Doctor Who: Amy, Captured Ch. 09

Viral hung from one curving rock wall, a huge, shifting shell of living stone with multiple pincered legs scuttling constantly across the cavernous surface. Rory was in no doubt that the chaotic form in front of him could crush both himself and the Doctor with negligible effort.

'It is,' Viral growled. 'I can find you the Trine-form. But it will be costly; do you have payment for me, Doctor?'

'Oh, come on, Viral...' The Doctor said with a winning smile. 'We've worked together before. You know me-'

'I do, Doctor,' Viral affirmed. 'Which is why I know to obtain payment in advance.'

The Doctor's grin turned sheepish and he cast his eyes down to avoid the penetrating spotlight of the abomination's eyes. Rory fought to stop the horror mounting in his gut from appearing on his face; the Doctor had met this thing before? And he had come back? What kind of business did Viral do, that he was so unavoidable?

He fished in the pocket of his suit, producing a tiny object that glinted in the dim light, 'A white point star, Viral. The last white point star, in the entire universe. And this one's got some history; I stole it from the Master, back when we last-'

'I remember, Gallifreyan,' Viral interrupted again. 'Your tribute has stood witness to important events. This is good, but I require more. I require my standard fee, in addition to this pleasant trinket.'

'Viral,' The Doctor began pleadingly.

'You are betting with no cards in your hand, Doctor,' Viral cut him off. 'I will dictate the terms, if you wish to see Amy Pond again.'

Rory almost said something at that, but the Doctor anticipated this and put up a hand to silence him. The expression on his face grew dark, his eyes glinting harshly.

'You know, one of these days we're going to have to talk about this whole arrangement you have, Viral,' The Time Lord growled. 'You don't want to be the being standing between me and my friend.'

'And you don't want to be the being that threatens me, oh Oncoming Storm,' Viral hissed. 'Especially not if you wish to leave here with your other friend, instead of just leaving in pieces... Five years, Doctor. My final offer.'

There was a moment of silence as the Doctor thought, his mind wheeling desperately for an alternative and, to his eternal frustration, finding none. He hated being trapped, but Viral was the only one who could help here; even he didn't know what it was, only that its unique talents came in handy for situations exactly like this one. If only the price wasn't always so steep...

He threw the gleaming white diamond onto the ground ahead of him, and said in a flat voice, 'Fine. I accept. Now tell me where I can find the Trine-form.'

Viral's heavy head tilted to one side, a deep, fiery noise issuing from it that might have been laughter, 'Oh, you are going to laugh when you hear this...'

****************

Mara's fingers slid deeply into Amy. She squealed, quaking against her captor as she tore another orgasm from her tender body. Whatever it was that Mara was thinking, she was really being mean about this.

Amy screamed, the edges of her perception fraying away to nothing as another heated blast of pleasure drove her breath from her lungs and burned into her senses. After countless intense climaxes, each orgasm was like lava in her veins.

Mara's tongue burned blazing trails down her stomach and over her hips, nuzzling at the graceful, curving flesh. Amy writhed beneath the blonde's skilled tongue, sinking deeper into the fires of ecstasy. Mara's teeth captured her aching clit, flicking it with her tongue as fresh juices spilled against her chin. Two fingers joined the oral assault, sliding deeply into Amy's hot, slick hole. She tumbled over the edge again, screaming out her agonized climax for everyone to hear. Her mind was blasted away by her body's insistent want.

'Please, Mara! Stop!' Amy's mouth was barely able to form the plea before her throat was hijacked by another weak moan. She could no longer control herself; her hips ground against Mara's mouth, her thighs doing whatever they could to wrap around her neck. It was hopeless, she was being swept away on a tide of golden light. Even the feeling of Mara's long hair brushing against her legs was an unbearable pleasure that made her muscles tighten. Amy couldn't take much more of this...

And yet Mara persisted, burying her rejection under layers of desire and the shared feeling of fulfilment she was getting from Amy. She was silent, rejecting every desperate, shrieking plea from Amy, every one of her probing, unsteady thoughts, keeping the barrier between their minds strong through sheer force of will. Neither of them heard the door open. It took Sander's hand on Mara's shoulder before she even recognized that they were no longer alone.

'What? Oh, it's you,' Mara said, hoping desperately that her sadness was fully masked behind steely defiance. 'What do you want?' She said sullenly.

