Nothing

by secooper87

Summary:

The Doctor is trapped in a top-secret US military organization called "the Initiative". But why can't he escape, who's really behind his incarceration, and what's really going on behind the scenes?

Chapter 1: Prologue

"Oh, no," said Buffy. "You're staying off my college campus."

The Doctor looked up at her, from the sonic screwdriver he was examining in his hands. "Sorry?"

Buffy fidgeted. "Nothing."

"Is there something you're not telling me?" asked the Doctor.

"No," Buffy insisted. "I just thought… why don't we split up? I mean, you really want to check out why that one Car-fold-stashian vampire—"

"Carflodashian vampire," the Doctor corrected.

"—went into the warehouse," Buffy continued. "And you can do that, while I go and find the other one that's on campus, and do something that is definitely not staking it through the heart. Using the stakes I definitely don't have on me."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at Buffy. "No wood on the planet Carflodash."

Buffy slumped. "Trust you to find me unstakeable alien vampires."

"And that sword you've hidden on you won't do much good, either," said the Doctor. "Carflodashians have no necks. Which would make decapitation a wee bit tricky."

"Yeah, so if I can't even kill this alien vampire thing, then it's not like it's that big a deal that you're sending me off on my own, is it?" said Buffy.

But she knew that wasn't going to convince him, because the Doctor knew her better than that. He knew that she'd find a way, somehow. She always did.

"I promise to give the vampire a chance?" she added, crossing her fingers behind her back. Because, really, if she was going to be completely honest, she wasn't going to give it a chance. She was going to get rid of it before it went on a major killing spree.

"Oh, all right," sighed the Doctor.

Buffy grinned. Victory Buffy! Any chance to get the Doctor away from the Initiative goons on campus was a victory in her book.

"Don't go wandering off," Buffy warned him. "I know you. If I come back, and the TARDIS isn't here anymore because you've left without saying goodbye — again — I'm going to be really mad at you."

"Blimey, you're worse than I am," said the Doctor. He fished the TARDIS key out of his pocket, and tossed it to Buffy. "Tell you what. Keep the key with you. That way, I'll have to drop by before I leave." He tucked the sonic screwdriver into his pinstripe pocket. "And don't you even think of using that TARDIS key to stake those vampires through the heart! Which, in case you're wondering, would be about three inches to the left of where you expect in a human vampire."

"Wouldn't dream of it," said Buffy, stuffing the TARDIS key into her pocket, and turning to go. "Back in an hour!"

An hour later, Buffy returned to find no Doctor and no TARDIS. Which Buffy had sort of been expecting, considering that the Doctor got bored easily, didn't like saying goodbye, and could open the TARDIS with the snap of his fingers. Looks like the Doctor found all his answers, and left.

Typical.

Buffy didn't think about it until she saw Riley, the next day. He treated her to a movie, and Buffy was happy to accept. Riley time was fun time, after all. And it wasn't like there was any chance the Doctor would show up telling her the world was in danger and she had to go save it again. She sat back in her seat with popcorn, to enjoy the movie.

It was a foreign film. With subtitles.

And Buffy listened, in horror, as every actor spoke their lines in perfect English.

---

At first, it had been easy. Because at first, Riley hadn't known.

When he'd first seen the creature in the brown pinstripe suit, he hadn't thought the creature was anything more than a vampire. After all, Riley knew the Doctor, and this wasn't the Doctor. The Doctor was younger-looking, with longer, floppier brown hair, green eyes, and a bow tie. Whatever this creature in the brown pinstripe suit was that kept trying to escape the Initiative, it wasn't the Doctor.

And, no, it didn't matter that this pinstripe suited creature had two hearts. Or kept escaping in innovative and persistent ways. Or had that same penetrating stare — so much like the Doctor's own green-eyed one. Or that this creature had a sonic screwdriver which had been confiscated from it upon its capture. Riley knew what the Doctor looked like, and this wasn't the Doctor.

Then Riley had cornered the pinstripe suited creature, on its fifth escape attempt. And the creature had recognized him.

"Should have known," muttered the creature. "Find a place full of intolerant humans who love waving guns about, and that's where you'll find Riley Finn. Does Elizabeth know your hobby involves torturing nonhuman life forms, or do you keep that little tidbit to yourself?"

Riley lowered the gun, as the shock of complete certainty crashed across him. Elizabeth. There was only one person who called Buffy that. Riley didn't know how, or why, or what was going on, but this… was the Doctor.

By that time, a large number of other Initiative teams had surrounded the two of them, but they weren't carrying the Taser Blasters that were designed only to knock out Hostile Sub Terrestrials using a surge of electricity. These soldiers were armed with real bullet-firing guns. And all those guns were leveled right at this creature that was… really was… the Doctor.

Riley looked around at the others, confused. Graham pulled him back, out of the way of the guns.

"We're shooting him?" asked Riley.

"Hostile 29 is too much trouble to keep," Graham explained to Riley. "The scientists have given permission for it to be put down."

And… oh, this really was the Doctor, it had to be, only the Doctor would launch into full-scale babble mode when faced with this many loaded guns. Only the Doctor would show no fear, just keep talking about how they couldn't kill him, because of something having to do with a symbiotic link, and… this was the Doctor. The actual Doctor. Somehow, in some impossible, indescribable way, this was the same person that had saved Buffy from those Daleks a short time ago.

Riley's mind raced. He didn't hate the Doctor. Really, really, really didn't hate the Doctor. At all. Even remotely. Not one single little bit. Nope. Didn't, didn't, didn't hate him.

But did he not-hate the Doctor enough to step in front of those loaded guns and stop the soldiers from shooting? Did he not-hate the Doctor enough to spare his life?

The Doctor was trapped. Cornered. Buffy wasn't around to save him. And perhaps she'd never need to be again. Perhaps… if the Doctor was dead, Buffy would finally forget about him. This could be Riley's best opportunity to get rid of this stupid jerk alien once and for all. To have Buffy all to himself. This could be Riley's big break. All he had to do was do nothing.

Riley Finn stepped between the guns and the Doctor.

The Doctor had saved Buffy's life. He'd saved the world. A lot. He'd… well, aside from making eyes at Buffy, he'd been good. Unquestionably, unerringly good. And… Riley wasn't going to let someone like that die.

"Not this one," Riley told the others. "This one's an ally."

The other Initiative soldiers began shouting at him to move out of the way, that he was being an idiot, that this was a Hostile Sub Terrestrial and Riley couldn't treat HSTs like they were people. Forrest growled something at him about how Buffy had messed with his head.

Riley was out of options. Explaining the Doctor was just as much a person as the rest of them would do nothing — they wouldn't believe him, anyways (and he wasn't completely sure he believed it himself). And they wouldn't believe him about the fact that the Doctor saved the world a lot, either. But… if the Doctor had really been as involved in American history as he claimed, there was one person at the Initiative who might believe Riley. And as Riley saw the newly arrived Colonel George Haviland from Washington passing by, he knew this was his only chance to save Buffy's alien friend.

"You don't understand," said Riley, loud enough that Haviland could overhear. "It's not human, but it's useful. It's travelled through time. Every military defeat, every military victory, this creature's seen it. If you shoot it, or modify its brain in any way, you'll never get the information."

"Don't you dare, Riley Finn," the Doctor warned, in a low voice.

But Riley wasn't paying attention to the Doctor. He wasn't in the mood for the Doctor's usual suspicions and paranoia about the US military or the Initiative. He was watching Colonel Haviland, who'd stepped in as head of the Initiative after Professor Walsh's death, as he heard Riley's words. As he paused in his walk, considering them.

Haviland's head snapped over to the Doctor, and as soon as he saw the alien, his eyes seemed to glow with anticipation.

"Is that so?" he asked.

The soldiers and scientists clearly couldn't believe that Haviland was buying any of this, but Haviland wasn't paying them any attention.

"There are rumors of a non-human who travels through time," said Haviland, eyes locked on the Doctor. "Who can develop weapons of such destruction and carnage that humanity hasn't even dreamed of them, yet. Who knows of every military defeat and victory in the future of this country. Who can save the world with no effort at all." He stepped closer, meeting the Doctor's eyes with his own. "Is that you?"

The Doctor denied it. He babbled about how Riley was crazy, how the idea of travelling through time was daft, how he didn't know anything at all and certainly nothing about the future. All that time, backing over towards a gap in the soldiers, maneuvering himself into the perfect position to run for the exit.

Haviland noticed.

"Secure it," Haviland commanded to the men around him.

The Doctor bolted, but didn't get two steps away before he was surrounded by Initiative soldiers. They jumped on him, seizing his arms and forcing them behind his back, then dragging him towards Colonel Haviland. The Doctor struggled to break free, but couldn't.

Haviland placed a hand on either side of the Doctor's chest, and a small smile twitched at his lips as he felt the double heart beat. He examined the Doctor, carefully.

"So it is you," said Colonel Haviland.

The Doctor's eyes flicked over to the camera on the wall with just a glimpse of the panic he was concealing, soon hidden by a perky smile. "Yes, hello! I'm the Doctor. Nice to meet you! Must dash!"

He tried to break free from the soldiers, but they were stronger than the Doctor was expecting, and held him in place.

"Do you have an objection to helping us protect this country?" Haviland asked.

"Well, I do object to helping create weapons of massive death and destruction," said the Doctor. "And the bit about revealing the future is something I'm none too keen on, either. Although, saving the world — I'm quite good at that."

Haviland turned to the scientists. "Dr. Arthur Green," he said. "This creature is now a high-security risk. I want it secured, guarded at all times, and never allowed to escape. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," said Dr. Green.

"And see if you can get it to talk," added Haviland. "I don't care how, so long as you don't kill it or damage its mind in any way. Agent Finn is right. This one's too valuable to risk."

"Oi!" said the Doctor, as he was dragged away. "If all you want is for me to talk, I'll talk! I love to talk! Just give me some tea and a jammy dodger and I'll…" His voice faded into the distance, as the Doctor disappeared into the Initiative.

"Good work, Agent Finn," Haviland told him. "Well spotted. You have just given the country an invaluable resource."

Riley saluted Haviland, but as he did so, he thought about what he'd just done. He had saved the Doctor's life. And made it impossible for him to ever escape from the Initiative. Someone like the Doctor — they'd watch him 24/7, put in the highest level of security, ensure that there was no way he could ever, ever get out. They wouldn't modify his brain, they wouldn't kill him, but they'd never let him go.

The Doctor was safe, trapped and unable to get back to Buffy on the surface. And Buffy was safe, up above, where she could forget the Doctor ever existed. Finally, finally, Buffy and the Doctor were separated. And the only person who could get the two of them back together was Riley.

Riley really, really, really didn't hate the Doctor. He knew that.

Now he just had to decide what that meant.

---

An excerpt from a correspondence with a colleague, Re: Hostile 29, from the Desk of Dr. Arthur Green:

I confess, I am usually wary about engaging in scientific collaboration of this sort at such a long distance, and with someone I haven't met face to face, but having gone through the papers you have sent me, I believe that you are a scientist of the highest quality.

As you clearly have the security clearance to know about Hostile 29's existence, and Colonel Haviland does not object, I believe that a collaboration between the two of us would be mutually beneficial. Hostile 29 does appear to be — just as you've heard — a truly unique creature. And a truly fascinating subject.

I have sent you the results to the preliminary tests. I hope to hear more from you, soon.

Chapter 2: Part I

Marianna was desperately trying not to cry. She knew it was stupid and pointless of her to cry. She was a scientist. She should be rational. Emotional outbursts would get her nowhere, would only attract scorn from her male coworkers.

And if her boss caught her crying, then that would just make his point, wouldn't it?

It'd prove exactly what Dr. Green had said to her, over and over again, that women were too emotionally weak to become scientists, that women didn't have the intellect or the brain power to achieve real scientific breakthroughs (the sole exception being Maggie Walsh, of course — and Marianna was no Maggie Walsh. Green pointed that out often enough as well). And above all, Marianna didn't want to prove Dr. Green right.

But… Marianna hadn't been wrong!

The vampire she'd been studying had not been from this planet. She was sure of that. It wasn't just the creature's differing internal physiology. It wasn't just that the vampire was immune to ultraviolet radiation. It was the entire structure of the DNA that had been different, the entire way in which its body worked that seemed to clash with every rule of biology on Earth. The creature had still been a vampire — all those genetic variations were still present — but it was on a foundation of something so bizarre, so atypical that… well, it had to be alien. An alien vampire.

All her calculations and data proved that it was possible.

And for Dr. Green to dismiss her theory completely, without even double-checking her work, then force her to do lab cleanup for the "competent scientists" — all of whom happened to be male — it was just too much.

Marianna didn't really care what was happening around her. Something was obviously happening — something big, judging by the sirens and the blur of activity. But she had had a miserable enough day, already, and she didn't need it getting any worse.

So she just tuned it all out, staring determinedly at her calculations, studying them as if she were trying to find a fault (except that there wasn't one; she knew that). And, most importantly, making sure she didn't cry.

The sirens shut off, in the distance, and there was a sudden cheer that came up from nearby. Good for them. At least someone was happy. Marianna just kept thinking that whatever experiment had gone right, she'd have to be the one cleaning it up. Like she was an intern, like she didn't know what she was doing. She wished she were more like Professor Walsh — able to deal with anything impartially, with that clinical detached coldness that allowed her logic to overpower her emotions. Professor Walsh, who'd been Marianna's mentor and inspiration. Professor Walsh, who had been brutally murdered in the Initiative a few weeks ago, leaving Marianna lost, alone, and confused.

Professor Walsh would have believed her. Or at least encouraged her. If Professor Walsh were still around, Marianna knew, everything would be better.

"You all right?" came a voice from beside her.

Marianna looked up to find a tall, thin man with friendly brown eyes and a kind smile standing right beside her. He wasn't adorned in the standard garb donned by the Initiative scientists — he wore a brown pinstripe suit and a blue tie — but Marianna had seen him running around fiddling with things earlier, and assumed he was simply some eccentric scientific expert that had been called in from Washington. This was not the first one of those that Marianna had encountered.

"I'm fine," she said, forcing her voice to sound controlled and not at all weepy. She wasn't about to give in on this. "Why shouldn't I be? I'm simply double checking some calculations."

The man examined her, thoughtfully, and Marianna had the unnerving feeling that those brown eyes could see right through her. Could see every suppressed emotion, every way that she was not Professor Walsh. Marianna winced, waiting for the reprimand.

It never came.

"Can I see that?" asked the man, easing the paper out of Marianna's hands without waiting for a response. He squinted at the data and calculations. "Blimey, that's clever. Incredibly clever. Brilliant, in fact." He glanced over the paper at Marianna. "Figure all this out by yourself, did you?"

Marianna blinked. "You… you believe me?"

"Well, hard not to," said the man, looking back at the paper. "Spelled out in black and white, really." He gave her a lopsided smile. "You know, of course, what this means?"

Of course she knew what it meant. That was what Marianna had been so excited to work out, what she'd been trying to explain to Dr. Green, before he'd dismissed her entirely. "That what we refer to as 'vampires' are not actually vampires. They're part-human, part-vampire hybrids."

"Exactly!" said the man, with a grin.

"And the vampiric element works as a virus," Marianna continued. "Some sort of blood-born pathogen that mutates the cells on a basic level. The DNA."

"But the host organism still retains traces of its former genetic makeup," the man added. He bent down, and pointed to one of Marianna's calculations. "See? This implies there's some residual elements of its original genetic code."

Marianna frowned. She hadn't noticed that. "But that would imply…" She glanced up at the man. "That would mean that we could cure…"

Marianna didn't have time to go on, because at that second, a bolt of electricity seared through the man beside her, and he dropped, unconscious, onto the ground, revealing a squad of Initiative soldiers armed with just-fired Taser Blasters standing behind him.

One of the Initiative soldiers came over to Marianna. "Are you hurt, Ma'am?"

Marianna just stared at him. "I don't—"

"Take it back to the cells," called out another Initiative soldier, as the team secured the pinstripe-suited man and began dragging him away. "And inform Colonel Haviland that the situation has been resolved, the Earth is safe, and Hostile 29 has been successfully secured and contained following its involvement."

Marianna's eyes widened. "He's an HST," she realized.

"Are you injured?" the soldier asked her, again.

Marianna looked back at the soldier. "No, he — it — didn't hurt me," she said. Her eyes strayed to the pinstripe-suited figure, now being dragged out of view. "I… haven't seen him in the cells."

"Hostile 29 is a high security risk," the soldier informed her. "It's kept in a separate holding cell, where it has fewer chances to escape." The soldier then grumbled something irritated and annoyed about Hostile 29's many escape attempts, which Marianna didn't pick up.

A high security risk? Had she really just been in danger? Marianna worked with vampires and demons on a daily basis. She knew what it was like to deal with Hostile Sub Terrestrials who only acted human so she'd let her guard down, and they could either eat her or attack her. She understood those. But… she hadn't gotten that vibe from Hostile 29. How had she read him — it — so wrong?

"It was trying to end the world?" asked Marianna.

"Save the world," the soldier corrected. "Did. Successfully."

Marianna frowned. "If Hostile 29 just saved the world, then why did you shoot him?"

"Orders," the soldier replied.

"Just because it doesn't want the planet it's standing on to end doesn't mean it isn't dangerous," one of the scientists called back to her.

Marianna digested this. That was true. Plenty of the creatures she worked with were the same — willing to save the world as long as it meant they could save themselves. Not caring about any life but their own.

She must have been mistaken about Hostile 29.

"How many people has Hostile 29 hurt so far?" Marianna asked the soldier.

"So far? None," said the soldier.

Marianna stared at him. "None? No one at all?"

"That is correct," said the soldier.

"I'm not just talking about fatal wounds," Marianna clarified. "I'm talking about anything at all. Even just a scrape or a cut."

"That is correct, Ma'am," said the soldier. "Hostile 29 has not hurt anyone since its capture."

Marianna thought this through. Since Dr. Angleman's death, she was the primary expert on the behavior modification chips. Implanted microchips placed inside their Hostile Sub Terrestrials to make these monsters unable to harm any living person. If this HST had already been chipped, why didn't Marianna know about it before now?

"Who chipped it?" she asked.

"No one. The creature is unchipped," said the soldier.

Marianna shook her head. "I'm sorry, this isn't making sense to me," she said. "If Hostile 29 is unchipped, then why—"

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I have to report back to my team," said the soldier. "My orders are to keep Hostile 29 contained, and that's what I'm going to do."

He turned on his heel, and left.

Marianna sat there a moment longer, thinking through everything she'd just learned. There was an HST in the Initiative, one that she hadn't known about before, one who seemed riddled with contradictions.

A Hostile Sub Terrestrial — and yet, when the soldiers had been distracted, it had taken the opportunity to see if she was all right, instead of trying to escape. A high security risk — and yet, they trusted it enough to let it out so it could save the world. A dangerous creature in need of constant supervision — yet it had never harmed a single person, even without behavior modification.

But there was more to the situation than that.

Marianna looked down at her calculations again. He — it — had believed her. And not just because he was trying to use her or manipulate her, as she'd expect from an HST. He'd understood all of her calculations, understood exactly what they'd implied, and even pointed out some aspects she hadn't considered.

Whatever or whoever Hostile 29 was, he was incredibly smart.

(So why hadn't he escaped by now?)

There were too many questions. Too many unknowns. And Marianna was a scientist. Her life's work was to ask questions, to work things out, to discover all the why's and how's and come up with theories to support the data she'd been given. This sort of data implied a number of unknown forces at work that Marianna couldn't see, unknown forces that were influencing the behavior of Hostile 29.

And if Hostile 29 wasn't able to hurt any living human, even while unchipped… well, Marianna wanted to know what those forces were.

Chapter 3

"Oh, yeah, Hostile 29," said Julie, over lunch. She speared a tomato with her fork. "Of course I know Hostile 29. I thought everyone did. It must have been caught back when you had that stomach flu. At first, we just thought it was a menace, because it kept trying to escape, so we were going to shoot it. But apparently, the higher-ups have some crazy idea that it's travelled through time, so we have to keep it here, unchipped and contained. Which is hell, I can tell you." She forked the tomato into her mouth.

Julie was the primary engineer — electrical and mechanical — at the Initiative. She had designed all the restraints for the HSTs, every security system and secret locking mechanism, every gurney strap and every containment cell.

If Hostile 29 tried to escape as much as those soldiers implied, Marianna had figured that Julie would know the creature well.

"Travel through time?" asked Marianna.

"I don't know," said Julie. "I've never seen any evidence of time travel. Hostile 29's supposed to be able to design all sorts of weapons and stuff, too. But I've seen no evidence of it building weapons, either."

Won't harm a living person. Marianna had thought that was only directly. But… could it be indirectly, as well?

"I've been told that Hostile 29 cannot harm any living person," said Marianna. "Even though he — it's — unchipped."

"Oh, I'm sure it can harm people," said Julie. "It just hasn't, yet. We don't know what species it is, but it scares the heck out of every other HST here. And you know that the only thing that scares them are big evil creatures that are worse than them. Besides which, Colonel Haviland says it's dangerous. 'Confidential information'."

"Don't know what species it is?" asked Marianna. "I thought it was a vampire."

"Nope," said Julie. "Two hearts. Both beating."

Marianna stared. "You're kidding me!"

"You can ask Green," said Julie, stirring the salad dressing into her salad. "Hostile 29 is one of his pet projects, right now. Whatever it is, it's unique. Unlike anything we've seen before."

Marianna winced. If it was one of Green's pet projects, then there was little chance she'd get to see it. Perhaps she could get some sort of proposal together, try to convince Colonel Haviland to give her access.

"What does Colonel Haviland want with the creature?" asked Marianna. "Information about the future? Weapons?"

"He says he wants it to talk," said Julie. She laughed. "Like anyone at the Initiative could make it stop! The damned HST won't shut up! I mean, you'd think after locking an HST in a room without oxygen for a few hours, nearly suffocating it, that HST might clam up. But not Hostile 29! It just keeps right on talking, no matter what happens to it."

"What does he — it — say?" Marianna asked.

Julie forked her salad into her mouth. "Oh, I don't even know," she said. "Nothing Colonel Haviland wants to hear, that's for sure. But it's not like anyone besides Haviland ever pays that much attention to it. I mean, you know how it is with HSTs."

Marianna did know. It was part of her training. HSTs were manipulative and deadly. You weren't supposed to listen to them, ever. Marianna had been trained to block it out, to pretend that everything the HSTs were saying was just white noise.

"The only person it won't talk to is Agent Finn," Julie continued. "Which is pretty funny, since Agent Finn's the only one who listens to it."

"Agent Finn?" asked Marianna.

"You haven't met Agent Finn?" asked Julie. "You must have seen him. Tall, blond guy, big muscles, dreamy blue eyes." She gave a small smirk. "Eye candy, that one is. Let me tell you."

"What's Agent Finn's connection with Hostile 29?" Marianna clarified.

Julie chomped on another forkful of salad. "Beats me. For a while, we thought maybe they were friends, but… it's pretty clear they don't like each other very much. Agent Finn isn't a violent guy by nature, but something about Hostile 29 really sets him off." She shrugged. "Finn's been useful, though. Knows a few things about Hostile 29's biology. It doesn't drink blood, it eats human food, it's fatally allergic to salicylic acid, that sort of thing. And I've heard through the grapevine that Finn's managed to beat some useful bits of information out of Hostile 29 in the past."

"Oh," said Marianna. She pushed the image of the man with the kind eyes asking her if she was all right out of her mind. That hadn't been a kind man. It had been an HST. What did she care if Hostile 29 was beaten for information? Especially if it was useful information, then it should be beaten. Right?

(Not a man. Just an HST. Not a man. Just an HST.)

"Have you tested Hostile 29's intelligence level?" Marianna asked.

Julie shrugged. "Green might have. Who knows? It's not like Green would ever share his results with someone like me." Julie coughed something that sounded suspiciously like "misogynist" into her hand. Then composed herself, and pretended she hadn't said anything at all. "If Hostile 29 didn't keep screwing with my security systems, I wouldn't know anything about it at all. But it screws with them a lot. I'm talking a lot. No matter how complicated an encryption code I use, or how many cipher-locks I create, Hostile 29 finds a way to get around them."

"Really?" Marianna asked. "But… why hasn't it escaped, yet?"

"Because it may have lots of knowledge at its disposal, but in the end, it's still pretty stupid," said Julie. "Hostile 29 gets around every single security system I've installed, but still gets caught. It'll disable a very sophisticated locking mechanism and run off, only to be found curled up and taking a nap beneath the outer stairs. It'll destroy complex restraints worth thousands of dollars, yet won't harm a human restraining it with a lot less force. There was one time we found it had gotten all the way to the outer door, and was just standing there, staring at the door, completely dumbfounded."

More data that didn't make sense.

"And there are other indications, too," said Julie. "I mean, if Hostile 29 were smart, it'd just do what Colonel Haviland wanted. Build weapons and tell us about the future and stop trying to escape. It's like the creature's too stupid to realize that it gets punished every time that it does something wrong."

"That doesn't necessarily follow," said Marianna.

"At the very least, Hostile 29 should treat its allies better," said Julie. "Finn's the only one who cares about it at all, and Hostile 29 still antagonizes him. Finn's the only one who'll listen to it, and yet Finn's the only one Hostile 29 won't speak to." She leaned back in her chair. "I'm telling you, Marianna. Talk to anyone. This thing might seem smart, but it's actually pretty stupid, all in all. You don't need to listen to it to know that."

"I still don't understand what Finn's interest in Hostile 29 is," said Marianna.

"You're not the only one," said Julie. "All of us have been trying to work it out. The only thing we're sure about is that Finn's girlfriend is involved, although no one knows how."

Marianna gave a little laugh.

"I know!" said Julie. "It seems totally absurd, right? But his girlfriend supposedly this great Vampire Slayer. Maybe Finn's just trying to save the kill for her, you know what I mean?"

Marianna thought she remembered something about this. She vaguely remembered a blond girl wandering around the Initiative, for a while, but she never really paid the girl much notice. The girl had been more involved with the military side, and Marianna had never had much interest in them.

"Isn't she working for us?" asked Marianna.

"Not since Professor Walsh died," said Julie. "I've never met the girl, myself, but Agent Forrest says she's nothing but bad news, all around. So that's a point in her favor." She leaned in, and added, in a whisper, "Plus, I've heard that Finn's a bit… insecure about not being the macho he-man in the relationship. And I whole-heartedly support any girlfriend who can put these military grunts in their place."

Marianna didn't really care about Finn and his relationship with his girlfriend. She didn't care about this kind of office gossip. She wanted to know about the… whatever-he-was that had believed her theory.

(But hadn't actually cared about her at all, not if he — it — was an HST. Marianna had to remember that.)

"Hostile 29," said Marianna, steering the subject back onto the main topic. "It spoke to me, earlier today. It was trying to help me with my research."

"Oh, it does that," said Julie. "I think it's approached every scientist here. It acts all concerned, but… I mean, you know how these things work. It's an HST. All that emotion and caring is just an act."

"It seems surprising that Hostile 29 would have taken that opportunity to assist me, rather than take the time to escape or do something else that would benefit itself," Marianna pointed out.

"If you ask me, Hostile 29 is working the long con," said Julie. She speared another forkful of salad. "Just you wait and see. Hostile 29 is planning something. And when it strikes, this whole Adam thing is going to seem like a cakewalk by comparison."

Chapter 4

It didn't take Marianna very long to locate Agent Finn. He was chatting and laughing with a few of his friends, relaxing with the members of his team. He looked just like any normal Initiative soldier — muscular, well-trained, armed and ready for combat at any moment.

Except he wasn't ordinary. Because for some reason, Agent Finn had known Hostile 29. And protected him.

Marianna had looked through the files. During Hostile 29's fifth escape attempt, about a week ago, Agent Finn had been personally responsible for ensuring that Hostile 29 remained alive and with his — its? — brain fully intact. Finn had been the one to know about Hostile 29's alleged ability to travel through time, and had mentioned — a number of times — that the Initiative scientists really should listen to Hostile 29, because "he usually knows what he's talking about."

How did Finn know Hostile 29? And why had Finn stuck his own neck out for this HST when Finn clearly disliked it?

"Agent Finn?" Marianna asked.

Finn turned around, and gave her a friendly smile. "Hey."

"I'm Dr. Marianna Forlich," Marianna said, offering a hand to shake, "from the vampiric cognitive studies research team. I was wondering if I might have a word with you."

Finn shrugged. "Sure."

He waved to the rest of his team, then escorted Marianna to a nearby area where she could talk.

"What's this about?" Finn asked her.

"Hostile 29," said Marianna. She noted the way that Finn's posture stiffened as she said the name, and a hint of — something angry — spread across his face. Julie had mentioned that Hostile 29 had been antagonizing Finn.

"Look, I don't care what you do to him," said Finn, "I just don't want him killed or irreversibly damaged. I outlined his uses to Colonel Haviland, and once he talks, I promise you'll see that his knowledge is an asset to the project."

Him. He. Interesting.

"Do you believe Hostile 29 is a person?" Marianna asked.

An expression of utter annoyance and frustration washed across Finn's face. "I think," said Finn, "that Hostile 29 is a stubborn bastard who won't speak up even to save his own life."

"You beat Hostile 29 for information," Marianna noted. "Several times."

"Because I had to," said Finn. "Because they were starting to question if he really had travelled through time. And the self-sacrificing bastard was ready to let them kill him instead of giving them any proof. So I made him tell them something only he could know. And it worked."

"What… did he say?" asked Marianna.

Riley's expression darkened. "Enough."

"Some sort of military information, or some sort of secret…?"

"Just… enough," said Finn.

And it was clear from the look on Finn's face that Marianna wasn't going to get anything more than that.

"How do you know Hostile 29?" asked Marianna.

Finn's jaw tensed. "We've… crossed paths before," he said. "Let's just leave it at that."

Marianna didn't want to leave it at that. She wanted to pry further, to understand exactly what happened, and why and how, to gather all the data she could and structure it into a logical hypothesis that she could test.

"But you saved his life?" Marianna asked.

"He really is an ally," Finn insisted. "I don't know why you scientist types can't see this, but he's not hostile, he's not a sub-terrestrial, and he's on our side. Yes, he's stubborn, insane, a liar, a showoff, and one of the most obnoxious two-timing jerks you'll ever meet, but that doesn't make him our enemy."

"Yet due to your testimony, he is classified as a high security risk," said Marianna. "Washington has labeled Hostile 29 as a top-secret weapon."

"I'm sure he loves that," muttered Finn.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing," said Finn. "Look, all I said was that he wasn't hostile. I never said he wasn't useful, or an escape artist. He just… doesn't like killing… well, anything. Vampires. Humans. Demons. Goldfish."

Marianna frowned. So the only reason that the Initiative considered Hostile 29 a high security risk was because… he was useful? Because they didn't want him to escape?

"Are you saying that Hostile 29 cannot harm any creature at all, living or undead?" asked Marianna. "That it's no threat whatsoever?"

"Hostile 29 is more dangerous than you could possibly imagine," said Finn. "I told you, Hostile 29 is on our side. And the most important thing is that, no matter what, he stays on our side. Because the moment he isn't, every single human being in the world is doomed."

Marianna stared at him. "I thought you said Hostile 29 isn't hostile."

"That doesn't mean he isn't insanely dangerous," said Finn.

More logical contradictions. More things that didn't make sense. But one thing was for sure. If Hostile 29 had some way in which he — no, it, she kept forgetting that — wasn't able to kill any other life form in existence, then Marianna wanted to know what that way was. Marianna wanted to know how to put that into her vampires.

It was time to create a proposal.

---

"Dr. Forlich," said Colonel Haviland. "I believe you wanted to see me?"

Marianna sat down, opposite Colonel Haviland. "Have you read my proposal?"

"I passed it on to Dr. Green," said Colonel Haviland. "I believe that Green rejected it."

Which was essentially what Marianna had expected of Green. He didn't like scientists like her getting their hands on his pet projects.

"Colonel Haviland," said Marianna. "I understand that your main priority is gathering information from Hostile 29."

"Useful information," said Haviland. "Most of what it tells us is useless. The rest is insanity."

"From my conversations with the scientists who have studied Hostile 29 to this point," said Marianna, "along with some comments made by Agent Finn, I believe that Hostile 29 is a social creature, starved for attention."

"Hostile 29 has been getting plenty of attention!" snapped Haviland.

"But all that has been negative attention," Marianna explained. "Perhaps, if it had positive attention, it would offer information voluntarily. I believe that Hostile 29 is… well, lonely. If we remedy that situation, perhaps it would be willing to share information with us."

"That strategy hasn't worked with Agent Finn," said Haviland.

"It's clear that there's some sort of pre-existing tension between Agent Finn and Hostile 29," said Marianna. "If Hostile 29 were presented with someone new, perhaps it would feel more inclined to speak up. After all, there is such a thing as Stockholm Syndrome."

Colonel Haviland mused this over. "Do you think it would work?"

"The other day, Hostile 29 approached me, itself, in order to offer aid and consultation about my calculations," Marianna told him. "If I were allowed access to Hostile 29, I believe he — it — would be happy to continue the conversation."

"But that would be useless!" said Haviland. "Hostile 29 doesn't know anything about the other creatures we deal with here."

"Everything that Hostile 29 told me was correct," said Marianna. "I believe that Hostile 29 might have a large amount of knowledge on a wide variety of topics. And I believe the reason Hostile 29 will not build you weapons is because Hostile 29 is unable to harm any creature, living or undead. Seeing as we, at the Initiative, are trying to work this into our HSTs, I believe that an investigation into this behavior would be more useful than violent attempts to force Hostile 29 to abandon it."

