Chapter Text
It wasn’t the pain that woke her up. The pervasive ache that ate at her bones had settled into her entire being, it became part of who she was. It had been so long since she existed separate from the twisting agony of her body breaking down and rebuilding, being awake or asleep no longer made a difference to her.
But something woke Lee up, even if she couldn’t immediately identify what.
Lee laid in silence until she felt the irregular rattling of the station around her. She stood and wandered to the door of her cell.
In the entirety of her semi-forced stay on this station, irregular was not a word that could be used to describe it. Lee would have called them scheduled: her meals coming to her every 8:15 and 5:30, her walks around the complex always 45 minutes before her evening gene therapy, her classes never lingered and made sure she hit her marks in dexterity and comprehension, and her ‘appointments’ a strict 13 hours apart- long enough for the experiments to settle but for her to heal. She could call them manipulative: they made sure to keep her informed of her state of health, not enough to know what they were doing to her but enough to know that by then it would take a miracle for her to survive without them. She definitely called them ruthless: after all, she hadn’t been very old when they first acquired her. She could and had called them efficient, and cruel, and merciless, and strict.
She had been stuck in this physically pristine space station for longer than she could admit to herself and she knew the people and space better than she knew her own genetic make-up, and never before had she been woken up in the middle of the night to surprise tremors.
Lee took a moment to look around her ‘room.’ She knew she could get out and solve the mystery of the unexpected tremors, but did she really want to? If she couldn’t get back to sleep, she had the books assigned that day to test her comprehension. If those didn’t interest her, she had a variety of puzzles to solve that tested her problem solving or the blank papers that were supposed to be used to measure her memory retention. And even if none of those interested her, Lee could pick up the adjustable weights littering the room and work out.
She giggled at herself before turning her back on the room. Who was she kidding? She may have resigned herself to being stuck in that damned station, but Lee could never deny her insatiable curiosity.
Lee leaned forward to look at the panel next to her door and tapped in the most recent code to release the locks. They changed daily, mostly because it was too easy for her to discover the passcodes, but the people in charge never felt that her periodic escapes were enough of a risk to change their security to something harder to crack than a 6-digit passcode. After-all, as far as she knew, if she completely escaped, she’d die anyway.
When the door opened, the sound of alarms became immediately apparent. The corridor was designed as sleeping quarters for the various experiments, and while Lee was the only cognizant one still around, the sound-proofing of the rooms was excellent. The scientists and security didn’t want anything to interfere with their work and introducing loud, sudden sounds could act as irritating variables on their subjects. So, when Lee opened her door, she was surprised at the low, steady droning noise reverberating across the metal walls.
“Attention all personnel: there is an intruder on Deck 3. Repeat, there is an intruder on Deck 3. Method of boarding is unknown. Possible number of assailants is unknown. Secure all research and report to immediate superior.” Lee listened to the measured, familiar voice command the workers of the space station before discarding it as irrelevant to herself and kept walking.
The at the end of the hallway, Lee was presented with multiple directions to venture down, but the continuous vibrations had ceased sometime in her brief walk and she had no idea of the direction she should go.
So Lee followed her gut and took the turn toward the cafeteria.
She was a growing, genetically unstable girl. She needed her sustenance. The walk to the dining hall was swift and sure, the alarm settling into soothing background noise in the back of her mind. When Lee arrived, the room was empty. Trays left haphazardly but firmly on tables as evidence of their quick but unafraid response to surprise intruder. The food was standard fare for a space station. Neither extravagant nor too bland; the entrees were simple meats, side dishes were some type of fruit or veg, and dessert was offered in a sealed package. The food was designed to keep morale and energy up without overly extending the staff and budget, but for the past several years Lee had only eaten what amounted to calorie shakes and she found herself delighted by the foods before her.
Some time was lost to Lee in the process of eating the still warm food left in the cafeteria. The lightly seasoned chicken breasts had her mouth watering in response to the unfamiliar flavors. The buttered potatoes kept her attention for longer than her stomach could handle. At the first bite of the cinnamon-flavored biscuit, Lee grabbed every package she could find and stuffed them in the loose pockets of her cotton pants.
