Spiegel im Spiegel, Chapter 3
Nov. 15th, 2008 02:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fic_of_forkWord Count: 1990
Summary: Like a mirror reflected into a mirror, choices made create an infinite of possibilities.
Warnings: Spoilers for the Gallifrey audio series. And some swearing.
Rating: Teen
Characters: Ten, Donna, Braxiatel, Torchwood, Original characters (Mike)
Genre: AU, Adventure
Author's note: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mtemplar_fic for the beta! If you don't know who Irving Braxiatel is, go read the excellent post by lizbee here. Everything that happens after "Gallifrey: Panacea" is my conjecture. His rescue from the Emissaries of Blood was mentioned in "Memorare."
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or any of its characters, and I'm receiving no profit from this beyond the joy of writing.
Chapter 2, Chapter 1
Braxiatel woke to find himself being violently ill on the floor of a zero room. As he heaved, he noticed the woman holding the basin was dressed in the heliotrope and purple everyday robes of a Patrexean Cardinal. An unseen aide held him on his side, since he was still too weak to move on his own. The aide's hands were too warm for a Time Lord, but just warm enough for a human's. When his emesis became dry heaves that made him shake with cold, the aide stroked his back with long, warm strokes that felt oddly soothing.
The Cardinal offered Braxiatel some water to rinse his mouth, then placed the basin off to the side. She and her aide--a male human Braxiatel didn't recognize--wrapped him in a blanket. While the aide took the basin out of the zero room, the Cardinal laid Braxiatel down with his head resting in her lap. Instinctively, he felt his mind touch hers, as it would around any other Time Lord. He panicked, but was unable to move.
"Easy," she cooed. "It's gone from your mind."
"How?" Braxiatel managed to croak.
"It tried to infect me," the Cardinal answered. "But Pandora wasn't expecting my tiny human mind and imploded, unable to cope. Yeah, sorry about that. I was hoping to draw it out of your mind before it imploded."
Braxiatel found the place in his mind, where the Pandora infection had been but now was a gaping wound. Poking at it felt not unlike poking at the hole left after a tooth extraction. He stopped his exploration suddenly, when another wave of dizziness and nausea hit him.
"Hey, don't do that!" the Cardinal snapped.
Craning his head, he watched as she applied a few drops of oil to her fingertips, then repositioned his head. The sensation of her fingertips caressing his temples combined with the faint but heady scent of the oil was overwhelming. Desperately, he tried to assert control, but rapidly slid into a deep, healing sleep.
And then there was darkness. The darkness around Braxiatel was complete and empty, as if he were in a tomb, or the empty shell of the Collection. Narvin, Leela, and Romana had escaped, that much he could remember, and left him alone in the husk of his domain. He spent his days and nights walking around its cavernous rooms, listening to the echoes of his footsteps. Soon he could tell by how his footsteps sounded where he was and how close he was to the walls. When he bored of echolocation, his eyes began to adjust, and the darkness took on shades of inky black and soft charcoals.
Within the darkness was another. It was one he contained within him since his exile from Gallifrey. A living fragment of Pandora, a primal shard of evil and hatred, was housed in a partition of his mind. He could feel Pandora's influence seep into him slowly, but he thought he could overcome it, counteracting its poison. The fragment whispered to him, caressed his mind, and cajoled him into letting it free, knowing there would come a time when he wouldn't be able to counteract its seduction, when the poison that leeched into him from it would be too much for him to resist. Now it openly fought for control, as it felt the walls of the partition start to crumble.
There was anger, too. Anger at his own people, at himself, and at those who he had driven away. There was also anger against him, his brother. He felt the Pandora fragment nurse at his anger and feed off of his sense of failed ambition. Little by little Pandora ate away at him, so that by the time the Daleks breached the Collection, there was just enough of Braxiatel left to watch in horror at what he had become.