Haviland mused the idea over in his mind. "That does have a certain logic to it."

"All I ask for is a trial period," said Marianna. "A few days in which to work with Hostile 29 in a constructive manner, and see if this gives better results."

"All right," said Colonel Haviland. "I'll grant you access to Hostile 29's cell. However, given the nature of the creature we're dealing with, I'm afraid I can't offer you access to the creature itself. It would be safer to do so only under armed supervision."

Safer?

"With all due respect, sir, I don't think that Hostile 29 is capable of harming anyone," said Marianna. "I wouldn't be in any danger."

"I wasn't talking about your safety," said Colonel Haviland. "I was talking about the safety of the project. My duty is to ensure that Hostile 29 never leaves the custody of the United States Military. And to this end, any obstacle is a bonus. You may consult with Hostile 29 when Green is finished with it."

"If I may… make a suggestion," volunteered Marianna, "it might be useful if someone else continued the testing. Seeing as I'm conducting an experiment dealing with positive social interaction, and Dr. Green is more… aloof."

"When Green runs his tests, Hostile 29 tries to escape far less often," Haviland explained. "And above all, Hostile 29 cannot leave our custody. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Colonel Haviland," said Marianna. "Of course. And thank you for the opportunity. I promise, you won't be disappointed."

She got up to go.

"And Dr. Forlich," called Haviland, after her. She turned. "Don't mention Adam to Hostile 29. I don't trust any nonhuman subject with knowledge about Adam. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," said Marianna.

Chapter 5

Marianna hadn't exactly understood what "high security risk" meant until she saw the maze of security checkpoints and twisting corridors that led to Hostile 29's single solitary cell. Julie had been busy, that was for sure. It was any wonder that Hostile 29 had managed to get as far as he did, with the amount of security built into the passage leading to his cell. Marianna passed at least three teams of armed soldiers, seven different locked doors — all locked using a different kind of technology — and countless numbers of alarms, surveillance equipment, and monitoring sensors. Embedded dart guns in the walls, a number of hidden trap doors along the way (probably set off by some unique trait in Hostile 29's biology, Marianna assumed), and even a built-in electronic surge initiator, which could trigger a massive power surge in an embedded chip. They wouldn't chip Hostile 29's brain, Marianna knew, but apparently any other part of him was up for grabs.

But Green had finished with Hostile 29 for now, and that meant that Marianna's experiment with positive social interaction could begin.

Hostile 29's cell looked just like all the others — the thick, electrified glass as a door, with three white, gleaming walls and a food hatch at the top — but was obviously significantly reinforced. The walls were built from a nanomesh substance stronger than steel, and the glass was reinforced to the point that a bulldozer would have bounced off of it. The food hatch at the top had three levels of opening and closing hatches surrounding it — along with an openable metal grate — and there were monitors, sensors, and cameras everywhere, all watching Hostile 29.

Hostile 29, himself, was just the way he'd been the last time that Marianna had seen him — brown pinstripe suit and all. He paced his cell, restlessly — much in the same way that Marianna had seen the vampires she worked with pacing their cells, like tigers waiting to pounce.

As Marianna approached, Hostile 29 looked up, and the moment he saw her, he beamed.

Now the comparison to the vampires fell away. Because when Marianna approached the vampires' cells, they always watched her with malicious eyes, always hissed beneath their breaths as she walked by. Their every action was full of hate and anger, their every gesture conveying the same message — "if it weren't for this cell, I'd rip out your throat."

Not so with Hostile 29. When he looked at her, his eyes seemed — friendly. Not just friendly, but almost glowing with anticipation. He rocked up to bounce on the balls of his feet with unbounded excitement, grinning as if Marianna's visit had just made his day.

"It's you!" said Hostile 29. "From before! The one with the brilliant theory about vampires! Sorry about earlier. Bit rude of me to drop off like that. I'm the Doctor."

Marianna studied him. "You're a doctor?"

"No, the Doctor," the Doctor explained. "Definitive article, that sort of thing."

"Is that what you call yourself?" Marianna asked. "Or is that a name given at birth?"

"Blimey, you are inquisitive," said the Doctor. "Just call me the Doctor. Everyone else does."

"Well, then, 'the Doctor'," said Marianna, with a smile, "I'm pleased to meet you. My name is Marianna Forlich, but you can call me Marianna."

The Doctor's happiness melted a hair. Something — disappointment, perhaps — sprung up in his eyes.

"Don't do that," said the Doctor.

Marianna frowned. "Don't do what?"

"This is an experiment, isn't it?" the Doctor asked. "You're trying to conform to someone's ideal of positive social interaction, to get me to talk."

Marianna faltered. She hadn't expected to be found out quite so quickly.

The Doctor paced his cell. "You believe I'll talk because I'm starved of social interaction, and you're right. But I'm not a test subject. In fact, I'm a scientist, myself. If you let me help you — not as a pet, or an animal — but as a collaborator, as a person, I will."

"You're a scientist?" Marianna asked.

"Don't you believe me?" the Doctor replied.

She wasn't sure. She'd certainly mistaken him for a scientist back when she'd first met him. No, not him. It. She kept forgetting that. "What's your field?"

"All of them, really," said the Doctor. "Except — and the irony isn't lost on me — medicine. Well, I say medicine. Human medicine. Quite good at medicine for a Yorxolite from the 23rd moon of Carthoptos. Although, to be fair, they do believe that all illness can be cured with cream cheese."

"You can't specialize in everything," said Marianna. "That's crazy."

The Doctor winked at her. "And what about you?"

"I have a doctorate in biology and psychology, with a post-doc in neurochemical research," Marianna informed him.

"Blimey," said the Doctor. "You are clever, aren't you? Bet you were a bit of a find at this… Initiative, I believe it's called."

Bit of a find. Ha! One step out of line, and she was demoted to scrubbing test-tubes like an undergraduate. But that was neither here nor there.

"So you're the Doctor," said Marianna. "And you are…?"

"Alien," the Doctor provided. "And, before you ask, not a 'Hostile Sub-Terrestrial'. What with not being at all terrestrial. Or hostile. Or sub. I do keep trying to explain this."

"You look just like us, but you're an alien?" Marianna asked.

"Lots of races out there look like you lot," said the Doctor. "Although, technically speaking, it's the other way round. You look like us. It's all to do with a power-hungry, megalomaniacal madman who'd just discovered time travel and wanted to see what he could do with it."

And there it was, again. Time travel.

"Agent Finn says that you can travel through time," said Marianna.

The Doctor's eyes darkened. "Riley Finn says a lot of things."

"Is it true?" asked Marianna.

The Doctor fixed her with a determined stare. "I'm not telling you the future."

"You told Agent Finn," said Marianna.

"Yes, I did," said the Doctor. "After forty-five minutes of… rather brutal coercion, I told him what he wanted to know. And he didn't like one word of it."

"What did you tell him?"

"The future," said the Doctor. "His future. That on December 19, 2000, he will lose the woman he loves."

Marianna just stared at him. She thought she'd seen kindness in this creature, but that seemed… needlessly cruel.

"You don't want to know the future," said the Doctor. "Because the future hurts. When you know what's coming, and cannot stop it, it hurts. And that's my burden. Not yours."

"You didn't have to tell Finn something like that," said Marianna.

"I only gave him what he asked for," the Doctor told her. He looked away. "Besides. I told him how they're going to break up. If I'd wanted to be really heartless, I'd have told him how she was going to die."

Marianna just kept staring at the Doctor.

"Don't make me tell you about the future," the Doctor warned.

"How would a statement about Riley's girlfriend have been enough proof to the military higher-ups that they should keep you alive?" Marianna asked him.

"What makes you think it's their decision?" asked the Doctor.

Marianna gave a small but uneasy laugh. "Well, of course it's their decision. Why else would…?" She trailed off. She hadn't really intended to say that much.

"Why else would Riley Finn beat me, you mean?" asked the Doctor. "Well, I should think that was obvious. He hates me."

"Agent Finn does not hate you," said Marianna. "None of our agents or scientists personally hate any creature in the Initiative."

"Riley Finn wants to believe that hurting me is the right thing to do," said the Doctor, "because he honestly enjoys it, and can't come to terms with that fact. He may seem innocent, but he has a homicidal streak to him that seems to manifest primarily when I'm around. Ironic, really. Since, in another timeline, he would have gotten along quite well with…." He trailed off. "Never mind."

"If you believe the military higher-ups aren't the ones deciding whether you live or die, then who do you believe is?" asked Marianna.

The Doctor said nothing for a long moment. Then, he gave a large grin, and bounced on his feet. "Have you heard of the Carflodashians?" he asked her. "No, never mind, you wouldn't have. Aliens from another planet. Except you've met one. Well, I say you've met one, only you haven't. Carflodashian vampire, that's who you've met. Half Carflodashian, half vampire. Like the human vampires you've been studying, only completely different. Odd sort of solar radiation on Carflodash, for instance. Hence — on Earth, at least — immunity to sunlight."

"That's… the vampire I was studying," Marianna realized.

"Exactly!" said the Doctor. "Thing is, the eyesight of your average Carflodashian is truly atrocious. At least, when they are alone. When they come into close proximity with another Carflodashian, the optic nerve communicates across a telepathic connection, and their eyesight increases tenfold. Carflodashians never travel alone as a rule. It doesn't make biological sense." He raised an eyebrow at her.

And Marianna understood what he was waiting for her to say. "There's only one such vampire like that in the Initiative," she said.

"Yes," said the Doctor.

"Then the other must have been eliminated beforehand," Marianna conjectured.

"Nope!" said the Doctor. "They split up. Voluntarily."

"But why?" asked Marianna. "That would be silly. Foolhardy. With the biology you've described, there is no reason that sort of vampire would ever act like that."

"Which is exactly what I said," said the Doctor. "And exactly why I wanted to work out why the Carflodashian vampires were behaving oddly. I followed one, and… do you want to know what I discovered, when I arrived?"

Marianna waited for him to continue.

"You lot," said the Doctor.

Marianna frowned. "You're saying you were picked up while hunting down this Carflodashian vampire?"

That was a truly terrible stroke of bad luck on his part, if it was true — and she suspected it was. She wasn't sure the Doctor's biology or behavior would have set off any alarms that would have led to them going out specifically to collect him. If he'd just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the Initiative noticed that he wasn't human — well, that would have been enough, wouldn't it?

"I'm saying it was a trap," said the Doctor. "Someone wants me here. Out of the way."

Marianna recognized the Doctor's behavior. It was a behavior that the Initiative's behavioral analysts had often noted about the vampires the Initiative captured — they all had the same sort of paranoia which fed their own ego. Every vampire tried to behave as if it were the biggest, baddest vampire around. Wanted to believe that the Initiative had hunted it down, personally, because it was the worst threat imaginable.

Marianna's instinct was to tell the Doctor that he was being ridiculous, or even just to ignore him the way she did with all the other HSTs, but — positive social interaction. "I'm sure that's true," she told him, instead, with a warm smile. "Someone thinks you're very important, and wants you down here."

She'd clearly overdone it, however, because she could see that flicker of disappointment in the Doctor's eyes again.

"I never said I was important," said the Doctor. "I'm not, in fact. It's not me they're really after. Told you. They want me out of the way. The only reason I'm still alive is because of the symbiotic link."

Marianna tried to hide her dubious look beneath a smile.

"You don't believe me?" asked the Doctor. "Think about this, then. I've gotten past every one of your security systems. So why haven't I escaped the Initiative, yet?"

Marianna had studied this herself. And she'd come up with one reason, above all others, that the Doctor had not yet escaped.

"After reviewing the footage," said Marianna, "it appears the primary reason you haven't escaped is because you refuse to harm human beings."

The Doctor slumped against the wall. "And you're here to convince me that's a bad thing, then? Convince me to make you weapons and help slaughter innocents?"

"No!" said Marianna. "The opposite, actually. I've been working in the field of xenomorphic behavior modification. I want to know why you're unable to harm any other living creature, so that I can instill that limitation in the HSTs I work with."

The Doctor regarded her, curiously. "Is that what you're doing? Trying to make sure that vampires cannot harm sentient life forms?"

"Yes," said Marianna.

A smile crept up the Doctor's face, and his eyes lit up. "Oh, that's just… human! So very, very human!"

Marianna was taken aback. She wasn't really sure if he'd meant that as a good thing or a bad thing, and it unnerved her. (Not that she cared. At all. Even remotely.) "In what way?"

"In a brilliant way!" said the Doctor. "You find a race of unbeatable bloodsucking beings, trying to destroy you, and what do you do? Make them better! Find that spark of humanity inside of them and try to draw that out."

Marianna blinked. "We're not really trying to make them better…"

"Well, no, of course that's not the Initiative's goal," said the Doctor. "I worked that one out already. But I'll bet that's your goal. Isn't it, Dr. Marianna Forlich?"

Marianna said nothing.

"I've offered to help so many people," the Doctor told her, in a soft but earnest voice. "The soldiers accept my help, but punish me for it, afterwards. The team of scientists who keep running tests on me don't even bother to listen to a word I say. Every other scientist I've spoken to treats me as if I'm an animal, as if I'm something lesser. But you…"

"I was out when they captured you," Marianna explained. "I simply didn't realize what you were."

"And even when you did, you came here to talk to me," said the Doctor. "An experiment testing the benefits of positive social interaction. You want to prove to the higher ups that they don't have to beat answers out of me."

"I'm just testing an alternate hypothesis," Marianna protested. "Trying to determine—"

"There's nothing wrong with being a scientist with a conscience," the Doctor assured her. "A scientist who wants to make the world better. What more brilliant thing could you ask for?" He beamed at her. "Would you like to know why I don't kill people, Dr. Marianna Forlich? Why I refuse to harm sentient life forms, human or otherwise?"

Marianna nodded.

"Because I'm just like you," said the Doctor. "I want to make them better."

Marianna stared at him, not really sure what to say.

"Every sentient life form in the cosmos has the ability to make their own choices," the Doctor explained. "I just want to make sure I give them that choice. Give them the opportunity to change for the better. And I think that's what you want to do, too."

"There's no use giving them a choice," said Marianna. "They're animals."

"Like me, you mean?" asked the Doctor.

Marianna knew better than to answer a question like that.

"I've seen a future where one vampire made the choice to change," the Doctor told her. "One vampire, without a soul or moral compass, consciously decided to do the right thing. To fight for some spark of humanity. And because of that one vampire making that one right choice, he changed for the better. Because of that one vampire making that one right choice, every human being on this planet was saved. How can you say that there's no use giving vampires a chance, if something like that is possible?"

Marianna wasn't sure how to answer this.

"I will help you, Dr. Marianna Forlich," said the Doctor. "But I won't help you force these creatures to do something they don't want. It has to be a conscious choice. They have to learn to see for themselves that their actions are wrong."

"But that's impossible," said Marianna.

"Of course it is!" said the Doctor, with a large grin. "But there's one thing you should know about me."

"What?"

"I'm very, very good at impossible," said the Doctor.

Chapter 6

Marianna soon discovered that she had been wrong. The Doctor wasn't smart.

He was a genius.

A problem she'd obsessed over for months and sometimes even years would seem trivially easy to her after a few minutes of discussion with the Doctor. He never gave her the answers, instead prompting her to think of the conundrum in a completely different way, so that the solution became obvious.

She just wished the Doctor would stop playing these philosophical mind games with her.

Once, when they were discussing how Marianna chipped her vampires, how she adjusted the different sections of their brains, Marianna explained how she and Dr. Angleman had discovered not only how to control the pain center of the brain, but also the motor functions of the creatures, so that the Initiative could use them on remote control.

"We still can," said Marianna. "Any time. It's pretty easy."

"But do you have the right?" the Doctor asked her.

Marianna blinked. "I… don't understand the question," she confessed.

"You're a scientist," said the Doctor, "taking away a living creature's free will."

"That's right," Marianna agreed.

The Doctor just looked at her with sad eyes, and Marianna felt… weird. Like she'd just failed some great big cosmic test.

She changed the topic.

Another day, she'd been discussing the interior physiology of vampires, and how that interacted with different brain functions.

"They're alive," said the Doctor, "when you do your... vivisections."

"Of course," Marianna told him. "Considering how they die, there isn't much point in doing an autopsy." She grinned at him.

He didn't grin back.

"Are they conscious?" he asked.

Marianna shrugged. "Sometimes. But it's usually a pain to restrain them when they can struggle. And the noise tends to bother the other scientists nearby."

"The screaming, you mean," the Doctor said.

"But on occasion, when we're trying to better understand how certain parts of the anatomy affect the conscious mind, we'll keep them awake and aware," Marianna explained.

The Doctor just met her eyes with his own. "You look into their eyes," he said, "as you cut them open."

"Well, no," said Marianna. "I'm far too fixated on my work to be looking anywhere else."

The Doctor continued to look at her for a while longer, until that weird feeling of failure emerged again inside Marianna. She quickly changed the subject.

Marianna didn't understand why the Doctor did it. Professor Walsh had proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that humans were the only ones who had a sense of morality. Was the Doctor simply trying to understand how her own moral compass worked, so he could imitate it?

(And why did Marianna always come away from those conversations feeling… uneasy?)

But this was silly. There were no moral implications to anything the Initiative carried out. This was science, plain and simple. Professor Walsh had always said that there was no room for moral quandaries in science.

Eventually, Marianna decided to ignore these little mind games. Whenever the Doctor asked her a question about moral implications, she pretended he hadn't. Every time that he asked her if she had the right, or if something bothered her, she changed the subject. After all, this wasn't philosophy. This was science.

This was the Initiative.

And nothing that happened here had any larger consequences. Yes, they'd made one mistake, but the military would take care of that. And as long as there was someone to mop up the mess when they were done, it didn't really matter if what they did was right or wrong. Right and wrong didn't apply at the Initiative.

Which is exactly what Marianna firmly believed, right up until the day she saw the Doctor escape.

Marianna was working with the Doctor on her research, when it happened. She'd been trying to work out specifically which synaptical centers of the brain were being overwritten with the vampiric virus, when the Doctor seemed suddenly… distracted.

"Doctor?" Marianna asked.

The Doctor went over to the leftmost wall of his cell, and pressed a hand flat against the white-tiled surface, his eyes closed, standing perfectly still for a moment. His face went grave, and when his eyes opened, there was an intensity that hadn't been there before.

"Sorry about this," he said.

Marianna frowned, not sure what he was talking about. But as the Doctor jerked open two tiles of the leftmost wall of his cell, revealing a small alcove in which he'd stashed a number of different items, Marianna realized what he was doing.

He was escaping.

Marianna shifted on her feet. Should she tell someone? But she knew the Doctor was punished for escaping — not that she, as an impartial scientist, cared if he were punished or not — and… and… and it was ridiculous that he would try to escape, anyways, with her right here! Marianna knew he was intelligent. Why on Earth would he do this?

"You'd never make it past the security systems," she said. Perhaps if she made him see reason, he'd stop. After all, the Doctor was a very logical sort of creature. "And even if you did, there would be no way that you'd make it out of the Initiative without either being caught or causing severe injury to yourself or others. This is a bad idea."

"The worst," the Doctor agreed, grabbing a number of items and securing the tile into place once more. "But I have to."

He then proceeded to climb halfway up the wall, creating a chain of wires and paperclips and other random junk that he threaded through the grating below the food hatch and connected to the electrified glass door.

Marianna kept trying to reason with him, explaining why this was a bad idea, that escaping had consequences, and he had to understand that, didn't he? The Doctor ignored her.

He made one last connection, and with a great big spark, the door slid open, and the Doctor jumped out.

"I… I'll tell the guards," Marianna warned.

"I'm not stopping you," the Doctor replied as he darted forwards towards the passage leading out to the main area of the Initiative.

Marianna ran after him, trying to keep up. But he really did run fast, didn't he? And for some reason, none of the security traps that had been set up to catch him appeared to be functional. Marianna cried out for the guards, but soon discovered that they'd all left their posts. In fact, even the doors remained, for the most part, unlocked.

Marianna was amazed. These security systems ran off a different grid and even a different internal system than his cell — one of Julie's ideas. There was no way to disable one from within the other. But the Doctor didn't seem one bit surprised that the security systems were disabled. He just ran faster.

"Doctor, stop!" shouted Marianna, as he approached the final door out to the main area. "This is insane."

The Doctor glanced back at her. "I know."

Then he did something tricky to the door, and ran out into the main area of the Initiative.

Marianna darted after him, and found that the Initiative was blaring with alarms and sirens. A large, lumbering creature had gotten loose, one with dark purple fur, red eyes, and fangs that oozed with venemous poison. One that was at least 10 feet tall, and had razor sharp claws and a deafening howl. She and the others called it Hostile 35.

No wonder the Doctor had wanted to use this moment to escape. With all the chaos going on in the Initiative right now, no one would notice one lone pinstripe-suited humanoid slipping out the back door.

Initiative soldiers were struggling to try to contain Hostile 35, but the evil creature had separated them and now had an entire group cornered. The group tried shooting the creature with their Taser Blasters, but the creature was unaffected. Marianna remembered — this was the creature whose biology adjusted to new threats. It had gained immunity to Taser Blasters and bullets. Marianna wasn't sure what else would bring it down.

Without a moment of hesitation, the Doctor ran. And inserted himself directly in between the evil creature and the Initiative soldiers it was about to maul.

Marianna stared.

The Doctor met the creature's eyes with his own, and his body spoke of no fear, no anger, no hostility, just a fierce determination. The evil creature's eyes landed on the Doctor, and it seemed almost amused at this little human-looking thing that dared to defy its will.

The creature roared.

And the Doctor roared back.

The creature seemed startled by this. It took a tentative step forwards, and growled.

The Doctor gave a roaring growl, followed by three barks and a whistle.

Now the creature really was completely unnerved. It seemed to be staring at the Doctor as if trying to make sense of him. As if trying to figure out if he were real, and what it should do about him.

And the oddest thing was that although the creature was shocked, and Marianna was shocked, none of the soldiers seemed to be even remotely surprised. As if this had all happened before, a thousand times. As if they were expecting it.

In fact, they must have been expecting it. If they hadn't been, the soldiers wouldn't have reacted to the Doctor's distraction so quickly.

Taking advantage of the lull in the creature's hostility, a team of soldiers advanced on the creature from behind, armed with a new experimental type of gun. The Doctor was still making his grunting, groaning, roaring animal noises at the creature, but Marianna thought she could hear a tinge of worry in his voice.

Then one of the soldiers stepped on the creature's tail.

The creature roared, and was once again thrown into a frenzy, tearing at the soldiers around it, lashing out with talons and fangs at the humans nearby. The men started screaming, their shots missing the creature in the chaos of the fight.

Then came a sound so bizarre and chilling that Marianna didn't realize it had come from the Doctor's vocal chords until a long time later.

It was loud. So loud that Marianna was sure she couldn't hear most of it with her human ears. And it seemed to shake every single living being in that room to the core, simply by listening to its vibrations.

The evil creature turned back to face the Doctor, who was now advancing towards it, his eyes dark and biting, his face chiseled in anger, his every step radiating confidence and threat.

When the Doctor spoke again, his voice was very soft, but the entire room could hear every single growl, every single hiss, every single syllable of this non-language language the Doctor was speaking.

Including the creature.

Marianna had studied Hostile 35 for a while, now. It had displayed a lot of anger, rage, frustration, and trickery, and even tried to imitate one or two human emotions — badly, but still, it tried — but the one thing that Marianna had never seen from Hostile 35 was this.

Fear.

An intense, raw fear that seemed to eat away at Hostile 35 as the Doctor advanced on it, its eyes growing wide, its posture curling in on itself, its every movement submissive and its every tone pleading. It wasn't scared of soldiers, wasn't scared of guns, wasn't scared of anything, but the Doctor, completely unarmed and using nothing but words, had made it terrified like this.

The Doctor turned back to the humans, as Hostile 35 gave a submissive whine, then said, "He'll come with you, now. But if you kill him or harm him in any way, I'm not stepping in to fix your mistake."

The soldiers all moved in, surrounding the creature and bracing their guns, and Marianna was fairly sure they either hadn't listened to what the Doctor had said, or didn't really care. She guessed it was fortunate for them that they didn't harm or kill Hostile 35.

The only beings at the Initiative that weren't afraid of the Doctor, in some way, were the humans. Marianna had grown to realize this, but it had never been driven home the way it was, now. Was there something they were missing about this creature?

The one with the kind eyes. The one who wanted to make things better. The one who ran out in front of loaded guns and hostile animals to protect humans that were keeping it trapped. The one who refused to harm any living thing. How could the Doctor be anything to fear?

The soldiers got the evil creature unconscious, and dragged it back to the containment cells. The Doctor turned his head, meeting Marianna's eyes with his own, and she thought she could see a sad sort of resignation in those eyes.

Then he turned, and bolted for the exit.

The team of soldiers the Doctor had just saved leveled their Taser Blasters at him, and before he'd gotten even five steps away, they shot him. His body surged with electricity, and he fell to the floor, unconscious.

Marianna rushed over, as the team swarmed around the Doctor, patting him down and searching his pockets, taking out items that he'd put therein — little bits of junk, really — and disposing of them. (When did he even have time to pick that much stuff up?)

"You shot him!" said Marianna.

"Orders," the soldiers informed her.

Marianna wasn't sure whether to scream or simply nod. For the first time, she felt some sort of… frustration with this situation. But, no. They were right. They had to shoot him. If they hadn't, the Doctor would have escaped.

The other group of soldiers came back from securing Hostile 35, and the two had a muttered argument about — heads or tails, it sounded like — and then the team that the Doctor had protected picked the Doctor up and carried him back to his cell.

Marianna made to follow, but the second team of soldiers stopped her. They told her to come back later. There were security matters that needed taking care of, first. Presumably, Marianna thought, getting all those disabled security systems up.

"You weren't surprised to see him," said Marianna. "Hostile 29, I mean."

"Hostile 29 always responds to the alarms," a soldier informed her. "We don't know how, but it always knows when there's a problem."

"And you just… let him help you?" asked Marianna.

"Well, if it's offering, we're not turning down help," said another soldier. "And the mortality rate has vastly decreased since it started stepping in."

"We turn off all the security systems," a third soldier explained. "Make it as easy as possible for Hostile 29 to come out and help us."

Marianna had watched recordings of the Doctor's escape attempts — given to her by Julie, who'd been using the recordings to strengthen the Doctor's restraints — but those escapes had always just been straightforward dash-to-the-exit type deals. She'd never seen any evidence of the Doctor doing anything like this. This time, it was almost as if… he hadn't actually wanted to escape at all. As if he'd only broken out so he could help.

"How long has this been going on?" asked Marianna.

"Since the first week it was here," said a soldier. "Every time we have a problem, Hostile 29 comes around to help. Then, when it's done fixing things, we knock it out and a team brings it back to its cell."

"Whichever team loses the coin toss, usually," said another soldier.

Marianna asked what they meant by this, but they wouldn't tell her. They seemed very reluctant to talk about it. Marianna didn't understand why, until she returned to the Doctor's cell, later that day.

She stopped in her tracks, as she approached.

The Doctor looked battered and bruised. He had a split lip, and seemed a little slower on his feet than usual.

"What happened?" Marianna asked.

The Doctor looked at her, very sadly. "They followed their orders."

Marianna felt something inside of her freeze, as she remembered what the Doctor had told her, that first time she'd met him — the soldiers accept my help, but punish me for it, afterwards.

"They beat you for helping them," Marianna realized.

"They're instructed to punish me for escaping," said the Doctor. "Which means any instance where I leave my cell without armed supervision. Technically, what I was doing was escaping."

"But you saved their lives," said Marianna. "And… they wanted you to break out and help them."

The Doctor shrugged. "Bit of a bureaucratic mix-up, really. You shouldn't pay attention to it. I don't."

No, he didn't. Because if he'd been doing this since the first week he'd entered the Initiative, and he'd been punished every single time, then he clearly didn't care about the punishments at all.

All this time, the Doctor had been rescuing the people who were hurting him. Saving the lives of the individuals who punished him for doing so.

And for the first time, Marianna thought that maybe… just maybe… the Initiative might be doing something wrong.

---

An Excerpt from Marianna Forlich's Report Regarding the Hostile Sub Terrestrial Known as Hostile 29:

…I have attached the hard scientific data I have gathered to this report, and would encourage Colonel Haviland to allow every scientist in the Initiative access to Hostile 29, so that others can work with him in the same capacity as I have.

I'd like to mention a problem I've noticed.

Orders are to keep Hostile 29 contained, and punish him when he attempts to escape. Those who guard Hostile 29 adhere to these rules by the letter, but as the soldiers have begun to realize Hostile 29's uses as a dependable backup for their teams, this has led to a rather horrible, yet constantly reoccurring, situation.

I'm not sure if you are aware of this, Colonel Haviland, but Hostile 29 is being punished, routinely, for saving the lives of our men. I don't know why neither Green nor Julie Parsoner have brought this to your attention sooner, for both have known about it far longer than I, but it has been happening on a regular basis since the first week Hostile 29 was captured.

I have spoken to the soldiers who deal out this punishment, and they all feel equally uneasy about the arrangement. They insist that they're only carrying out orders, but when they can thrust the order onto someone else, they seem far happier about it.

Even if you believe that Hostile 29 is little more than a well-trained animal, this is still no way to treat even an animal. Positive behavior should warrant positive rewards. Punishments should only be given to discourage negative behavior.

It is both surprising and interesting to note, however, that Hostile 29 has been continuing to 'escape' to save the lives of the very humans who punish him for this action, despite the mismatched behavioral punishment.

I have begun to see that Agent Finn was correct — Hostile 29 is an ally, not an enemy. Perhaps it is time that we started treating him as such.

To this end, I strongly encourage all needless punishments to cease, and for a more positive environment to be set up around him. I believe that the data I have gathered in this short period of time is more than enough to prove this method works, and that Hostile 29 can be far more valuable in an environment that rewards good behavior, instead of an environment that punishes bad behavior.

A Note From Colonel Haviland Regarding the Above Report: Punishments will continue to be given to discourage Hostile 29 from escaping — although in instances where Hostile 29's escape saves five or more soldiers' lives, no punishment should be administered. Dr. Forlich's research may also proceed, and all scientists have been granted access to Hostile 29's secure area in order to take advantage of this knowledge. Julie Parsoner must be contacted concerning updating the security measures around Hostile 29.

Chapter 7

Marianna was beginning to look forward to her time with the Doctor.

And logically, it made sense. Had to. After all, the Doctor was funny, and charming, and exuberantly enthusiastic about science. He'd steal pencils and chalk and numerous other items on his many escape attempts, then write equations along the walls of his cell as he and Marianna worked things out.

And she liked the way his eyes lit up whenever she arrived, the way his entire posture became excited and animated, as if her very presence was the most important thing in the world to him. Any human being liked to feel important. That was also completely logical.

It was just that… whenever Marianna was about to leave, the Doctor seemed to sag, and a little of the brightness seemed to leave his eyes. Sometimes, she thought he'd call out, ask her to come back, beg for someone to notice him, acknowledge him, speak to him again.

Why did that bother Marianna so much?

"Hostile 29's just manipulating you," Anne, a coworker from Marianna's scientific team, told her. "It's using your own emotions to gain sympathy. The moment that it has that sympathy from you, it'll use you to get out."

But the Doctor never used Marianna to escape — and he had enough opportunity to do so. He continued to escape, continued to get caught, continued to be punished for it, but he never involved Marianna in his plans.

Marianna asked him, once, why.

"I learned my lesson," the Doctor told her.

"It's a Hostile Sub Terrestrial," Penelope, a specialist in behavioral patterning of HSTs, told Marianna. "It doesn't feel pity or compassion or any of those human emotions. Walsh proved that in her research, remember?"

And Marianna had poured over the results from Professor Walsh's experiments on the subject, trying to find some loophole, because she was starting to get the feeling that the Doctor really did care about people. There had to be some way that this sort of empathic psychological complexity could exist in a creature that had no evolutionary resemblance to humanity.

The Doctor found Professor Walsh's work worrisome.

"This Professor Walsh of yours," he said. "She seemed terribly interested in creatures that felt nothing but hostility. Hate, anger, impartiality to suffering, that sort of thing."

"She was trying to understand the behavioral traits of Hostile Sub Terrestrials," said Marianna.

"The creatures you capture in your Initiative, you mean?" the Doctor asked.

Marianna nodded. She knew he disliked the term "Hostile Sub Terrestrial."

"All of whom are perfectly capable of feeling emotions beyond this," the Doctor said. "But Walsh seems to fixate on these emotions in particular. Almost like…" He trailed off, a terribly worried look on his face.

"Professor Walsh had visions of uniting the world in peace and harmony," Marianna explained, "by crushing the Sub Terrestrial menace entirely."

"And the military funded her research," the Doctor muttered.

Marianna frowned. "You seem distressed."

"I've seen this sort of thing before," the Doctor told her. "On Skaro. A very, very long time ago."

But he didn't explain what Skaro was, or what he'd seen, or why he was worried. Except that the Doctor didn't seem to revere Professor Walsh in the same way that everyone else did. When Marianna suggested that he and Professor Walsh would have gotten on exceedingly well, the Doctor just laughed.

"Oh, I never get along well with that sort," he told her.

