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On second thought, the bomb was maybe a bad idea.
DR’s lungs burn as she runs, tripping over a branch and dragging herself back to her feet. Something sizzles through the air, smelling like burnt rubber.
The smell becomes secondary when the wire wraps around her bicep, sizzling through her jacket and branding her skin.
It hurts like fuck, but she’s no stranger to pain.
“These are illegal!” She shouts, jerking her arm hard enough to pull the coil out of her pursuer's grip. “I know you don’t care because you’re fucking cops, but. Illegal!”
They’re closing in on her, herding her farther into the dense woods. She’d climb a tree, but the trees on this planet are tall and soft, like giant sponges, and they won’t take her weight.
She can hear the coil but can’t duck before it’s looping around her neck, driving her to her knees. DR retches at the smell of her own burning skin, scrabbling at the wire choking her and only managing to char her fingertips in the process.
The bomb, she thinks, as the Judoon tower over her, spotting black around the edges, was definitely a mistake.
DR comes to while she’s being sentenced, secured by some very impressive cuffs. Apparently she’s in one of those parts of the galaxy, where trials are a joke. Should have expected that, given the government she was trying to topple via copious explosives. She doesn't even get to testify, which, apart from being frustrating, is a total bummer.
The court—if it can be called that—sentences her to a hundred years in a void jail, which sucks. No time off for good behavior, the judge snorts, probably in glee though it’s hard to tell. This is, of course, due to the large number of serious crimes she’s been charged with. Two counts of regicide (convicted; they have TONS of proof), impersonation of a dignitary (convicted, lots of proof, but it’s not her fault that nobody realized that someone referred to as “Her Tentacleship” would be a giant spacesquid.) attempted crimes against a foreign power (the ill thought-out bomb), inciting an uprising (which failed, why are they even charging her with that? That’s why she went to the bomb), and alleged fraud and arson (no proof at all but, yes, she absolutely did both of those things).
“This is a crock of shit,” DR informs the judge, and gets another five years.
DR is escorted to a meteor out in bumfuck space where the entrance to her void cell is. Her Judoon escort is a little too enthusiastic about her job, manhandling DR far more than necessary, which sucks since DR’s still healing from the coil burns.
Up until this point in her life, DR has managed to avoid jail time, which is why the information the Judoon gives her is new.
And it’s actually...kind of appalling.
The point of a void jail, DR is informed, is that time is frozen inside of it. She won’t need to eat, or drink, or sleep. She won’t be able to feel physical sensations.
But time will pass on the outside.
It doesn't mean shit to DR, she’s a time traveler who is immortal so she’ll just hop back to whenever she was before they snatched her, but the implications for regular people are horrifying. At least she has plenty of time to figure out how to reform this system’s joke of a judicial system.
DR can’t tell if her new cellmate...voidmate...is actually attractive or if he’s just something that isn’t a flat grey nothing void. He has an angular, starved look to him. Sandy, messy hair; dressed in a dark hoodie and jeans that don’t give her any clues as to when he might be from.
“Go fuck yourself!” he shouts at the Judoon guard as they leave. He catches sight of her as he turns—not hard, since she’s the only other thing to look at, and scoffs at her. “Come on. We were all thinking it.”
“No arguments there,” DR shrugs. Her voice cracks, sounds weird filling the silence. “I’m--” she tries to say her name and can’t, a suffocating pressure on her vocal cords. “My name is--”
The newcomer waves his hand at her like he’s waving away a bug. “Don’t bother, love. Void prisons don’t allow use of names. Supposed to be dehumanizing. Humanizing. Pfft. What a ridiculous concept. Humans,” he says, like it’s a disgusting swear word. “Apes. Ugh.”
DR stares at him. “Well, you’re not irritating at all.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was here to be entertainment for you, monkey.” He looks around, though what he’s looking at is a mystery. “Strange, though. Usually just one person to a void cell. Don’t usually let prisoners have company,” he looks her up and down. “Such as it is.”
DR ignores this in favor of flopping down on the ground, or what might be the ground because there’s nothing in a void. Her initial excitement has been replaced by irritation and disappointment, alongside the usual exhaustion. She wishes she could sleep, do anything to escape this, which is the point. The company thing was confusing until he opened his mouth. Now she gets it.
“Haven’t you heard?” She gives him a grim smile before turning over on her side. “Hell is other people.”
He is silent. DR wants to scream, anything to break up the monotony that he didn’t do anything to change, but doesn’t. She just lays there, trying to remember what pizza tastes like.
“Hell is...hell is other people, that’s quite good,” he says, sitting down next to her. “I might have to use that sometime. Where’s it from?”
DR heaves a great sigh before facing him. “I don’t know. It’s from Earth. Earth is this--”
“I know what Earth is,” he snaps. “The question is, how do you know what Earth is?”
“I was raised there, asshole.”
They lapse back into silence.