Now contained by Pandora as he had contained it, he watched as the Time War unfolded before him. The Daleks experimented upon him, trying to free Pandora and use the fragment as a weapon. When the Daleks bored of him, they sold him to an ally, who experimented more. Unable to contain Pandora, his new captors removed a heart in order to cripple him. Finally, he was locked in a cell that deadened his body's perception of time and starved, when his captors couldn't control Pandora.
It was after he had fallen into a coma to conserve what life was left that he was able to establish some control over Pandora, but he--like his body--was too weakened by his ordeal to fight. After untold ages, gentle hands lifted him out of the filth of his cell and clothed him. Other hands--with touches so warm they almost burned--washed and tended to his wounds.
Another set of hands held him and explained he was rescued by Torchwood and that he would be put into stasis until they could find someone to help, since the Time Lords couldn't risk contagion. The voice explained to him that the Doctor was doing what he could to find a solution. Braxiatel could smell the wool of a coat and felt a kiss upon his forehead before he was encased in ice.
As he felt the ice melt, he felt light and warmth behind his eyelids. Cracking an eye, the light was overwhelming, almost blinding as it reflected off of the tall white peaks of the glacial mountains. Slowly, the other eyelid broke free of its crust of sleep and blinked in the light of the second sun, just rising over the horizon from the window near the bed where Braxiatel lay. For a moment, he sank back into the lush pillows and comforters piled around him as he heard the soft fall of beads.
Turning his head, he saw a man--middle aged, short graying hair, slightly pudgy, but otherwise fit. The man tucked the rosary he was holding into a pocket of the fleece shirt he wore and smiled at Braxiatel, the lines in the corners of his brown eyes accentuating the smile. Braxiatel recognized the man as the aide to the Cardinal in the zero room. He was stunned when the man--a human--addressed him in Gallifreyan.
"Welcome home," he said.
"You were in the room, aiding the Cardinal?" Braxiatel managed to ask, when he found his voice, scratchy from disuse.
"Yup, that was my niece, Margaret," the man responded. "Don't think we've met yet. I'm Father Mike, a friend of the Doctor's."
"You're a priest?"
"Yup. Who better to have around for what was essentially an exorcism?" Mike said. "Maggie couldn't risk infection of one of her usual helpers. Oh shit, I'm sorry. I forgot my stuff for a sick call. You aren't Catholic, are you?"
"No, I'm not," Braxiatel responded, as he allowed Mike to help him sit up. Mike handed Braxiatel a nutrient drink, watched him take a few sips, and then made certain that the rest of it was within easy reach.
"I can go run and get what I need, if you want."
"Please, don't trouble yourself on my account. I think I'll recover from events this morning," Braxiatel quipped.
Mike looked puzzled. "That was days ago."
Braxiatel looked momentarily disoriented, then a look of disbelief briefly flashed over his features. "What year is it?"
Mike gave the precise date, using standard Time Lord terminology. "It took Maggie a few years to prepare for it, and they had to isolate a zero room in case that thing got out. Torchwood on Earth rescued you from the Emissaries of Blood, and they kept you in stasis there the whole time, about five years. You were recently transfered here, but this can wait--you need your rest. If you need anything, let me know?"
Quietly, Braxiatel asked, "How much of my past do you know?"
Mike turned to leave, but before he did, he paused in the doorway. After a moment, he added pensively, "I've traveled with the Doctor and been a priest long enough to know that those who fight with evil don't always win."
Braxiatel looked around the small office and sighed. It didn't even have a window. There was some work already piled on the desk to keep him busy, but nothing that was even remotely a challenge or worthy of his abilities. While still technically a Cardinal, it was made known that his presence wasn't wanted near the High Council, either. Sure, his fellow Cardinals were polite, deferential even. But every sign he saw had shown how Gallifrey had moved on without him. Braxiatel was a relic, a spare part from an earlier time, and now this present generation saw his generation and courtly ways as superfluous at best, and the cause of the Time War at worst. Braxiatel also saw the uncomfortable looks on peoples' faces around him, as if he were still a contagion for Pandora. It was as he was organizing some things in order to stall starting on the mundane task that had been assigned to him that there was a knock at his door.