"Of course Hostile 29 would dislike Professor Walsh," Becky, from the demonic behavioral modification team, told Marianna. "Professor Walsh had visions of wiping out these hostile forces completely, uniting the world in peace and harmony. A Hostile Sub Terrestrial would never like someone with that sort of vision."

"But the — I mean, Hostile 29 likes peace and harmony," Marianna countered. "He's so against violence, he won't even build weapons."

"And that doesn't make you at all suspicious?" Becky asked. "Hostile 29 doesn't want us to build weapons, because it doesn't want us to have a way to fight back against the HSTs who don't need weapons. Don't you see?"

"Then why does Hostile 29 keep protecting our soldiers?" asked Marianna.

"What I want to know," threw in Tina, one of the scientists working on the design and programming of behavioral modification chips, "is why Hostile 29 protected the soldiers that were ordered to punish it for doing so."

Becky glanced over at Tina. "What?"

"That's what Marianna's report said," said Tina. "And I've checked it against the records, and the behavior seems consistent. Hostile 29 routinely stands up for people who are harming it."

"It never seems to mind!" Private Dixon protested, nearby. "It's never once cried out or screamed or fought back or anything. It obviously doesn't care if we're beating it or not."

"Maybe Hostile 29 doesn't feel pain," Tina offered.

"That's ridiculous," said Marianna. "Of course he feels pain."

"Have you ever seen Hostile 29 in pain?" Becky asked her.

Marianna hesitated. She thought back to the different meetings she'd had with the Doctor. He'd never seemed particularly well, that was for sure. And he often looked as if he'd been through hell and back in terms of punishments. But he'd never complained.

And it wasn't because those punishments weren't extreme.

Once, as the Doctor scribbled on the wall, his hand began to shake. He looked back over his shoulder at her, with an apologetic look on his face.

"Terribly sorry," he said. "I believe my left heart has just stopped."

Then he collapsed.

Another time, the Doctor stopped talking, and stared out in front of him, unseeingly, uncomprehendingly. Marianna called his name, but he didn't respond. His teeth began chattering, and then he fell over, onto the floor, his every muscle spasming uncontrollably.

But he never complained. Never screamed out in pain, never said that something hurt, never seemed terribly upset. In fact, besides the unconsciousness and whatnot, he didn't even seem all that bothered by it. After he recovered, he always tried to act as if nothing had been wrong with him at all.

"No," Marianna told Becky, Tina, and Private Dixon. "I haven't."

"Well, it's no wonder Hostile 29 is willing to risk pain to help others," said Tina. "If it can't feel pain."

Marianna pondered this for the rest of the day. It wasn't until she sat down with Julie, and offered the hypothesis, that Julie laughed in her face.

"Oh, yeah, it feels pain, all right," said Julie. "All the time! You haven't noticed?"

"But he doesn't protest about the punishments," said Marianna. "Even when he's beaten."

Julie just stared at Marianna. "I'm not talking about the punishments," she said. "I'm talking about the testing."

Marianna blinked. "The testing?"

"Yeah, I'm surprised Hostile 29 even notices the punishments after its done with Green's little tests," said Julie. "At first the tests were just your standard sort of thing, but lately, Green's been really ramping them up. It's hard to get Hostile 29 to scream, but they get it to scream enough that I've had to soundproof my office."

Now it was Marianna's turn to stare. "Isn't he sedated for most of the tests?"

"Rumor is that most sedatives are toxic to Hostile 29," said Julie. "I don't know if that's actual fact, or if Green's just feeling sadistic, but there you go. Hostile 29 is awake and aware for the majority of what Green puts it through." She shrugged. "That's Green for you."

"And that doesn't bother you at all?" asked Marianna, before she could stop herself.

"Not really," Julie said. Then she gave Marianna a mischievous grin and a wink. "But that doesn't mean I won't try to use it as an excuse to get Green fired."

---

An excerpt from a correspondence with a colleague, Re: Hostile 29, from the Desk of Dr. Arthur Green:

I am glad that you are so interested in this unique creature's biology. I'm certain you'll be interested in my latest results, which I have attached to this email.

Unfortunately, I have been restricted in my ability to test Hostile 29's biological responses due to the intervention of Marianna Forlich. Her report to Colonel Haviland made him decide to open up Hostile 29 as a database of knowledge to all scientists at the Initiative.

I have noticed that primarily women have responded, thus far.

I do not like women taking time out of my testing schedule and their own work to flirt with Hostile 29. I do not have anything against women in science, despite what some may think, but the unprofessionalism that the lesser sex displays when working in a technical field like this is ridiculous. Maggie Walsh was a great woman, and the one exception to this rule, but in general, I have found that the tendency is for women to form tiresome connections to their subjects, causing skewed results.

I hope that you do not have such problems in your own workplace.

---

Green was a short, stocky man with beady eyes, but his stature didn't diminish his power. He was the head of the scientific research division of the Initiative, after Dr. Angleman's death, and Green never tired of pointing this out. The head of the scientific research division, sometimes, might as well be the head of the entire Initiative, although since Haviland's arrival, this had been far less the case than previously. Still, Green could make your life a living hell in a very short amount of time, and everyone knew it.

And for some reason, Marianna had decided it was a good idea to confront this man about the Doctor's treatment.

"Marianna," he said — because he never called her Dr. Forlich, that would be implying that she earned some sort of respect around here, and that was something Green would never concede to. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Dr. Green," said Marianna, "it has come to my attention that you have been doing considerable testing on Hostile 29 recently."

"Well, its biology is unique," Green explained. "And it makes a truly fascinating test subject, don't you agree?"

"I believe," said Marianna, "that it has been determined that a positive environment encourages Hostile 29 to be more cooperative than a negative one. I would like to request that you decrease your testing. Knowledge about his biology is far less important than uncovering the information in his head."

Green seemed amused by the suggestion. "Marianna," he said, "both are equally important. You have no idea of the sorts of information I'm gathering from this unique specimen. Besides, if Hostile 29 is injured in any way, following its punishments, my team needs to know enough about the creature's biology to repair it."

Marianna had to concede that this was true.

"I acknowledge that the tests are important," said Marianna, "but I think that Hostile 29 should be unconscious for their duration. Julie Parsoner told me that your tests left Hostile 29 screaming."

"Surely the noise isn't bothering you," Green said. "I thought your workspace was far enough away that you couldn't hear it."

"No, that's not… I mean, you're making him scream."

"The screams are only a cry for attention," said Green. "Nothing to worry about. This is science, Marianna. You do remember that."

"There is no scientific reason that Hostile 29 has to be conscious!" Marianna protested. "I understand that Hostile 29 finds most sedatives toxic, but surely there are some that aren't. At the very least, you could use a Taser Blaster to knock him out before you start."

"Seeing as you do not know what I am testing," said Green, "I hardly think that you're in any position to tell me whether or not my subject has to be conscious. Don't tell me your connection with Hostile 29 is causing you to lose your scientific objectivity?"

"No, Dr. Green," said Marianna. "I just don't think it's right to treat Hostile 29 like this."

An amused smile twitched at the sides of Green's face. "You don't think it's 'right'?"

"I mean—"

"Marianna, this is science," Green told her. "None of the research we do here has any sort of moral implication. Where on Earth would you get an idea like that?"

Marianna opened her mouth to reply, but then realized she had nothing to say. He… had a point, didn't he? The Doctor was just a test subject, just a scientific tool. She was only using him for his knowledge, anyways. So why did she feel so upset when she'd discovered that the Doctor might be in pain?

Why did the thought of him screaming bother her so much?

"I'm sorry, Dr. Green," she told him. "It won't happen again."

Then she turned, and hurried out of the room. Green was right. Marianna had to adhere to her training, be just as impartial with Hostile 29 as she was with all the other HSTs. She didn't care if her vampires screamed, did she? They were just animals. So it really, really shouldn't matter if Hostile 29 screamed.

And she did her best to squash that thought at the back of her mind, telling her that maybe — just maybe — the Initiative was doing the wrong thing.

Chapter 8

Notes:

Warning! SPOILERS in this chapter for those who haven't read "Elizabeth"!

The one thing that Marianna hadn't worked out was Agent Finn's connection with the Doctor.

She'd known that Finn was taking the time to talk to the Doctor. She'd known that the Doctor rarely ever responded to Finn — often pretending that Finn wasn't even there. She'd also known that this made Finn increasingly angry.

"Why do you ignore him?" Marianna had asked the Doctor, once.

"Because Riley Finn isn't worth my time," said the Doctor.

"Agent Finn is your main ally at the Initiative," Marianna told him. "It's only due to Agent Finn's intervention that you haven't been killed or permanently damaged."

"Riley Finn is trying to save his own neck," the Doctor explained. "He knows certain people who would be… extremely unhappy to discover I've been locked up here. Riley has very carefully manipulated the situation to his advantage. He's convinced the Initiative not to kill me or do any permanent damage to my mind by proving that I'm too valuable to ever let go — that I should remain here forever. If any of Riley's friends discover my whereabouts, he has plausible deniability. He can say he's been protecting me, make himself seem like the good guy, without ever having to help me or get me out. I have no respect for Riley Finn."

But Marianna had never learned how the Doctor knew Finn, or what his connection was with Finn's girlfriend. Marianna did ask questions, from time to time, about how the Doctor knew this 'Vampire Slayer', but the Doctor always changed the subject, and refused to talk about Finn's girlfriend at all.

Perhaps Julie had been right. Perhaps this Vampire Slayer really was hunting for the Doctor, and the Doctor didn't want to attract attention to himself, for fear she'd hunt him down.

Which didn't explain the connection between the Doctor and Riley Finn.

If Marianna had listened to Finn's talks with the Doctor, this would all have become clearer far sooner. But as it was, the first indication of their true relationship came during one of those rare moments when the Doctor was actually speaking to Finn. Marianna could hear them, as she approached the Doctor's cell.

"—not her," said the Doctor.

"It was definitely her," said Finn. "Trust me. Gorgeous woman naked on top of me? I'm pretty sure it was her."

"It wasn't her!" the Doctor shouted. "Are you thick? I don't know who you slept with, but it wasn't your girlfriend!"

"It's about time I made you jealous," said Finn.

"Elizabeth," said the Doctor. "It could have been Elizabeth. Was she paranoid? Delusional? Continually beating out a four beat rhythm over and over again? Fixated on killing me?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Finn. "I know my own girlfriend."

"No, you don't!" said the Doctor. "This is like Cassandra taking over Rose all over again. The body may be the same, but the actions, the speech, none of it matches!"

"You just don't want to believe she loves me that much," said Finn. "More than she'll ever love you."

"Where is she now?" the Doctor demanded. "How long has it been? What was she planning on doing today?"

Marianna rounded the last corner.

"I don't have time for this," said Finn. "I'm late for church. Next time I sleep with Buffy, though, I'll make sure you know all about it."

Finn turned to go, and the Doctor, frustrated, leapt after him.

"Riley Finn, you can't just—" the Doctor was cut off, as he ran into the electrified glass and was slammed back against the back wall of the cell, his body still juddering.

Finn had a proud look on his face, as he glanced over his shoulder at the Doctor. Then he looked back towards Marianna, and the moment he spotted her, his proud smile faltered.

"What was that about?" asked Marianna.

"Nothing," said Finn. "Nothing. We were just… talking."

"About having sex with your girlfriend?" asked Marianna.

"I'm just letting him know where the situation stands," Finn said, a dark edge in his voice. "Whose she really is."

"Why on Earth do you think the Doctor would care about you having…" She trailed off, as she suddenly worked it all out. What the connection was between Riley Finn, his girlfriend, and the Doctor. Why Finn would be so happy that the Doctor was down here. Why Finn would find some perverse pleasure in beating the Doctor up, even when it was unnecessary.

The Doctor and Finn's girlfriend were sleeping together. Behind Finn's back.

And Marianna remembered — the Doctor had told her that someone wanted him in here. Someone wanted to make sure he didn't leave, wanted him out of the way. If Finn had found out that his girlfriend was having an affair with someone who wasn't human… well, this would be the best way to get rid of his rival.

"You set him up," said Marianna.

"No!" said Finn. "I swear. I didn't do anything wrong. I just found him in here. I… I saved his life!"

"And then beat him up," said Marianna. "And started coming down here to brag about sleeping with your girlfriend."

"She doesn't love him," said Finn, his jaw set.

Marianna narrowed her eyes at Finn. Yes, maybe Finn was the wronged party, but condemning your romantic rival to be locked up in a secret government lab, treated like an animal, and then subjected to painful experiments — for the rest of his life — was pushing things a little too far.

And Finn had to come down here just to rub it in!

"How often have you two been having these little 'talks'?" Marianna asked.

She was expecting him to snap that what did she care, she was a scientist! But Finn, at least, had the decency to look embarrassed.

"Really not as often as you'd think," said Finn. He checked his watch. "I've got to go. I wasn't kidding when I said I was late for church."

And he ran off.

Marianna knew she shouldn't care, was the thing. That none of this was her business, and that if Finn had delivered the Doctor into the Initiative's hands then that was a good thing, because the Doctor was useful. Marianna knew that.

She just… kept forgetting.

And anyways, the Doctor had probably only been sleeping with Finn's girlfriend due to some sort of… animalistic urge or something. That's what Professor Walsh would say, analyzing this situation. Finn would naturally be angry at such a display, and would jump at the opportunity to dispose of the Doctor.

Be objective. Be impartial. Act like Professor Walsh.

Marianna walked over to the Doctor's cell, her eyes fixed on his body. He was alive — Marianna could see him breathing — but he was completely unconscious. That was weird. The electric doors weren't supposed to do that. They were supposed to weaken the HSTs, not knock them out entirely. Marianna checked the readings for the voltage of electricity running through the glass paneling of the cell door. She blanched. It was incredibly strong — stronger than the electric current they used to contain creatures three times his size.

What were they thinking?

A groan, and the Doctor's eyes opened.

"Hello," Marianna said. She faltered, then added, "Are you all right?"

Which was kind of a stupid question, since he was very obviously not all right. He tried to move, but seemed to have considerable difficulty doing so. Marianna wondered if the current had been enough to reduce him to one heart. That would be something the Initiative would do — slow his escape attempts by cutting out one of his hearts.

But then he looked up at Marianna, and she realized he was not all right in a very different way. She could see a pain in his eyes so deep that it pierced his very soul. With great difficulty, he staggered to his feet, using the back wall to stabilize himself.

"Never better," he gasped.

"You shouldn't move," she said. "I'll call for a medical team, and—"

"No!" said the Doctor. He was breathing hard, heavily, struggling to keep himself upright. "Perfectly fine."

"You're sleeping with Agent Finn's girlfriend," said Marianna. "Aren't you? That's why Finn hates you."

"More complicated than that," said the Doctor. He loosened his grip on the tiles, and started stumbling towards the rightmost wall. "Not love, really. Just a terribly close friendship. A kind of relationship that Riley doesn't seem to want to understand. And we haven't done anything remotely intimate. Yet."

"So why dislike Finn?" asked Marianna. "If you and his girlfriend are just good friends."

The Doctor paused, and glanced up at Marianna. "Day I met Riley," said the Doctor, "he tied me up and tried to shoot me. It'll be… oh, little under a year from now."

Oh. Marianna didn't understand about the time travel stuff, or even if any of that was real, but if the Doctor's introduction to Finn was Finn trying to kill him, then Marianna thought she could understand the vehemence between the two.

"So that's why you're angry at him?" asked Marianna. "Because he tried to kill you?"

"No," said the Doctor. "I'm angry because of who he hit when he missed."

The Doctor fixed his attention onto the wall tiles, leaned over, and tried to pull apart the tiles that concealed his stash of hidden escaping objects. But it looked like whatever had happened when he collided with the electrified door was having a large effect on him, because the tiles wouldn't budge. He gave a grunt as he pushed at them, again, but his trainers slipped against the ground, and he thudded, face down, onto the floor.

"Is there an alarm going off somewhere in the Initiative?" Marianna asked.

"Not exactly," the Doctor explained, getting to his hands and knees. "Brain transference. Terribly dangerous. Psychograft, or maybe… remote synaptical kinesis."

"You mean like that Dashwood Institute affair?" asked Marianna.

"Yes," said the Doctor. "Maryland. Remember that. Brigadier was there, too. Charley." He dragged himself to his feet, and tried again at the tiles.

Marianna frowned. "But… that sort of thing couldn't happen, here. We don't have a PSI-859 psionic matrix facsimile regenerator at the Initiative."

"Not at the Initiative," said the Doctor.

It took Marianna a few seconds to put all the pieces together, and work out who, exactly, it was the Doctor wanted to save. And where.

"You're… actually trying to get out of the Initiative?" Marianna asked. "Like that? To save Finn's girlfriend?"

"No choice," said the Doctor, tugging at the wall. "She's in danger. Have to help. Save her life."

"You can barely walk," Marianna pointed out to him. "How're you supposed to walk in and save anyone's life when you can barely take two steps?"

"Still a genius," the Doctor replied, grunting as he pushed at the wall, his trainers sliding across the ground.

"You do realize I'm standing right here," Marianna told him. "I could alert the soldiers."

"You haven't, yet," said the Doctor, yanking once more at the tiles.

Marianna hesitated. She flicked her eyes over to the passage, where she knew guards and soldiers were waiting, nearby, to restrain the Doctor if he tried to escape. To punish him for the attempt. She could stop this easily, just by yelling out. She could stop this so very, very easily.

"This is ridiculous," Marianna said to the Doctor, instead. "You're being completely irrational."

The Doctor turned to face Marianna, his eyes dark, his every muscle tense, and Marianna instinctively took a step back. For the first time since meeting him, she was beginning to see the not-human side of him, that extra something that he had that made the other HSTs tremble in fear when he was around.

"She could die," the Doctor said, in a low, dark voice, "while I'm stuck in here. She could die, because I was locked up by someone who wanted me out of the way, and I will not stand around while people die. Do you understand? I have to help her!"

Marianna just stared at him. This… alien creature in the Initiative, one that, Marianna realized, she hadn't really seen all sides of. Her vampires looked and acted human until they attacked, and their faces and behavioral patterns changed into something not even resembling humanity. The Doctor, it seemed, was the same — except the trigger was different.

Other people in trouble. That was what caused him to shed his humanity and reveal himself for what he really was. He wanted to protect his friend — his human friend. And could Marianna really take that away from him?

Did she have the right?

A few seconds later, the alarm sounded, and the hall was filled with armed soldiers, all carrying Taser Blasters aimed at the Doctor. One swiped his card in the holder, and in unison they fired upon the alien, who had already been weak to begin with. The Doctor stumbled and fell upon the floor of his cell, his body twitching.

Marianna was gently moved aside, as the soldiers all swarmed in. She expected them to do something, pick him up and bring him to the medical facility or, at the very least, secure him, but they just stood there, staring.

"It's still awake!" one of them shouted.

Marianna listened a little more closely and, sure enough, there was his voice, faint but still determined.

"Please," he said, "please. I have to go. Please, just let me save her life, and I'll do anything you want."

Hanging on, desperately, to consciousness, to help a friend. Or maybe something more than a friend, judging by the way he was reacting. Which meant… but that was ridiculous!

Marianna knew that the Doctor could feel loneliness. Pain. Sorrow. Resignation. And she had a suspicion that he could feel friendship. But… could the Doctor actually feel love? Real true human love?

Seconds later, a stretcher was wheeled in, and the Doctor was strapped to its surface. Marianna watched as Green and his team members wheeled him away, the Doctor still begging them to just let him save his friend's life.

Chapter 9

"Oh, yeah, I saw her, once," said Penelope, as she dug into a bag of potato chips. "She's the blond one with Finn, right? Forrest told me she killed Professor Walsh."

"The Doc—I mean, Hostile 29 seems really upset about her," said Marianna. "He says she's his friend. Have you ever heard or seen any indication that she worked with a partner or something?"

"I don't think it's that sort of a business," said Penelope. "I'm pretty sure that the Slayer is a lone wolf deal. I've got no idea how she and Hostile 29 would be anything other than enemies, really." She shrugged. "But how've you been? I heard you were making a major breakthrough in your research."

"Yeah," said Marianna, trying to toss out the troubled thoughts and focus her mind on something ordinary. "Yeah, I am. I've been trying to understand the exact nature of the vampiric change so I can reverse the mutation and restore the vampires back to humanity."

"You can do that?" asked Penelope.

"I think so," said Marianna. "There are a few chemical balances I need to fix, but I should be able to work out some bio-chemical solutions that will help override the mutation, given time. And there's a blocked section of the anterior prefrontal cortex that I need to find a way to unblock, but I'm hoping I can create a machine or device that will give exactly the right mental pulse, provided I can establish what that is. The major thing I'm lacking is some vast source of regenerative power."

"That shouldn't be too hard," said Penelope. "You see creatures in here that can grow back body parts all the time."

"It's not enough," Marianna explained. "The kind of power I need would be enough to… well, build an entirely new body, essentially. And I don't know where I'll ever be able to find something like that." She shrugged. "But I'm hopeful. Maybe if I understand some of the regenerative abilities in the HSTs, I'll be able to amplify the effect."

"I wish I had some of your inspiration," said Penelope. "I've been hitting brick wall after brick wall with these Serparvo Demons. And Green's being his usual 'supportive' self."

"That was exactly what was happening to me," said Marianna. "But as soon as I started working with the Doctor, it was like… the answers became obvious."

"Dr. Green actually helped you?" Penelope asked.

"No, not — I mean Hostile 29," said Marianna. "That's who I've been working with. And he's brilliant. A database of knowledge for all Initiative scientists." She stared into the distance. "I just wish I could work him out."

"You've been sharing your research with an HST?" Penelope cried.

Marianna just raised her eyebrows at Penelope. "It's working, isn't it?"

Penelope faltered. "Well, I guess, yeah," she conceded.

"Hostile 29 is not a sub-terrestrial," said Marianna, "and he's not hostile. His behavioral patterns in no way indicate that he's any sort of threat or danger. And I believe he's a social creature by nature. An environment of social interaction and mental challenges seems to make him… more compliant."

Agent Forrest walked into the break room, getting a power-bar out of the cabinet over the counter.

"Compliant?" said Penelope. "That wasn't the word you were going to use."

Marianna didn't say anything.

"You were going to use the word, 'happy,' weren't you?" Penelope said, popping another potato chip into her mouth.

"No," Marianna insisted. "I was always going to use the word compliant. I'd never…" She dropped her eyes from Penelope's, and felt the tension radiate through her. "But why not?" she said. "Why can't he be?"

"Huh?" asked Penelope.

"I understand why Hostile 29 has to remain in the Initiative," said Marianna. "I understand why he has to endure scientific testing. I understand why he has to be kept under constant supervision. But why can't he be happy? What scientific reason is there for Hostile 29 to be miserable?"

"It's an HST," said Penelope. "We're not treating Hostile 29 any differently than our other subjects." She considered. "Actually, if anything, we're treating it better."

"But don't you think he deserves something more than that?" asked Marianna. "He seems so… human."

Agent Forest scoffed. "A parrot can imitate human speech," he said. "That doesn't mean it can talk."

"Marianna, I know you mean well, but you have to face facts," Penelope urged her. "You're anthropomorphizing what is basically an animal. True, the persona you've constructed for this creature might be endearing, but it bears no semblance to Hostile 29's actual personality."

"Twelve minutes in a room alone, and you'd see the inner monster," Forrest assured Marianna. "It's always the same. They only act human on the outside so we'll let them out. Then it's kill, maim, and destroy."

Marianna stared at the table, as she felt the anger rising up in her. "He never fights back," she muttered.

"Huh?" asked Forrest.

"I said he never fights back!" Marianna shouted. She spun around to face Forrest. "Not after Finn beats him for information! Not after he gets punished for saving our lives! Not even when he undergoes testing that makes him scream! You said twelve minutes and we'd see. Well, it's been a few weeks, now. And he has never once fought back!"

Forrest hesitated. Then, "Sure it has! I know I've seen it fight back."

"When?" asked Marianna.

Forrest faltered.

"It fights against demons all the time," Penelope offered.

"Well, not fights, exactly," Forrest corrected. "More sort of growls at 'em. And tricks 'em. And traps 'em."

"Fighting the HSTs that are attacking our men is not fighting back," Marianna pointed out. "That's fighting to protect the people that are hurting you."

"Okay, so Hostile 29 doesn't fight back!" said Forrest. "Fine. That doesn't make it a human being."

"It is intriguing, though," said Penelope, digging another potato chip out of the bag. "I mean, what kind of mindset would ensure that an HST didn't fight back?" She pointed the potato chip at Marianna. "I think I need to check this thing out for myself."

---

Hostile 29 had been secured to a gurney and was now in the lowered operating arena located in the Initiative's main room, which everyone who worked there called "the Pit". Perhaps it was because of the conversation he'd just had with Marianna, or perhaps because of his own curiosity, but Forrest went down to see what was happening.

"Wait!" cried a voice beside him.

Forrest halted, and turned to find Julie Parsoner, messing with a complicated-looking bit of machinery.

"Electrified barrier," Julie explained. She pressed a few buttons on the device, until a zwoink sound rang through the air. Julie turned back to Forrest. "Go ahead."

Forrest went down into the Pit.

Dr. Arthur Green was already down there, along with his team of scientists, and two teams of soldiers standing nearby.

Hostile 29 was struggling to get free, pleading with the nearby scientists. Pleading to let it help its friend. Forrest was a soldier. He knew that Hostile Sub Terrestrials were manipulative, cunning, devious, and would play your emotions against you. But there was something in this creature's pleading tone that reminded Forrest of his own determination to help his team in times of crisis. It made him feel… uneasy about the situation.

Green wasn't uneasy. He was fascinated.

"Whatever Agent Finn said must have triggered a basic chemical change throughout Hostile 29," Green hypothesized. "Adrenaline levels are up, brain activity has increased exponentially, and a number of unknown glands and chemical processes have activated throughout its body, resulting in a much higher level of activity and stamina."

The zwoink sound of the energy barrier dropping accompanied the brusque march of footsteps as Colonel Haviland descended the iron-grated stairs into the Pit.

Immediately, almost in reaction to the 'zwoink' sound, Hostile 29 pulled free from the restraints, and rushed forwards, ducking and dodging the scientists and soldiers, darting towards the exit. Another zwoink, and Hostile 29 grunted as it impacted with the energy barrier, and was thrown back against the shiny metallic floor of the Pit.

Soldiers flocked around Hostile 29, wrestling the struggling creature back onto its gurney.

"Hold it down," Haviland commanded. "It's more reluctant to harm people than objects."

And that was another thing that was bothering Forrest. Because he'd seen Hostile 29 protect the other soldiers. He'd heard the rumors that Hostile 29 would be perfectly willing to break locks, shatter security systems, cause all sorts of property damage costing thousands of dollars, but refused to hurt a single person.

Forrest was sure Hostile 29 was an animal, no more than a well-trained dog. But you didn't abuse a dog that had been trained to save your life.

"It keeps trying to escape," Green said. "More so than usual. It seems desperate to get out of the Initiative."

"We'll see about that," said Colonel Haviland. He turned to Forrest. "Agent Forrest. Break its leg."

"Yes, sir," said Forrest. He went over to the creature, and hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second. But… it was an order. Forrest wouldn't disobey a direct order.

He did as he was told.

Hostile 29 bit back a scream.

The creature turned its head, and caught Forrest's eyes with its own. And Forrest could see — no anger or rage or fury in those eyes. Only… disappointment. As if this creature had really believed that Forrest was better than that. As if, for a moment, this creature had really believed that Forrest would refuse.

Why did that unnerve Forrest so much?

Forrest looked away. These HSTs sometimes had telepathic abilities, and Forrest wasn't about to be taken in by that sort of mind control.

(Or was it not mind control at all, but the realization that Dr. Forlich had been right, that this creature had gotten its leg broken, and didn't even want to strike out at Forrest for doing so?)

"And the other one," Colonel Haviland commanded.

This time Forrest hesitated for a lot longer. He kept remembering that flash of disappointment, kept thinking — wouldn't he do the same, if he were behind enemy lines and it were Finn or Graham out there, in trouble?

But, no, this was the enemy. Forrest couldn't think like that.

(An enemy who fights to defend the soldiers who beat it? An enemy who never fights back? What kind of an enemy is that?)

"Agent Forrest," snapped Colonel Haviland, "I gave you an order."

"Leave him alone, why don't you?" Hostile 29 said. "Let the man make his own choice."

Colonel Haviland charged forwards, and leaned down into Hostile 29's face. "You look here," Haviland growled. "You are the property of the United States Military. The sooner you accept that, the easier your life will be. Is that clear?"

"Let me help my friend," said Hostile 29, "and I'll accept it."

There was an even steadiness in Hostile 29's voice that Forrest hadn't expected. Not after its leg had just been broken. Perhaps this creature really couldn't feel pain.

Colonel Haviland turned back to Forrest. "The other leg, Agent Forrest."

Forrest obeyed the command.

Hostile 29 gave a muffled grunt as the bone cracked beneath Forrest's hands. Forrest jerked his hands away. That… was pain. Forrest could tell.

And still, when Hostile 29 looked at him, there wasn't an ounce of hostility or hatred in those eyes. Just that lingering disappointment, that look that burned its way into Forrest's mind.

"Strap it down," said Haviland. "It won't escape, now."

The moment that the hands released Hostile 29, however, the HST tumbled off the gurney, trying to leap to its feet but failing with its legs, and falling towards the ground. Forrest caught Hostile 29 before it hit the floor.

Hostile 29 slumped in Forrest's hands, its jaw tight as it held back the pain, its arms desperately struggling for freedom.

Forrest stared into its eyes, and there was that look, again. No bitterness, no rage, no anger or hatred or hostility. Not a hint of malice or revenge. Just that same sad disappointment.

No, no, no! This was an HST. It had to be dangerous. This was just… playacting. Imitation of human emotions. This creature had to be some kind of threat. If it wasn't… if Forrest had just broken its legs and it was completely harmless…

"Hit me," Forrest told it.

Hostile 29 didn't.

"I hurt you!" Forrest shouted. "I'm the enemy! Fight me, already!"

Hostile 29 glanced down at its broken legs, then back at Forrest, raising an eyebrow at him.

"You got arms, don't you?" said Forrest. "I'm the one causing you pain. So go on! Strike out at me! Hit me! Do something!"

"You made your choice," Hostile 29 said.

Then Hostile 29 managed to roll itself out of Forrest's hands, and slammed onto the floor. It dragged itself to its hands and knees, slowly crawling towards the iron stairs, desperation in every single determined movement.

The other soldiers just stood around, not really sure what to do. It was such a pathetic escape attempt that there didn't seem much point in thwarting it.

Then Hostile 29 gave a sly smile, and the lights and power cut out.

"Code 78!" one of the men shouted, as the backup generators whirred into life.

The lights blinked on, again — only at half light, but still enough to see. From Julie's expression, the energy barrier had been taken down entirely. The soldiers discovered Hostile 29 half-way up the stairs that led out of the Pit, climbing rapidly but painfully towards the top.

"Code 78?" Forrest asked one of the soldiers, as they ran over to Hostile 29.

"Hostile 29 has gotten its hands on technology," the soldier clarified, as the clomp of the other soldiers' boots rang out across the grating of the stairs.

"What sort of technology?" asked Forrest.

"Anything," said the soldier, as the rest of his team swarmed across Hostile 29. "Pencil sharpener, Taser Blaster, you name it. They're all equally dangerous in Hostile 29's hands."

Forrest wanted to ask dangerous to whom, but he knew the answer to that already. The situation wasn't dangerous to any of them. The situation was dangerous only to the project — to the goal of keeping Hostile 29 contained in the Initiative.

The soldiers dragged Hostile 29 back down into the Pit, the creature still struggling to get free. Colonel Haviland stepped forwards, and got right in Hostile 29's face.

"I'll do anything," said Hostile 29. "Anything, I promise. Just let me help my friend."

"Another lie," said Haviland. "Another promise you'll break."

"Please," said Hostile 29. "She's human."

A hush fell across the assembled people in the Pit. They all looked at one another, trying to figure out what to do. If this someone was human, it was their duty to protect her, wasn't it?

"Sir," said one of the soldiers to Colonel Haviland, "if Hostile 29 is escorted by armed men at all times — in this state, there's no way it could escape."

"I don't care what you do to me," Hostile 29 pleaded. "But she's in trouble. Just let me save her life, and I'll do whatever you want."

Colonel Haviland seemed to be considering this.

From above them, Julie Parsoner gave a high-pitched whistle.

They all looked up.

"Just thought you might want to know," she called down, "that Hostile 29's friend is that Vampire Slayer."

"Oh, hell no!" said Forrest.

Colonel Haviland turned to Forrest. "Who is this 'Vampire Slayer'?"

"A chick that can kick all our butts in about thirty seconds flat," said Forrest. "Finn's current massive obsession. The girl's got superpowers, and there's no underestimating her."

"I see," said Colonel Haviland. He turned back to Hostile 29. "I knew it. A trap from the start."

"She's in trouble," Hostile 29 said. "Please. You have to let me save her life."

"A likely story," said Colonel Haviland. "How was this supposed to work? You convince us to let you save your little friend, pretending she's sweet and innocent and harmless, she sees you all banged up, takes out our men and runs off with you? Was that the plan?"

"If she's in trouble, the world's in trouble," Hostile 29 informed him. "There's a reason I let the Shadow Men do what they did. It's a despicable and shameful part of Earth's security, but it's necessary, entirely necessary. If you don't let me help, innocent humans are going to die!"

"Nice try," said Colonel Haviland. "You'll have to do better than that to get out of here."

