellifluous language. He's developed a
nervous habit of late, hands fluttering uneasily to fuss with the seams of his
jacket, already started to fray from the constant worrying.
He's been trapped on Earth before, Turlough knows. But not like this. Abandoned,
bereft of hope, rescue, of even the smallest comfort of home. Memories live on
inside his head, but Turlough knows that after time even these cannot fill the
aching lonliness of an emigre.
He'd always seen the Doctor as a man of resource. Of hope. A good man, a strong
man, but when the TARDIS...
His mind sheers away from the thought as he ducks into a narrow alleyway.
Something inside the Timelord had shattered and broken with the death of that
magnificent ship, leaving his psyche screaming in pain as she was ripped from
his mind.
Their shelter is nothing more than the barest closet, room for an old scavaged
barrel in which a fire banks softly on stolen materials. The room is cold,
almost as cold as outside, but he says nothing, knowing the Doctor prefers it
this way.
"I managed to get a mealpack," his voice seems unnatural in the frozen silence
of the room. "It's old, but self-heating. It'll be ready in a moment." He
fumbles with the seal, almost dropping the pack as the heat flares through his
frozen hands like the brand of an iron.
Against one wall of a room, he can hear the thrum of one of the City's
generators. It can't be that old, sleek and almost noiseless in its operation,
but the throbbing of its engine reverberates through their little sanctuary,
bringing aching memories of the TARDIS, of home. It's a poor approximation at
best. A bare placebo. But it comforts him, and maybe in some small way it
comforts the Doctor as well.
The Timelord leans away from the fire as Turlough coaxes it up into a more
comfortable heat, resting the side of his head against the wall seperating them
from the generator. The thrum of the engine rocks through his bones, and he
closes his eyes, allowing himself to imagine, to fantasise, just for a moment...
But the void in his consciousness, won't let him rest. The silence won't stop
screaming in his mind. The light beyond his closed lids is wrong, dull, and he
opens them again with a sigh as Turlough clumsily makes his way over to him with
two scavenged bowls, limbs still half-frozen with the Russian chill.
"Soup again?" he jokes. "Remind me to have words with the chef." But the words
are flat, and the joke dies young. He rests his head against the throbbing wall
again and tries to think, the bowl lying forgotten in his lap. Plots, plans,
ways of escape, ways of improving their predicament, he chases them around and
around in his mind like a child chasing dreams, but he cannot get a purchase on
them, his tired mind faltering in the face of that silence, once-quicksilver
thoughts slowing to crippled and half-formed attempts at cogitation.
Neural shock. Psychic trauma. Depression. Ennui. All words he knows, quiet,
clinical phrases that line themselves up and march behind his tired eyes. None
of them seem to fit the weakness in his limbs though, nor the ache in his
hearts. There is a hole in his very soul. The TARDIS had been more than a mere
ship - she had been a living, telepathic entity. Bound for destruction, her mind
had sung with joy when he had stolen her, controls leaping to his commands like
an eager puppy. Millenia of travel together had bound their minds inextricably,
weaving about each other, his urge to know, to change things for the better
combined with her joy of running, of seeing a horizon and racing towards it,
past it, through a thousand sunsets and a million nights. Her mind once sang to
him in his sleep, but now there is only silence.
He is alone.
Completely and utterly alone.
His mind was damaged, he can feel it. And he thinks he might be going insane.
Turlough is watching him as he eats his own meagre portion, hands moving quickly
in an attempt to finish before it cools. He's given the Doctor the lion's share
of their meal. Again.
The redhead's breath makes quick, silent white puffs in the frigid air and the
Doctor follows one with his eyes, lazily, thoughts drifting away as it
dissipates. He finishes most of his bowl, Turlough coaxing him through mouthful
after mouthful until a few dregs are left. He pushes it to one side and looks
away, pretending not to hear the scrape and clatter as the other man hungrily
finishes the remainder.
The fire is stoked again, and an arm wraps gently around his shoulder, pulling
him close. He lets himself flow into the motion, curling up to the other man as
he shivers lightly in the cold. For many days after the TARDIS was lost,
Turlough had tried to draw him out with words, with thoughts. Ideas,
engagements, they had all fallen as the Doctor had shivered within his own mind,
so he had turned instead to more physical means. A brush of a hand. A touch on
his face. Hands wrapping around his own. Calling him, coaxing him to survive.
He leans his face against the Trion's chest, drawn to the chill of his flesh
against the roar of the fire. He can hear the faint wheeze in a respiratory
system that never evolved to this atmosphere. The heart that beats in its
fragile cage of flesh and bone is different to a human's. Wrongly placed, too
far in the centre of the chest. Even the smell of his unwashed body is
different. Alien. A smile ghosts across his lips as it drums against his cheek,
his fingers seek a path past the greatcoat, past the blazer underneath to the
other man's shirt, curling and twitching absently in a memory of console
controls. Safe. Warm. Alien.
Time. That's all he needs. Time. Just a little time, to let his mind heal...
Turlough gently brushes the blond hair away from the too-thin face as the Doctor
slides into sleep and wraps his coat a little tighter around them both. Wedging
himself in the corner, as close as possible to the generator wall, he lets the
vibration thrum through them both as he stares out the small, cracked window and
falls asleep waiting for the dawn.
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