Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [31]
Fitz blew smoke at her as she tripped over her bag, grabbed it, and headed for the door. 'Well, if last night was your idea of living, you're welcome to it; he retorted.
Sam staggered down the wooden stairs, leaning heavily on the banisters now she was out of sight. Her idea of living? She rubbed her aching head, felt her bruised body protesting as it carried her weight, and decided that hiding in an attic room may have some merits as a design for life after all.
***
Fitz angrily stubbed out his cigarette in an ancient cup of tea at the side of the bed, splashing his fingers. He sucked them dean as he thought of Sam.
Cheeky cow. How dare she stand there in his own room, preaching at him?
Telling him how crap he was, how stunted his life had become?
He sighed. Then again, wasn't that what he tended to do to himself, most nights?
But this wasn't night, he reminded himself. It was barely even morning, for Christ's sake. Now he was left alone to see what would happen next. She'd gone. He'd blown it. Again.
He slumped back down on the mattress and closed his eyes, more despairing now than sleepy.
***
The Doctor had dropped off the files back in the office. He'd left a marmalade stain on one of the papers, somehow, and was ruminating on how that could've happened when he arrived at his chosen destination: the Restraint Room.
He unbolted the door and stepped through.
***
Lucy lay awake considering the way the window dissected the blank sky with its latticework of lead between the panes. Cloudless, featureless, outside was just dull and white, as if a sheet had been pulled over the glass. There was no chance of changing things, of making a new sky, when it looked like this.
If only she could really do it, change the sky, change heaven's mind. The world would see that, as the architect of the new sky, she deserved a place in the world. No one would make her do things anymore. They'd allow for her, talk to her, like her. Maybe someone would even fall in love with her.
She could make them fall in love with her. If she could do that to the sky, she could do anything, couldn't she?
She rubbed her stomach. She felt lonely, now, and the feeling seemed concentrated there. Last night, she'd felt something like... Friendship wasn't the word. Fellowship, perhaps. Davydd liked her, wanted her, she was sure of it. If only she could be sure he was the master here. She was being careful, she had to be; she hadn't asked for more when he'd dropped her on the bed last night, fully clothed. She'd felt weak, sick, unprepared. She had to be at her best when the time came. One more - him, and him alone -
and she could rest, she could live under the new sky and be released.
Right now, she felt that the knot of pain and tension in her stomach was a stitch that fixed her, sewn to the bed, unable to move and scrutinised by the white eye of morning.
***
Sam walked as far as Highgate, her head throbbing. She kept looking around, afraid she was being followed. It was a stupid fear, irrational, like a child's. Sam had always been scared of sharks as a child, when she'd seen Jaws 2 on telly as a kid. She'd had this mad fear that a shark would get under her duvet and bite off her legs, and was terrified every night for weeks when the light went out and she was alone with her imagination.
Never mind that sharks couldn't live out of water. Never mind that it would have had to negotiate the stairs to get to her. The fear was real even if the threat wasn't, and that was how it felt now.
There was no one about. The streets were silent. Her headache was worse and she was afraid. It practically made her shake... A fear so basic, primordial-Race memory
Sam froze, remembered what Roley had been saying back at the house to her and the Doctor.
She looked around again. Still the streets were silent.
***