"I promise, I'll come back," said Hostile 29. "Just let me out, let me help her, and then you can lock me up here for the rest of my life. You don't even have to tell her that I'm your prisoner. Say I'm… an advisor, an expert. Or have hidden soldiers following me around aiming guns at me the whole time. I don't care! Please, just let me help her."

"And you think she won't work out that something's wrong when she sees the broken legs?" asked Haviland.

Hostile 29 gave a sly smile. "Maybe you shouldn't have broken them, then."

Colonel Haviland struck Hostile 29 across the face.

The steady clomp of boots hitting the iron grating rang through the air, as a private ran down into the Pit. "Colonel Haviland, sir, there's a Code Red hostage situation involving Hostile Sub Terrestrials at the Sunnydale Church. Agent Finn requests backup and a deferment of command from the local law enforcement to the military."

"Give command to Agent Finn," said Haviland, his eyes not straying from Hostile 29. "And tell him backup's on the way."

Hostile 29 leveled a steady glare at Haviland. "I told you," it said. "I told you this would happen! Innocent people are going to die unless you let me help you. Innocent human beings. People you're pledged to protect. Do you really want their deaths on your head?"

And now Forrest could see the true cunning of Hostile 29's plan. What Hostile 29 had said — you made your choice. And Forrest had. If Forrest had disobeyed that order, if he hadn't broken its legs, Hostile 29 could have provided backup. It could have been useful, gotten rid of these monsters just the same way it did with the monsters that got loose in the Initiative.

But because of what Forrest had done — because he'd messed that whole thing up — good men were going to die. Maybe even Riley, since he was the one on the scene. And Forrest might not care if Buffy got hurt, but Riley was his buddy. Anything happened to Riley, and there'd be a whole world of pain for whoever had let it happen.

Which… would be himself, this time.

(His choice.)

"My men are able to handle it," said Colonel Haviland.

"No, they aren't," Hostile 29 insisted. "There's only one person I know who could handle this situation, and she's in trouble. Now stop arguing and let me save her life!"

For a few moments no one spoke. Hostile 29 and Colonel Haviland both tried to stare one another down, both equally determined to win.

"You tried to escape," said Colonel Haviland, at last. "You know the punishment for escaping."

"Sir," said one of the soldiers. "In all fairness, sir, it was only escaping to help human beings."

"I said that as long as five of my men were rescued, Hostile 29 would forgo punishment," said Haviland. "And I don't see five men rescued."

The soldiers all looked at one another, uneasily.

"It… did save about fifty men yesterday," one of the soldiers said. "Couldn't we count some of those for today?"

"I told you to administer Hostile 29 its punishment whenever it tries to escape," Colonel Haviland growled. "That wasn't a suggestion. That was an order!"

The soldiers all stood to attention and saluted. Then they proceeded to do as they were told, giving Hostile 29 a beating it probably didn't deserve. Forrest noted how the soldiers favored the uninjured parts of Hostile 29's body, how they held back when delivering their blows. They felt just as uneasy about this as Forrest.

(You made your choice.)

"And if your friend does show up, hoping to get you out of here," said Haviland to Hostile 29, "she will be shot on the spot as a traitor to this country. Is that clear?"

Haviland didn't wait for an answer, just spun on his heel, and marched out of the Pit.

Forrest watched, as the creature was punished. A creature unrestrained, one that had just been given massive injuries, and was clearly in pain. A creature that, Forrest knew as well as any soldier here, was a lot stronger and more dangerous than it looked. A creature that all the other HSTs were afraid of.

Forest watched as the creature curled in on itself, trying to protect itself from most of the damage. As it never screamed, never lashed out. Even when one of the soldier's guns fell into arms reach, the creature never even made a move to grab it.

(You made your choice.)

"It still won't fight back," Forrest muttered.

One of the scientists nearby looked up from his clipboard. "Sorry?"

"Just like Dr. Forlich said," said Forrest. "It never fights back."

The scientist looked on, curiosity crossing his face. "You're right. Interesting." The scientist called for Green, and the two began talking to one another, eagerly.

Forrest no longer cared. He fought monsters. He fought enemies. He didn't fight creatures who just wanted to help. Creatures who refused to fight back. Creatures who risk their own lives to save the men who hurt it.

You made your choice!

Forrest pushed through the soldiers, stopping the punishment. He'd made the wrong choice, before. He wasn't doing it again. The soldiers looked… relieved. Eager to stop.

Forrest turned back to Hostile 29 — who was still conscious, still aware, still weakly trying to crawl towards the stairs of the Pit.

"Get it back to its cell," said Forrest. "It's been through enough, already."

Chapter 10

"So you want me to… what? Let Hostile 29 out?" Julie asked Marianna, an hour and a half later.

"Not forever," Marianna told her. "Just for a little while. So he can help his friend. Then he'll come right back here, and everything will go back to normal."

Julie laughed. "Do you really think Hostile 29 is going to do what you say? Crawl quietly back to the Initiative when it's tasted freedom? Come on, Marianna. You know as well as I do that the moment we let Hostile 29 out, it's not coming back."

Marianna faltered. She knew that the Doctor had to stay in the Initiative. It was important. Her own research would suffer if he left, and so would the project.

"He's got two broken legs," said Marianna. "It's not like he can move that fast. We get Agent Forrest or Agent Finn to be somewhere nearby, and they can restrain him again after he's done."

Julie sighed. "You really don't get it, do you?"

Marianna blinked. "Get what?"

"Hostile 29's friend isn't in danger," said Julie. "I've examined the specs that Professor Walsh recorded on her. She's like superwoman. I don't think there's a force out there — sub terrestrial or extra terrestrial — that can take her down. The only person who's in need of rescuing is Hostile 29. That's its game."

"Finn told him—"

"Finn's report claimed that the Vampire Slayer kicked serious vampire butt in that church," said Julie. "Admit it. Your Hostile 29 may not be human, but it's still a guy. 'I need to rescue some girl' is usually guy-talk for 'I need her to rescue me.'"

"So we show Hostile 29 that she isn't in danger," Marianna said. "Then knock him out and drag him back."

"At which point the Vampire Slayer would attack us and get Hostile 29 back, herself," said Julie. "Come on! You're the one who keeps insisting Hostile 29 is smart. Even if it honestly wants to save its friend, you think there's no ulterior motive?"

"Then we explain to the Vampire Slayer why Hostile 29 needs to be in the Initiative," said Marianna. "She'll understand. Hostile 29 would come back here, she'd be okay, and everything could go back to normal."

"Uh-huh," said Julie. "And she'd care about the project… why, exactly? The moment she sees her lover with two broken legs, she's going to flip out. Hostile 29 knows it."

Marianna stared. Lover? "He… said they hadn't been intimate."

"Then Hostile 29 was lying," said Julie. "Ask Penelope if you don't believe me. That relationship is definitely sexual. Hostile 29's probably been sleeping with her for a while, now. And you know what? I think it's sick."

"You mean because he isn't human?" asked Marianna.

"I mean because of all of it," said Julie. "A man — human or not — using a woman like that? It's disgusting."

"Using a woman like what?"

"Hostile 29 is only sleeping with Finn's girlfriend to get revenge on Finn," said Julie. "You told me yourself that the day Finn met Hostile 29, Finn tried to kill it. You think anyone — human or not — is just going to let something like that go? I'm guessing Hostile 29 found Finn's girlfriend shortly afterwards, seduced her, and convinced her it loved her, then started up an affair so it could take revenge on Finn. Toying with that girl's emotions like that, making her think that whole thing is about love? You've got to admit, that's evil. I'm not letting a creature like that back out onto the streets."

"What if Hostile 29 really loves her?" asked Marianna.

"Hostile 29 can't love her," said Julie. "Professor Walsh's research proved that. The kind of psychologically complex, empathetic love you're talking about isn't found in any sentient species besides dolphins. This is revenge, plain and simple, and the sooner that girl works out that Hostile 29 is bad news, the better."

Marianna didn't answer. She wasn't really sure what to say.

"I know you're starting to like Hostile 29," said Julie, "but trust me, you don't want to go down that road, Marianna. Hostile 29 is just like a vampire. Human on the outside, but evil on the inside. You ask me, we've been way too lenient with it."

Marianna just turned and left.

Lenient? The last time that Marianna had seen him, the Doctor had a fractured arm from the perpetual beatings he'd gotten since he first heard his friend was in trouble. How was that lenient?

How was any of this lenient?

The Doctor was kept in a small cell, treated like an animal, ignored and shunned unless he was useful. Marianna used him for her research. The soldiers used him as backup for their teams. Green used him as a lab rat. And after his usefulness was over, the Doctor was shoved back into his cell and ignored, again.

Unless he tried to escape. For which he was punished.

And if he didn't escape, if he never left the Initiative, what did he have to look forward to? It was no secret that Haviland was trying to ship the Doctor off to Washington DC, where he could be properly interrogated (which, since he wasn't human and had no rights, probably meant tortured) and incorporated into the military machine. A future filled with nothing but pain, loneliness, and isolation as he helped the human race to destroy itself.

Forcing someone who hated weapons to become one. The Doctor's fate.

Marianna went back to her office and bent over her work, trying desperately to focus on something else. Anything else.

Thirty minutes later, she realized she couldn't.

---

Colonel Haviland looked like he was going to explode. His face was completely red with anger, his eyes were seething, his jaw was set.

"What do you mean, you refuse?" Colonel Haviland demanded. He pointed at the recently restrained Hostile 29, caught after its 500th escape attempt (at least) in the past four hours. "It tried to escape. Again! That's an offense that deserves punishment."

"With all due respect, sir," said the soldier who'd spoken back, "we don't like the idea of beating a creature who's only escaping because it wants to help save human lives."

"Then you'd better get used to the idea!" Colonel Haviland shouted. "Washington wants this one alive, tamed, and in our custody. Even stupid creatures have to learn, eventually, that escape attempts mean pain."

"Sir, we think the policy is unfair, sir," said another one of the soldiers.

"What's your name, private?" Haviland demanded.

"Phil Gainsber, sir!" said Gainsber.

"And would you care to explain why you would risk your career and possibly even a court martial for some inhuman creature?" Haviland snapped.

"Hostile 29 saved my life last week, sir," Gainsber replied. "But there were only three of us saved. So it was beaten for its actions. I didn't think that was right, sir."

The other men all muttered their agreement.

Colonel Haviland stared at Hostile 29, darkly. "What are you doing to my men?"

"Nothing," said Hostile 29, a small smile on its face. "Just let them see they had a choice."

Colonel Haviland stormed up to Hostile 29, grabbing it by the tie and slamming it against the wall of the corridor. Haviland leaned down so he was right in the creature's face.

"I've been very lenient with you, so far," said Colonel Haviland. "I've given you food and water, I've given you social contact, and I've even allowed you to go unpunished when you rescue my men. But if you continue to plant subversive suggestions in my men's minds, I'll show you what real pain is."

Hostile 29 just met Haviland's gaze, evenly. "Let me save my friend."

Colonel Haviland gave a shout of frustration, and dropped Hostile 29 onto the floor — right onto its broken legs. It actually cried out in pain, this time. Haviland turned to the other soldiers.

"I want to see each and every one of you obeying my orders," Haviland said. "Or I'll end your careers quicker than you can blink. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir!" came the reply. Although it sounded a little less enthusiastic than Haviland wanted.

"Now administer its punishment!" Haviland shouted.

The soldiers gave a salute, and then rushed off to obey orders. For a moment, Haviland thought he'd gotten through to them. It wasn't until he heard the rush of muttered sorry's that Haviland knew Hostile 29 had won this round.

But Haviland would win in the end. Because if Haviland got his way — and he knew he would — Hostile 29 would never, ever know freedom again.

And Haviland could see in the creature's eyes that that might be the most devastating punishment of them all.

---

"Okay, now I'm pissed," said Penelope.

They all were, basically. Hostile 29 had somehow managed to hack into the central database of the Initiative, so it could try to convince them to let it escape. The scientists and soldiers had all prepared themselves for an epic fight against a horde of freed HSTs, which is what any other Hostile Sub Terrestrial would do in Hostile 29's place. But not Hostile 29. No campaign of death and destruction for Hostile 29.

Hostile 29 had gone on a campaign of being highly annoying.

First thing to go was the fridge for the break room. It hadn't just had its power taken down — it had actually started heating up the food inside. Which made a lot of the stuff spoil, and made the break room smell like rotten… everything.

Next were the computers. Every time that anyone wanted to access a computer program, an uncloseable spam window popped up displaying the Count from Sesame Street, in his little puppet vampire voice, singing about counting to ten.

Third to go were the printers. They kept spewing out random quotes from Hollywood's top monster movies, until they ran out of paper.

Penelope had lost it right around the time that the song "Monster Mash" started blaring out through the Initiative's loudspeakers.

"I don't get why Hostile 29 is kicking up a fuss," said Anne. "The situation at the church got taken care of almost a day ago."

"He just wants to save his friend," said Marianna.

"Could someone please convince Colonel Haviland to just let Hostile 29 save its friend and stop annoying us?" Becky said. "This is the most frustrating work day of my life!"

"I think Colonel Haviland lost his temper with Hostile 29 right around the time his video linkup with Washington turned into a Karaoke machine," said Tina. "He's not letting Hostile 29 into the Pit, let alone out of the Initiative."

"Then someone talk to Hostile 29!" said Becky. "Marianna, you've had close contact with it, recently. Get it to stop this."

Marianna just shook her head. "He won't stop until he gets to save his friend. Nothing and no one will convince him otherwise."

"Besides," said Tina, "Marianna wouldn't be able to speak to Hostile 29, anyways. All privileges have been revoked. Food. Drink. Social contact. Clothing. Temperature control. Fresh air. I hear it even got all its pencils and writing implements taken away."

Marianna said nothing, just stared down at the table.

"Well, none of that's working, is it?" said Penelope. "Hostile 29 keeps screwing around with stuff, no matter what we do."

"The way I figure it, Hostile 29 won't give up until it dies," put in a male scientist nearby. "And judging by its current activities, that shouldn't be too far away."

Marianna's head shot up. "What do you mean?"

"I thought that the Initiative wanted Hostile 29 alive," said Becky. "If I'd known we could kill it, I'd have done so back when the fridge stopped working." She glanced over. "Sorry, Marianna."

"Well, yes," said the male scientist. "Hostile 29 knows that we want it alive. I think that's the point. It's acting suicidal in the hopes that Colonel Haviland will give in to prevent it from killing itself." He thought. "At least, I assume that's what's going on. I see no other reason that Hostile 29 would continue to inflict these sorts of punishments on itself."

"Is Colonel Haviland taking suggestions?" asked Becky, as the "Monster Mash" started modulating so that it wasn't even in tune anymore. "Because I've got a few."

"Cut it out," said Marianna. "He's just worried about his friend."

"Hostile 29 doesn't have to be so annoying about it," muttered Becky. "The other HSTs aren't."

Marianna gave Becky a pointed look. "Any other HST in his place would have gone on a killing spree by now."

"Well, maybe I'd prefer a killing spree!" snapped Becky. "At least then I wouldn't have to listen to stupid Bobby Pickett!"

"Colonel Haviland's been trying to reason with Hostile 29, Marianna," Tina said. "Julie told me that Haviland's agreed to send help to Hostile 29's friend, provided that Hostile 29 constructs a virus to wipe out every sentient non-human life form on the planet. Except dolphins. And itself, of course."

"Colonel Haviland thinks that Hostile 29 can wipe out all the HSTs all at once?" Anne gave a laugh. "That's ridiculous."

"I dunno," said Penelope. "Marianna claims Hostile 29's helped her come up with a way to make vampires human. If Hostile 29 can do something like that, I'd say a virus to destroy the HSTs should be a piece of cake."

Tina shrugged. "Hostile 29 refused, anyways. So then Colonel Haviland figured if its friend was a Vampire Slayer, it would be willing to construct some sort of air-born pathogen to get rid of all the vampires, leaving the other HSTs alone. But Hostile 29 wouldn't do that, either."

"So you're saying that Hostile 29 doesn't even care about its friend?" said Becky. "It's just annoying us for the fun of it?"

The music in the background screeched, and all the women covered their ears until the pitch lowered again.

"Okay, I'm starting to agree with Becky," said Anne. "Hostile 29 dies. Slowly and painfully."

"Oh, no, death's too good for it," said Becky. "I say we imprison it in a soundproof bunker, and force it to listen to nothing but 'MacArthur Park' for the rest of eternity. Or maybe something by Britney Spears."

Marianna got up from her seat, still not looking at the others. "This is insane," she said, as she turned to walk out the door.

"Where are you going?" Penelope asked.

"I'm stopping this," said Marianna, "the only way I know how. I'm finding Finn's girlfriend."

Chapter 11

Turns out, she was an undergraduate at UC Sunnydale, going by the name Buffy Summers. Marianna got the information she needed, and left the Initiative. She was going to find this girl, make sure she was all right, and then tell her exactly where the Doctor was.

And if that led to this Vampire Slayer going off to the Initiative and rescuing the Doctor, then maybe that was what had to happen. And if it meant that Marianna never got to see the Doctor again, then maybe that was for the best. Marianna didn't care if the Doctor was in the Initiative or not, anymore. She just wanted the torture and the punishments to stop. Now.

And that is exactly what Marianna would have done, if Agent Finn hadn't intercepted her, first.

Marianna could see the blond petite girl nearby, laughing and joking with her friends, as Finn frantically led Marianna away. Out of sight and out of hearing range, at which point they ducked into a nearby empty lecture hall.

"Look," said Finn, "you can't tell her. She'll try and rescue him, and be shot on the spot. Even the Doc—I mean, even Hostile 29 doesn't want that."

"There's a man down there," Marianna hissed, pointing down beneath their feet, "who is currently killing himself trying to get out here because he thinks your girlfriend is at death's door. And, judging by the look of her, I'd say she's not in mortal peril. So what's going on, Agent Finn?"

Finn blinked at her. "Killing himself?"

"Not sleeping, not eating or drinking, throwing himself at impossibly strong energy fields over and over again, doing things that earn him more and more punishments while he's slowly running out of air," Marianna informed him. "The man has two broken legs, a fractured arm, five broken fingers, three cracked ribs, massive bruising and possibly a problem with one of his hearts. He can't even walk at the moment, can barely breathe, and he's still trying to get out. So I don't really care what melodrama you three have going on in your personal lives. All I'm concerned with is fixing whatever may or may not be wrong with Buffy Summers, and stopping this."

Finn flicked his eyes back to the door of the lecture hall, a sudden look of guilt washing across his face. Well, good. He should feel guilty. This was all Finn's fault. If Finn had just been more secure about his relationship with his girlfriend and hadn't been so obsessed with making his romantic rival jealous, then the Doctor would never have known that there was a problem with Buffy Summers. And if the Doctor hadn't known, then everything in the Initiative would have kept being okay, and Marianna wouldn't have all these weird and stupid feelings that the Initiative was wrong and the Doctor should leave and… and… it was all Finn's fault!

"Buffy's fine," Finn confessed to Marianna. "If you want, I can show you. She's completely fine. It was just… something that happened yesterday."

"Some sort of synaptic mind transference," said Marianna. "I know about the PSI-859 psionic matrix facsimile regenerator incident in Maryland. Mind transference to allow demons to inhabit human bodies? I'm not going to watch that happen in California."

"This isn't a Dashwood-Institute redo," Finn said. "There's no technology run amok, no Hellfire Club, none of it. This was just… I don't know. She said it was magic."

"Magic," Marianna scoffed.

Finn ran his hands across his face. "Dr. Forlich, I know you're concerned about… Hostile 29, but… this whole thing with Buffy, it's all sorted out, now. The other girl's gone, Buffy's back in the right body, all the drama is over, and… you can't tell her. You can't tell her anything. Not about Hostile 29. Not about the Initiative. Not about any of it."

"Why? You think she might feel upset when she finds out?" Marianna asked.

Finn didn't answer. He didn't have to. They both knew who Buffy would be upset at, if she ever discovered what was really going on in the Initiative.

"Let me tell you something, Finn," said Marianna. "I don't care about your relationship with your girlfriend. At all. I care that there's someone being tortured who doesn't deserve it, because of you! And I want it to stop!"

"I'll fix this," said Finn. "I'll… I'll talk to him, let him know what happened."

"You can't talk to him," said Marianna. "Colonel Haviland's restricted social contact."

"Then I'll convince Colonel Haviland," Finn told her. "I promise, I'll set things right. Just don't tell Buffy."

Marianna looked at Finn suspiciously.

"I swear, Hostile 29 doesn't want her to know, either," Finn continued. "Colonel Haviland said that he'd shoot Buffy the moment she came near that containment cell, and I believe him."

"And you think that telling her where he is would make her run off and do something suicidal?" asked Marianna.

"Yes!" said Finn. "I mean — look, it's not that she cares about him at all. She doesn't. She just has this feeling of… responsibility, around him. One that borders on the suicidal. If she finds out, she will come looking for him, and she'll get herself killed. And if you think that Hostile 29 is reacting this strongly to the idea of her being hurt, you do not want to see how he'll react if she dies."

Marianna opened her mouth to argue the point, but stopped. She knew that Finn was right. At the moment, the Doctor was an ally of humanity, and even an ally of the Initiative. If the Initiative killed his friend… Marianna had a feeling they'd discover why all the other HSTs feared him.

(And she really, really didn't want to see that horrible, bitter, soul-crushing pain on his face, again.)

"Is she really okay?" asked Marianna.

"Yes," said Finn. "I promise. She really is herself. I've got experts on the subject to back me up."

Marianna sighed. "Okay. I won't tell Buffy Summers anything. On the condition that you go right down into the Initiative and fix what you've done."

Finn gave an officious nod, and then raced off towards the door.

"And Finn?" Marianna called.

Finn paused, his hand on the doorknob.

"If you do anything even mildly damaging to Hostile 29 again," she said, "I'm telling your girlfriend everything. Regardless of the consequences."

Finn's eyes darkened. "If you care so much about him, you get him out," he growled. "Leave me and my girlfriend out of this."

---

For someone so incredibly human-looking, it always kind of stunned Marianna to discover things about the Doctor that were strikingly not human.

For instance, the Doctor's reaction to Finn's "reconciliation talk" — which wound up being neither comforting nor reconciliatory — was one of pure happiness and relief. Marianna hadn't been allowed to see the confrontation in person, of course, but there were enough cameras and monitoring equipment trained on Hostile 29 that she found the footage quite easily.

"She's fine," Finn had informed the alien, who'd stopped in his frantic escape attempts the moment that Finn entered the general vicinity.

The Doctor didn't say anything, just sat on the floor, his back to Agent Finn, his eyes trained on the white-tiled wall ahead of him.

"She used something called a Draconian Katra, and everything got put back the way it was," said Finn. "She didn't even need you. She didn't even miss you."

The Doctor didn't move.

"That's the thing," said Finn. "You think you have all the answers, that the world's just going to magically end if you're not around and everyone's going to wind up dead. But we're just fine without you."

Once again, no answer, no response — not even an acknowledging nod or a glance over at Finn through the glass.

"You're upset that people treat you like an animal, here?" asked Finn. "Well, guess what? They're wrong. You're less than that. You're nothing."

Yet again, no response.

Finn clenched his jaw, his eyes growing steadily more and more angry as the Doctor refused to acknowledge him.

"Face me!" Finn shouted. "Say something! You think you're so much better than me? Well, guess what? She doesn't love you. She never even liked you. And now that you're out of her life, she's finally happy."

The Doctor didn't move, didn't even look back. Marianna expected the Doctor to stay silent the entire time, not to say anything. So it shocked her when, at this point, he replied.

"Is she really all right?" the Doctor asked, in a voice so quiet that the recording equipment almost didn't pick it up.

Finn jumped a mile high at the voice. He composed himself in an instant. "Yes," he said. "Giles and Willow confirmed it. She's just fine. Especially now that you're not around to bother her."

"Does she know?" the Doctor continued, in the same soft tone.

"No," said Finn. "She thinks you're gone. Ditched her and ran off without saying goodbye. She thinks you're a lying piece of filth, and the sooner she forgets about you, the better."

The Doctor nodded, and a look of pure relief and gratitude washed across his face. For the first time, he glanced back at Riley. "Thank you."

Marianna replayed the conversation over and over again, just trying to figure it all out. Had they been speaking in some sort of code, trying to communicate some hidden message? That would certainly be the most likely thing, but when she'd shown the footage to Penelope, she'd pointed out how Finn seemed to be increasingly speaking out of anger and rage.

"Pause it," said Penelope. Then she pointed at Finn on the screen. "See? You can see the underlying desperation for validation right here. Finn's girlfriend must really think Hostile 29 is something, because it's killing Finn that Hostile 29 won't talk to him. I've seen Finn mad, but I've never seen him get this worked up before."

"But what's going on inside the — I mean, inside Hostile 29's head?" asked Marianna.

Penelope just gave a little shrug. "I honestly have no idea," she said. "You've got to admit, there's something very twisted about a psychological mindset where a conversation like that could be comforting." She gave a small smile. "I really have to check this creature out."

"I'll introduce you," said Marianna, getting up from her seat.

"Now?" Penelope asked.

"Why not?" said Marianna. "If you're free."

Penelope gave her a suspicious look. "And this has nothing to do with the fact that you're checking in on Hostile 29's emotional wellbeing after Finn's conversation?"

"No," said Marianna, firmly.

Penelope did her best to hold back a small laugh.

The moment Marianna and Penelope emerged, however, they knew that something was wrong. There was a buzz of activity from around the Doctor's enclosed area, and Marianna and Penelope glanced at one another, before venturing forwards to see what was going on.

Marianna expected to find Colonel Haviland shouting, red-faced and angry, at a bunch of reluctant soldiers and a persistent Doctor. But what she found, instead, were a bunch of somber-faced soldiers and scientists running around — Green's team, Marianna noted — not saying very much of anything.

"What happened?" Marianna asked one of the soldiers.

The soldier turned to her. "Hostile 29 is dead."

Chapter 12

Marianna felt her entire world freeze. Penelope had said that the Doctor had a twisted psyche, but was it so messed up that Riley's "reconciliation" speech had actually made the Doctor depressed enough to commit suicide?

"How?" she asked. "When? What… what happened?"

"Just now," the soldier informed her. "Just lay down like it was going to sleep, and next thing we knew, all vital signs went to zero."

Marianna took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. What would Professor Walsh do in this sort of situation? She'd look at the entire thing logically, not bogged down by emotion. It was obvious what had happened, wasn't it? This was a response to the news that Buffy was fine, that his friend was out of danger. The Doctor had been nearly killing himself to save her life. The moment he learned she was no longer in danger, the Doctor would have just given up. Let himself actually die.

The Doctor had killed himself for Buffy Summers. The girl who thought he'd abandoned her when she needed him most. The girl who thought he was a 'lying piece of filth'.

Colonel Haviland stepped out of the secure area, and Marianna noticed that the soldiers wouldn't look at him. They were blaming him, she guessed — of course they were. None of them wanted to take things as far as they did.

The amazing thing was that Colonel Haviland wasn't shouting or raging on about the project or the higher ups in Washington. He just strode, silently, out of the enclosed area, tension radiating through his body, his face a carefully blank mask.

"Ooh, now there's someone who's feeling guilty," said Penelope.

Marianna spun around. She couldn't do anything for the Doctor, now. But there was one person the Doctor loved enough that he'd been willing to die to help her, and Marianna was damned well going to make sure Buffy Summers knew about it.

But there was someone that Marianna wanted to make sure felt guilty about this, first.

"You killed him," Marianna told Finn, the moment she found him.

Finn looked up at her, confused. "Huh?"

"The Doctor," said Marianna, "is dead. And I'm telling your girlfriend exactly who it was that convinced him to give up and die."

Not that Buffy would be Finn's girlfriend much longer after that happened, Marianna suspected.

Finn jumped up. "Wait, wait," he said. "What… what does he… what's he…" Finn blinked, trying to organize his thoughts. "His skin. Is it cold?"

Marianna sighed, as she nodded.

Finn's eyes met Marianna's. "He's not dead."

Great. She had to deal with denial on top of everything else. "There aren't any vital signs," she explained. "His skin's cold. He's not breathing. He's dead."

"That's not what… I mean, he doesn't… it's just…" Finn shifted nervously, looking around the room. Then he darted out the door.

Marianna raced after him.

Finn caught up with Green and his team just as they were wheeling the Doctor into the Pit for an autopsy. Finn rushed down the stairs, jumping them two at a time, and ran over to the Doctor's lifeless corpse.

"Wait!" Finn shouted. "He's not dead!"

"Stand aside, Agent Finn," said Green.

Finn grabbed the Doctor's wrist and waited a very long moment. Then his eyes lit up. "There! A pulse! I knew it!"

"That's preposterous," said one of the scientists on Green's team. "That sort of heart-rate would never be enough to sustain life."

Finn handed the wrist to the scientist, a determined gleam in his eye. The scientist reluctantly took it, clearly expecting to find nothing. After a few seconds, he shook his head at Finn.

"You were imagining it," said the scientist. "There's no…" The scientist's eyes widened, and he stared back at the Doctor.

The next few minutes were a blur of activity and motion, as Green's team set up monitors and machines, trying to read the vital signs more accurately.

Marianna had never been so relieved to hear the very slow, very faint pulse on the heart monitor than she was, now.

The Doctor was still unconscious, still in bad shape, but… Finn had been right. He was alive. And Marianna wondered… is this not how the Doctor's species dies? Is there something else that happens, something which causes the Doctor's skin to grow warm instead of cool — some sort of self-incineration, perhaps?

If it was Professor Walsh, she would have pried further. If it was Professor Walsh, she would have investigated exactly what happened when the Doctor was near death. And Marianna wanted to be like Professor Walsh. So very, very badly.

Which is why Marianna wasn't sure why she let the subject drop entirely.

---

"It's weird, isn't it?" Penelope remarked.

They were watching the Doctor in the Pit, as Green's team tried to figure out how to restore him to full consciousness.

"What?" asked Marianna.

"This," said Penelope, gesturing at all the people who'd also gathered around the railing surrounding the Pit, all looking in at the unconscious patient. "I mean, I can understand gawkers, but there isn't anything exciting below to gawk at."

"Why'd you come, then?" asked Marianna.

"Curiosity," said Penelope. "People watching. That sort of thing." She considered the crowd of people around the railings. "Mostly soldiers, it looks like. And only the ones that Hostile 29 has met. Perhaps some sort of compensation for their own sense of guilt and moral unease."

Marianna peered around. She noticed that Finn was nowhere to be found.

"I'm surprised you're not down there helping stabilize the creature," Penelope added.

"I don't know anything about his biology," said Marianna. "Green's the expert in that."

Penelope nodded, a smile creeping up her face. "Oh, so that's why you've been staying put all this time. You're double checking to make sure Green doesn't hurt the creature."

Marianna didn't answer.

"You really are fond of it," said Penelope. "I've never seen you this worked up about even the humans you work with, let alone the HSTs."

"Colonel Haviland wants him alive," said Marianna. "I'm just helping the project."

Penelope raised an eyebrow. "Colonel Haviland may want Hostile 29 alive," she said, "but you want it happy."

Marianna said nothing for a long moment. "I'm just using him as a database of information," she muttered, at last. "To help with my research. That's all."

Penelope gave a laugh. "Sure you are."

They stood a moment, in silence, just staring down at the proceedings below. At all the white lab coats scurrying around, taking readings and checking vital signs and making sure the Doctor was stable. The clonk of boots, as Colonel Haviland stepped down the stairs into the Pit, his eyes fixed on the unconscious Doctor. He then turned to Green, and the two began conversing in hushed tones.

"That's the body language of a man who's feeling nothing but sheer relief," Penelope said. "And a massive amount of guilt."

Marianna didn't see any of that. To her, Haviland looked just as rigid and soldier-like as he had before.

"He installed a chalk board along the back wall of Hostile 29's cell, you know," said Penelope.

Marianna snapped her head over to Penelope. "What?"

"Yeah," said Penelope. "I told you. I'm here because of curiosity. I dunno if it's biological, or psychological, or what, but every person Hostile 29 comes into contact with winds up acting… weird."

"That's ridiculous," said Marianna, turning back to the Pit.

"Soldiers don't disobey orders," said Penelope. "And Colonels don't give presents to the Hostile Sub Terrestrials they're supposed to be punishing. And then, of course, there's you…"

"Me?" said Marianna. "Nothing's happened to me."

"Anne tells me she caught you trying to reason with an HST," said Penelope. "Giving it a choice."

"And it made the wrong one, so I implanted the chip in its brain," said Marianna.

Penelope rolled her eyes. "Marianna, you talked to it. You talked to an HST. And then you listened to its answer."

Marianna felt her blood run cold. She had, hadn't she? She hadn't even thought about it at the time, but… she'd been going against her training. Interacting with the HSTs as if they were people. As if they were human.

"You listen to them," Marianna pointed out.

"That's my job," said Penelope. "And I don't talk to them."

"It won't happen again," said Marianna. "I promise."

Penelope shrugged. She stared down at the unconscious Doctor. "As I said. Curious."

"Green hasn't changed," said Marianna. "And Green's had the most contact with Hostile 29."

"Julie would disagree on that," said Penelope. "You ask Julie, Green's gotten worse and worse since Hostile 29 showed up." Her eyes snapped over to the right. "Wait. Is that Julie?"

Marianna glanced over, and thought she could see the rapidly departing figure of Julie Parsoner, rushing away from the railing surrounding the Pit. Marianna wondered how long Julie had been watching, and why.