"Come," he said.
The door opened, and a woman with flame-colored hair was behind it. "I'm so sorry to bother," she said, "but I think I'm lost. I was supposed to meet with a Cardinal Valensis, but his office isn't where it's supposed to be. Getting a straight answer out of you flipping Martians is bloody impossible."
"I've...been away, so I don't know how much help I'd be in the new Citadel," Braxiatel admitted. He looked around the office, and not seeing another chair, swung his around to the other side of the desk. "I'm Irving Braxiatel."
"Donna Noble," the woman answered, returning his handshake.
"Let's look up the wayward Cardinal, shall we?" Braxiatel pulled out a tablet computer and began searching. "It looks like the honorable Cardinal Valensis left Gallifrey on a diplomatic mission two weeks ago." Braxiatel studied Donna for a moment, but as his mind grazed hers, his blood ran cold. "Tell me, you wouldn't happen to know a Time Lord, who calls himself the Doctor, would you?"
Donna's face brightened considerably. "You know him?" She sighed and looked momentarily weary. "I'm trying to get any information I can. They explained that he was a bad way off and needed my help, but that was days ago." Briefly, she described to Braxiatel the events in the Medusa Cascade, the metacrisis, and how the next thing she remembered was waking up in her own bed, not remembering anything that came before.
"It's odd," Donna said after trying to collect her thoughts. "Then one night after work, I passed out and woke up here, remembering everything."
"They've kept you here ever since?" Braxiatel asked, when Donna came up for air.
"Yep," Donna responded. "I can't even get a straight answer as to when I can go home. At first they told me they needed to study me to find a way to help the other Doctor--that's the human one. Said he was in a coma."
"The metacrisis?" Braxiatel asked.
"They poked, prodded, and did their bleeping alien thing for a couple of days," Donna said, "but then they just stopped. Didn't explain anything, just like him. And here I am. Can't get an answer about anything." Donna sniffed. "I've got connections, you know. The Chancellor and I had tea awhile back, but I can't even get him to tell me anything." Donna was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. "You know when he--the Doctor--doesn't tell me anything and just flits off to another idea it's endearing. I miss him."
"Me too," Braxiatel admitted.
"You know each other?" Donna asked, stunned.
"His entire life," Braxiatel said. "Ms. Noble--"
"--Donna."
"Yes, Donna. I have certain...avenues...for information. Let me make my inquiry, and I'll get in touch with you as soon as I've learned something."
Summary: Like a mirror reflected into a mirror, choices made create an infinite of possibilities.
Warnings: Spoilers for the Gallifrey audio series. And some swearing.
Rating: Teen
Characters: Ten, Donna, Braxiatel, Torchwood, Original characters (Mike)
Genre: AU, Adventure
Author's note: Thanks to
mtemplar_fic for the beta! If you don't know who Irving Braxiatel is, go read the excellent post by lizbee here. Everything that happens after "Gallifrey: Panacea" is my conjecture. His rescue from the Emissaries of Blood was mentioned in "Memorare." Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or any of its characters, and I'm receiving no profit from this beyond the joy of writing.
Chapter 2, Chapter 1
Braxiatel woke to find himself being violently ill on the floor of a zero room. As he heaved, he noticed the woman holding the basin was dressed in the heliotrope and purple everyday robes of a Patrexean Cardinal. An unseen aide held him on his side, since he was still too weak to move on his own. The aide's hands were too warm for a Time Lord, but just warm enough for a human's. When his emesis became dry heaves that made him shake with cold, the aide stroked his back with long, warm strokes that felt oddly soothing.
The Cardinal offered Braxiatel some water to rinse his mouth, then placed the basin off to the side. She and her aide--a male human Braxiatel didn't recognize--wrapped him in a blanket. While the aide took the basin out of the zero room, the Cardinal laid Braxiatel down with his head resting in her lap. Instinctively, he felt his mind touch hers, as it would around any other Time Lord. He panicked, but was unable to move.
"Easy," she cooed. "It's gone from your mind."