By the time her stomach was full and every movement left her feeling vaguely nauseous, the station alarms had stopped droning and switched to a more urgent trilling. Lee did not know what had changed, there may well have been an announcement while she was in her food-trance, but her curiosity re-emerged with the satiation of her hunger.
The dining hall was clearly not where the action was, but maybe the labs were.
Lee retraced her steps back to the junction leading from the cells to the rest of the station and instead of the left to the cafeteria made way to the labs. She couldn’t help but find the journey to the labs much more concerning than the one to the dining hall. Detritus littered the corridors and papers were shoved into corners where they had been crumpled by people rushing by. Usually, Lee couldn’t walk a dozen feet in either direction without running into someone in charge of her, but it had been at least 30 minutes and she hadn’t seen anyone.
The entire walk was strange to Lee, alone in movement for the first time in years. And when she got to the lab, the stillness was eerie. The space station was designed for science. There were minimal weapons and security was provided as was necessary for the type of projects being completed. Every bit of the insane budget provided was funneled into the labs, and never before had Lee seen it empty.
Lee looked around the space, glancing at and then away from the glass shattered across the floor, before walking to the few papers left behind. They weren’t anything that really helped her, every paper was either information she already knew or so specific to whatever project they were separated from that she could not make sense of them.
“Attention all personnel remaining on board: evacuation protocol is underway. Any persons remaining are expected to terminate all evidence of their work and proceed to the transport pods. Intruder has been identified and is not to be confronted. If you run into the intruder, go the other way,” a new announcement rang through the room and Lee heard a scuttling noise from under a desk in response. The voice had changed, the woman who typically read the schedule updates and announcements had been replaced by a rushed sounding man.
Shadows attempted to hide the animal cowering under the desk when Lee bent over to investigate the sound. A small, almost-rat sat there trembling, its fur ruffled and its scales dull. Lee held out her hand toward it and whispered, “It’s ok, sweetheart, I got you.”
Lee wasn’t very practiced in soothing scared animals, or literally anything, but she must have been doing something right because, after a few seconds, the almost-rat made several hesitant hops toward her.
“Shhhhhh. It’s ok,” it made a startled croon when she scooped it into the palm of her hand but settled quickly. Lee stared at the small lab experiment in her hand, she didn’t recognize what species it was, she didn’t even know if it was natural or not, but she saw herself in its resigned reaction to fear. There wasn’t much she could do for herself, but she could at least find that almost-rat a safer place to hide than a destroyed and abandoned lab.
She had just opened a pack of her squirreled biscuits for the almost-rat to chew on in her pocket when the space station rattled once again before settling finally into passive silence. Whatever had been going on at the station seemed to be dying down, though the results of the uproar remained to be seen. As she started to scoot herself back, she caught the faint glow of a test tube that had been wedged behind the desk.
Lee pried the tube out and stared. In her hand was a vial of stardust. It glimmered gold with every minute shake of her hand and again she found pieces of herself in it. She recognized that whatever was in that vial was in her too. It used to burn when injected and always left her feeling numb and unsteady for days. Days where that mystery-substance was part of the procedure that turned her into a mystery-being were agonizing and ugly. But the stars in that vial were beautiful. And as she glowed in response, she felt a bit beautiful too.
She slipped it into her pocket and left the laboratory. There was only one other major destination to explore: the bridge.
The corridors were just as creepily empty but with company in her pockets, Lee felt steadier in step. She approached the slightly cracked door to the bridge and heard yelling.
“-nology isn’t possible with what humans should know. Ever,” a man’s voice came through clearly. His voice was baffled and degrading at the same time. “This level of gene manipulation to present time and mental sensitivities should not be possible.”
“Just because you think it is impossible does not mean that it is,” Lee did recognize the second voice. He was the head honcho, the big cheese, the lead scientist. She wasn’t sure what exactly the end goal of the experimentation station was but if how the lead scientist dressed was any indication, it was very lucrative.