"See?" said Penelope. "Told you. People changing. Scientists and soldiers acting oddly. Makes you think."

Chapter 13

24 hours later, the Doctor woke up. To everyone's surprise, when he awoke, he was perfectly healthy. Every injury was gone, every broken bone mended, every bruise and cut vanished without a scar. Marianna was surprised that Green and his team hadn't immediately bundled the Doctor away to test this new-found healing ability, but they hadn't.

Haviland was the one who informed her that the Doctor was awake.

Told her about the situation in military efficiency, then told her that all testing had been suspended for twenty-four hours, all privileges had been restored, and Marianna was to go down to Hostile 29 at once.

Marianna saw her advantage, and mentioned something about the electrified glass containing far too strong a current. One that wasn't just discouraging escape, but was actually causing physical damage to Hostile 29.

She expected Colonel Haviland to snap that it was necessary, that any deterrent was worthwhile, but instead he just muttered something about how he'd see what he could do, and left.

It seemed that Penelope was right. Colonel Haviland had been really shaken by the Doctor's near-death. And Marianna wasn't sure that was just due to Haviland's concern for the project.

Marianna was honestly happy to notice that the Doctor appeared perfectly fine and uninjured, walking around on two unbroken legs, attired once more in his normal pinstripe suit and trainers. And just as Penelope had said, there was a brand new chalkboard secured to the back wall of his cell, upon which he'd already drawn two circles.

The Doctor's eyes lit up the moment Marianna arrived, as always. And he launched into the topic of her research with just as much enthusiasm as he'd done every other time she arrived. As if the last few days had never even happened. Marianna wasn't sure exactly what to do — whether to give in and let him ignore the events of the past few days, or bring the subject up herself.

"What are those?" she asked, instead, pointing at the circles the Doctor had drawn.

"Sun," said the Doctor, as he picked up a piece of chalk and began writing equations beneath the circles.

Oh.

It took a while for it to sink in. The sun. So many of the creatures in the Initiative were nocturnal, Marianna had forgotten that the Doctor wasn't. That he might not just miss the outside world, the friends he had out there and the freedom he'd known, but even something as simple as the sun.

"What about the other one?" Marianna asked him.

"Other sun."

Marianna frowned. "There's only one sun," she reminded him.

"On this world."

Marianna's breath caught in her throat. She'd known he was an alien, even if she forgot, sometimes. Could it be… he was trying to remind himself of his own home? Of his world? She'd never heard him speak of his home, of his people or his traditions or his culture. She assumed he was either making it all up (like the time travel thing), or that his home world had been just like Earth.

She wanted to ask where he'd come from, but whatever name he gave her would mean nothing to her. She wanted to know where in the sky his home planet was located, how far away it was, what that meant about solar radiation in different parts of the universe, and how evolution varied on other worlds.

"What star system does your home planet orbit?" Marianna asked him.

The Doctor stopped writing. He didn't turn around to face her, just stared at the chalkboard in front of him. "Doesn't matter. Gone, now."

And there was a lonely sorrow in his voice that surpassed any loneliness Marianna had seen him display thus far. Something must have happened, Marianna realized, something he remembered. Something that had destroyed his home.

But Marianna really wanted to know where he'd come from!

"That doesn't mean we wouldn't have heard of it," Marianna pointed out. "If you've travelled faster than the speed of light to get here, and whatever catastrophe happened took place during your lifetime, the light from that event probably hasn't traveled this far, yet. Your star system would still be in Earth's sky."

"It isn't."

He replied with a cold stubbornness that seemed to slap Marianna in the face. She looked more closely at him and… this subject was making him really unhappy, wasn't it? But she was curious. She was a scientist. She wanted answers! Marianna opened her mouth to ask another question. Then shut it again.

With an amazing amount of willpower, she stopped herself from continuing the questioning.

The Doctor thrust that horribly lonely, pained emotion away, concealing it behind a façade of happy carelessness, and launched back into the subject of Marianna's research once more. And Marianna let him, because… well, damn it, she did want the Doctor to be happy.

Was that really so wrong?

But at the end of their scientific collaboration session, Marianna knew she couldn't just let the last three days drop. She had to bring up the subject of Finn and his girlfriend. If only to understand what she should tell Buffy Summers about this incident.

(Because Marianna had to tell Buffy Summers something, didn't she? After everything the Doctor had done for the girl, it didn't feel right to leave her in ignorance.)

"I went to see your friend," said Marianna. She noticed the way the Doctor tensed, when she said it. "But Finn got me, first."

The tension lessened. "Don't tell her where I am," said the Doctor.

"If she's as impressive as the reports say," said Marianna, "she might be able to—"

"Don't," said the Doctor.

Marianna frowned. "Do you want to escape?"

"Of course I want to escape!" said the Doctor. "What do you think all those escape attempts are for? But I have to do it on my own. I can't let him see…" He paused, looked up at the camera surveying him, then seemed to reconsider what he was saying. "Someone wants me here, Marianna. Someone who is willing to kill anyone that gets in his way. If my friend finds out where I am, she'll come down here. And I can't let her do that."

Marianna nodded. Finn had said much the same — that Buffy Summers would be shot on the spot if she came down here, and not even the Doctor wanted that.

"Over the past few days, I've been thinking," said Marianna. "And… I'm not sure you should be here. In the Initiative, I mean. I want… to help you leave."

The Doctor's eyes went dark. "Dr. Marianna Forlich," he said, very quietly and very seriously, "do not try to get me out of here. Especially not you."

"I wouldn't be breaking you out or helping you escape," Marianna told him. "I'd simply create some sort of proposal, so I could convince the higher-ups to let you go."

"Doesn't matter," said the Doctor. "You're already taking time away from Green's tests. If you push too far, someone's going to try to get you out of the way. I can't let them see you as a threat."

Marianna wasn't sure what to say. She had heard this kind of paranoia from the Doctor before, and didn't know what to do about it. But it worried her — particularly because it grew stronger every time she spoke to him. "Colonel Haviland—"

"Is not the one keeping me here," the Doctor told her. "I will get out. I promise, I am not about to spend the rest of my life in here. But you can't be the one to get me out of here. Definitely not you. And definitely not my other friend. I told you, Marianna, I learned my lesson; I'm not about to let anyone else die for me."

Marianna nodded, slowly. "So… it's not Agent Finn keeping you here?"

"Course not," said the Doctor. "Riley Finn? Nah. Can't be. This is someone clever. Someone technologically advanced, judging by the technology I've encountered during my aborted escape attempts. Someone persistent, if his constant efforts to break through the Old Girl's defenses are anything to go by. Someone strategic — oh, very strategic. After all, if he can get Carflodashians to split up… well, this must be someone who can convince people to act completely against their nature."

Marianna blinked at him. At the Doctor.

The one who had made Forrest very nearly refuse to do what Haviland commanded. The one who had made an entire team of soldiers, trained only to obey orders, not only question those orders but actually refuse to carry them out. The one who'd made Colonel Haviland not only stop torturing him for the day, but actually give him a present.

The one who'd made Marianna start listening to the HSTs she worked with. Offering them a choice.

"The way you can, you mean?" asked Marianna.

The Doctor frowned. "Sorry?"

"Nothing," said Marianna. "Never mind."

"I'm not the one keeping myself in here," said the Doctor. "If I had been, I'd have gotten out to help my friend."

But that wasn't what Marianna had meant. Penelope was right. There was something happening to the humans in the Initiative, something Marianna couldn't understand. She understood about using an implanted microchip in the brain to modify behavior. She'd seen all sorts of Hostile Sub Terrestrials turn from harmful creatures into harmless ones. But this sort of change, this sort of metamorphosis — Marianna had never seen anything like it, before.

"What are you doing to us?" Marianna asked.

"Nothing," the Doctor insisted. "Honestly! Nothing! No mind control. No manipulation. Nothing whatsoever."

Marianna laughed. "I'm not saying it's wrong," she said. In fact, she had this niggling feeling at the back of her mind that it was a good thing. "I just want to know what's going on. People around the Initiative have been changing, becoming more… pacifistic in nature. More… anti-authoritarian. Questioning orders and… certain aspects of their training."

"What makes you think that has anything to do with me?" asked the Doctor. "Perhaps you lot are just starting to notice a number of very obvious truths."

"The change only happens in people who've met you," Marianna told him. "Those soldiers, and Colonel Haviland, and even Finn… I mean, is this some plan of yours? Trying to turn the Initiative into some peace-loving organization by making everyone inside second guess themselves?"

"Plan?" the Doctor asked. "What makes you think I have a plan? I'm far too busy trying to work out who's keeping me here and how to stop him to come up with any plans for you lot."

Marianna hesitated. "But… the way you've been acting… not just saving all our lives, but… noticing whenever anyone's in trouble, that's not… I mean, you can't always…"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her.

"It has to serve some purpose!" said Marianna. "Getting me on your side, your relationship with Finn's girlfriend, your defense of the soldiers, they all have to serve some sort of higher objective. Everything's always a means to an ends! That's just the way the world works!"

"Not the world," the Doctor corrected. "Just the Initiative."

Chapter 14

After this incident, a number of things began to change. The first was Agent Finn.

Finn had been speaking to the Doctor on a somewhat regular basis, mainly trying to get the Doctor mad or jealous or just provoke some reaction out of him. Whether out of fear of Marianna's threat, or because Forrest had decided to steer him away, Finn stopped visiting the Doctor at this point.

The second was a change in the scientists. Well, actually, the women scientists.

Since Green had taken over, the women scientists had been increasingly upset with the way they'd been treated. They had all come there to work with Maggie Walsh, and were, therefore, not expecting to be under the thumb of a misogynistic head scientist who dismissed their theories offhand. But it wasn't just Green who was the problem.

"When I was young," Julie told Marianna, once, "my brother and his friends always played this game called, 'no girls allowed.' And they did the coolest stuff, like building model airplanes and constructing tree forts and things like that, and whenever I tried to do any of that stuff, they just kind of pretended I wasn't there." She rolled her eyes. "Turns out, men are still just like little boys, sometimes."

They all had stories like that. All the women scientists at the Initiative. They'd all been the kind of children who hadn't worked very well with the typical gender stereotypes, and they'd all hoped that the little boys that had pushed them out when they were young would grow up to be mature collaborators.

But the guys at the Initiative just had no idea.

"It's not that they don't want to hear your opinion," Marianna had reassured Tina, one day, after she'd been ignored by the other members of her research team. "It's just that… all those guys are real buddy-buddy with each other. They're naturally going to listen to each other more than they'll listen to any of us."

Haviland, when praising Anne for her latest breakthrough in her research, had said she was the "modern Rachel Carson".

"He could at least have picked a woman scientist who actually worked in the same field as me!" Anne said. "I think he just searched for 'famous women scientists' on the internet, and chose the first one he could find."

And the thing was that they could say that Green hadn't been as hostile towards them when Professor Walsh was still alive, and that was the truth. But as for the others… well, they'd always been just as offhandedly dismissive. Even when they were going out of their way to be supportive and helpful to the women around them, it had always been clear to everyone that — in their hearts — they didn't consider women to be real scientists.

The difference hadn't been Green. It had been Professor Maggie Walsh.

"They're going to treat you like you're nothing," Professor Walsh had told Marianna, once. "But you're not nothing. You're a scientist. And no matter what anyone tells you, no matter what happens to you, you remember that. You're a scientist, and because of that, nothing will ever hurt you. Don't react, don't emote, don't feel, Marianna. Just fight back. That's how you win."

And Professor Walsh had known, better than any of the rest of them. Maggie Walsh, who'd had to fight tooth and nail every step of the way, so she'd be taken seriously in the scientific circles. Marianna had heard the stories of Walsh's time as a graduate student. Heard about the many times that Walsh's thesis advisor would drunk-dial her, in the middle of the night, explaining to her at length how she was worthless and women couldn't be scientists and she should just give up. Marianna had heard about the series of murders of women scientists at the University of Chicago labs — and how Walsh's name had been next on the list, when the murderer was caught.

Professor Walsh had been beaten down over and over again — more than any of the rest of them — yet she'd still pulled through. Still proved herself to be the genius she really was.

"The world is full of people like Arthur Green," Professor Walsh had explained to them, when they'd complained about him. "You have to learn how to deal with them. Make them respect you. This isn't a scientific dialogue, this is a war. And you have to be willing to put every ounce of sympathy or warmth behind you, or you will lose."

Things had been better when Professor Walsh was alive, because Professor Walsh had had faith in every single woman scientist she hired. She'd required them to prove themselves, of course, and her standards were high enough that few scientists — male or female — could ever meet them, but for those who did, Professor Walsh wasn't just a role model, but an advocate. Someone who they could turn to for help, encouragement, and comfort. Every single person in the Initiative respected Professor Walsh — even Green.

But now, Professor Walsh was gone. Murdered.

And it had been hard for everyone, but hardest for the women scientists. The women all knew that they hadn't just lost their leader or their mentor. They'd lost the one person who'd taken them seriously, who'd felt what it was like to be ignored and shunned and treated as something lesser. They'd lost their inspiration.

Then Penelope went to visit the Doctor.

Marianna could tell that Penelope still wasn't convinced that the Doctor was a person, but she had been convinced that he was a scientist, and rather a good one at that. And he took women scientists seriously in a way that no other man in the Initiative ever did.

Penelope had noticed that Haviland decreased Green's permitted testing time for the Doctor when the Doctor worked more with Marianna. And she knew that the Doctor was lonely, and the women scientists were starved for attention. The solution seemed obvious.

Penelope took charge. She spoke to the other women at the Initiative, encouraging them to work with the Doctor, to use his expertise in order to develop their theories into something provable, something that Green could not possibly shoot down.

"It — he — is a genius," Tina confided to Marianna. "I have been slaving for weeks over this stupid microchip. I spent five minutes talking to him — about something totally unrelated — and the answer just came to me!"

"He's sweet," Becky told Marianna, over lunch one day, "but a bit weird. He keeps going on about how I should try to communicate with the demons, try to reason with them. He tells me to imagine I was in their shoes, how I would feel. I keep telling him that they're Hostile Sub Terrestrials, and they're not like us, but he won't seem to understand that."

"The thing that gets me is that he really believes I'm smart," Anne told Marianna, one day, while they were checking on the HSTs in the containment cells. "Usually, when guys work with you, they have that thing where they secretly think you can't do this without them, and they're just feeding you answers. But it's not like that with the Doctor. It's almost like… he knows how it feels to be the one always ignored. The one treated like you're somehow beneath all the other scientists in the room. The one always excluded, no matter how hard you try to fit in. I mean — how could he possibly understand something like that?"

But as time passed, and the women got to know the Doctor better, their concern for him grew, as well.

"Do you know what Green's doing to him?" Tina asked Marianna. "Because the last time I came in, he was scratched up and bruised and really badly injured. I mean, it's not like he ever complains, or anything. I'm just worried that, one day, Green's going to go too far."

"Green's been making deals with the head of my research team," Becky whispered to Marianna, another day. "Apparently, Green's been trying to work out if there's any time that the Doctor will ever fight back by locking him in a room with the most vicious stuff you could imagine and then seeing what happens."

Marianna's eyes widened.

Becky grinned. "So far, the Doctor's managed to weasel out of most of it, though."

When Green asked Marianna for some vampires he could borrow for testing purposes, Marianna had gathered her friends together — Becky, Tina, Penelope, and Anne — and the five of them had stayed up all night, reprogramming every single behavioral modification chip they'd placed in the vampires they had locked in the Initiative. The next day, when Marianna handed over the vampires that Green had requested, she had great difficulty keeping a straight face once Green began screaming at her about a malfunction in the behavior modification chips.

But despite their best efforts, it was obvious that nothing they could do would stop Green's tests. And Green's tests were obviously getting more and more painful for the Doctor. If this continued, they all knew, Green might actually wind up killing the Doctor.

Marianna told Colonel Haviland about this — not that it helped. Marianna also began to create proposals, appeals, investigations, any sort of procedural process she could imagine, to try to convince Colonel Haviland to the Doctor go. Which didn't help, either.

"Hostile 29 is the property of the United States Military," Colonel Haviland insisted. "Any attempts by any person to remove Hostile 29 from the Initiative will be considered an act of espionage and high treason."

But Penelope's strategy had been sound. As more and more scientists collaborated with the Doctor, Colonel Haviland decreased Green's permitted testing time. The Doctor got more social contact, he was tortured less often, and he finally had people who wanted to talk to him and listen to him. Marianna thought that, perhaps, the Doctor was growing happier.

"It's a really interesting psychological profile," said Penelope. "I can't understand this compulsion to help, but there's a massive amount of sorrow inside of him. All the time. And that's not even counting the mounting paranoia. To tell you the truth, I don't think he's getting happier, Marianna. I think the more he sees of this place, the sadder he gets."

"I guess that's what anyone would be like, trapped and tortured down here," said Marianna. "I have to figure out some way to get him out. Maybe if I formed some sort of subcommittee for encouraging the creation of a formal committee to decide whether or not the Doctor would be—"

"It's not that," said Penelope. "I think he's sad about this place as a whole. It's almost like — well, if he were human, I'd say he felt this place conflicted with his own moral values."

"You don't believe that his species can have actual morals?" asked Marianna.

"If he's in here, he doesn't have morals," said Penelope. "Maybe he isn't an 'it', but he's still not human. He's smart enough to pretend to be like us, but inside, you know he isn't. All that rushing out to help others, not fighting back — it's just an act, Marianna. He doesn't actually care about humanity."

"Then why is he putting on the act?" Marianna asked. "You saw how he reacted when he thought his friend was in danger. He wouldn't have done that if he hadn't been honestly worried about her."

"There's a difference between being worried about one person you know, and being worried about a bunch of strangers," said Penelope. "My guess? The Doctor isn't Buffy Summers' lover. He's her pet. I mean, he doesn't even have a real name! 'The Doctor'? That's so a pet name! Plus, you've seen the way she runs around helping people. She's got him trained. He doesn't understand why he's doing it, but he feels the need to imitate that behavior."

"If the Doctor's Buffy's pet, then why's Finn so jealous of him?" asked Marianna.

"He still looks human," said Penelope. "And he's sort of cute, if you know what I mean. Considering the kind of devotion the Doctor shows for his owner, it's no wonder Finn's jealous."

Marianna could kind of see it, she guessed. If she squinted really hard and stood on her head and also happened to be wearing the wrong prescription glasses. But there were too many things that didn't add up. Too many little facts that Marianna had learned about the Doctor that didn't work with Penelope's theory.

"All that aside," Marianna told Penelope, "do you have any idea why the Doctor's been growing increasingly paranoid, recently?"

"Nope," said Penelope. "Maybe it's because, for the first time in his life, he doesn't have Buffy Summers to watch over him, and that's terrifying. I don't buy this whole '900 years old' thing he has going on. All the tests say that his body isn't anywhere past 5 years old."

"He's only 5 years old?" asked Marianna.

"That's what it seems like," said Penelope.

Marianna asked the Doctor about the discrepancy, but the Doctor just changed the topic. Marianna didn't understand why he was so eager to avoid the issue, but she wasn't sure it was quite as simple as Penelope was making it out to be.

One of the only women in the Initiative who didn't consult with the Doctor was Julie.

"I'm not letting a man tell me what to do," Julie told Marianna. "I've been talked down to too many times by too many guys, and I'm not letting it happen again. Anything I come up with is just as good as anything some guy comes up with."

"But he seems to respect women scientists," said Marianna.

"Yeah, and that still leaves us with the underlying problem of man telling a woman what to do," said Julie. "I've seen this with every male Professor I ever tried to collaborate with. You start a scientific dialogue, and they think you're flirting with them. I'm sick of it."

Marianna frowned. "I've never gotten the impression that the Doctor thinks this is anything even remotely romantic."

"Okay, say I do it," said Julie. "Say I give up part of my day to go speak to this supposedly amazing male scientist you've found — who happens to be an HST, and not a person at all, but let's just leave that part out for now — and you're right, and it's just as smart as you say it is, and I come back with a whole new perspective on everything. Then what? That'd just be making everyone's point, wouldn't it? That women can only be successful in technical fields when they have help from men."

"He's not feeding me answers," Marianna said. "Often, my biggest breakthroughs come right after I've been speaking with him about something completely unrelated. He's—"

"Look, Marianna, I'm glad your research is going so much better," Julie interrupted, "but no matter what you say, I'm staying on my own. It's a matter of pride. I didn't need Angleman's help, I don't need Green's help, and I definitely don't need Hostile 29's help. I'm just as good as any of them."

Staying on her own. Just like the Doctor, who insisted on escaping without help from anyone else. And it was surprising to Marianna that Julie, who behaved so very like the Doctor sometimes, could still be so dismissive of him.

Chapter 15

"Course, that's really just done on Picotao Minor," the Doctor rambled. "But it's brilliant! The sky lights up with all sorts of dancing colors, and there are these little cakes on buns that you can eat, and just when everything's absolutely amazing, that's when the world goes completely silent for a full minute." He grinned. "Wish I could take you. Something I try to take all my friends to, really."

It went by so quickly, Marianna almost didn't catch it. "Friend?"

The Doctor stopped talking, looking a little like a deer trapped in the headlights.

"You… consider me your friend?" Marianna asked.

The Doctor shifted from foot to foot. "Sorry, forgot. You lot… don't like that word much, around here."

"But that's how you think of me?" Marianna said. "Not as a collaborator or a colleague, but as a friend?"

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. "Sort of, kind of, a bit… well, yes," he admitted.

Marianna wasn't sure what to say.

"Which doesn't mean you have to be my friend, back," the Doctor assured her. "You can maintain whatever pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo relationship Professor Walsh has trained you to believe you should share with your sub-human lab rats."

"So what does it mean?" Marianna asked him. "What defines friendship for your species?"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "What defines it for yours?"

Marianna hesitated. "Friends are people you… enjoy being with," she said. "People who make you happy. People you look out for, who look out for you."

The Doctor tilted his head to the side. "I like that," he said. "Good definition. Same for me."

Marianna frowned. "You… feel that way towards me?"

"Yes," said the Doctor. "Suppose I do."

Marianna wasn't really sure how to respond to this. The idea of having that sort of relationship with a nonhuman was so bizarre, so crazy, that two months ago, Marianna would have laughed the notion away. But now, Marianna wasn't quite so sure.

The thing was, her relationship with the Doctor fell into that description surprisingly well.

"How… did this happen?" she asked him. "When? You were a colleague, a collaborator. You're… you're… you're not even human!"

"Never said I was," the Doctor replied. "Just said you were my friend. The rest is up to you."

Marianna looked into the Doctor's eyes. Those kind brown eyes, the same ones she'd noticed that first time he met her, when he'd given up his opportunity to escape because she seemed upset, and he wanted to make her a little happier.

That first time they met, when she'd heard that he was beaten and felt an overwhelming and incomprehensible desire to make it stop. That first time, when she'd been overcome with horror the moment he'd been struck down by Taser Blasters. That first time, when she'd realized how lonely he must be, and had wanted to give him someone to talk to, even if she kept repeating to herself, over and over again, that this was not her ultimate intention.

And she knew.

She'd always been his friend. From the very beginning.

Chapter 16: Part II

It was one of the games the Doctor played when he was bored at the Initiative, and too badly injured to manage another escape attempt. He called it, "How far would you go?"

It had begun when the Doctor noticed how morally twisted the humans at the Initiative had become. He'd started wondering, pondering. What would it take to make them actually sit up and notice that something was morally wrong? How far would they actually go before they realized their mistake?

Then the Doctor heard about Professor Walsh's research, and that particular musing had become far too depressing. Because if the Doctor's suspicions were correct — and they usually were — the Initiative had unleashed a creature of unspeakable evil upon the world, and still didn't feel the slightest bit of moral unease.

The Doctor had decided to drop the game entirely.

Yet as the weeks went on, and the torture became worse and worse and worse — exponentially so, the Doctor noticed, whenever a new female scientist began collaborating with him — the Doctor inadvertently began to turned the game on himself.

How far would he go to save these people?

Julie Parsoner, for instance, was far more clever than she seemed at first glance, and someone who, the Doctor could tell, actually had a sense of right and wrong. She listened to him, although she pretended not to. She heard his screams on a daily basis, knew exactly what fate awaited him if he stayed at the Initiative, and knew exactly how much pain the restraints, punishments, and tests were causing him. She just didn't care. At all. He was in pain? Yawn. His friend was in danger? Meh! He was screaming? Better soundproof her office.

All Julie cared about was scoring points against Green. Which meant that Julie would often wind up making things worse for the Doctor, trying to get some sort of reaction out of him, which Julie would then show Colonel Haviland as she pretended to be concerned over Green's "horrible treatment of the inhuman creature". The Doctor had become Julie's go-to method of revenge for all annoyances with her boss. If Green had done something Julie found particularly irritating or objectionable, she'd 'accidentally' miswire a set of electrified handcuffs, or 'accidentally' miscalibrate the Taser Blasters, or 'accidentally' dial up the voltage on the Doctor's cell so that it was triple the capacity — thereby causing the Doctor enough injuries (and, when he was lucky, unconsciousness) to mess up Green's tests.

If Julie Parsoner were in trouble, how far would he go to save her?

Would he shove her out of the way of a speeding car? Would he go on a long quest to find and rescue her if she were held hostage by an evil invading alien army? Would he go so far as to offer his own life in exchange for hers, if he had to?

What about Colonel Haviland?

The man who would only let the Doctor save Buffy if he committed mass genocide. The one who commanded soldiers to pummel the Doctor every time he was 'less than satisfactory' in helping them. The man who shoved the Doctor into interrogation rooms and shouted at him (and often employed more brutal kinds of coercion as well) to tell them the future and build them weapons. The one who kept repeating to the Doctor, over and over again, that he was the property of the United States Military, as if that would somehow make it true.

How far would he go to save Colonel Haviland?

If Haviland was facing down an army of Sontarans, would the Doctor swoop in and stop the fight before he was massacred? If Haviland was captured by Cybermen, would the Doctor prevent him from being cyberized? If Haviland was stranded on some planet a million light years away from Earth, slowly starving to death, would the Doctor find him and bring him home?

The problem with this game was that the answer was always "yes". For Julie, for Colonel Haviland. Even (though he was loathe to admit it) for Riley Finn. He always had a weak spot for saving people. Particularly humans.

And Arthur Green?

Well, that was a bit trickier.

The Doctor had been arguing with himself for some time over the supposed fate of Arthur Green in his imagined scenarios. The argument always went something like this:

The Doctor wasn't vindictive or spiteful by nature, but considering what Green had done to him during his incarceration, if the Doctor happened to run across Green while he was about to be murdered, the Doctor would simply walk away and let it happen.

Of course you wouldn't, his inner voice retorted. You'd never allow murder to happen, no matter what. If you didn't stop it for Arthur Green's sake, you'd stop it for the sake of the murderer, who should hold him/herself to a higher standard.

Fine, yes, he'd accept that. But, if Green's death was an accident — some boulder, for instance, that just so happened to land on Green's head — the Doctor certainly wouldn't push him out of the way.

Be realistic, his inner voice chided him. You'd push anyone out of the way of a falling boulder. It'd be instinct, really. In fact, you'd probably push Green out of the way before you ever noticed who it was.

Well, that was true. But, if the Doctor ever happened to read a news report about a particularly large boulder just so happening to fall on Arthur Green's head, and it was obvious to the Doctor that someone had altered the timeline so that Green died prematurely, the Doctor almost certainly wouldn't hop into his TARDIS and travel back in time to stop the event from happening.

Possibly.

Or at least, he'd wait a really, really long time before he got around to it.

Who are you kidding? His inner voice responded. You can never resist a mystery. You'd travel back just so you could figure out what happened, and then you'd be back at scenario number 2: pushing Green out of the way of a falling boulder.

The Doctor may as well admit it. He'd offered to save Davros' life on the Crucible, and if he'd done something like that, it probably meant he'd save anyone at all. In fact, if he happened to run into Professor Walsh, during one of his jaunts through time, he'd probably save her, too. And then explain to her, at some length, that she was a morally reprehensible person and should be ashamed of herself.

After which he'd run very, very fast, because he knew from bitter experience that that was the point in the conversation when she would try to kill him.

The Doctor was just really, really bad at holding a grudge. Particularly against people who'd hurt only himself.

But as the Doctor's time as a prisoner of the Initiative neared the two month mark, he noticed that his inner voice was speaking up less and less. And in its place, something else was speaking up. That vindictive, ruthless side of him that he always tried to push away.

Every time Green made him scream until his throat was raw and burning, there was a little voice inside his head that kept reminding him that he could kill Green so very, very easily. Every time Colonel Haviland barked at him that he was the property of the United States Military, a little something in his head reminded him that he could so easily topple that government, dissolve that country, turn North America into a land of chaos and civil war. Every time that Julie enacted some new vendetta, that extra voice kept reminding him that he had methods of vengeance far worse than she could ever imagine.

Was the Initiative changing him the same way it had changed all the humans who worked here? Would he wind up like them, by the time he got out of there, and discover that he no longer really cared what was right or wrong?

He thought, by the time this was over, that his answer to, "How far would you go to save their lives?" might be, "I'd do nothing."

And that scared him more than he wanted to admit.

Chapter 17

Notes:

I've come up with a bit of a contest! I'm trying to write an insult that one of the scientists can shout at Dr. Arthur Green that would get her fired. (No swears - you can get far more vicious without them.) So... I've decided to open it up to you! You don't have to come up with anything now (it's over 12 chapters away), but as you keep reading, figure out something that would really zing him! Anything you want to say to Dr. Green but can't because you're out of the story.

An excerpt from a correspondence with a colleague, Re: Hostile 29, from the Desk of Dr. Arthur Green:

I'm writing to inform you of our latest round of tests for Hostile 29. As you have seen, my team and myself have established that Hostile 29 appears to have lost the "fight" part of the "fight or flight" instinct for self-preservation. When faced with an imminent physical threat, even when unrestrained, Hostile 29 will attempt to run, but never fight back.

We have tested this theory by sealing Hostile 29 in a room with hostile humans, hostile animals, and Hostile Sub Terrestrials. These tests, at first, proved completely unenlightening, as Hostile 29 seems to have a way of subduing animals and HSTs using only its voice, but this was soon remedied using a toxin that caused a temporary paralysis of the vocal chords. Hostile 29 does try to squirm out of whatever situation we put it in, but it never physically fights back.

I still don't know whether or not Hostile 29 maintains this behavior against vampires, as a malfunction in the behavioral modification chips of the vampires within the Initiative appears to have left them unable to harm Hostile 29 in any way.

Dr. Forlich has assured me that this is a technical glitch, and will be remedied shortly. I am not holding out hope that she will fix the error.

While certainly a dangerous and highly manipulative Hostile Sub-Terrestrial, Hostile 29 appears, on the outside, to be a dashing, young human male, which, as I've mentioned before, has caused some problems with the women in my employ. It appears that the majority of them have been seduced by this non-human creature, and insist on taking up my valuable research time flirting with it. The affection shown towards Hostile 29 either shows great incompetency on the part of Professor Walsh in selecting these scientists to join her staff, or is the result of some overpowering influence from Hostile 29 itself. Perhaps this is the beginning of some sort of mating ritual?

My own scientific team — comprised strictly of male scientists, to eliminate this effect — and myself had nearly decided that Hostile 29 was biologically incapable of fighting back, when a recent incident occurred. One which I think you might find interesting. The one case in which Hostile 29 did, in fact, fight back — and gave us a good deal of trouble, as well.

Hostile 29 was being led into the main laboratory area — which we call 'the Pit' — for testing. Hostile 29 was, at this point, aware and conscious, its hands in handcuffs (although the futility of this particular form of restraint is well known to us), and surrounded by a team of armed men (which tends to prove a far more useful deterrent).

However, at this time, one of our latest additions — a rather smallish HST of unknown species, which had been caught earlier that day — was about to undergo its first set of tests. The recent addition was thrashing, screaming, and lashing out at the nearby scientists, who couldn't get near enough to sedate it. Fortunately, the restraints seemed to be holding it.

That is, until Hostile 29 arrived.

In the blink of an eye, Hostile 29 was free from the handcuffs, and had freed the smaller HST as well, holding the little one in its arms. Hostile 29's posture seemed one of an angry animal, a predator waiting to pounce upon its prey.

The smaller HST squirmed in Hostile 29's arms, but Hostile 29 made a series of unintelligible grunting sounds, supposedly aimed towards the small HST, which seemed to settle the creature down.

This suggests that the smaller HST has some sort of spoken language, although such an idea seems preposterous. More preposterous is the assertion that Hostile 29 would happen to speak this language. It suggests either a link between Hostile 29 and the species of the smaller HST, or else the use of classic alpha male behavior from Hostile 29 in order to put the smaller HST at ease.

Immediately, all Taser Blasters were aimed at Hostile 29 and its latest ally, but Hostile 29 had carefully positioned itself next to a computer terminal, and placed its hand on the top of the monitor. Any surge of electricity through Hostile 29 would also short out the computer which had been collecting and storing our data.

I ordered the men to stand down, and requested backup.

It was at this point that a conversation took place, one which I believe you might find enlightening. I don't usually pay attention to the HSTs, but this particular instance, with the data gathered from months of research at risk, I made an exception. And I'm glad I did. It has provided an interesting glimpse into this unique creature's psychology.

"That's right," said Hostile 29. "Take me out, and every scrap of data you've gathered goes with me. And you wouldn't want to risk your paperwork, would you? Now, let's talk."