Sander shook his head and moved his hand from her shoulder, grabbing her own hand and enveloping it in his. Mara's eyes widened.

He pulled her off of the bed, pulled her away from an increasingly relieved Amy. He dragged her out of the room, his grip on her wrist allowing no resistance, his face grimly determined and silent in the face of Mara's questioning.

'What do you want, Sander?' She yelled as they made it outside, fingers of sunlight casting their skin in warm orange and deep red. 'Didn't you disappoint me enough back there? Wanted to keep proving how much of an ass you are?'

'Shut up,' He said quietly, his eyes closed. 'Just this once, Mara. Let someone else have the last word.'

'What the fuck are you-'

'Mara, I had to rehearse this whole thing before I went in to get you. If you keep interrupting I'll fuck it up, I'm sure of it,' Sander didn't meet her fiery gaze. 'Just let me do my thing, alright?'

'Fine. Whatever,' Mara crossed her arms over her chest defiantly.

'Nice of you. Appreciate it,' Sander deadpanned, turning his back on her. He sighed, and opened his eyes for the first time since coming out here. A thrill of anxiety went through him; he hoped that this would work.

He grinned, 'Oh, no!' He said flatly. 'I have turned my back, thus leaving myself open to any person who might be behind me,' He tried not to laugh as he injected absolutely no dismay into his acting. He could practically feel Mara's confusion boring into his back. Time to turn it up a notch.

'With my back turned like this, any woman who happened to be behind me would find it remarkably easy to read my mind, assuming that she had that ability. I would never know!' It was becoming harder to contain his laughter. Behind him, Mara smiled despite herself.

'And what am I doing, thinking about the origin of my mysterious scar? What a potential olive branch this would be! It is a pity that Mara-'

'Jesus! Shut up, Hackett!' Mara giggled. 'I get it!'

She laughed again, and Sander snorted with laughter himself. She reached out to hold his hand as she closed her eyes and reached out to touch his mind. It was all there, on the surface, waiting for her.

Sander's memory filled up Mara's mind's eye, playing out for her as though she was there. Her first reaction was to marvel at how young Sander looked, back in his halcyon days when he ruled Vesperia.

Her heart sank as she realized what day in his life this must be. Somebody was about to die.

As if in fast-forward, the face of the Doctor, two regenerations prior, flitted through Sander's office. She had seen this footage before; Sander had gone to some trouble to procure it from the ruins of his office so he could relive his greatest defeat over and over. But this was from his perspective; she could feel his panic as everything failed and the people took back control of the planet. In one stroke of that sonic screwdriver, the Doctor had torn Sander's life apart.

Like any memory, this one was patchy, and skipped around. Sander squeezed her hand tighter as the next segment started. Mara could feel his cold, terrible emptiness open back up like a mortal wound. She remembered him talking about this moment, just once; quietly, and only after he had been drinking.

It was the worst kind of tragedy; Sander had discovered his wife's body through the opportunistic lens of a news camera, trained on the open rioting that had preceded his fall. Mara could feel his eyes opening wide as though they were her own, could feel the prickling, helpless tears that fell. She could feel the muscles in his face shifting in abject despair, feel his hands shaking. Worst of all, she could feel his soul being scooped out, piece by piece, as the cold mechanical camera zoomed in on Elsa's bloodied body.

The rage came and threatened to overwhelm him, but Sander was smarter than to allow that, even in his darkest hour. He forced himself to remain cool, putting aside everything dark that welled up inside him and leaving only his intellect. She could feel him running to his private shuttle.

Only when he was safely off the ground did he let his grief engulf him. He bowed his head low, eyes staring emptily at the control panel, hands limp by his sides. The memory skipped forward again; Mara got the feeling that Sander didn't do much during this period.

A warning klaxon sounded. Sander barely had time to move. His screens showed that an anti-air missile had been hacked; his shuttle was the target. Someone on the ground didn't want him escaping. Mara could feel his resolve building, spreading through him, strong as steel. He would survive.

The shuttle bucked, with the sound of screeching metal bubbling under the explosion. The hull shattered inwards, sparks and white hot shards of metal spinning into the cockpit. There was the horrifying organic thud of shrapnel hitting flesh.