“You don’t understand, it’s not because I’m not smart enough to understand. I’m smarter than everyone in this station. I make you look like a gibbering idiot,” the first voice, the one she didn’t recognize snapped. “It is objectively impossible for these experiments to work. Well unless you had-“
The voice interrupted itself with a series of increasingly enthusiastic mumbles. Lee leaned in to peer through the open doorway. Where there were typically more than two dozen people on the bridge to operate a space station of that size, only two people remained. As the lead scientist, and with a personality that demanded overbearing levels of oversight, Dr. Nelson was not of interest to Lee. The other man in the room was interesting in the contrasts between his looks and Lee’s expectations. Every person she had met that talked like he did, a mixture of confidence and derision, wore lab coats or had guns, but this man had neither. Sure, he wore a coat and suit, but far from the cold white, the brown overcoat opened his demeanor despite the hostility of his tone. His hair was large and free without being pulled back to fit the strict safety regulations of the scientists of the station and his shoes, while closed-toed, were not the professional loafers of the type of people who worked there. He had the brains of a scientist but not the looks of one.
“It would take a large amount of energy from a source in constant fluctuation with time to get these results,” the not-scientist scientist finally said. “But all those are gone. What could you possibly be using?”
“You don’t need to know. Our experiments are going to help humanity, and I don’t see how telling you anything works in my favor.”
“Because it's dangerous! The only particles that can produce these results kill humans. And you’ve been injecting them into innocent people!” Something dark had entered the stranger’s voice, a darkness Lee was familiar with and caused her to draw into herself.
“Please, as if someone like you knows what we are doing here,” Dr. Nelson sounded confident in his words, as if the evacuation of the station was but a minor inconvenience.
“Sure, how would someone like me know what energy source you are using to advance these experiments? How would I know that they are clear when inert but glow gold when exposed to movement? How would I know that when forcibly introduced to a human’s system they leave a burning sensation?”
Dr. Nelson blinked and seemed to take a moment to recollect himself but the stranger continued before the doctor could speak, “Huon particles are dangerous and you’ve been using them without fully understanding what they are. I’ve disposed of all the ones I could find in your laboratories but my scans indicate that there are still some aboard. Where are they?”
Lee pulled the hand that had unconsciously clenched around the vial out of her pocket and then stepped forward, “Um, I think you might be talking about this?”
Both men turned to look at her, Dr. Nelson with the dismissive anger he always had on his face when he saw her outside of her restraints in the lab and the stranger with clear surprise. The stares lasted for only a few seconds before both men slid their eyes to the vial in her hand.
“Oh! Molto bene!” The stranger made to rush over to grab the vial from her but Lee flinched back at the sudden movement and cradled the stardust to her chest. The stranger paused and reconsidered at her flinch but gave a slight flinch himself as both Lee and the vial began to gently glow.
“Another one? How many people did you endanger?!” The stranger whirled his attention back to Dr. Nelson. “Never again. You are going to stop this and shut the entire project down.”
Dr. Nelson snorted, “I am not going to abandon my life’s work because some nobody told me to.”
“Oh, I’m not going to just tell you. I’m going to make you.” Lee felt something shiver down her spine at the stranger’s words. “This station is officially decommissioned, starting right now. And you are going to let that girl go.”
“No. No it is not and no I will not. The investors of the work we are doing here expect results and they will get them. And I’m not going to lose our most valuable product.”
“Product? She’s a human being!” Like all the times he had spoken before, the tone the stranger used frightened Lee, but the words were something she hadn’t heard since she was taken from her home.
“Well, I that’s not quite true anymore, is it?” Dr. Nelson smiled with his teeth but not his eyes. “And for someone so self-righteous, you seem to care very little if she dies.”
“What do you mean? Of course I care if she dies!”
“Well, it’s as you said. Those particles are awfully dangerous, and the little lily there has been exposed to more than most,” Dr. Nelson said.
“Nice try, but if she had been exposed to enough Huon particles to kill her, she wouldn’t be walking now. If she is no longer exposed to the particles, then they should bleed off,” the stranger started confidently but seemed to realize he was missing something.