Hostile 29 was informed that any form of aggression would be severely punished later, but this didn't appear to bother it. I thought, perhaps, that this was some further escape attempt — threatening one of our HSTs in order to barter passage out of the Initiative.

"I have had a problem with this place from the start," Hostile 29 informed us, "but this is taking it too far. I will not sit by and watch while you torture a child. I will not watch you tear his brain apart as he screams for his mother. This stops. Now. Or I rewire the computer to destroy every scrap of data you've collected in your computer database."

I was surprised, to say the least, that this newest HST in our collection was a child. I'm certain you'll agree that an opportunity like this rarely presents itself. The opportunity to watch the child grow, while running tests to check on how it develops and how its various defense mechanisms mature as it reaches adulthood.

The child HST huddled closer into Hostile 29, whimpering, and Hostile 29 shushed it, hand brushing through the thorny spikes on the child's head. Then Hostile 29's eyes landed on me, and that look was one I'd seen in every other HST at the Initiative. It was an intense rage, an animalistic desire to tear me apart.

"Don't you dare," Hostile 29 warned me, as if picking up on my inner thoughts.

In the meantime, backup had arrived, and the restrictive energy fields were dropped to allow the other teams through into the Pit. The backup were not armed with Taser Blasters, this time, but were instead armed with traditional rifles and their own hand-to-hand combat training. It was a risk, I knew, but these were skilled soldiers, and I trusted that they would aim to wound, not to kill.

I informed Hostile 29 that if it valued its own life, it would hand the child over and give in.

Hostile 29 didn't even flinch, just met my eyes with its own, the hardness in its face turning into something ferocious and terrifying as any vampire.

That was when it fought back.

It did not fight the way we expected. It did not transform its physiology or develop super strength (although its strength was rather impressive compared to a human's), nor did it seem terribly interested in causing serious injury to those around it. Instead, Hostile 29 mainly resorted to darting between the teams of soldiers, then ducking out of the way at the last moment, purposely making the soldiers accidentally attack one another instead of attacking Hostile 29. And this strategy proved highly effective, as Hostile 29 moved so quickly that we could barely keep up, could barely keep track of where it was or how to restrain it. As for the soldiers that were attempting to catch the child HST, Hostile 29 actually managed to knock them unconscious, clearing a path for the child to escape.

Considering the chaos and pandemonium of this particular scuffle, it is a miracle that none of the soldiers shot one another. Several soldiers reported that they'd been about to do so, when they discovered that their guns had been taken out of their hands.

We had a good deal of trouble restraining Hostile 29, but we did, in the end, and rather quickly, all things considered. You'll be happy to hear that no one was seriously injured in the attack — except for Hostile 29, of course, but that was only to be expected. And after surgery to remove the bullets, along with 24 hours of unconsciousness, Hostile 29 will be back to normal.

Unfortunately, in the mayhem of the attack, the child HST did manage to escape. Agent Finn and his team arrived just as I saw the child duck out towards one of the back exits. For just a moment, I thought that Agent Finn had seen the child as well, but Agent Finn soon called for his team to follow him, and searched in exactly the opposite direction.

I am still not entirely sure that this was not deliberate.

I am troubled about the connection between Agent Finn and Hostile 29. As I know you have many different resources at your disposal, I was wondering if you might investigate Agent Finn's background more fully, try to discover whether the animosity between Agent Finn and Hostile 29 is genuine, or merely a charade by which they are secretly communicating.

I would greatly appreciate anything you can give me that might result in Agent Finn's being either fired from the Initiative or dishonorably discharged. There is a troubling connection between Hostile 29 and Finn's girlfriend — the legendary Vampire Slayer, and a dangerous enemy — and every day Finn remains at the Initiative, we run the risk of this Vampire Slayer discovering Hostile 29's whereabouts and abducting it.

Please let me know if you unearth anything I can use against Finn.

Chapter 18

The moment the Doctor awoke from the healing trance he'd dropped into following the bullet-removing surgery, he discovered that the cell wasn't as he'd left it. On the chalkboard fastened to the back wall of his cell, he found a message:

"Join me, and I will save you."

The words were written in a language that the Doctor recognized as a particularly ancient Earth dialect, still spoken by certain kinds of demons. It was a dialect that would look like pure gibberish to anyone else, the Doctor knew, but to him, the message was simple.

Someone was treating him like he was an idiot.

The Doctor had, of course, long since worked out that there was someone else pulling the strings at the Initiative. Someone not human — and highly advanced, judging by the Doctor's aborted escape attempts (genetic lock against his DNA on the outer door? That was inspired!). Someone who had wanted the Doctor out of the way, so he could steal the TARDIS. It was one of the main reasons the Doctor had been so upfront with everyone, when he'd first arrived, about his symbiotic link with his ship.

This someone-behind-the-scenes would have to keep him alive. Because if the Doctor died, the TARDIS died. And the someone-behind-the-scenes wouldn't chance that.

Throughout his weeks at the Initiative, the Doctor had felt this same someone trying to penetrate the TARDIS' defenses, trying to gain access to her — even trying to connect to her on a basic bio-mechanical level, talk to her directly (which suggested this behind-the-scenes someone was a bio-mechanoid, which was interesting). But the Old Girl had been wary and suspicious, and had thrown up every shield she could.

Looked like this someone-behind-the-scenes had finally worked out that the best way into the TARDIS was using the Doctor.

(The Doctor had been very, very lucky that he didn't have the TARDIS key on him when he was captured.)

The Doctor looked straight into the cameras. He knew what this message was. It was an intimidation tactic. It was a way to tell the Doctor that this behind-the-scenes someone could get into his cell, easily, without being detected. It was a warning, a way to tell the Doctor that, "I'm watching you. I'm always watching you."

"Thanks for the message," the Doctor told the camera, with a smile. "Always love a good chat. Course, not really a chat, what with it being one sided, but still. Brilliant meeting new people!"

The camera followed his every movement.

He gestured back at the message on the wall. "Course, that's a bit rich, coming from you. Since you're the only reason I'm trapped here in the first place. Oh, don't think I haven't worked it out. I'm not thick. Genetic locks? That inter-dimensional multiphasing field beneath the steps? It's not human technology keeping me in here. It's you. You've been watching every single move I've made since I arrived. How many of those tests were Green, and how many were you, I wonder?"

Silence greeted his statement. The Doctor hated having a conversation with thin air. It made him feel like he was going mad.

The Doctor thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, rocking back and forth on his trainers. "I'm going to get out, you know," he informed the camera. "And then I'll find you. And I'll find out what you're planning. And if I don't like it, then it's going to stop."

But getting out was always easier said than done.

It felt like every single time the Doctor came close, the behind-the-scenes someone had shoved a new wrinkle into the security system containing him. And the Doctor could always tell when a new security measure was added by his behind-the-scenes captor, due to the complete disregard for life (human or otherwise).

It appeared that, since the Doctor had been unconscious, the behind-the-scenes someone had made it impossible for the Doctor to open his own cell door without opening the doors to every other containment cell at the Initiative.

Which was going to take a bit of genius on the Doctor's part to avoid.

Because the Doctor might be all for freedom, and he might want nothing more than to shut this institution down entirely, freeing every prisoner in its walls, but there was a right way to do things, and a wrong way. Releasing the captives in the Initiative would be very tricky, and, when the Doctor finally got out of here and could actually do something about it, would need to be handled very delicately. Otherwise, the nonhumans would simply mob the humans, the humans would begin attacking with guns, and the result would be a gigantic bloodbath.

Which the Doctor was certainly not in favor of.

So the Doctor spent quite a while thinking through different options, trying to decide how best to plan his next escape attempt, how to get around this new wrinkle and disable the quasi-locational cellular energy drainer that the behind-the-scenes someone had installed earlier that week.

The Doctor only snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the approach of footsteps coming towards his cell. He rushed towards the door, trying to make out who it was without getting too close to the electric current. He was hoping it was one of his friends back to visit him, but unlucky for him, it was only Green and his henchmen, come back for more torture and torment.

None of the scientists, of course, understood the writing on the chalk board. They probably assumed it was another one of the Doctor's own scribbles, left over from when he helped his friends solve a problem with their research. Not that a single one of the scientists mentioned it, when they arrived at the Doctor's cell.

Didn't talk to him, didn't listen to him. That was the Initiative's way.

There was, as usual, a team of armed men behind the group of scientists — all armed with Taser Blasters this time. Well, that was something. The Taser Blasters were far more painful than normal guns, but their electrical current did greatly reduce the risk of their accidentally causing a regeneration. And if the Doctor regenerated here, he knew he'd be on life thirteen before 24 hours had gone by. Still, even with Taser Blasters, there was little chance for escape.

Which didn't mean the Doctor didn't try.

He got to the second security checkpoint, today, before he was stopped. Which was fine — the Doctor hadn't seriously believed this escape attempt would work. Mainly, he was curious as to whether or not the soldiers would be as quick to shoot him down as they'd been the last time he was conscious.

The Doctor was quickly restrained and manhandled by the soldiers so that they were practically dragging him along with them.

It seemed that even though the Doctor had done his best to make sure the soldiers were not seriously hurt, his distraction tactic to allow the young child to escape the Initiative had made the soldiers far more hostile. Questioning what side he was on, the Doctor guessed. That was always the way it was with soldiers — either you were on their side, or you were the enemy. No one could possibly be in between, fighting for any form of sentient life that might be able to change for the better.

"I am UNIT's scientific advisor, you know," the Doctor tried, even though it had gotten him absolutely nowhere for the past few weeks. "Go on, check! They'll vouch for me."

The soldiers ignored him. It was obvious none of them believed a word he was saying. They took their cue from the scientists, and the scientists were entirely dismissive of the Doctor. The only soldier who believed anything the Doctor said was Riley Finn. Which meant that there was no chance UNIT would ever get wind of what was going on in here.

(And the Doctor couldn't involve Marianna in this. Not if he wanted her to live.)

Green strode down the corridor towards the restrained Doctor.

"Are you planning to behave today?" Green asked him, patronizingly. The man seemed to make a habit of being patronizing.

"That depends," said the Doctor. "Are you planning to torture and/or kill any innocent children, today?"

"That creature you helped escape nearly killed three of our finest men," one of the soldiers behind the Doctor informed him.

"He was young, terrified, and barely able to understand what was going on," the Doctor argued. "He was screaming for his mum, and you wanted to strap him to the dissection table." His eyes darkened, as they landed on Green. "Or worse."

Green appraised the Doctor with that hungry curiosity that often shone in his eyes. It was the kind of hunger the Doctor was used to seeing from vampires, and one that severely unnerved him coming from a human. The last human that had looked at him like that had been the Editor on Satellite Five, and the Doctor hadn't liked it much then, either.

"How did you know what I was thinking?" Green asked him.

"Didn't," said the Doctor. "I'm just brilliant."

Although as far as Green cared, the Doctor could have said "Cucumber, melon, squash," and it would have been just the same. Green asked him questions, but never actually paid attention to the answers. The Doctor had tested this theory to great success early in his incarceration, watching Green's lack of reaction as the Doctor informed him of basic scientific facts that weren't just wrong, but complete nonsense.

It had convinced Julie that he was either completely insane, or mind-numbingly stupid. It had gotten Colonel Haviland frustrated enough to warrant a few poundings from Riley Finn. But Green hadn't noticed at all.

The Doctor had no idea why Green kept asking him questions he didn't want answers to. Perhaps Green simply liked hearing himself speak.

(At least the soldiers listened to the Doctor before deciding not to take him seriously. The scientists didn't even afford him that courtesy.)

The answer the Doctor just given Green, of course, was a lie. The child in the Doctor's hands — Ectohothromin was his name — had only just learned to speak outside his mind, and was primarily a telepathic being, with no mental shields. It was Ectohothromin who had picked up Green's thoughts about his future, and conveyed them to the Doctor.

There is no end to the evil that humanity can achieve.

The Doctor blinked. That thought hadn't come from him. He checked his psychic shields. Sure enough, he must have left the back door open, so to speak, after his encounter with Ectohothromin.

"I assume that he got out all right," said the Doctor, "since you aren't gloating to me about how you managed to catch him."

As usual, Green paid no attention to the Doctor's answer, just gave him that hungry stare.

"Dr. Green, the next test is ready," one of the scientists reminded him.

Green snapped out of his reverie, and turned to his minion. "Good," he said. He turned to the grunts still securing the Doctor. "Bring Hostile 29 to Laboratory 15, and secure it to the gurney. I want no more trouble from this one, but make sure it remains conscious."

As the Doctor was manhandled towards the laboratory, he called back to Green, "What, not going to get in a good gloat? Not even a jibe about how you've got me completely at your mercy? Not even a full-throated evil-villain laugh?"

Green ignored him. As usual. The Doctor wasn't sure if Green honestly didn't care what the Doctor thought of him, or if Green was aware how much harder it was for the Doctor to not know what new torture awaited him than if he had the chance to prepare for it, ahead of time.

You work so hard to protect them, every day. And this is the thanks you get. Strapped down and tortured, treated as something less than an animal?

Interesting. It appeared the thoughts that weren't the Doctor's own were still working their way into his mind. Thoughts sent to him from his mysterious behind-the-scenes someone, perhaps? Trying to convince him to turn against humanity in the hopes that this would spur him to reveal the secrets of time travel?

Really, rather futile, all things considered.

But as the Doctor was strapped down to the gurney, and felt every single one of his pain receptors fire all at once, searing through his mind like a firestorm, so that Green and the others could shove him in the MRI machine and discover how his brain worked, the Doctor couldn't help but have a small sliver of him think maybe — just maybe — the behind-the-scenes someone had a point.

Chapter 19

When the torture session was over, followed by an hour and a half of Colonel Haviland shouting at him, the Doctor was brought back to his cell. Where he was relieved to see Penelope waiting for him. Penelope was always good company, and had a truly brilliant mind. And the Doctor was hopeful, so very hopeful, that perhaps — just perhaps — he was getting through to her. Helping her see how much bigger the world was than just the human race. How every single sentient life form deserved a chance to make him or herself better, to improve the world instead of bringing nothing but darkness and death.

He just wished that Penelope would stop talking to him as if he were a particularly clever trained monkey.

"Well, you had a little boo-boo two days ago," said Penelope. "What was that about?"

It wasn't her fault. Her entire outlook on life was being radically overwritten, all at once. The Doctor hadn't expected her to understand it immediately. He just… really, really missed his companions.

The Doctor explained, patiently and calmly, and in his best scientific voice, that Ectohothromin was a very young child, barely able to speak, who was alone and scared and screaming for his mum.

"You know," said Penelope, "big scary monsters do start out as little child monsters." She tilted her head, reflecting. "It's the age-old debate, really. If you find a child that you know will grow up to become evil, would you still kill it?"

This was the Penelope the Doctor liked. The one who forgot who she was speaking to, instead trying to solve the big unanswered questions of the universe. He knew, of course, that she still wasn't interested in his answers as actual valid ways of thinking — that she was using his answers to analyze and pick apart his own psyche. Just an experiment, like everything else in this place. But — whether from the Stockholm Syndrome, or the sheer loneliness of his situation, here — the Doctor didn't really care.

"What makes you think he'd grow up to be a big scary monster?" the Doctor asked her. "Perhaps he'd grow up to be a good monster. Like Cookie Monster. Now there was a good monster. Well, unless you're a cookie, I suppose. Then he'd be rather unpleasant."

"The child is a Hostile Sub-Terrestrial," Penelope pointed out, as if this answered all questions on the matter.

That phrase. Hostile Sub Terrestrial. Every time he heard it, it just made the Doctor more and more disgusted. Every single aspect of it clashed with the Doctor's every belief. The assumption that all sentient, nonhuman life forms were hostile. The reference to them as being somehow beneath humanity — both physically and metaphorically. The fact that it gave them an excuse to lump a wide and complex different group of species together as if they were all the same.

"That doesn't make him evil," said the Doctor. "He was born a non-human. That wasn't his choice. His choice is what he plans to do with that. Whether he uses his talents for good or for evil. You have to give every sentient being that choice."

"But you don't give a choice to a really, really bad guy," said Penelope, slipping back into that lecturing-to-little-kids mode without noticing. "You wouldn't give a choice to an icky big monster?"

"I do," said the Doctor. "All the time. Some take me up on it."

Penelope just blinked at him, not sure what to say. Then she gave an uneasy laugh.

"Of course you do!" she said, in a way that meant that she obviously didn't believe him.

"I've seen evil creatures change for the better," the Doctor told Penelope. "I've seen creatures without a soul, without a conscience, still choose to stop harming sentient life forms and make the world a better place. If that can happen, then who am I to deny any of the creatures in your Initiative their chance to do the right thing?"

Penelope thought this over — more as an interesting mental puzzle, though, than as something that might actually be true. Might actually be real.

Not even this human understands. Humanity lives to kill, to torture, to destroy. Join us, and we'll make the world better. Join us, and we can save you.

The thought stung as it dripped into the Doctor's sore and tortured mind, and the next thing he knew, he found himself on the floor. Penelope was looking down at him with concern.

"Are you all right?" she asked — and that childish tone had dropped, all of a sudden, morphed into worry.

"Never better," the Doctor lied.

Penelope just kept watching him, and he could see that genuine concern inside of her, peaking through into her eyes. The kind of genuine concern that he'd missed so much, since he'd first arrived in this prison. The kind that made him remember why he liked humans so much.

Concern for you, who look human. When they see what you really are, how different you are to them, how will they react? How long before that concern washes away into terror, fear, and hostility?

The Doctor winced at the sharp thought slipping into his mind, then tried to hide it behind his best cheerful smile.

"A bunch of us got together," Penelope told him. "To figure out if there was anything we could do to convince Colonel Haviland to let you go. But we couldn't come up with anything that would work."

The Doctor was actually rather surprised at this. He'd known that some of the humans here were fond of speaking to him, that they thought he might be a real person, and used him to help solve their problems. He hadn't thought they'd grown fond enough of him to stick their own necks out for him. Particularly not in a secret government institution like this.

Penelope must have noticed the surprise on the Doctor's face, because she shifted uneasily. "We just… don't think you're all that big a threat to humanity if we let you go," said Penelope.

And the Doctor could see what she left unsaid. That the scientists were beginning to question whether or not they were doing the right thing. That they were beginning to debate whether or not they had the right to lock up sentient life forms and torture them mercilessly.

"They won't ever let me leave," the Doctor told her. And he knew he was only partially talking about Colonel Haviland. "All you're doing by discussing the possibility is turning yourselves into threats. I promise, I will get out of here. But you can't be the ones who help me do it."

That was something he'd learned early on. He couldn't accept help to get out of here, nor could he help any of the other creatures to escape, either. Any time he did, someone wound up dying. Either the escaped prisoner, or the helper. The nonhuman prisoner the Doctor had helped to escape from the Initiative had, apparently, burst into flames the moment he set foot out the door. The human soldier who'd tried to rescue the Doctor at the end of his first week here had been butchered only an hour after the attempt. And although the Initiative claimed these deaths were accidental, the Doctor knew better. Some behind-the-scenes someone wanted him here, along with all the others incarcerated in this prison. A behind-the-scenes someone who'd kill any life form — human or not — that got in his/her way.

The Doctor had learned his lesson.

With the exception of Riley Finn (and the Doctor had no idea what this behind-the-scenes-someone could possibly want with Riley), no one in the Initiative, human or nonhuman, could get him or the others out. If any one of these human scientists he'd been speaking with proved themselves even the slightest threat, they'd be killed. The Doctor knew that.

Not that any of them ever believed him.

Penelope fixed her eyes off into the distance, looking past the cell, past the white walls of the Initiative, perhaps past this entire planet and out into the stars.

"If Professor Walsh were still alive," she said, "she'd understand. The moment she met you, she'd have figured out that you were different from the other HSTs. She'd have let you go." An intense sorrow seeped into her eyes. "I wish you could have met her. Professor Walsh. She was amazing. You guys would have gotten along so well."

"I highly doubt that," said the Doctor. He never got along well with evil genius masterminds who thought nothing of murder, valued complete impartiality and detachment from humanity above all else, and insisted on creating their own race of bio-mechanical super-soldiers that thought nothing of genocide or mass murder. It seemed to be a recurring trend.

"You wouldn't say that if you knew her," said Penelope. "She was a truly amazing scientist. A genius unrivalled in her field."

"So was Davros," said the Doctor.

Penelope gave him a blank look.

"Creator of the Daleks," the Doctor explained.

He wasn't sure why — and the notion was incredibly troubling — but everyone at the Initiative knew about the Daleks. Just the same way that Riley Finn had known about the Daleks, the first time the Doctor had met him.

Buffy had laughed it off, when he'd asked her, saying that he shouldn't worry, because they'd had supremely competent help. Which, the Doctor was hoping, was him. Otherwise, he'd be worried that the Daleks were still around, planning something far worse.

(Not that he could blame this one on the Daleks.)

Somehow, the Doctor must have thrown Penelope back into her previous talking-down mode. Penelope painted a smile on her face, an obviously fake smile.

"Aw, are you a little scared of the big bad monsters lurking in the night?" Penelope asked.

It was a lot more cruel than she'd intended, the Doctor knew that. Penelope wasn't to know that those same 'big bad monsters lurking in the night' had started a war that had nearly torn apart the universe and led to the complete destruction of his home planet.

"I'm scared," the Doctor explained, "because I know what those sorts of creatures do. I know what's out there. If you had any inkling of what you were facing — what you'd created — you'd be scared, too."

"You don't have to be scared," Penelope soothed. "As long as you're in the Initiative, you'll be safe. I promise."

The Doctor glanced back at the message on his wall. No, he'd go so far as to say no one in the Initiative was safe. In fact, ironically enough, he was far safer than any of the humans down here, because he was the one that needed to be kept alive.

"Have you ever thought," said the Doctor, "about why this particular facility would appeal to the military? That perhaps — just perhaps — Professor Walsh wasn't the brilliant, altruistic, peace-loving scientist you all believe she was? This place was not founded to rehabilitate vampires or demons — as much as I wish it were otherwise — and it certainly wasn't founded as a place to sit back and study nonhuman sentient life forms. Professor Walsh was creating a monster, Penelope. A monster that's broken free, a monster that can get into and out of the Initiative at any time. Trust me, the only reason you lot are still around is because it wants you for something. And judging by experience, it's something bad."

Penelope looked at him like he was crazy.

The Doctor slumped. It was instances like this when he really missed his companions. Donna would have shouted something like, "Oi! Spaceman! Feeling pessimistic, are we?" Rose would have looked concerned, and taken his hand, and asked him what they could do about it. Martha would have immediately set about deducing what this enemy was planning, so that they could plan their next move. And Buffy… well, she probably just would have muttered something about how she definitely wasn't going to go out and kill it, while she concealed the most deadly weapons she had on her.

He missed them all so much.

(And he'd ruined every single one of their lives.)

All the good humans die, and you can't save them. All that's left are the bad humans, the ones who want to hurt and kill. What use is it siding with them? They'll always see you as something inferior, something to be destroyed. Join us. We can save you.

"Penelope," said the Doctor. "Do you trust me?"

Penelope didn't answer this.

The Doctor should have expected it. It was hard enough to come to terms with the fact that one of the supposedly sub-human beings in your cells was a real person. It was asking a bit much to have her trust him, completely, right away.

"I don't care if you trust nothing else I say, but trust me on this," said the Doctor. "You have to leave here. Right now. Get every single person out of the Initiative, and let me handle this on my own. There's something terribly, terribly wrong with this place, and the longer you stay here, the more danger you're in."

Now Penelope was giving him another familiar look. The one that said that he was being paranoid and delusional, that he was acting just like all their other prisoners, trying to make themselves feel personally persecuted because it pumped up their own ego.

But the Doctor had no such delusions. He knew. Whoever this was didn't care about him. Not one jot.

Whoever-it-was just wanted his ship.

"Think about it," the Doctor urged Penelope. "Think about what you're all doing here. What purpose the Initiative has. Why the military would want to fund a project like this! Professor Walsh was creating a super-soldier, but it must have gone wrong, the way it always does. Now it's on the loose, and it's going to wipe out all life on this planet. You have to get every single person out of here. Before it's too late."

Penelope stared at him. Then, not sure what else to do, she laughed.

"If you're afraid of some itty bitty little monsters breaking into the Initiative, you don't have to worry," she said. "Jonathan's here. He'll protect you."

"Penelope, you're not — wait a tic. Who's Jonathan?"

"Jonathan Levinson," said Penelope. She noticed his lost expression. "Oh, come on. You have to know Jonathan. He's… Jonathan."

The Doctor just stared at her. Had anything he'd been telling her actually gotten through? Had she understood a single word he'd been saying? He didn't know who Jonathan was. He didn't care. What he cared about was the fact that there was a dangerous bio-mechanical life form wandering around who was able to get into and out of the Initiative willy-nilly, and seemed (based on the mental voice that kept sneaking into his head) to be very against humans.

"I don't know exactly who or what this behind-the-scenes someone is, but I know that he's clever," said the Doctor. "Terribly clever. I know that he can influence Carflodashian Vampires to split up, and that makes him strategic. I know that he's either very stealthy or near indestructible, otherwise my friend would have gotten to him first. And I know that he dislikes humans, and is manipulating every single person in the Initiative to serve his own ends."

"Don't worry," Penelope urged him. "No big scary things are going to hurt you in the night. Jonathan will stop them."

"No, Jonathan won't. He can't," the Doctor insisted. "I can."

Penelope looked highly amused. "Really?"

"Yes," said the Doctor.

"You won't fight!" said Penelope. "Not even against humans. If you won't even fight humans, what use are you against something like… against something very, very bad?"

"I don't need to fight," said the Doctor. "I'm cleverer than he is. That's enough."

He darted his eyes up towards the camera, and gave it a long, challenging glare.

Penelope looked at him, dubiously. "Yeah, well, so is Jonathan."

"Jonathan!" scoffed the Doctor. "If he's so clever, then why haven't I heard of him? I've travelled far into the future, Penelope, and I have never once heard of a 'Jonathan Levinson' from this period, not in any museum, library, or historical text. So who is he? What does he do? And if he's so clever, then why doesn't his legacy live on long after his death?"

Penelope gave him a look he hated. It was that demeaning look of pity, that look of thoughtless superiority, that look that said, 'See? This proves you're not a person. If you were, you'd understand.'

At least when the Master had forced him to eat out of a dog bowl, he'd had the decency to be malicious about it. These people were simply so caught on the idea of their own human superiority, they couldn't imagine that the Doctor might actually be like them.

"Inventor of the Internet?" Penelope said. "Basketball hot-shot? Starred in the Matrix? Monster fighter extraordinaire? If you haven't heard of him in whatever travelling-to-the-future fantasy you've been living in, then you should probably pay better attention to things that matter."

The Doctor stared at her. Oh, dear. This was wrong. Definitely wrong. He licked his index finger and stuck it in the air, frowning.

"No time alterations," he muttered. "Psychic interference, maybe? Some sort of spell which manipulates the memory center of the brain, making you lot think Jonathan's something he's not?"

Penelope just gave a sigh, and checked her watch. "Look, just don't get paranoid," she said. "Jonathan will make all the bad things go away, I promise." She noticed that this wasn't helping ease his worry, and gave him a smile that was supposed to be reassuring. "I know you want to help. So why don't you be a big help and stay exactly where you are and don't cause too much trouble, okay?"

So typical of humanity. You're not like them, so you're something lesser. The sooner humanity is wiped out, the better, and you know it.

"Penelope, please, just listen to me!" he insisted.

But Penelope just gave him another sickly sweet smile that (he was sure) was supposed to be comforting, and without another word, she walked away.

Not so much as a goodbye.

These were his friends, his only contact with people who cared at all about his existence. Those who were still coming to terms with the fact that he might not be an animal, that he might be someone besides "Hostile 29." Those who didn't trust him, didn't take him seriously, didn't believe him when he warned them about danger.

The only person at the Initiative who took him seriously, who knew that every danger he warned them about was real and took action to prevent it, was Riley Finn. Who would tie him up and try to shoot him in the head in less than a year's time.

These were the only friends he had, now.

(And it was better that way.)

They break your hearts every single time.

"Stop it," the Doctor told the mental something in his head.

That wasn't me, the telepathic voice told him. That was you.

And the Doctor knew it was true.

Chapter 20

The Doctor let it in.

He lay down on the floor of his cell, sent himself into a trance, and then dropped his mental shields enough to let in this behind-the-scenes-someone who kept trying to get inside his head.

The mental presence jumped at the opportunity, eagerly. Flooding into the Doctor's mind with a rapidity that the Doctor had expected. Trying to take over his thoughts, then? Control his every action? Not the cleverest or most original idea a behind-the-scenes villain ever had.

Although he/she certainly got points on the nostalgia factor. This was just like Jo coming into his lab brainwashed by the Master and trying to kill him all over again.

The moment the Doctor felt the mental presence fully inside his mind, he snapped the door shut. Locking the presence therein. The presence, suddenly realizing his/her mistake, began to look around, testing all the mental barriers, trying to escape.

Female presence. Interesting.

"Sorry," said the Doctor. "No way out, I'm afraid. Thought it wasn't very friendly of you to keep having these one-sided conversations, so I figured, what better opportunity for us to sit down and have a bit of a chat?"

"All you have to do is say yes," the mental presence urged the Doctor. "Say yes, join us, and we can get you out. You don't have to suffer."

"Or, on the other hand, you can stop keeping me here," the Doctor countered, "and I can escape myself. It's not the human defenses I'm having trouble overcoming. Now. Who are you? Name, species, planet of origin as designated by article 15 of the Shadow Proclamation."

"You are so stubborn!" the mental presence snapped. "Why won't you just let us save you?"

"Or maybe I should tell you," the Doctor continued, deciding the mental presence should know better than to ask him that question. "Your planet of origin is Earth, because you were born at the Initiative. A super soldier, a bio-mechanoid, an experiment gone wrong. You killed Professor Walsh — well, that's what always happens with megalomaniacal creators of bio-mechanical super soldiers — then went out to achieve your primary objective. Which is either to conquer the world, conquer the universe, or turn every other species out there into you."

"Or to save your life," the mental presence insisted.

"Nah, my life's not in danger," said the Doctor. "You won't let it be. Symbiotic link, remember? If I die, my ship dies. And you're not going to chance something like that. I could throw myself into the arms of the nastiest creature this side of the milky way, and you wouldn't let me die. I'm perfectly safe." The Doctor allowed himself a mental grin. "Now, let's see. If I remember my other timeline correctly… yes, that's right. 314. That kept coming up. The number 314 mean anything to you? Or the letters A.D.A.M?"

The other mental presence seemed confused. "How did you know about Adam? Did he speak to you?"

"Well, see, bit of an unfair advantage," the Doctor explained. "There's this organization in the distant future, on the planet Aria-314, called the Association for the Development and Advancement of Mankind. ADAM. See? And, well, since the two mission statements are basically…" The Doctor drifted off, as something dawned on him. "Adam. Biblical reference to the father of mankind."

And if Adam wasn't an organization, but a person, in this timeline, a super soldier, then that meant…

"You're not Adam," the Doctor said to the mental presence. The female mental presence. "Whoever or whatever Adam is, whatever he wants with me, you're not him."

"Of course not," the mental presence snapped. "I'm just using Adam's help so I can try to save your life, you ungrateful buffoon."

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked. "Why do you want to save my life? And why would you use Adam to do it?"

"I am Yarzaldonia," said the presence. "Of the Carooshpa clan. We have been hunted to near extinction by these human animals, and still they torture and kill to get what they want. But the nonhumans have found a way to fight back. Adam has shown us the way. Adam has felt our loneliness, heard our cry of desperation, and come to save us from our affliction. Together, we can be strong. Together, we can take back the world from those who seek to destroy us."

"I see," said the Doctor. "And seeing as this isn't my planet, most of my friends on Earth are human, and I'm completely against violence in any way, you specifically wanted my help, because…?"

"You stand up for the oppressed," Yarzaldonia said. "You have been mistreated by these humans, tortured for weeks on end, and none of them even acknowledge you as a real person. You aren't like them. You are like us. Alone. A wanderer. One who tries to belong, but is always hunted down, treated like an animal. One who loses everything and everyone he has left, all the time." Yarzaldonia gave him the mental equivalent of a kind smile. "Adam understands that pain. That loss. Adam can make it better."

"Ah, I see," said the Doctor. "You do realize what is happening, here? You lot were persecuted by a small minority of rather nasty humans a while back, and then decided that all humans were evil, and that you had to fight against them. The humans, in the meantime, saw you fighting them, and decided you lot were evil, and they had to fight against you. It's a never ending cycle of violence, and you can't end that sort of thing with more violence."

"You've seen what the humans have done to you!" Yarzaldonia insisted. "Why won't you admit that they're evil?"

"Well, because they're not," the Doctor explained. "And you seem awfully insistent on the fact that they are. This isn't just a cultural bias, is it? This is personal. Why do you hate humans so much, Yarzaldonia?"

"Because they nearly tortured and killed my son!" Yarzaldonia shouted.

The Doctor stared at her, as everything came together. "Ectohothromin," the Doctor said. "He's your son."

"He told me what you did for him," said Yarzaldonia. "How you let them shoot you down like an animal so he could escape. And I swore I would get you out. I swore I would save you from the human monsters. But I couldn't do it myself."

