Fic: Erinys, PG-13, River/Doctor
Everything happens too late.
By the time she can garner enough support for their raid it has been almost a month. She has done all that he would have, in her place; called in every favour, added a few more debts. These, and other tactics that he could never have considered. She buries the history of their attempt deep within herself, a balled-up page in the misfiled volumes of her life. All that is left are the most basic details, the practicalities. They tackle the cliff-face behind the fortress as soon as night falls, sending the best climbers up first to attach guide-ropes. Once at the summit there are three micro-explosives to be detonated, knocking out turrets at the north-east and eastern wall. It all comes off in precisely six minutes, right up until they penetrate the inmost prison complex.
Two men and an android hold the guards within their own cells while she makes for the Doctor. He’s resting on his heels with wrists bound behind him, the stoop of his shoulders framed by the light of the others in the corridor. They’ve shorn his hair and dressed him in ill-fitting grey, the kind of loose garment that is designed to conceal. He flinches when they draw closer, eyes shut against the glare from their torches, and his hands shiver a little, like a pair of trapped animals.
She doesn’t know where this story falls in the spinning of his own threads. He looks like no other him she can remember; impossibly young, yet dried up like an old leaf; unbearably fragile, but closed off from every hurt. Though there are no bruises on him that she can see his stillness makes her assume the worst. She holsters her gun and runs to him, brushing both hands across his face. The shoulders stiffen and draw up to meet her gaze; he blinks a few times, slow and lopsided, as though awakening from a long sleep.
“You burned.” He says.
Behind them one of the off-world rebels is murmuring something about a chemical cosh. Their watchmen fidget, anxious to be gone.
River stands and unbuckles her harness, calling to the Gamma man by the door. Together they lift the Doctor to his feet, unfolding him by angles and degrees. The alarms give one more violent wail and then shut out, an act of dreadful finality.
“Get him clear and down the side, quick as you can. I’ll follow.”
Gamma- they have no names to bear accusation in this- opens his mouth for protest. She cuts him off with a gesture.
“Go.”
Tied to each other like chain-gang members, the pair is closely encircled by their escort, and is soon out of sight.
River unhooks her gun, balances herself, and breathes, several times.
There is still work to do.
-
The people of the Signa region on Awarë have a hilltop that bears a cursed prison. No-one mentions its name, and nobody forgets, because a monster once landed there.
It came down over them like a raging torrent, swept the inhabitants away and blew every door from its hinges. It savaged the place for a whole day, long after anyone with guilt in their hearts had perished or fled. Then it tore a trail down the crag and left the ruins behind, gutted but still standing, to rot in plain sight.
The locals pray for its continued absence, at a dedicated festival each year. Above them, the fractured eyes of the watchtowers stare down, with unseeing indifference.