"How?" Braxiatel managed to croak.
"It tried to infect me," the Cardinal answered. "But Pandora wasn't expecting my tiny human mind and imploded, unable to cope. Yeah, sorry about that. I was hoping to draw it out of your mind before it imploded."
Braxiatel found the place in his mind, where the Pandora infection had been but now was a gaping wound. Poking at it felt not unlike poking at the hole left after a tooth extraction. He stopped his exploration suddenly, when another wave of dizziness and nausea hit him.
"Hey, don't do that!" the Cardinal snapped.
Craning his head, he watched as she applied a few drops of oil to her fingertips, then repositioned his head. The sensation of her fingertips caressing his temples combined with the faint but heady scent of the oil was overwhelming. Desperately, he tried to assert control, but rapidly slid into a deep, healing sleep.
And then there was darkness. The darkness around Braxiatel was complete and empty, as if he were in a tomb, or the empty shell of the Collection. Narvin, Leela, and Romana had escaped, that much he could remember, and left him alone in the husk of his domain. He spent his days and nights walking around its cavernous rooms, listening to the echoes of his footsteps. Soon he could tell by how his footsteps sounded where he was and how close he was to the walls. When he bored of echolocation, his eyes began to adjust, and the darkness took on shades of inky black and soft charcoals.
Within the darkness was another. It was one he contained within him since his exile from Gallifrey. A living fragment of Pandora, a primal shard of evil and hatred, was housed in a partition of his mind. He could feel Pandora's influence seep into him slowly, but he thought he could overcome it, counteracting its poison. The fragment whispered to him, caressed his mind, and cajoled him into letting it free, knowing there would come a time when he wouldn't be able to counteract its seduction, when the poison that leeched into him from it would be too much for him to resist. Now it openly fought for control, as it felt the walls of the partition start to crumble.
There was anger, too. Anger at his own people, at himself, and at those who he had driven away. There was also anger against him, his brother. He felt the Pandora fragment nurse at his anger and feed off of his sense of failed ambition. Little by little Pandora ate away at him, so that by the time the Daleks breached the Collection, there was just enough of Braxiatel left to watch in horror at what he had become.
Now contained by Pandora as he had contained it, he watched as the Time War unfolded before him. The Daleks experimented upon him, trying to free Pandora and use the fragment as a weapon. When the Daleks bored of him, they sold him to an ally, who experimented more. Unable to contain Pandora, his new captors removed a heart in order to cripple him. Finally, he was locked in a cell that deadened his body's perception of time and starved, when his captors couldn't control Pandora.
It was after he had fallen into a coma to conserve what life was left that he was able to establish some control over Pandora, but he--like his body--was too weakened by his ordeal to fight. After untold ages, gentle hands lifted him out of the filth of his cell and clothed him. Other hands--with touches so warm they almost burned--washed and tended to his wounds.
Another set of hands held him and explained he was rescued by Torchwood and that he would be put into stasis until they could find someone to help, since the Time Lords couldn't risk contagion. The voice explained to him that the Doctor was doing what he could to find a solution. Braxiatel could smell the wool of a coat and felt a kiss upon his forehead before he was encased in ice.
As he felt the ice melt, he felt light and warmth behind his eyelids. Cracking an eye, the light was overwhelming, almost blinding as it reflected off of the tall white peaks of the glacial mountains. Slowly, the other eyelid broke free of its crust of sleep and blinked in the light of the second sun, just rising over the horizon from the window near the bed where Braxiatel lay. For a moment, he sank back into the lush pillows and comforters piled around him as he heard the soft fall of beads.
Turning his head, he saw a man--middle aged, short graying hair, slightly pudgy, but otherwise fit. The man tucked the rosary he was holding into a pocket of the fleece shirt he wore and smiled at Braxiatel, the lines in the corners of his brown eyes accentuating the smile. Braxiatel recognized the man as the aide to the Cardinal in the zero room. He was stunned when the man--a human--addressed him in Gallifreyan.
"Welcome home," he said.