The Doctor felt his hearts sink. This poor mother, who must have been so very worried about her lost little boy, had been so grateful that her son had been saved that she had done exactly the wrong thing. Gone to the one person she believed could help her — someone, the Doctor could only hope (even if he knew, in his hearts, that it was a vain hope from the start) actually cared about some sentient life form besides himself.

Once again, the Doctor had met people — nice, kind people, who wanted nothing more than a peaceful, happy life. And by meeting them, helping them, the Doctor was going to lead them straight to their deaths.

"Yarzaldonia," said the Doctor, "I want you to listen to me. I don't know who this Adam fellow is, but I've seen this sort of thing before. Whatever he wants, it's not your happiness."

"Adam understands," Yarzaldonia insisted. "He said he could save us."

"And did he say he wanted to save me, too?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes!" said Yarzaldonia. "I told him about you, and he said he could relate. He said you and him were very much alike."

"I bet he didn't mention to you that he's the reason I'm here," the Doctor said.

"Adam? Of course he isn't. The humans are the ones who are keeping you there. Adam—"

"Adam wants my ship," the Doctor explained. "I told you, Yarzaldonia. I've seen this before. Over and over and over again. And it's just like the Daleks. Just like the Cybermen. Just like all the others. Adam doesn't care about you, or your son, or any of the other creatures he's trying to sweet talk. He's lying to you about me, and he's lying to you about wanting to help your lot. He's using you and every other non-human on this planet like pawns on a chess set — just the same way he's doing with the humans down here in the Initiative. The moment he doesn't need you anymore, you're all expendable."

Yarzaldonia seemed taken aback by the suggestion. "No," she insisted. "Adam is trying to help us. He can save us. If you just let him save you—"

"Then I hand over the keys to all of time and space to another race of creatures who want to exterminate every other form of life in the cosmos," said the Doctor. "And I'm not going to let that happen. Listen. Please. If you are at all grateful for what I've done, if you want to repay that debt, then do this for me: get out of there. Take your son and run somewhere far, far away, somewhere that Adam won't ever be able to find you."

Yarzaldonia said nothing.

"End the violence," the Doctor urged. "If you're angry at the humans for hurting you, be better than them. Just please, please, get out. Don't trust a word that Adam tells you."

"She's not here," said the mental presence. "Not anymore."

It was still Yarzaldonia's presence, still her voice, but there was an odd sort of lilt to it. As if it were someone speaking through her.

The Doctor felt a shiver run down his spine, as he worked out how it happened.

"A neural link," the Doctor said. "A bio-mechanical signal sent along the psychic center of her brain to monitor the conversation. You hijacked her neural pathways using a localized frequency equal to her own synaptical kinesis."

"Fascinating," said the mental presence that the Doctor knew was Adam. "They treat you like an animal, and yet… you have a mind to rival my own. A self-awareness that should not exist outside myself."

"Hijacking the neural passageways during a telepathic communication — that's incredibly dangerous!" the Doctor continued. "And using twentieth century technology like this, it's impossible to do it safely. You… you…" The horror washed across him, as he realized. "You didn't just enter her mind. You killed her."

"Did I?" Adam asked. "Fascinating."

"Why?" the Doctor shouted. "Why would you do that? She wanted to help you!"

"I have been thinking," Adam said, "about choices. Chances. Like you said. And I thought, yes. I will. I will give you a chance."

"No, no, no!" said the Doctor. "We're not doing that. I just watched you murder an innocent person right in front of me, and it bothered you not one jot. You're not just planning to massacre a bunch of humans, are you? You're planning to massacre everyone. And I don't like that. So here's my offer to you. Either you stop, or I'll stop you."

"I wasn't planning," Adam continued, ignoring the Doctor, "to give you a choice. Not at first. But you have been a fascinating being to study. Truly unique, as Arthur Green would say."

"You're not interested in me, Adam," said the Doctor. "You just want my ship."

"At first," Adam said. "But then I began watching you. Trying to understand you. You are a mystery to me, Doctor. Something I cannot classify. I believe you are… like me."

"Oh, no," said the Doctor. "That's one evil-villain cliché too far. You are not doing the 'you and I are very much alike' speech."

"I have never come across another mind that even approaches my own," said Adam. "Inferior, certainly. Dragged down by an almost human enslavement to your emotions. Loneliness. Guilt. Pain. Love. But unlike the others, you are awake. Aware. Able to see through the illusions. Able to tell that Jonathan's world is wrong. Able to see the truth."

"Emotion is not a weakness," said the Doctor.

"Why do you defend them?" asked Adam. "You save their world over and over again, and still they tie you down. Torture you. Speak to you as if you were a particularly clever pet. I'm not your enemy, Doctor. I am your friend. I'm here to save you, lift you up out of the darkness."

"Really?" asked the Doctor. "Let me ask you something, then, Adam. What's your mission statement? Your ultimate objective?"

"Universal peace," said Adam.

"By slaughtering every other form of life in the cosmos, yes?" the Doctor asked.

"And creating others like me," said Adam. "I am the ultimate evolution, life perfected. Through me, the world will be united. Through me, our enemies will be eliminated."

"Oh, brilliant," muttered the Doctor. "You're both a Cyberman and a Dalek! Is that my fate, then, to become like you?"

"No," said Adam. "You will be different. Unique. I shall nurture you as if you were my son, take you under my wing and teach you the truths of creation."

Well, yeah, maybe, but only because Adam wasn't sure how far he could go without killing the Doctor flat out. Or severing the connection between Doctor and TARDIS. If the Doctor's brain had worked even remotely like a human's, he knew Adam would have chipped him and taken away his free will a long time ago.

"Son? You do realize that I'm a good 900 years older than you," the Doctor put in. "And have seen the truths of creation, first hand. Which you haven't."

"If you stay at the Initiative," said Adam, "do you know what they have planned for you? You are to take my place, Doctor. Become their weapon. Their super-soldier. They will use you over and over again, giving you nothing but pain, agony, and loneliness in return. Are you willing to be caged for all eternity, used to cause death and destruction and misery for the human race?"

That stung. Because the Doctor knew that it was true.

"I can give you a better future," said Adam. "Join me, and I will save you."

"You must think I'm thick!" said the Doctor. "You're the one keeping me here. Not the humans. You. You're the one trying to weaken me, trying to make sure I'm not a threat. I'm not daft, Adam. Humans may be curious, but they'd never have thought to create a xenoradiographic spectrolometer. Not in this century, at any rate. Your fingerprints are all over this." He paused. "Assuming you have fingers, that is."

Adam contemplated this. "You say that I am afraid of you," said Adam, "and yet I seem to recall you said that you were the one afraid of me."

"Good thing I'm brilliant when I'm afraid, then," said the Doctor.

"We don't have to be enemies," said Adam. "You are the only of your kind, just as I am the only of mine. I have felt your loneliness. Your isolation. The desperate sorrow that you feel when you know that there's no one like you in the world — in the universe."

"Oh, blimey, not this again," the Doctor muttered. "You know, if you start going on about hiding in darkness so you could create life, becoming the God of the underworld, then I know you're just plagiarizing from the Dalek Emperor."

"I am not a Dalek," said Adam. "I am the future."

"Well, see, thing is, I've seen the future," said the Doctor. "And there's all sorts in it. Altareans and Draconians and Korvans, and even a rather sassy and slightly homicidal trampoline, but the one thing I have never, ever seen is you."

"And how would you know?" asked Adam. "Do you even know what I look like?"

That was a fair point, but one that the Doctor was hardly going to concede to. "I can feel when a timeline's been altered," he explained. "This one hasn't been. Not yet. And considering there are humans in the future, and your plan involves wiping them out, I'm guessing in this timeline, your plan fails. That's the future."

"Join me," said Adam, "and together, we can change the future. Together, we can make it better."

"By killing innocent people, you mean?" asked the Doctor.

"By saving Buffy Summers," said Adam.

The Doctor said nothing.

"The one human you seem to care for more than the others," said Adam. "The one you nearly killed yourself to rescue, even when she was in no danger. You've admitted that you've seen her die. And that bothers you."

The Doctor didn't answer this. What was the point? Of course it bothered him, because it wasn't supposed to happen. Because he'd changed the future, he'd altered that fixed point somehow.

"Ah," said Adam. "That's guilt, isn't it? You think it's your fault that she died."

"So your brilliant offer is to allow me to get back into my time machine, repair a timeline that went wrong in a place I haven't worked out yet, and mess around with a fixed point that, if altered too drastically, could collapse the universe," said the Doctor. "You do realize that the reason I haven't done that is because I can't? I didn't stand around in my TARDIS, just after I sent Elizabeth back to her timeline, and think, 'if only I had a megalomaniacal super-soldier created by Professor Walsh — that'd fix everything!' You haven't actually offered me anything I want, yet."

"I see," said Adam. "You feel you have a duty to time and the universe. That is why you wish to stop me."

"I have a duty to life," said the Doctor. "You change creatures for the worse. I change them for the better. We aren't the same — we're opposites, Adam. And that means I will never, ever join you."

"You said," said Adam, "that the Slayer's death being altered would destroy time and the universe. A death that will take place sometime after December 19, 2000. So, logically, you must prevent any plans that I have to alter that death."

"Blimey, haven't I said this already?" asked the Doctor. "I'm not joining you, I'm not giving you my time machine, we're not the same, et cetera, et cetera. I could put it on a cassette tape for you. Actually, that wouldn't be a terrible idea. The Doctor's Tape for Megalomaniacs. I say the same thing nearly every time, anyways."

"If I stay in this time and place," said Adam, "the Slayer will die before December 19, 2000. If I get your time machine, that death would be unnecessary. That is your choice. Join me, or Buffy Summers dies prematurely. Join me, or forsake your duty to time and the universe."

The Doctor hesitated. He knew that Adam could do what he threatened — alter this timeline and kill Buffy — all too easily. All Adam had to do was make sure Buffy knew exactly where the Doctor was.

"You're bluffing," said the Doctor. "It'd collapse all of time and space. You'd be killing yourself as well as everything else."

"And that's my right," said Adam. "Now choose. Either surrender yourself and your ship, or your human friend dies."

The Doctor said nothing for a few long moments. He hated this so much. So very, very much. Wasn't this how Davros had gotten that information out of him, way back when, by torturing his companions? Wasn't this how it always went?

His one weakness. The one thing that made him comply, made him cooperate. Threaten to kill his friends if he refused, and he had to say yes.

But Adam had gone one step further.

Using the Doctor's own trick against him. Giving a choice where the wrong answer would lead to dire consequences. A choice that wasn't really all it seemed. If the Doctor didn't give in, then Adam would make the universe fall apart. And unleashing Adam on the universe would be better than letting Adam destroy the universe entirely.

The Doctor knew. He had no choice.

"No," he told Adam.

Adam said nothing, and the Doctor wondered if Adam was surprised, or merely computing the next logical step to take.

"You would be willing," said Adam, "to let her die? To forsake your duty and end the universe?"

"I mean no to all of it," the Doctor explained. "No, she's not going to die. No, the universe is not going to end. No, I'm not going to give you my time machine. And no, I'm not going to stand by while you butcher every living thing on this planet. I am too old for this, far too old. I gave you an ultimatum, and I'm sticking to it. Whatever it is you're planning, stop it now. Or I'll stop you."

"It seems I was wrong about you," Adam said. "I thought you had an intellect to rival my own. But in the end, you're just as stupid as all the others on this planet. You said you were afraid of me, Doctor."

"Oh, I am," said the Doctor. "But you're forgetting something very, very important. You're forgetting who I am. Go out, and ask. Ask every database you can find, every demon you can speak to, every vampire you run across. Ask them who I am. And be afraid. Be very, very afraid, Adam. Because if I can inspire fear in a Dalek, I can certainly inspire fear in you."

"I will have your TARDIS," Adam said, "whether or not you choose to cooperate. All you're doing now is throwing your life away for the humans who've been torturing you. Destroying you."

"As long as there are people in the world, I will defend them," the Doctor said. "And as long as I'm here, I will protect every creature within these walls. To my dying breath."

Adam said nothing for a moment.

"You've made a mistake, Adam," said the Doctor. "You might have put me here because you want to use me to lure my friend down into the Initiative at exactly the right moment for your plans to unfold, but in doing so, you've placed me in exactly the position I need to defend every human down here. Fear me. Because I am the Oncoming Storm, and I will stop you."

"I made you an offer," Adam said to him. "Remember that. You could have been my brother. Ruling at my side. But now, you will be my slave."

The Doctor was about to reply, when he was yanked, violently, out of his mind and into the real world, with a searing dose of liquid fire burning through his arms, crawling across his shoulders, digging into his hearts. He opened his eyes, and discovered Julie Parsoner leaving the area just outside his cell, an electronic device nestled in her hands, triumph and satisfaction in her every step.

She'd activated the security chip that they'd implanted in his arm during his most recent bout of surgery, the Doctor realized. The security chip he hadn't gotten around to disabling, yet, what with his being so busy threatening Adam. The chip was only supposed to activate when he was escaping, but it looked like Green had said or done something that Julie found insulting and demeaning, again, and had decided to take revenge.

On the Doctor.

The Doctor's wavering focus had let the mental presence that had once been Yarzaldonia leave his mind. He gritted his teeth, and focused his mind enough that he could cut off the electrical impulse at its source, build antibodies around it to disconnect it from his nervous system, then shoved his arm against the electrified door.

The screaming pain finally, finally stopped.

The Doctor rolled away from the cell door, lying on his back in the center of his cell, breathing heavily. On second thought, forget staying in the Initiative to help these morally corrupt humans fight back against the monster they'd unleashed. The Doctor was getting out of here. Now.

Chapter 21

No one had bothered the Doctor for a while. Even though the Doctor was working on an ingenious new escape attempt that he was planning to put into effect that evening. The device he was constructing — mainly out of paperclips, rubber bands, and other bits of junk he'd gathered — would directly connect to the internal wiring of the Initiative, redirecting power into the other containment cells and out of his, bypassing a number of human encryption codes while he was at it. And (he hoped) his device would also disable that pesky quasi-locational cellular energy drainer! It really was quite a clever bit of engineering he'd done, if he did say so himself.

And yet… no one had come to take it away from him, yet. And someone usually tried to do so, right around now.

The Doctor waved the device in front of the cameras, but still, nothing. No one seemed to notice him at all. This was either very good, or very bad. He just couldn't figure out which.

He knew the answer the moment he finished the device. That was when a set of familiar vibrations began resonating through the walls of his cell.

The Doctor knew those vibrations. It was an alarm code. The alarm code for section 26c of the Initiative, if he was judging the resonance patterns correctly. Something must have happened — some scientist in trouble, or some experiment gone wrong — and the Doctor had to help. The Doctor hooked the gizmo into the wiring of his cell, so that the door slid open, and grabbed it, running out towards the alarm.

The Doctor burst out into the main lab area that the Initiative employees called "The Pit", and immediately headed towards the source of the commotion. There was a crowd of people already gathered around to watch, but the Doctor pushed through them, and entered the lab.

Where he managed to catch Ectohothromin's eyes just before the young child's head was blown off by a team of Initiative soldiers.

"No!" the Doctor shouted.

The Initiative soldiers all swiveled around, training their guns on the Doctor — real guns, not Taser Blasters. Guns that shot bullets. Guns that killed people. Guns that had killed Ectohothromin.

The Doctor didn't care.

He had spotted, on the far wall, behind the soldiers, a message. Written in blood. Human blood. Written in that same ancient dialect from his cell. A message for him.

"You can't protect them."

It was only then that the Doctor noticed the other dead body in the room, the one covered in blood, the one whose face had been frozen in a look of utter terror. A face he recognized, far, far too well.

It was Penelope.

The Doctor ran to Penelope's body, frantically checking for a pulse. Even if he knew there'd be none. Even if he knew, before he touched her, that her skin would be cold. Penelope was dead. Ectohothromin was dead. Yarzaldonia was dead.

Just because they'd known him.

He could hear the Initiative soldiers' voices in the background. They were blaming him for releasing Ectohothromin — the evil monster who killed Penelope. They were calling him names, threatening him, yelling orders at him. He let their words buzz around him, without caring. He had been here, he had been in the Initiative. He should have been able to save Penelope. He should have been able to save Ectohothromin.

But Adam was right. The Doctor couldn't protect them. Not at all.

He felt himself manhandled away from the bodies, his device snatched from him and smashed to pieces, his arms forced behind him and handcuffed behind his back. The soldiers were no longer gentle with him, no longer acting with a single ounce of sympathy. They seemed almost eager to bring him back and punish him for escaping.

The Doctor let them do whatever they wanted with him. He felt numb.

He should have been able to prevent this, to save Penelope and Ectohothromin. He had a group of humans nearby who should be able to help him fight back, an entire scientific research lab filled with information which could give him the upper hand. But treated like this — locked up in the Initiative with no way to get out, an impossibly complex genetic lock on the door to the section in which they kept their research, subjected to constant experiments that left him weak and tired, his every word of warning ignored, dismissed, or laughed at, the Doctor realized that there wasn't anything he could do.

He wasn't a force to rival Adam. Not like this. Like this, the Doctor was simply bait for Adam's trap.

A trap that, somehow, involved both Buffy and Riley Finn.

Buffy would find out where the Doctor was, what was being done to him. Buffy would, of course, break into the Initiative to get him out, at which point Adam would trap her and every other creature down here, and then… who even knew? If Adam had been planning only to wipe out the humans, he'd simply open all the containment cells, letting the creatures overpower the humans that had been torturing them. But Adam was far more strategic than that. And, besides, if he'd wanted to simply wipe out the humans, he'd have done so already. And he wouldn't insist on luring Buffy into the Initiative, too.

If it were the Daleks, they'd turn the entire Initiative into a Dalek Replication factory, infiltrating all of Earth's defenses — the Slayer system, and the US government — then tear apart the world. If it were the Cybermen, they'd turn the Initiative into a cyber-conversion factory.

Who knew what Adam would do.

Or why he was so keen on getting Buffy down here. Did he think she'd be a powerful ally on his side? Was he trying to make her like him? Did he see her as a threat to his plans, and believed the Doctor was bluffing about the consequences of killing her prematurely? Or did he simply know that Buffy's life would be more than enough threat to ensure the Doctor's compliance?

(Mind control didn't always need a microchip.)

Whatever the plan, the Doctor was certain about three things. Penelope and Ectohothromin's deaths were just the beginning. The entire human race and possibly the entirety of time and space were in very serious trouble.

And it was the Doctor's arrival that had made it all possible.

(Once again, it was all his fault.)

Chapter 22

Marianna hadn't been allowed to see the Doctor for a while after the Initiative goons had taken down the supposed "child" who had killed Penelope. Except… that it hadn't. Penelope had been dead long before the young HST had shown up. The coroner confirmed that.

They'd just killed the HST that the Doctor had tried to protect. For no reason.

Marianna knew that the HSTs weren't people. That they would tear her apart in two seconds, given a chance. She knew that this little child HST was better off dead, anyways, because if they didn't kill it, it would grow up and become a big, violent monster, killing innocent people without a second thought. Logically, it made sense that they either chip it, disable its hostile tendencies, or kill it. Even if it didn't kill Penelope, that didn't make it any less of a killer.

So why did that young HST's death make Marianna feel so uneasy?

Maybe it was the look on the Doctor's face that was making her feel weird. That horror and utter devastation that had swept across his entire countenance, as he'd pushed past her and entered the lab. The pain and loss that seemed etched into his soul, after he'd realized that Penelope was dead. The way he seemed to block out every voice around him, not care about anything that was happening to him, as the soldiers dragged him back to his cell for his punishment.

Marianna was worried about the Doctor.

She'd been worried about him for some time, now. Not just because she'd noticed that his suit was growing looser and looser on his body, not just because Green had asked her to supply him with vampires to attack the Doctor, and not just because every day he was in here, he seemed to be moving slower and slower, able to manage fewer and fewer escape attempts. It was his mind she was worried about. The growing paranoia, the growing insistence that Marianna pretend she didn't care about him at all, and that deep chasm of sorrow and emptiness that Marianna was beginning to see inside of him. The longer he stayed in the Initiative, the crazier that place was making him, and Marianna knew it. She had to find some way to convince the higher-ups to let him go free. If she could just find the correct paperwork…

But today wasn't the day to get the Doctor out. Today wasn't for the Doctor.

Today was for Penelope, for grief and mourning, for trying to come to terms with what had happened. Today was not the day to solve mysteries, or work out what the script on the wall said, or work out how the child HST had gotten back into the Initiative. Today was sorrow, today was loss, today was raw and bitter pain.

And today was the day for angry outbursts, accusations made in haste and despair, for words to be spoken out of grief that could never be taken back. Marianna could hear Forrest's voice booming across the Initiative, as he shouted at Finn, accusing someone — probably Finn's girlfriend, if Marianna understood that dynamic at all — of murdering Penelope in cold blood.

More troubling to Marianna was the rapidly spreading rumor throughout the Initiative that Hostile 29 had murdered Penelope. She'd heard people point out that the Doctor had written a similar script on the chalkboard of his own cell just that morning. She'd heard people point out that the Doctor could get out of his cell at any time, and even when he didn't, he was still smart enough to hack every system at the Initiative. She'd heard people point out that the Doctor had stood up for that little child HST, the one that had killed Penelope (even though it hadn't).

But the most damning evidence was the fact that, apparently, the Doctor had confessed that Penelope's death was his fault.

"And Hostile 29 has no reason to lie about this sort of thing," Private Dixon explained to Marianna. "There's no personal benefit to confessing. And what with the lack of human emotions or empathy, I can imagine that it was the actual murderer."

Marianna could imagine a number of ways in which this would not be the case.

"Did you beat a confession out of him?" she asked.

"No, ma'am," said Dixon. "It volunteered the information itself."

"Then he's covering for someone else," said Marianna. "Someone human, based on past experience." Knowing the Doctor, it wouldn't necessarily even be one of the people who deserved a second chance to repent for the crime. It'd be someone despicable, like Agent Finn or Dr. Green.

"I very much doubt that," said Dixon.

It was nearly twelve hours before Marianna managed to see the Doctor. The higher-ups had taken the rumors of Hostile 29's involvement seriously, and had been taking time to investigate more fully. Marianna didn't know the result of their investigation, when she went to see the Doctor. She only knew that they had reached a conclusion, and were trying to work out what to do about it.

When Marianna approached the Doctor's cell, she found him — remarkably — unbeaten, undamaged. But there was something terribly sad in his eyes. He sat with his back against the rightmost wall of his cell, his hands dangling limply by his sides, his legs splayed out in front of him. He stared at the white tiles that lined the far wall of his cell, as if not really seeing them.

"Dr. Marianna Forlich," he said, as she approached. He didn't even look at her, just seemed to know that she was there.

Marianna wasn't really sure what to say. She wanted to ask him if he was all right, but he looked about as all right as everyone else at the Initiative right now. Which was to say, not all right at all. How could anyone believe he'd murdered Penelope, when he was clearly feeling this much grief over her loss?

He turned his eyes towards Marianna's, and there was pain in them, real visible pain. "Run," he told her. "Please. Run. Get out as fast as you can."

Marianna frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"You trust me," the Doctor said. "You have to trust me. Please, Marianna. Get everyone out of here — every person, every creature, every sentient life form — get them far, far away. Leave me behind so I can deal with this on my own. If you don't, you're all going to die. Every single one of you."

He thought she'd leave him to deal with his grief on his own? She wasn't about to run away and bar all social contact from him simply because he was upset.

"I thought it would be better if you had some company," Marianna told him. "It's hard to deal with this sort of grief on your own. That's what… Penelope would have said."

"I told Penelope to leave," the Doctor said. "She didn't believe me. And now she's dead, and Ectohothromin is dead, and it's all my fault."

Marianna blinked. Then blinked again. That look on his face, the way he said it… he wasn't covering for someone else… it was as if he actually believed he was at fault, as if….

Marianna felt a sudden chill run down her spine, as she finally managed to place the look. The look she had never seen before on the faces of the nonhumans in the Initiative, the look that she had never even thought possible on anyone other than a human being.

"You… you can feel guilt," she breathed.

And that was when something inside the Doctor seemed to snap.

He jumped to his feet, his eyes blazing. "Of course I feel guilt!" he shouted. "Of course I feel anger, and pain, and loss! Friendship, companionship, happiness, and the despair of having it all snatched away in a second! Of course I feel it! All of us can! Every single prisoner you've shut up in this place, every single life form you've brought in. We all feel, Marianna! Every single one of us feels!"

"But… I thought…"

"We're just like you!" the Doctor shouted. "Don't you understand that? Can't you see? We're all just the same as you!"

"No," Marianna insisted. "The other HSTs… vampires... demons… they don't—"

"Vampires can love," the Doctor said. "Vampires can grow, and learn, and choose to change. Every creature can choose a better path, every creature can fight to regain their souls! How can you say that they aren't people? How can you say that they're any different from you?"

"Because they torture and kill!" Marianna snapped. "Because they murder human beings without feeling one bit of guilt or remorse, because they think of us as food and not as people, because…" She trailed off, as she looked at the Doctor.

The one they'd tortured. Nearly killed. So many times. And none of them had cared, had they? None of them had thought of him as a real person. He was a computer database, a supply of information, a free source of help defending against escaping HSTs, a useful tool who couldn't feel pain or guilt or heartache.

"You were willing to torture a child," the Doctor said, his voice icy. "A child barely old enough to speak. And then you shot him in the head without a second thought, without one scrap of remorse. You shot him down for a crime he didn't commit, because he wasn't human, and so he wasn't a person in your eyes. So I ask you again, Dr. Marianna Forlich. How are you any different from the creatures you imprison?"

Marianna shook her head, to clear away the thoughts. No, no. The Doctor was wrong — the Doctor had to be wrong. What he was suggesting, if what he was saying was true, if every vampire she dissected was a real person with real feelings and real emotions, just like her…

Marianna couldn't deal with that. She couldn't deal with that at all. He had to be wrong. The Doctor had to be wrong.

"No, they aren't… you're just projecting yourself onto the other HSTs!" Marianna insisted. "You're anthropomorphizing them, giving them a personality they don't have. The other HSTs at the Initiative aren't like you! They're animals! Most of them don't even talk. And even when they do, they don't have that section of their anterior prefrontal cortex. If you told them what they were doing was wrong, they wouldn't stop."

Just like Marianna had told Colonel Haviland that what they were doing to the Doctor was wrong, and he hadn't stopped.

The Doctor gave her a dark look. A very intense look. The kind of look that she'd only seen when he'd been sticking up for that little child HST. The kind of look that scared Marianna, even if she wasn't sure why.

"As opposed to you lot," the Doctor told her. "Who don't even care enough to see if something is right or wrong. Who call tortured screams 'noise' and ignore every single plea for mercy from your victims. They torture you, and you torture them. Brilliant."

"They're evil," said Marianna. "They deserve everything they get."

"And who are you to decide what they deserve?" the Doctor demanded. "You, who can't even speak their language most of the time, who don't even care enough to notice that they might be starved, frightened, in pain, fighting for their own survival! Would you have done the same, Marianna? If you were here in their place, would you have done the same?"

Marianna didn't say anything. She was afraid he might be right.

"Of course they're angry at you," the Doctor said. "Of course they want to kill you, after everything you've done! You pick up these people—"

"They're not—"

"—off the street," the Doctor continued, "using a gun that is — and you'll forgive the understatement — one of the most painful stunning devices I've ever had the displeasure of being subjected to, then bring them back, cage them, treat them as if they're nothing. Dissection, torture, humiliation, starvation! No wonder they think humanity should be obliterated. You've given them no reason to want to keep you alive!"

"Not all of us," Marianna insisted. "There are a few bad people at the Initiative, like Green, but all the others—"

"Are exactly the same," the Doctor told her. "But to a lesser degree. Don't you understand, Marianna? All the things you've complained about — being ignored, being overlooked, being squeezed out of the inner circles of the scientific community just because you're a woman — you're doing it all the time to your prisoners! Even without the torture, the pain, the degradation, what are you left with? A group of scientists so certain of their own human superiority that they can't even see that what they're doing is wrong."

"The HSTs aren't people!" said Marianna.

"And what about me?" the Doctor asked her. "Am I not a person, either?"

"You're… an exception," said Marianna. "None of the other HSTs are like that!"

"Funny," said the Doctor. "You say nonhumans aren't people, except for me. Arthur Green says women aren't scientists, except for Professor Walsh. And the most amazing thing is that none of you can see that it's the same situation."

Marianna didn't know what to say to this.

"When you start playing these sorts of games," the Doctor said, "deciding who's a real person, and who isn't, you wind up getting more and more exclusive, until suddenly, everyone who isn't like you is evil and has to be wiped out. It's what happened with Professor Walsh, it's what happened with Dr. Green, and it's what's been happening with you, Marianna. Every single day you've worked here."

"That's not—"

"When was the last time you saw someone in distress and went to help them?" the Doctor asked. "The last time that you ran off, without a second thought, to help a stranger in need?"

Marianna felt a chill run down her spine, as she realized she couldn't remember the last time she had.

"If I'm a person, Marianna — if you're a person — then so are they," he told her. "All the others you've gathered. Every other creature you've imprisoned and tortured in your Initiative. Every single creature you've butchered without a second thought, every single vampire you've sliced into and brainwashed. They're all people. Every single last one of them. All real people, just like you! Just like me!"

"They're not like you," Marianna whispered.

"How?" asked the Doctor. "Because I don't fight? The soldiers can tell you that I fight. I fight when I feel I should, when I have to."

"You protect humans," Marianna said.

And she felt numb, completely numb, because if it had been her, if it had been Becky or Tina or Penelope, if it had been any Initiative employee in the Doctor's place, none of them would have made his choice. If she'd been trying to escape torture, escape cruelty at the hands of an alien race, and she came across a creature that was attacking her tormentors, she would have left them to their fate and gotten the hell out of there.

"Any of your other prisoners might have done the same, if you'd shown them a single ounce of kindness," the Doctor replied. "If you'd shown them any speck of mercy. But you've shown us none."

Not even the Doctor.

Not even when he saved their lives. Not even when he helped them. Not even when he showed them every kindness in the world. What did the humans at the Initiative do for him? Lock him up and throw away the key. Subject him to torture and experiments. Reject his ideas offhand, just because of how he was born.

Just like Green did to the women.

Just like the HSTs did to the human race.

Marianna felt a terrible sinking feeling in her chest. How had this happened? When? When she first started working at the Initiative, she'd wanted to help other people, to make the world a better place. She'd been one of the primary developers of their behavioral modification project — for the sole reason of trying to rehabilitate these creatures, make them better. She'd really believed that, once. In fact, back when she'd started working here, Marianna had even suggested letting their subjects back out into the wild once the behavioral modification was done.

But that had been so long ago. Now, she'd never even consider the idea.

Study the HSTs, implant a chip in their brains to make sure they didn't cause too much trouble while she was studying them, then kill them off when they became too much trouble. That was the Initiative's way.

And Marianna had thought it was okay. Back when she cared, back when she'd questioned it all, Professor Walsh had explained to her that it didn't matter if she did this to the HSTs, because these Hostile Sub Terrestrials were the bad guys, they were seeking to hurt humans and that made them evil, worthy of being tortured. They pretend the humans are nothing more than food, so why should the humans pay them any more respect?

But then… Professor Walsh had thought that way about everything, hadn't she?

They'll walk all over you, if you let them. But you're a scientist. Don't emote. Don't let it in. Just fight back.

And here she was, so long later, slicing open creatures who could feel what was happening to them, not caring when the Initiative shot down children, stepping back and doing nothing while innocents like the Doctor were caged and beaten down. How was she different from the HSTs? How was she any better than they were?

The Doctor was right. About all of it.

Vampires had no conscience — that part of their brain had been shut down by the vampiric virus. But Marianna and the others — they'd shut it down voluntarily. They were destroying their own souls, allowing themselves to blame orders or training whenever they did the wrong thing.

Oh, God.

The Initiative was supposed to be eliminating the monsters. But it wasn't. It was creating them. It was turning human beings — normal human beings with souls and consciences and moral strength — into something inhuman and evil. Something that would be willing to lock up and torture the Doctor for months, simply because the Doctor was useful. Or had knowledge of the future. Or might possibly be sleeping with one of their significant others.

It wasn't just Marianna who'd been wrong. It wasn't just the soldiers, it wasn't just the scientists, it wasn't just Green or just Haviland or just Finn. It was all of them. This whole place, this entire institution.

"The Initiative is wrong," Marianna breathed.

"Of course it's wrong!" the Doctor shouted. "Do you even realize what you've done? Do you have any idea how much damage you've caused? You created a monster, a monster you couldn't control, a monster whose only mission is to destroy, to kill, to exterminate! This is just like Davros and the Kaleds all over again, and I've seen what happens, Marianna, when you unleash creatures like that on the universe! Your monster won't stop with destroying the vampires, he won't stop with destroying the demons, he won't stop with destroying the humans. He'll destroy all of it, every single last person on this planet, and then he'll move onto the next planet, and the next, and all throughout the universe. Congratulations, Marianna, because your Initiative has just recreated the Daleks, all over again!"

Marianna dropped her head. He was right. Humanity had just begun to explore outer space. How long before that was them, dropping onto some other world armed with deadly guns, destroying all other life and making off with the spoils of war with no concern as to what they'd just done? The Initiative wouldn't stop with the demons, it wouldn't stop with the humans. It would turn them all into monsters, turn them all into unthinking, unfeeling beings with no conscience.

Beings who would torture the Doctor and enjoy it.

"I'm sorry," said Marianna.

