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He opened his eyes in the pale light of a Messeine morning. He recognised the distinct faint indigo hue and the hint of ozone in the air before he recollected the finer details of where he was, and why. Trying to sit brought him painfully short, discovering that he was chained to the heft stone blocks of one of the few remaining temple walls.
More importantly, the attempt revealed, only a yard away opposite a figure sitting, hunched up, arms looped around her knees, and chin resting on them as she watched him with dark, wary eyes.
The Doctor – for so he remained, he found, despite the ravages of last night – tugged at his shackles and winced at the resulting pain. “Ouch,” he murmured.
“You kept trying to get free,” said Ace, lifting her head. “Like, really, really hard. Sorry. Couldn’t stop you. It, I mean. How bad is it?”
The Doctor surveyed his wrists and ankles, silvery cuffs echoed by bloody bands around his skin. It stung. The metal must be tleiridium. It was the only thing that could produce precisely this combination of hot and cold by turns where it touched him. It was a good choice on the part of the original temple-builders. Nothing could get through tleiridium in a hurry. Not even him. If only he’d known those old Messinians had had things so well in hand before he and Ace had blown their way through the dungeon wall to make certain.
He coughed. “I’ll live.”
“You are you now, aren’t you? Really you. Nothing else lurking in there?”
“Ah, a complicated question,” he said, leaning back against the wall. Philosophy, always such a difficult subject, and he had an unaccustomed headache. But this was Ace, and she was good at difficult subjects, unlike too many other people he met who had a nasty tendency to get violent on the subject and engage in unpleasant practical demonstrations that had to be stopped.
He considered her query. He felt no lingering flashes of the wild rage that had consumed him earlier. A cursory visual examination confirmed that he had neither changed colour nor grown any extra appendages. Closing his eyes, he performed a quick internal inventory: two hearts, both beating at the usual rate, four limbs, one head. Every part of him seemed to be set on complaining, all aches and bruises, but there was no outside influence; no alien voice in his mind. He explored the labyrinth of his thoughts and found two proverbs, four quotes, three malapropisms, an item from his to do list of three hundred years ago that had suddenly reappeared and the faint, reassuring call of the TARDIS, not so far away outside the temple. Beyond that, he could sense the turn of the planet in its orbit and possibly the music the stars made, although that one was no doubt mere fancy. There was absolutely no sign left of any intruder in his system.
“Yes,” he said. “I am very much me, thank you for asking.”
Ace’s shoulders lowered, some of her wariness assuaged, but she said, “Yeah, but if you had been taken over, that’s the sort of thing you’d say to put me off guard.”
I might,” he agreed, then at her continued caution, his heart gave an ache, bruised as surely as the rest of him. He would have preferred to spare her, if he could. The worry in her eyes hurt more than any physical battering. “Ace. You’ll have to trust me.”
Ace crawled over, closing the last space between them. “I do, Professor. That’s what got us into this mess.”
“True. My apologies.” He would have doffed his hat at this point, had he not been chained and, worse, minus his hat. “You haven’t seen my hat, have you?”
“That sounds like you all right,” she said, but she hung back, not quite ready to release him. “Look, you are sure, aren’t you? You were well scary. Even worse than usual.”
The Doctor sighed, but refused to believe that any irreparable damage had been done to their relationship. “Ace. My respiratory system is much more efficient than yours in dealing with parasitical infestations. That was, by and large, the plan. Now, let me out.” The last came out a little more plaintive than he had intended, but it had been a wearing night and even he was prey to exhaustion sometimes.
Ace fumbled about in her pockets, before looking up. “Uh, Doctor, what would happen if someone happened to have accidentally lost the key somewhere?”
“Ace!” said the Doctor. “Tleiridium is one of the most unbreakable elements in the universe. What’s more, prolonged exposure to the substance – days, weeks – is extremely unhealthy, even for a Time Lord.” He might be able to find something in the TARDIS to help, except he couldn’t get to the TARDIS when he was chained to a solid square pillar of a kind of stone that didn’t seem much less breakable than the tleiridium.
Ace shrugged. “Didn’t say I had lost it, just I might have misplaced it for a bit.”
One of the things the Doctor had unwavering faith in was his friends. That went double for Ace. He met her gaze. “Ace. You know where it is. You merely have to fetch it out from within. Think.” His flesh under the metal cuffs tingled and threatened more pain, but he ignored that, concentrating on her. Was she still wary of him?
She nodded and closed her eyes. “I had it in this pocket and then –”
She fell silent, mentally retracing the events of last night of which he had no memory. She’d get there. He was confident enough to shut his eyes and try a cat-nap, vaguely aware of her movements all the while. When he opened his eyes again, he found her close beside him, slotting the key, a triangular piece of metal, into the lock of the band around his left wrist, and frowning over the awkwardness of getting it to fit inside and turn.
“Gordon Bennett,” she said, when she got the first of the cuffs on and saw the marks on his skin. Her face set and she worked intently on removing the rest.
He leant back against the wall when she’d done, rubbing his wrists. He smiled at her. “Thank you.”
She had lost her hesitancy now, putting her arm around him to help him to his feet. He might have made it unaided, but then again, he might not, and he was relieved to be made certain that nothing essential had been broken between them. He let himself lean on her.
“I only thought,” she said, as they made their way out of what remained of the ancient building, “that it might be like the Cheetah virus. But,” she added, her expression lightening already, “I suppose if it was, you’d learn to control it, same way I have.”
“It isn’t,” he said, “but, thank you. I’d like to think so, too.”
Ace pulled them to a halt and added, in a different tone, “I think that’s your hat up there.” She pointed.
They both looked upwards at the remaining wall of what had once been a very tall tower. Perched on the top of it was a light shape that did look remarkably like his hat.
“Ah,” said the Doctor. “I suppose it was too much to ask to accomplish this with no casualties.”
Ace shook her head. “As long as it’s only your hat!”
“Only?” he said, in mock outrage.
They made their way out, arm in arm, the Doctor limping first one way and then the other, sharing the pain out between his legs as best as he could. The TARDIS was visible in the distance across a stretch of blue-tinted sand. Shining, cold grains danced around their feet as they went. They’d soon be back inside the TARDIS and he could trust his ship to deal with his injuries.
“Was it very bad?” he murmured to Ace as they came to a halt outside the police box exterior, unable to forget the way she’d looked at him when he’d first woken.
Ace turned her mouth down. “Well freaky, Professor. I didn’t think you were going to make it. I’m glad you did. Next time we run into any beings of pure evil, I want to try blowing them up first.”
“We’ll see,” said the Doctor. There always would be another monster to fight, and so many of them came from within and could not necessarily be exploded with nitro 9. Ace already knew that, too. Which didn’t, of course, mean that she wouldn’t try to blow them up anyway. He grinned, and tapped her nose. He opened the TARDIS door for her. “No point in dawdling. This place is empty – nothing left.”
For the moment, though, they were free of this particular monster, they were victorious, and most important of all – they were home.
The universe of demons they had yet to face could wait a while longer.