He hasn’t shown any interest in talking to her but she’s bored and she’s got no idea how much longer she might be stuck here.
“So what are you in for?”
He looks at her like she’s something he scraped off his shoe, a look that morphs into curiosity, pain, and then blankness.
“Don’t know. Haven’t done it yet.”
“Seriously? That blows.”
“Not really. When I do it I won’t have to pay for it. Don’t mind, actually. You?”
“I killed a dictator. And an ambassador or two, allegedly. And I blew up a Parliament.”
“Remember, remember, the fifth of November,” he mutters under his breath.
“The gunpowder treason and plot,” DR finishes, gracing him with a smile he frankly doesn't deserve. “Wait, are you from Earth?”
“Don’t be insulting,” he snaps, and their conversation is over.
DR stares at him. “But—but you’re older than me?”
“Aren’t you clever?” He drawls, going back to ignoring her. Or he tries to ignore her, at least, but DR’s not done.
“The only person I’ve met who is older than me is—is my Dad. That’s—it’s--” he’s still not getting it, how weird this is. “I’m four hundred,” she blurts, and that gets his attention.
He turns to her, glaring. “You’re lying.”
“Am not,” she retorts. “It’s a—a genetic thing. I inherited it. How are you eight hundred?”
He purses his lips, thinking. “I’m one of the last of my kind. Last of the Time Lords.”
DR’s stomach swoops and part of her wants to be sick. “Oh, God, you’re not the Doctor, are you?”
“Don’t be insulting.” He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. “You know that great wanker? Oh, don’t tell me you traveled with him. Then I really will have to kill you.”
“One, we already established we can’t kill each other here. Two,” DR drifts off. “It was my dad who traveled with him. He doesn’t really talk about it much, though. I don’t think it ended well.”
“Doctor chucked him out when he got bored, eh?” The man gives her what is clearly supposed to be a sympathetic look, but it curdles in her stomach.
“I don’t think so. He doesn’t talk about it, not to me, anyway. He loves the Doctor, respects him, but I think it still stings, sometimes.”
“You humans with your silly little feelings.”
Anger flares up in DR. “Oh, right. Sorry, forgot about that, how superior Time Lords are compared to the rest of the damn universe. You know what? Just because you refuse to enjoy a good steak or chocolate or silk sheets or sex doesn’t make you better than everyone else. Just because you decided laughing and crying and feeling are bad doesn’t mean you’re smarter or better or more clever than the rest of us. It’s like you got rid of everything except ego.”
The Time Lord stares at her in earnest now, not bothering to hide his shock. DR half expects the voidspace to rip open and deposit her in a black hole, or for him to actually kill her, when his lips slowly, slowly curl up, before he throws his head back and starts laughing.
“Been waiting a long time to say that to an actual Time Lord, eh?”
The rest of DR’s sentence passes. Time let-me-Lord-it-over-you isn’t….actually….all that bad. He’s an asshole, obviously, and clearly insane, but he’s also dead funny and has lots of good ideas about overthrowing monarchies. He also doesn't seem too pressed when she casually mentions dying, which, honestly, is so nice.
She wonders how much longer he’s got, and decides it won’t hurt anything if she jumps forward a bit to see when that happens.
DR hunches her shoulders, shoving her hands deeper into her pockets. “Just kept an eye on the entrance, is all. Thought you might like someone to pick you up when you got out.”
Her cellmate—and she still doesn’t know his name-- smirks at her. “Did you now?”
“Oh, fuck off,” she snaps irritably, all goodwill vanished. “Do you want a ride or not?”
He tilts his head and the look he gives her is...sort of predatory. Very predatory. Like he’s thinking really, really hard about eating her, and not in a sexy way. She wonders, briefly, about his superior time lord biology and if he’d be able to catch her. She also wonders how coming back to life works after being cannibalized.
“So, do you want it? A ride?” DR asks, sort of regretting it now.
“Don’t need it,” he shrugs, shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. He jerks his head to the side, gesturing towards the billboard advertising a galactic fast food chain, MeMe’s.
“What, seriously?” DR circles the sign, looking it up and down.
“I thought you knew all about Time Lords,” he says, faintly mocking. “My ship has a chameleon circuit, allows it to blend in with the surroundings.”
“I never claimed to know everything about Time Lords,” DR argues. “I’ve never even met one before.”
The predatory grin is back and DR ignores it, choosing instead to poke at the billboard and getting a very painful shock for her trouble. “Ow!”
She cradles her hand to her chest and glares at nothing in particular while her former cellmate glares at the billboard.
“None of that, now!” He snaps. “She’s barely a fixed point. Are you saying you can’t handle that?” He pauses, then nods, like he’s having an actual conversation. “Good. Fancy a look around?” The question is directed at DR. “I seem to remember you mentioning a government or two you wanted to topple. I’m very good at that sort of thing.”