Contrition : Part

Reflexes?

A little shock of pressure hits under his knee, and his leg gives a gentle jerk.

Good. Dexterity?

Little pinpricks touch the tips of each of his fingers and, in turn, each twitches on its own.

He continues to watch the ceiling, blankly.

Close your eyes? The voice turns toward him.

He obliges, wondering when this will be over.

Good. Open then?

He obliges.

Good. The voice turns away to ask, Vitals?

All clear, supplies another voice.

Good. We can move on from the physical.

There is a long pause, then, as the machines and instruments are rolled away – he can tell by the sound of wheels over linoleum. All the while, even as they resume their places by the bedside, he can hear the comforting quintuple beep from the heart monitor on the wall.

Let us check his awareness.

The voice returns, this time asking against the barriers of his mind.

Awake?, it asks.

He does not let the voice in. The barriers around his mind stay stubbornly up.

He is closed, the voice says, presumably to the others. Open him.

Two minds are suddenly pressing against his. They slip between the cracks created by weakness of lack of practice, and they pry his mind open like a vice. They keep him propped apart and exposed.

Awake?, the voice asks again.

Yes, he answers, in a clipped and overly polite tone of thought.

Where are you?

You tell me.

Where are you?

I do not know. Why am I alive?

You only have to answer my questions, do not waste your energy.

It should be comforting, but immediately he knows not to trust this voice.

It speaks again, Answer my question, with concrete details. Where are you?

…in bed?

What do you see?

The ceiling.

Can you feel?

Yes. And it hurts like a motherfucker. I would appreciate more drugs, if you do not mind.

Name?

The Master.

Name?

The Master.

There is a pause. Then, Name?

He does not answer this time, because he knows what they want and he has no intentions of giving it to them.

There is a pause, and then there is a deeper invasion in his head. He tries to recoil but there is nowhere to recoil to. His nerves squirm against the violation as the voice finds the knowledge it was looking for.

Good, it tells him, So you know.

He gives no reply.

Do you remember where you were?

No, he lies.

He feels a sore pain in his throat as he growls against the second, deeper invasion.

Where were you?, the voice asks, persistently.

Dead.

Before that?

Dead.

Before that.

Dying.

Where?

The TARDIS.

Yours?

My TARDIS is dead, too.

Are you dead?

Answer me. Why. Am I. Alive?

The voice does not answer in his head this time. But he hears it with his ears rather than inside his head, this time, as it says His recollection is sufficient, for now. Let him go.

The vice loosens up against his head.

He yanks back on that inkling of foreign personality that remains, pulling the mind attached to the voice back into his headscape. He slams up the barriers and starts to bury the man deep into his memories, deep into the recent sensations of pain, and waking, and then further into the memories of dying, mind tearing in two under the heart of the TARDIS, and blackness, and blackness.

You want me to fucking recollect, you bastard?

From outside the barriers of his mind, he can hear the voice mindlessly scream. It takes them fifteen minutes to extract him from the Master’s mind.