"You were in the room, aiding the Cardinal?" Braxiatel managed to ask, when he found his voice, scratchy from disuse.
"Yup, that was my niece, Margaret," the man responded. "Don't think we've met yet. I'm Father Mike, a friend of the Doctor's."
"You're a priest?"
"Yup. Who better to have around for what was essentially an exorcism?" Mike said. "Maggie couldn't risk infection of one of her usual helpers. Oh shit, I'm sorry. I forgot my stuff for a sick call. You aren't Catholic, are you?"
"No, I'm not," Braxiatel responded, as he allowed Mike to help him sit up. Mike handed Braxiatel a nutrient drink, watched him take a few sips, and then made certain that the rest of it was within easy reach.
"I can go run and get what I need, if you want."
"Please, don't trouble yourself on my account. I think I'll recover from events this morning," Braxiatel quipped.
Mike looked puzzled. "That was days ago."
Braxiatel looked momentarily disoriented, then a look of disbelief briefly flashed over his features. "What year is it?"
Mike gave the precise date, using standard Time Lord terminology. "It took Maggie a few years to prepare for it, and they had to isolate a zero room in case that thing got out. Torchwood on Earth rescued you from the Emissaries of Blood, and they kept you in stasis there the whole time, about five years. You were recently transfered here, but this can wait--you need your rest. If you need anything, let me know?"
Quietly, Braxiatel asked, "How much of my past do you know?"
Mike turned to leave, but before he did, he paused in the doorway. After a moment, he added pensively, "I've traveled with the Doctor and been a priest long enough to know that those who fight with evil don't always win."
***
Braxiatel looked around the small office and sighed. It didn't even have a window. There was some work already piled on the desk to keep him busy, but nothing that was even remotely a challenge or worthy of his abilities. While still technically a Cardinal, it was made known that his presence wasn't wanted near the High Council, either. Sure, his fellow Cardinals were polite, deferential even. But every sign he saw had shown how Gallifrey had moved on without him. Braxiatel was a relic, a spare part from an earlier time, and now this present generation saw his generation and courtly ways as superfluous at best, and the cause of the Time War at worst. Braxiatel also saw the uncomfortable looks on peoples' faces around him, as if he were still a contagion for Pandora. It was as he was organizing some things in order to stall starting on the mundane task that had been assigned to him that there was a knock at his door.
"Come," he said.
The door opened, and a woman with flame-colored hair was behind it. "I'm so sorry to bother," she said, "but I think I'm lost. I was supposed to meet with a Cardinal Valensis, but his office isn't where it's supposed to be. Getting a straight answer out of you flipping Martians is bloody impossible."
"I've...been away, so I don't know how much help I'd be in the new Citadel," Braxiatel admitted. He looked around the office, and not seeing another chair, swung his around to the other side of the desk. "I'm Irving Braxiatel."
"Donna Noble," the woman answered, returning his handshake.
"Let's look up the wayward Cardinal, shall we?" Braxiatel pulled out a tablet computer and began searching. "It looks like the honorable Cardinal Valensis left Gallifrey on a diplomatic mission two weeks ago." Braxiatel studied Donna for a moment, but as his mind grazed hers, his blood ran cold. "Tell me, you wouldn't happen to know a Time Lord, who calls himself the Doctor, would you?"
Donna's face brightened considerably. "You know him?" She sighed and looked momentarily weary. "I'm trying to get any information I can. They explained that he was a bad way off and needed my help, but that was days ago." Briefly, she described to Braxiatel the events in the Medusa Cascade, the metacrisis, and how the next thing she remembered was waking up in her own bed, not remembering anything that came before.
"It's odd," Donna said after trying to collect her thoughts. "Then one night after work, I passed out and woke up here, remembering everything."
"They've kept you here ever since?" Braxiatel asked, when Donna came up for air.
"Yep," Donna responded. "I can't even get a straight answer as to when I can go home. At first they told me they needed to study me to find a way to help the other Doctor--that's the human one. Said he was in a coma."