Sander screamed in a loud, raw voice as the molten metal sheared through the skin, flesh and bone of his shoulder. In the present, Mara had to stop herself doing the same; she could feel the pain deep down in her bones, so real and so present and so all consuming... She lowered her head, breathing hard.

Sander's forehead slammed against the cold metal control panel as he blacked out, just for a moment. Blood, hot and sticky, dripped down his neck to slicken the floor. His eyes flicked open, vision strobing on and off, so dark.

'Oh, fuck this...' He wheezed through the pain, struggling to his feet. Every movement was a monumental effort; his analytical mind catalogued the damage. Severe burns, shrapnel embedded in the bone of his shoulder blade, deep lacerations, clothes melted and fused to the wound, blood loss worsening by the second...

Not good.

The shuttle had crashed while he had been unconscious; the fact that he had survived at all was a miracle. Leaning heavily against the wall, oozing a crimson streak against it as he moved, Sander struggled along to the aft. Sunlight streamed through the hole in the hull, and by yet another miracle the medical kit had remained intact. Sander struggled with his shaking hands to open it.

The memory skipped again, stopping off to detail the fresh rush of agony as Sander pressed the nozzle of a can of antiseptic gel against his wound and pulled the trigger. The gel would harden upon contact with the air; stopping the bleeding and staving off infection. A good start, but no less unpleasant because of it.

A shadow passed over the light spilling into the cockpit. Sander's eyelids drooped into his usual irritated scowl. He turned, slowly, to eye the gun being waved in his face. There were no words exchanged between the two of them, the former dictator and his attacker. What would be the point? Everyone on Vesperia wanted Sander Hackett dead; if this man did it here, anonymously, who would care?

And at that moment, Sander wanted everyone on Vesperia dead. His wrath flooded through him, and his blood boiled with it. Sander welcomed the beast into his heart with open arms.

It only took a moment. Even in his memory, Sander's disbelief at what he had done flowed through the scene like subtext. He leaped, howling wordlessly. In his third miracle of the day, the gun didn't go off. Sander bore his former subject to the cold steel floor of his ruined shuttle and slammed his head against a nearby bulkhead until he stopped moving. Sander's eyes were cold and empty.

With a rush, Mara pulled herself out of Sander's past with a sob, stumbling away from him. He stood, silhouetted motionless in the sunset, not daring to look at her.

'So that's where I got my scar,' He said quietly. 'It goes on like that for three days or so, but you get the idea.'

'My god...' Mara breathed. A moment of silent stillness seemed to stretch on like an eternity between them before Mara regained her senses and rushed over to him. She grabbed his arm and pulled him to her, his arms limp and unresisting at his sides. She hugged him tightly to her.

'I'm sorry. I didn't know,' She sobbed, burying her face in his chest.

'How could you know?' Sander said in a hollow voice. 'I never told you.'

'And then you did,' She said. 'Why?'

'Because that's me,' He said. 'That's who I am. Besides, somebody needed to take the first step.'

She looked up at him, saw him smiling back at her with haunted, liquid eyes. She tried to summon the energy to grin at him, the way she always did, but she couldn't. So she laid her head against the bare skin of his chest, and sighed.

'All right. You've made your point,' She said softly. 'Come inside and see my damage, then.'

'What?'

'I've seen your past. Now it's your turn. It's a grand fuckin' trust exercise, right?'

'You're sure?' He asked softly.

'Yes, damn it! Don't give me the time to actually think about it!'

His hands took their position at the small of her back, drawing her closer to him. He closed his eyes and lowered his head so that it rested in the soft hair on top of Mara's head. He reached out with his mind.

Like before, it was hard to perceive the interior of Mara's brain. Every thought existed with such intensity that it was like looking into the sun. He had gone deeper than before, but it hadn't gotten any easier for Sander.

The gold light that represented her thoughts spiralled up into the darkness, spilling motes of light into the air beyond. If he pressed, Sander found he could open a hole through into the eye of the storm. Something inside turned, something dark and vaguely humanoid. He could feel her sadness and anger draped heavily over it, but it was impossible to see clearly. Who was he?

Sander blinked, pulling out. In rapid internal monologue, he questioned whether it would be appropriate to ask Mara about what he had seen. How would she take it? Would she get angry? Now wasn't the time to risk anything and screw up, so-

'Just ask her about him!' Lysithea's voice drilled into his consciousness, exasperated beyond belief. 'Good lord, I've never had to work this hard to get two people who cared this much together!'

