curious_cosmos | Tenth Doctor and Evelyn: The Rending of the Veil (Reply)

10th_13thdoctor (this is Evelyn's "You're safe here" thread)

The Doctor:

"You're safe here."

Evelyn:

It was something small. Innocuous. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back after months of a slow widening of the fissure that sliced through the layers of blockades concealing her memories, which had been allowing bits of bleedthrough here and there.

There had been an impromptu celebration as the Va’shu tribe lauded their rescue from the demonic-seeming creatures that had been invading from another dimension. (Demons, she thought. What a word. They had been interdimensional beings that glutted themselves on pain and misery and violence and chaos. Well, if the shoe fits…) For once (at her urging) they had stayed for the aftermath, had joined the peaceful sable-furred, round-eyed aliens (though she and the Doctor were actually the aliens here, of course) around the bonfire, had watched the dancing, listened to the music, shared their proffered food and drink. The scent of roasting, seasoned meat had reached her nostrils, and at first she had felt hungry and happy and at peace– this had been one of the good days. Everybody had lived. She had sat contentedly for a time, letting her mind drift, relaxing as the din of the celebration filtered through her awareness. An odd sort of feeling began to drift through her head, subtle at first until it began to press up like the blade of a knife against the walls of her mind.

Something inside her consciousness cracked like a brittle shell, and the sounds and scents shivered and stretched and swirled until they coalesced into something else.

Screaming she could hear screams and some of them were her own and her nostrils were filled with the scent of scorched flesh and the sounds of chaos and death and hate-filled metallic voices and fire there was so much fire it was consuming the world it was pouring over her like water like acid like anointing oil like alchemical rain burning away layers of herself until the core of her shimmered through like luminous wind like a fiercely pulsating star like the vortex itself it hurt oh it hurt have to get away have to escape no stay have to help them save them they’re dying i’m dying i’m dying i’m–

She fell from her perch on the log, tumbling to the soft ground as her arms flailed and covered her head to shield from things that weren’t there, and she cried out without realizing and pulled her knees to her chest as she slumped to the side in the dirt.

You’re safe here, she heard someone say, and she couldn’t tell if the words were spoken or whispered to her mind (both, she thought, perhaps both), but she could still hear the screams, someone was screaming…

She realized the voice was her own and stopped abruptly.

The Doctor:

Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor had seen Evelyn tumble off her log, clench herself into a ball, and start screaming. Without thinking, he’d scrambled off his own seat and knelt down beside her.
*Evelyn…it’s alright,* he’d projected to her. *You’re safe here.*

When he touched her shoulder, he felt…impulses. Even thought he was not touching her mind, they were signalling out of her and blooming faint afterimages inside his own mind. All he could see was…fire, as if it rained down from an inky black sky. Along with it, the screams of children, slicing through the air, blood waterfalling from where the blades pierced the night….

He shuddered. It was too much like the last day of the Time War. But he shoved it away and leaned over her curled up form.

*Evelyn. We’re on Va’shu III.* He gently reached for her head and pressed his fingers against her temples. *You’re safe here.*