"The metacrisis?" Braxiatel asked.
"They poked, prodded, and did their bleeping alien thing for a couple of days," Donna said, "but then they just stopped. Didn't explain anything, just like him. And here I am. Can't get an answer about anything." Donna sniffed. "I've got connections, you know. The Chancellor and I had tea awhile back, but I can't even get him to tell me anything." Donna was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. "You know when he--the Doctor--doesn't tell me anything and just flits off to another idea it's endearing. I miss him."
"Me too," Braxiatel admitted.
"You know each other?" Donna asked, stunned.
"His entire life," Braxiatel said. "Ms. Noble--"
"--Donna."
"Yes, Donna. I have certain...avenues...for information. Let me make my inquiry, and I'll get in touch with you as soon as I've learned something."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-11-16 07:27 am (UTC)(Though every now and then I get a bit lost as to backstory, as I've not had benefit of the books or audio, alas.)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-16 07:44 am (UTC)Hrm...it's a weird balance with how much recap to do without losing the flow. The backstory from the audios and NA's isn't hugely important to this story, but I couldn't just toss Brax in without some sort of introduction. Would it help to slip more bits of his story in later on?
no subject
Date: 2008-11-16 08:22 am (UTC)(I picked up a bit from Googling around a bit on some story overviews of the audios, which has helped me from feeling completely lost, but I'm still a bit lost about Brax, yes. :( A reader who doesn't look up the info might be even more lost than myself, I'm not sure.)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-16 08:34 am (UTC)Best description I've seen comes from one of the Bernice Summerfield short stories. Another character calls Braxiatel "a guy who's a cross between Howard Hughes and Louis the Umpteenth."
no subject
Date: 2008-11-16 09:02 am (UTC)Lord, now I have a really twisted visual for the guy. LOL! (As long as he doesn't start the whole bodily fluids thing, we're fine. Heh.)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-16 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 06:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:49 am (UTC)I'm kinda surprised you had Donna say "bleeping" when she's said "bloody" a few times on the show...
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 06:52 pm (UTC)Hrm...I've heard/read Donna use bleeping, bloody, and flipping in the TV episodes and the books. (And then there's the cut off epithet in "Ghosts of India.") I'd think she'd cycle through them a bit. :)
it's tricky coming up with epithets for aliens that she'd use. Martian, spaceboy, etc.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:02 pm (UTC)And I meant, poor Brax for what he suffered at the "hands" of Pandora and the Daleks, et al!!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:15 pm (UTC)Yeah...that character's really taken a beating by the end of the Gallifrey audios. I think one of the reasons why the Benny audios (at least through season 8) are hard to listen to is because it's sad where they're taking his character. He's gone from a rather noble figure who misses his brother and his people (Tears of the Oracle) to one-sided villain.
I really, really hope there's some redemption in the BFA's for his character that doesn't involve dying at the end of it. Although they have to loop back into the end of the Gallifrey audios, since I think the Benny ones take place in between "Mindbomb" and "Panacea."
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:22 pm (UTC)Oh yes!! :D
Yeah...that character's really taken a beating by the end of the Gallifrey audios. I think one of the reasons why the Benny audios (at least through season 8) are hard to listen to is because it's sad where they're taking his character. He's gone from a rather noble figure who misses his brother and his people (Tears of the Oracle) to one-sided villain.
I really, really hope there's some redemption in the BFA's for his character that doesn't involve dying at the end of it. Although they have to loop back into the end of the Gallifrey audios, since I think the Benny ones take place in between "Mindbomb" and "Panacea."
I still haven't heard any of the Benny audios, I'm afraid (though I've got one somewhere which I was given - can't remember which one though!)...
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:30 pm (UTC)That's pretty much why I've abandoned the whole Benny+Seven+Ace novels - I got tired of the dysfunction...
(Don't know if it's coming through or not, but I'm really trying to write Brax and Donna as being something approaching healthy.)
Too early for me to say yet since I haven't read past their initial meeting...
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 07:50 pm (UTC)