Sander shook his head, 'Who was he?' He asked gently, running a finger down Mara's spine. She shivered and wiggled against him.

'Him? Walker Ichihara. He's... my ex, I guess,' Mara sighed, shifting uncomfortably. 'I don't often talk about him.'

'You don't have to, you know.'

'No, no, I invited you in. I'll spill,' She said delicately. 'Walker and I... we were together for a long time. He's like me, Y'know? All sort of weird and twisted up inside. We used to do all sorts of crazy stuff together.'

Sander looked away, 'Yeah, you don't need to tell me about that...'

'True,' Mara smiled. 'The point is, it didn't work out. Walker was crazier than I knew.' Her eyes grew dark, and she glanced sidelong out at the ocean, 'Turns out, Walker Ichihara was a highly prolific serial killer.'

'What?! You're kidding!' Sander said, taken aback.

'I wish, Sander. I really do, because at the time I had no fucking idea, and he was doing it in, like, the next room over from me.'

'That's not... good,' Sander finished lamely, squeezing Mara's hand in what he hoped was a supportive manner.

'That's one way of putting it,' Mara eyed him. 'We had been living together for a while, but the place was registered in my name. When the law finally caught up with him... He skipped the planet, leaving all his evidence in an apartment that doesn't have his name on the lease.'

'Oh.'

'I ended up running. I had to. I wasn't exactly clean myself, although nothing as bad as Walker,' Mara said ruefully. 'That's how I ended up on Myriad when you were first there. It was pretty bad, trying to find my way in that place.'

'Did you love him?' Sander asked, almost afraid of what the answer could be.

'Yes,' Mara sighed. 'Once. I was stupid like that, once upon a time.'

Sander frowned. It wasn't so often that he found himself in moments like this. He didn't really know how to react, but with the wave of affection that swept through him, it didn't really matter. His hands slid up her back to encircle her shoulders, drawing her in as close as possible.

'Look at us,' He laughed, kissing the top of her head. 'Damaged goods. It's dangerous, the two of us being together.'

Mara grunted, 'Yeah, we wouldn't want to spur each other into doing something illegal...' She smiled pointedly.

'Ha. Yeah, that'd be bad, huh?'

'Mm... ' Mara pressed herself against him, the heat of her body so wonderful. She turned in his arms, so that the soft curve of her back pushed against his chest.

'And you say we wouldn't be good together...' Sander chided, circling a finger around her navel. She giggled softly in return.

'You're looking better every day, Hackett...'

Sander chuckled, rocking gently from side to side. The two of them swayed, the moment of serenity seeming to stretch out for eternity. Beyond them, the perfect mirror ocean spread out like a silver plain, reflecting the roiling clouds above. Their breathing slowed as they stayed in the silent peace, merely enjoying the other's presence.

Sander's finger continued to trace the edge of Mara's belly button, the soft skin quivering at his touch. Absently, almost without thinking, Mara reached up, gently took hold of Sander's wrist. She guided his hand down, sliding over her stomach and between her legs. At her urging, his finger slid inside her, drawing a tiny moan from Mara's throat.

For mere moments, Sander's finger moved inside her, making Mara shudder with pleasure. Slowly though, Sander's eyes opened, and he furrowed his brow. He pulled out of her, raising his arms to hug her across her collarbone.

'Sander?' Mara glanced over her shoulder at him, her voice carrying a hint of disappointment. He sighed.

'You still aren't ready. I get that,' He said, smiling wistfully. 'Ruining a moment like that with your naughty bits... Your heart isn't in this to win it yet. I'll wait, though. If today's proven anything, it's that you're worth waiting for. Maybe when this is all over-' He froze with a sudden intake of breath. In his arms, Mara's eyes widened.

The question hung in the air between them like the poised blade of a guillotine. "When this is all over." When would this be over? And how would it end? There were only two ways...

'Sorry...' Sander breathed in Mara's ear.

Mara spoke slowly, carefully, as though each word needed to be forcibly pulled into being, 'I think... I think that when we kidnapped Amy we crossed a line that neither of us realized was there. I don't know about you, but I-'

'I know about me. I like her too,' Sander mused, his voice troubled. 'But it's a little odd that you do; you're not exactly the type of person who likes other people to begin with, and some of the things you do with her-'