“That may be accurate for some cases related to Huon particles, but for her. After all, she has been injected with them on a daily basis for the past 4 years. They keep her stable. They keep her alive. Now tell me, sir, do you care more for her life or for her freedom?”
Lee felt the fury rising in the room, wafts of anger circling the man. “Well, that is unfortunate, for you. I was going to allow you the chance to make the right choice. But that was before I fully understood the extent of this operation and your commitment to being a terrible person. Now, there is no choice.”
The man moved toward the center console of the bridge and tapped a few buttons. “You see, you were going to have the option to abandon your work or turn yourself in, but seeing as how I just ejected all escape pod and initiated your outbreak protocols, I don’t really see many choices for you.”
The threats continued to pour out of the stranger’s mouth as he walked once again towards the doorway and Lee, “The Shadow Proclamation have been informed of your actions here. A group your investors have no sway over. All the research on this station will be purged and you’ll be arrested.”
Dr. Nelson had paled dramatically the more the stranger spoke but gathered himself to spit one last line at the stranger’s back, “I may be in jail, but the little lily will be dead.”
“Constant exposure to Huon particles is all she needs to live, right?” The stranger didn’t pause for the answer he seemed to already know. “Good thing my ship is a constant source of them then.”
The stranger turned to Lee and smiled, though, like Dr. Nelson’s smile, it didn’t quite reach his eyes, “Come on then. You don’t have to stay here any longer.”
He urged Lee back into the corridor with a soft push to her back and then hurried forward, not pausing to check if Lee was following or not. Lee looked back at Dr. Nelson but he was no longer looking at her, his eyes were trained on the screen in front of him as he tried to stop the quarantine process happening throughout the station. Video showed that in the laboratories, which held no signs of life, a controlled burn was spreading. Lee turned around and followed the distant form of the strange man.
Lee caught up to him quickly and tried to consider her options while on the move. She didn’t have many. She could stay on the space station and be brought in by what she assumed was the space police and then slowly die without access to the mysterious Huon particles the stranger and Dr. Nelson were talking about. Or she could follow the stranger and possibly be murdered. In only one of the options was dying only a possibility instead of a surety.
Lee had almost decided to follow the stranger regardless of the blaring questions surrounding him when he stopped in front of a bright blue door that Lee had never seen before. The door seemed to be connected to some sort of closet but when warm light poured out of the open door and the stranger walked farther in than should have been possible for a closet of that size, Lee hesitated.
The stranger’s head popped out of the doorway when Lee didn’t follow after a few seconds, “Well, are you coming?”
“If I follow you, I really won’t die? You can help me?”
“I said I would so I will. You can trust me,” the stranger said. Lee didn’t know much about trust, but she did know about hope, and that’s what the stranger was really offering her. Lee took a step towards him but still hesitated.
“I don’t even know your name. You are probably luring me into this box to murder me.”
“Several things. One: this isn’t a box, it’s my spaceship. You’ll understand more when you come in. Two: I’m not going to murder you because three: I’m the Doctor. Nice to meet you,” the apparent doctor smiled at Lee.
“None of what you said makes sense. No engine capable of space flight can fit inside a container that size. And being a doctor does not inspire a lot of confidence. Says me: the human experiment.”
“I’m not a doctor. I’m the Doctor. It’s my name. And she’s a special ship called the TARDIS but you won’t understand why she’s special until you try trusting me. That’s all I’m asking. For you to just try.”
Lee stared at the man. His tone was impatient and she still felt that being any type of doctor was a mark against him, but his eyes were pleading with her. As far as Lee could tell, he very sincerely wanted her to live.
“Ok. I will trust you, for now.” Lee took several blind steps into the apparent spaceship, her eyes never leaving the Doctor’s.
“Well, that wasn’t so hard little… Lily? Is that what your name is?” The Doctor finally thought to ask for Lee’s name.
“No. That’s just what they called me. My name is Galilee. Galilee Bowen. Nice to meet you, Doctor.”