The Doctor's anger seemed to fall away at her words, and he seemed… just desperate. "Please," he said, "if you ever truly felt any sort of friendship or respect or even just pity for me, get out of here. Leave me behind, Marianna, and run as fast as you can. Go to UNIT, tell them I sent you. They'll give you a job, there. Just, please, leave."

Marianna fidgeted. She didn't want to leave the Doctor behind. She might have become a monster, but she wasn't that much of a monster. If she left, she might save herself, her own soul, but he'd have no one. No one left to help him, defend him, make sure he was happy.

Marianna couldn't get him out of here. She had created so many different arguments for the higher-ups, so many proposals and appeals and motions, and none of them had helped. The Doctor had been right — Colonel Haviland would never let him go. He was far too useful alive, and the moment he failed to be useful enough, they'd kill him.

Marianna knew: if she couldn't get Doctor out of the Initiative, she was staying here.

"My research," Marianna protested, because it was the first excuse her mind could think of. "I can create a cure for the vampires. You've seen. If I just had a few years to develop some vast regenerative substance, I could—"

"You don't have years," said the Doctor. "If you stay here, you're going to die."

"But… even so, my research is more important than my life," Marianna argued. "It could have long-reaching consequences, even after my death, and—"

"Dr. Marianna Forlich," said the Doctor, gently. "Nothing is worth more than a life. Don't stay behind for your research, don't stay behind for Professor Walsh's memory, and certainly — certainly — don't stay behind for me. Go to UNIT. Start again. And… incidentally, you can forget about your research on vampires. Anything you learn about them will be completely useless in about five years time."

Marianna frowned. "What? Why?"

"Because Riley was right," said the Doctor. "I have seen the future. I've been there. Made it happen. And I can be very, very dangerous when I'm angry."

Chapter 23

Marianna put her head in her hands, elbows resting against the table in the break room. "I don't know what to do," she said.

Tina, Becky, and Anne all looked at one another, then back at Marianna. They all seemed hesitant, not sure what to say.

"The… report said that he was crazy," Tina offered. "They said… he was paranoid and delusional."

"And not responsible for Penelope's death," Anne added. "Even though he confessed to killing her."

"No, you don't understand," said Marianna. "He didn't confess to killing her. He said that it was his fault she died." She looked up at them. "Don't you get it? He's feeling guilty!"

Tina, Becky, and Anne all hesitated.

"You know HSTs can't—" Tina began.

"He can!" said Marianna, slamming her hands down on the table. "And of course he would! You've seen how, over and over again, he runs out to protect the people at the Initiative. Even when we treat him horribly, he feels it's his duty to defend us. He isn't blaming himself because he killed Penelope! He's blaming himself because he didn't manage to save her life!"

"That doesn't make sense," said Anne. "Unless there was something he could have done to save Penelope's life, and he just didn't do it."

"And maybe he could have, if we'd just given him the chance!" said Marianna. "He has to escape from an impenetrable prison cell every single time he saves our lives. And he's only spared the punishment if he saves soldiers. If he saves the scientists, or even innocent civilians, he still gets beaten. You've all seen how he's gotten weaker and weaker since he arrived down here. How much harder it is for him to get out of his cell now than before. Maybe if we'd treated him better, he'd have saved Penelope's life. Maybe if we'd treated him like a real person, Penelope would be alive right now!"

"Compared to the other HSTs, he's getting five star treatment," Tina pointed out.

"I know," said Marianna. "And that's why the Initiative is wrong."

The others all started at this revelation.

"Let's not get hasty, here," Anne said. "I'll admit, there's a lot that the Initiative can be doing better, but it's not wrong."

"It's not right, either," said Marianna.

"Look, Marianna, I know you're worried about the Doctor," said Becky, "and you have a right to be. But you can't let that effect your judgment. You have to remember, whenever you speak to him, that he's a little bit nutty."

"He's not crazy," said Marianna. "He can see what we can't. I mean, just now, he told me to run. Get out of the Initiative. Leave him behind and go, while I still had some humanity left in me."

"See?" said Anne. "Paranoid and delusional! He may be a genius, Marianna, but you've got to take everything he says with a grain of salt."

"Yeah," Tina agreed. "We're all perfectly safe, here. In fact, the Initiative is the safest place to be, right now, with Adam on the loose."

"It's not paranoia!" said Marianna. "It's this place! The Initiative! It's turning us all into something evil. Something inhuman."

"That's ridiculous," said Tina.

"When was the last time you rushed to help someone screaming out for help?" asked Marianna. "When was the last time you saw someone in pain and, without even having to think, rushed off to their aid?"

Tina and the others hesitated. Marianna could see in their eyes that they didn't like the answer.

"We've grown so used to shutting it out," said Marianna. "Shutting out all those cries for help. We're turning ourselves into HSTs. Don't you get it? I mean, we killed a child, today. For no reason. And did any of us even care?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't a human child," said Anne. "It was a monster."

"And what does that mean?" Marianna asked. "What does it mean to be a monster?"

"Well, they don't talk," said Anne. "They just act on animal instincts."

Becky cringed. "Actually, the Doctor talked to it," she admitted. "I've seen on the footage. He communicated with that little kid HST."

"They don't have a moral compass," Tina chimed in. "They kill and torture without a second thought, without any hint of remorse or empathy. And even when they know something's evil, they don't care. It doesn't stop them from doing it anyways."

"We've been torturing someone we know is a person," said Marianna. "For months, now. Even though we all know it's wrong. Even Colonel Haviland admits that the Doctor isn't a monster, that he's only a high security risk because he's useful. We've all watched him save the world. We've watched him risk his own safety and freedom to defend the people who're hurting him. We all know he doesn't deserve this. That hasn't stopped any of us from letting it happen."

"We've been trying to get him out," Tina argued. She faltered. "Okay, admittedly, we weren't trying very hard, but… you know. We were making a stand and trying to do what was right. A little."

"He's not the monster," said Marianna. "It's us. We're all monsters. We're killing off every vestige of humanity we have left, blocking out the screams and the shouting and the pain. Training ourselves to ignore our own consciences."

"We have to be impartial," said Becky. "To be scientists."

"That's not what science is!" said Marianna. "Science is the ability to prove results in a way that is reproducible under the same set of circumstances. If you're a good scientist and you don't skew the math or mess with the data, who says you can't be compassionate as well? What we're doing here, everything that's been happening at the Initiative — it has nothing to do with science! We torture other life forms and ignore their cries for help? What does that make us?"

"They do it to us!" protested Becky.

"We tortured the Doctor, and he didn't try to torture us in return," said Marianna. "We've been punishing him for saving our lives, we've been putting him through painful and degrading tests, we've been dismissing everything he tells us as if he's nothing, and — we wouldn't even let him save his human friend! But he still breaks out of his cell every single time an alarm sounds in the Initiative, no matter the repercussions, so he can help us."

"Yeah, and that made those soldiers feel really bad about beating him up!" said Tina. She faltered. "And then… do it anyways."

"My point exactly," said Marianna.

"But they did have a conscience!" Becky put in. "They refused, once, remember? They realized what they were doing was wrong, and started questioning it."

"Because the Doctor made them start questioning it," said Marianna. "Don't you get it? The Doctor isn't being paranoid and delusional. There is a monster keeping him trapped down here. It's us. He can't leave because he has to stay, to make us better people."

Tina, Anne, and Becky all looked at one another, guiltily.

"But… I mean, that couldn't really…" Tina began.

"I've seen him nearly escape," said Marianna. "So many times. But he always turns around if he hears one cry for help. If he thinks he can save one single life — human or sub-terrestrial — he stops his escape, and comes back. The Doctor could have escaped a thousand times over! But instead, he's been giving up his own freedom for us."

"But that's not what he's been saying," Anne insisted. "He told me that the Initiative created a monster that was keeping him stuck here. He said it wouldn't let him leave."

"The Initiative created us," said Marianna. "We're the reason he's stuck down here. We're the reason he isn't leaving. We're the monsters."

"You guys are kidding, right?" came Julie's voice, from across the room.

They all snapped their heads over to her.

"Look, I know you're really into this metaphorical 'improve yourself' thing," Julie explained, cradling a coffee cup in her hands, "but… did you ever think maybe Hostile 29 meant this all literally? I mean, the Initiative really did create a monster. Adam."

Everyone looked at everyone else.

"Of course the Doctor doesn't know about Adam!" said Tina. "He's been in here the whole time, and no one's ever mentioned Adam to him. At all."

"You're the ones always going on about how Hostile 29 is so smart," Julie replied, crossing her legs and resting the cup against the table in front of her. "Maybe it worked out Adam's existence based on straightforward logic."

"None of us did," said Anne. "And we're human! If humans couldn't even work through that logic, what chance does…?" She caught the sharp reprimand on Marianna's face, and decided this was a thought best left unfinished.

"The Doctor wasn't talking about Adam," said Marianna. "He was talking about me. Us. He told me to get out of here before I lost all traces of humanity. He told me the humans at the Initiative were no better than the creatures we locked up."

"And all that's debatable," said Julie. "I'm just saying — think about it. Adam's been going around uniting all the HSTs. If Adam's made Hostile 29 an offer, I'm guessing Hostile 29 refused. Everything that's happened since is just the repercussions of Hostile 29's choice, and that's why it's blaming itself for Penelope's death."

"That's crazy," said Becky. "How could Adam have even made the Doctor an offer?"

"You know that incomprehensible writing in Hostile 29's cell?" said Julie. "It wasn't there before Hostile 29's healing coma. It only appeared after all the cameras and monitors went down. Maybe Adam got into the Initiative, somehow."

"The Initiative has way too much security for that to happen," said Tina. "You should know. You designed the system."

"Well, me and Professor Walsh," said Julie. "Walsh was the one who designed most of the larger security measures for this place. She had a lot on her mind. Maybe she missed something." She sipped at her coffee. "I'm planning on looking over security for the entire Initiative this afternoon. Tighten it up. There's a bunch of anomalies on the basic plans for the Initiative's layouts that need to get fixed. You know — power going to places it shouldn't, air ducts leading to rooms that don't exist, that kind of thing."

"That doesn't prove anything," said Becky. "Adam isn't after the Doctor. It's ridiculous."

"After all, if Adam was after the Doctor, the Doctor would be dead by now," said Marianna. "Or at least chipped."

"Besides, what would Adam want the Doctor for, anyways?" asked Anne. "Adam's got just as much brain power as the Doctor, there's nothing the Doctor's biology can do that Adam's can't…"

"Time travel," Marianna said, with a frown.

"Oh, right," said Anne. "'Time travel.' Which, by the way, I don't believe the Doctor can do, anyways, seeing as backwards time travel is impossible given the laws of the physical universe. But even if the Doctor's seen the future, I'm guessing that Adam doesn't care about that, much."

"What if Adam doesn't want Hostile 29 at all," said Julie. "What if Adam just wants Hostile 29's time-space ship?"

"Then we're back to the question of 'why isn't the Doctor dead already,'" Becky pointed out. "If Adam just wants the ship, then he'd kill the pilot and steal it. No threats, no coercion, no bargaining."

"We have to face it," said Marianna. "This is one thing we can't blame Adam for. We're the reason the Doctor's still here. The Doctor won't leave until the Initiative gets shut down. He's willing to get tortured and nearly killed for our own benefit."

"If Maggie Walsh was still alive," said Becky, "none of this would have happened."

Marianna wasn't sure what to say to this. She was starting to wonder if maybe the Doctor was right, and Professor Walsh hadn't been exactly the woman they all thought she was.

A male scientist stuck his head into the break room. "Julie Parsoner?" he asked. "Dr. Green would like to see you."

Julie planted her most cooperative smile onto her face. "Certainly," she said, abandoning her coffee on the table and following the scientist out of the room. "Anything he wants."

As Marianna watched them leaving, as she watched Julie go off to help restrain the Doctor in whatever torture Green had planned for him next, Marianna suddenly had an idea. A very good idea.

"Colonel Haviland won't let us get the Doctor out of the Initiative," said Marianna. "But what if we don't need to get him out of the Initiative? What if we can come up with a better solution, one that will solve every problem at once?"

The women frowned at Marianna, confused.

"I think it's time we created a Petition," Marianna told them, with a smile.

Chapter 24

An excerpt from a correspondence with a colleague, Re: Hostile 29, from the Desk of Dr. Arthur Green:

It has come to my attention, more and more, that Hostile 29 has a powerful effect on human women. Certainly the women scientists at the Initiative have all been pining over this creature for some time, now. They take long breaks from their work to flirt with it, bat their lashes at it, make eyes at it.

Even Julie Parsoner has begun to demonstrate increasing amounts of insubordination regarding Hostile 29. I believed she was immune to most of the effects of Hostile 29's influence, until a few days ago, when I spoke to Colonel Haviland. Apparently, Parsoner has been trying to convince Colonel Haviland, for some time now, to fire me over my treatment of Hostile 29, which she claimed was "cruel, unwarranted, and unscientific." It appears that while Parsoner acts aloof and detached on the surface, she is just as bewitched as all the others. And far more malicious about it.

The interest of females in this inhuman creature has been plaguing me for some time. Therefore, I have resolved to better understand Hostile 29's mating rituals. As there is no female member of its species near at hand, I have enlisted the aid of one of the women on my staff. Considering their constant fawning over the inhuman creature, I believe that she will not object terribly when the experiment has concluded.

---

Riley Finn didn't have a lot to do with the Doctor — or Hostile 29, as he was called at the Initiative — these days.

It was enough for Riley that the Doctor was restrained somewhere far away from Buffy, somewhere he could do the most good for humanity and for the United States in particular. As long as the Doctor wasn't permanently damaged or killed, Riley wasn't feeling too terribly guilty about the situation.

After all, the Doctor was still doing everything he normally did. Saving the world, protecting innocent people, trying to save demons and vampires. He was just doing it away from Buffy.

In fact, after the first few weeks, Riley basically forgot that the Doctor was in the Initiative at all.

Until today.

Riley heard laughter from one of the labs nearby. His curiosity got the better of him, and he went to check it out. Dr. Green and a group of male scientists were gathered around a monitor, watching it in amusement. At least, most of the scientists were amused. Dr. Green just stared at the monitor with his unnerving, hungry eyes.

Riley looked up at the monitor. There, he found a skinny man in a brown pinstripe suit, dancing around his cell, awkwardly flapping his arms, and speaking in a rapid voice. He was speaking to the woman in the white lab coat, the one who was chasing him around, trying to kiss him and… well, grope him, it looked like.

Girl in every port, huh, Doctor? Great. Buffy seemed to pick up these kinds of romantic lotharios. First Parker, and now this alien jerk.

Riley was about to leave, but… for some reason, he didn't. He just stayed in the doorway, watching the monitor. Something felt… wrong, somehow. Riley couldn't put his finger on what, but as he watched the woman in the lab coat more, he just kept thinking that…

Oh.

Now he knew what was wrong. The woman chasing around the Doctor was Julie Parsoner.

"Listen, Julie, you're a very attractive person," the Doctor was saying, ducking out of the way before she could kiss him. "But really, considering your overall contempt for me, along with your frequent tortures, moral ambiguity, and complete disregard for me as a person, I think perhaps we should just have a bit of a chat before—"

He was cut off, as Julie tackled him onto the floor, pulling him into a very sloppy kiss. The Doctor struggled for a second, then his eyes went black, and his hands cupped the sides of Julie's face as he kissed her back.

The scientists all jeered, as they watched.

"That's it," one of them said. "That one's finally got the aphrodisiac working."

Aphrodisiac? Had they drugged the Doctor? Had they drugged Julie? What was going on?

Whatever they'd done, they must not have done a very good job, though, because in a sudden burst of movement, the Doctor had yanked Julie off of him, his eyes fixed on her, a growing horror on his face.

"No," he breathed.

He looked over to the camera, straight at them, his eyes dark, angry. "What have you done to her?" he shouted.

Julie tried to push him so that he was lying down, again, but the Doctor rolled away from her, popping back to his feet. His eyes were still fixed straight onto the camera, and Riley had that unnerving feeling that the Doctor could see him, knew he was there, was speaking to him, directly.

Even if that didn't make sense.

"She's human!" the Doctor shouted. "Your own employee! She's harmed none of you! Now stop this!"

"Make her push him over again," one of the scientists said. "That was great."

And Riley realized — whatever they'd done to Julie, it wasn't just a drug. They were using her on remote control. As if she were little more than their test subject, little more than an HST.

Julie lunged at the Doctor, who managed to get out of the way at the last second.

"Stop this!" the Doctor cried. "I give in! I'll give you anything you want! Just please, please, stop trying to hurt them! Just let these people go!"

Riley wanted to run off and put a stop to this. Or even just to shout out at the scientists in the room. But he was so stunned, he couldn't even move. Couldn't even think.

The Doctor kept shouting, kept protesting, then finally caught Julie, and in a second, she was unconscious. He lay her out on the floor, and then placed himself on top of her, and gave her a slow, gentle kiss, and began to… oh, Riley really, really didn't want to know what the Doctor was doing.

The scientists jeered.

Riley spun around on his heels. He'd had enough of this. More than enough. He was going to march right down to the Doctor's cell and put a stop to this, right now.

Green and the other scientists must have known that what they were doing was wrong, because they'd cleared the soldiers out from the Doctor's secure area. Riley didn't have time to convince the other soldiers to follow him. They'd work it out soon enough.

Riley was nearly at the Doctor's cell when the alarm sounded. A Code 78: the Doctor had gotten his hands on technology. Riley raced forwards, his gun drawn. He was going to make sure that Julie was safe, and the Doctor was stopped. Contained in the Initiative, eternally, far away from Buffy.

Riley stepped out in front of the Doctor's cell, but the Doctor wasn't doing what Riley had thought. The Doctor was kneeling beside Julie, a complex-looking device held against her chest in his right hand, as he pulled something out of her pocket with his left. Riley swiped his card, to open up the cell, then aimed his Taser Blaster directly at the Doctor.

The Doctor didn't seem to notice. Whatever he'd found in Julie's pocket made his eyes light up, made his entire face dance with excitement — as if he'd just been presented with the most amazing thing in the world, and couldn't quite believe he had it. He quickly stuffed the item into his own suit pocket, eyes darting around guiltily, as if to make sure no one had seen him.

Then his eyes locked on Riley's.

"Step away from her, Doctor," Riley commanded.

The Doctor didn't move, didn't even speak, but tightened his grip on the gadget he held against Julie's chest.

Riley hesitated. He could hear the other soldiers close behind. They'd be there any second. What was the device the Doctor had in his hands? Was this some sort of threat, that if Riley shot the Doctor, the Doctor would kill Julie? But… the Doctor wouldn't actually kill a human being, right?

(Then again, Riley could only imagine what he'd already done to Julie while she was unconscious.)

The Doctor's eyes bore holes into Riley, as the soldiers got closer and closer. He growled, "Just do it, already."

Riley, without thinking, fired his Taser Blaster at the Doctor, electricity surging through the skinny pinstripe-clad body — across his hearts, down his arms, and… down into the device that he held at Julie's chest.

Julie screamed.

The Doctor collapsed, behind her, unconscious, just as the other soldiers arrived, rushing into the cell. Some helped Julie, who seemed dazed and confused and was clearly in need of medical attention. Most went to take care of the Doctor, stripping him of everything he had taken from Julie, searching every pocket and every area of his cell where he might have stashed any items for later use.

Riley just couldn't believe it. The Doctor had knocked Julie out, then kissed her and probably done… other things that Riley really didn't want to think about… and then had asked Riley to shoot him, even though the Doctor knew that shot would go through Julie as well. The Doctor had wanted to hurt Julie. The Doctor had actually wanted to hurt an innocent human being! What had happened to the Doctor, in here? What had the Initiative done to him?

Riley stepped forwards. The Doctor must have done this for a reason. He must have had some hidden agenda. Whatever that thing was that made him so excited, this whole thing had just been a setup so he could get his hands on that! Riley had taken careful note of the soldier who'd searched the pocket where the Doctor had shoved whatever precious object it was he'd found right before Riley had knocked him out. Riley asked the soldier what he'd found.

The soldier shrugged, a little surprised he'd been asked, and waved the item at Riley.

It was a chocolate bar.

Riley marched out of the cell, and up to find Dr. Green. He wanted answers, right now. Because he'd been perfectly happy to let that alien bastard suffer, as long as it kept the jerk away from Buffy, but he hadn't intended to starve the guy. He'd never intended to take things this far.

And he'd never wanted anything to happen to Julie Parsoner.

Riley burst into the lab where he'd last seen Dr. Green. Green was now chatting with the other scientists, discussing the results of this test. Riley barely restrained himself from punching Green's face in.

"What's the meaning of this?" Riley demanded.

The entire group looked over at him. Green had a curious glimmer in his eyes, a look of vague amusement on his face.

"The meaning of what, Agent Finn?" asked Green.

"What did you do to Julie?" Riley said. "What have you been doing with Hostile 29? What is going on, here?"

"All we have done is administer a scientific test," Green told him. "Parsoner was seen as a fit candidate for the implant, and—"

"She's human," said Riley. "We don't chip human beings."

Green gave a small laugh. "Is that all, Agent Finn?"

"No," said Riley. He'd get Green fired over this later. "What have you done to Hostile 29?"

"What's your interest in Hostile 29?" Green asked.

"You've made him act completely against his nature," said Riley. "You've made him willing to harm an innocent human being for a chocolate bar!"

The scientists all looked at one another. They had clearly been curious as to what item had made the Doctor so excited as well.

"I have been feeding it!" one of the scientists insisted. "Biweekly, just like you said." He shuffled. "Or… nearly that. You know, when I remember."

Riley felt something cold go down his spine. Not even three meals a day? Not even one meal a day? No wonder the Doctor had been so excited at the sight of food.

"What… have you been feeding him?" Riley asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer. "When you do feed him, I mean."

"A standard nutritional bar," Green said. "Containing all vitamins, minerals, and nutritional supplements Hostile 29 requires."

One of the scientists tossed a bar over to Riley, who caught it, and examined it. A small, nutritional bar, no larger than his hand. Riley opened it, and sniffed it.

"No behavior altering drugs have been administered to Hostile 29 as of yet," said Green.

One of the other scientists behind him muttered, "At least none that have worked."

Riley took a sample bite out of the bar, and almost gagged. Nutritional it may be, and free from drugs, but… wow, that was the nastiest thing he'd ever tasted!

Had the Doctor been living off this stuff for two months, now?

Riley threw the nutrition bar into the trash can, and gave the scientists an angry glare. "Feed him something better," he snapped. "And more regularly."

Green just gave him a look of vague amusement.

"What do you care?" asked one of the scientists. "You don't like Hostile 29, anyways. You were perfectly happy to beat it senseless."

"I just think it's time someone around here showed a bit of humanity," said Riley. "Because if we act like monsters, we're going to get treated like monsters."

The scientists all looked at one another, blankly. Riley was starting to get seriously frustrated — no, disgusted might be a better word — with Green and his team. Were they all total morons?

"Listen to me, very, very carefully," Riley said. "I've given you a very valuable resource. But you do not want to turn that resource into an enemy. I've seen what happens to his enemies, and you don't want that to happen to us. So you treat Hostile 29 like a real person, or everyone here is going to suffer the consequences."

"Are you implying that Hostile 29 is dangerous?" Green asked.

He and the other scientists all snickered at the notion.

"Yes," said Riley. "Hostile 29 may not be hostile, but he is more dangerous than anyone else in the Initiative. Human or sub-terrestrial."

The other scientists laughed outright at this. Green just kept his eyes fixed on Riley, an intense curiosity shining within them.

"Believe me," said Riley, "the only reason you think Hostile 29 is harmless is because he's still on your side. The moment he isn't, you'll know why all the other HSTs are afraid of him."

Chapter 25

Colonel Haviland had just about had it with Green.

No, that was a lie. Colonel Haviland had long past had it with Green. At this point, he wanted to slice Green into about 20,000 pieces and feed those pieces to wild dogs.

But apparently, Green was connected. Very well connected. After what happened with Julie Parsoner, Colonel Haviland spent two hours trying to convince Washington to — at the very least — let him fire Dr. Green's ass. Or, if he was lucky, do something worse. But Green had a number of mysterious friends from higher up who were protecting him. Mysterious friends that Colonel Haviland couldn't overrule.

Basically, the only way to get rid of Green was to shove him in a time machine, travel back to the McCarthy era, and get him accused of being a communist. Which wouldn't have worked even if their resident time travel expert had been willing to do it.

(And Colonel Haviland would probably redirect the time machine to Mount Vesuvius or something and kick Green out on his doomed ass.)

Colonel Haviland had put Green in the one position where he could do the least damage — guarding and testing an alien who could heal from basically anything they did to it, and needed to be conscious and aware most of the time, anyways. And Haviland had thought that was a good solution. Hostile 29 had escaped less often, Green got out his more sadistic tendencies without having to hurt any of the women (what was it with Green and women? Seriously), and given Hostile 29's time tested habit of wiggling its way out of the nastier tests, Green didn't really have all that much of an opportunity to hurt even Hostile 29.

And Green had still found a way to do something despicable!

Colonel Haviland had just finished explaining to Julie that he was very, very sorry, but there was nothing he could do to Green for what had just happened. He offered her monetary compensation, but Julie had just stormed off. Understandable.

Poor woman.

And one of the best employees around here, too.

Colonel Haviland had known that it would be hard work overseeing the Initiative during Washington's investigations concerning the murder of Professor Walsh, but he hadn't known it'd be nearly impossible. First Adam on the loose. Then Green growing more and more cold and hostile towards his female employees (exponentially so, whenever Hostile 29 acquired a new female visitor). Then this scandal with Julie. And, of course, there was the extraction of information from Hostile 29, which was a task far more impossible than all the rest.

The Initiative had been designed for one purpose. To create some sort of non-human military advantage that the United States could use for its own protection.

It was supposed to be Adam, and now that Adam had become an evil unstoppable killing machine, Washington was trying to find a way to cover its tracks. See if there was any way to rectify the situation and still come out ahead.

Enter Hostile 29.

A two-hearted alien who travelled through time and space, calling itself "Doctor" and "helping people". A creature who was famed for its knowledge of technology, weapons, and warfare. Who had knowledge about the future of this country, about every future military defeat the United States would face, and why it happened. Adam had been entirely without a conscience, but Hostile 29 had no such problem. If anything, the military would have to crush part of Hostile 29's conscience to get it to cooperate. But if they could use Hostile 29, incorporate it into the military machine… well, that would be worth it.

Colonel Haviland wanted Hostile 29 transferred to the Pentagon as soon as possible. All the officials he was speaking to thought the same. Get Hostile 29 to Washington, make sure it was secured with no chance of escape, then find some way to force it to work for them.

Problem was, there were… complications. Fewer now than before. When Haviland had first begun campaigning to transfer Hostile 29 to the Pentagon, just after it was caught, there seemed to be quite a number of people who thought Haviland should let Hostile 29 go. Who believed Hostile 29 was not only a person, but one with actual rights and privileges. Over the last two months, however, this particular problem seemed to have taken care of itself. These voices had spoken out less and less, until finally, it became a unanimous decision to keep Hostile 29 contained.

But still, there were problems transferring Hostile 29 to Washington. Old laws and precedents relating to a "Doctor" with "two hearts" who supposedly was to be heralded as a great hero of the country, who had apparently been honored by George Washington, who had been given a commendation by Abraham Lincoln. And then there'd been some big hullabaloo about how Richard Nixon might have apparently hired this same "Doctor" for a short time to help solve some terrible crisis in the United States — followed by a discussion of whether this was a good or bad thing, considering it was Richard Nixon.

But Colonel Haviland was holding out hope that they'd get Hostile 29 to Washington where it could be properly interrogated and fully incorporated as part of the military machine as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Haviland was stuck here, at the Initiative, doing everything in his power to make sure that Hostile 29 did not escape. If that meant allowing Green to torture it, then Green could torture it. If that meant starving it so that it was too weak to get very far, then that was fine as well. If that meant letting Agent Finn beat it to a bloody pulp every so often, then Agent Finn was free to do so. The most important thing to Colonel Haviland was that Hostile 29 remained exactly where it was.

Then Hostile 29 had been suspected of murder. Which wasn't helped by the fact that all records of Hostile 29's last conversation with Penelope had been completely blanked, and Hostile 29 had practically confessed to the investigators that it had killed Penelope. With an extensive review of the footage of Hostile 29's cell during the time of the murder, followed by a hefty bribe, Colonel Haviland had managed to get the charges against Hostile 29 dropped.

Which avoided a very messy end for Hostile 29, and let Colonel Haviland continue to push for Hostile 29 to be transferred to Washington as soon as possible.

Considering that Green was growing worse and worse every day that Hostile 29 stuck around, the moment Hostile 29 left couldn't come soon enough for Colonel Haviland.

There was a knock at the door, which turned out to be Private Dixon. He stood to attention, and Colonel Haviland told him to stand down.

"Report," said Haviland.

"We caught Agent Finn smuggling contraband into Hostile 29's cell, sir!" said Private Dixon.

Haviland jumped up from his seat. "What contraband?"

"It was… a chocolate bar, sir," said Private Dixon.

A chocolate bar? What did Haviland care if Hostile 29 had a chocolate bar in its cell? With Parsoner angry enough to sue the hell out of all of them, and Green turning into some crazy evil genius, and a group of women led by Marianna Forlich arranging to meet with him later that day — presumably to beg for Hostile 29's release, as Dr. Forlich had done in the past — a chocolate bar was not a significant event!

"Then let Hostile 29 eat it!" snapped Haviland. "What do I care?"

"The scientists are upset," said Private Dixon. "Dr. Green especially. He says the chocolate adds an extra variable into his tests."

"You can tell Dr. Green to shove his scientific tests up his ass!" Haviland informed him. "Stop wasting my time!"

Dixon faltered. "There was… something else," he admitted. "Hostile 29 seemed to act as if the gesture was… important in some way. What with Finn's renewed interest in Hostile 29, it's likely that this is some sort of hidden communication between the two, sir. Another escape attempt."

This was all Haviland needed.

"Confiscate the chocolate bar," said Haviland. "Dixon, you and your men administer Hostile 29 its punishment. I'll discipline Agent Finn."

"Sorry, sir," said Dixon, uneasily. "Hostile 29 has already eaten the chocolate."

"I don't care about the damn chocolate!" barked Haviland. "Just administer the punishment!"

Dixon saluted, then ran off to carry out the order. Colonel Haviland got up from his desk. This was shaping up to be a very, very bad day.

Chapter 26

Julie was furious.

Of all the misogynistic jerks of bosses she'd ever had, Green was the worst. By a long shot. And the most irritating thing was that she couldn't touch him.

She'd shouted at Colonel Haviland that this was sexual harassment and she was going to sue. Colonel Haviland just told her that Green was too well connected, and nothing would ever come of it. Besides which, the facility was still undergoing three murder investigations. Her sexual harassment complaint would be completely swept under the rug.

Julie insisted that Colonel Haviland at least fire Green for what he'd done. Or if he couldn't fire Green, at least do something really nasty to him! Administrative leave or delegation away from everyone else or… something! Anything!

Colonel Haviland apologized. His hands were tied. He'd talked to the higher-ups in Washington, and they'd insisted that Green had to run tests on Hostile 29. That could not stop. Hostile 29 had knowledge that they needed, and while Green's tests were yielding information, Washington wouldn't touch him.

There was nothing Haviland could do to help Julie, he said, and it was not for lack of trying — she should believe him on that.

Julie didn't care about believing anyone. She just wanted Green to suffer for this.

So then Julie had yelled at Green, but Green, of course, hadn't listened to her.

"Don't say you didn't like it," Green told her. "I've seen how you've all been fawning over Hostile 29 for the last few weeks. You, yourself, batted an eyelash or two at it — or so Colonel Haviland says."

Oh, so that's what this was about? Green had found out that she'd been trying to fire him? Figured, she'd been using Hostile 29 to get Green fired, so he'd better get that… thing to rape her! Julie wasn't putting up with that!

"I informed Colonel Haviland that your experiments on Hostile 29 had gone from scientific to cruel and sadistic," Julie snapped. "And that's true. How is what you did to me even remotely scientific? How does this twisted little date-rape game you played with me even remotely relate to the scientific method?"

"We were studying Hostile 29's mating rituals," said Green. "If you were alert, the results would not have been reproducible."

Julie hadn't even bothered to give Green an answer. She stormed out.

If this was her last day working here — and it was, because there was no way that Julie was working another day for that creep — then she was going to make sure that someone paid for what had happened to her. And if she couldn't strike back at Green by removing his job or his money, there was still one more thing she could take away from him. One thing that Green would miss more than all the rest of it.

His pet project.

Julie easily broke into the armory (she'd designed the lock, after all), and got herself the most lethal-looking gun she could find. One that could shoot right through that reinforced glass that held Hostile 29 in its cell. She loaded the gun, then tucked the weapon into her bag. Julie didn't care if Hostile 29 was intelligent, or saved the soldiers' lives, or happened to be Marianna's sweet little caring whatever. Julie didn't care if it was a sub-terrestrial, or an extra-terrestrial, or what.

Julie was going to make Green pay.

Julie was going to kill Hostile 29.

She stormed off towards Hostile 29's cell, her mission clear, her every thought fixated on her goal. No one would stop her. She was going to make sure that Green suffered for this. She was going to kill Hostile 29 stone dead. Right now.

That was when she ran into Marianna.

Julie almost screamed in frustration. Marianna! The last person Julie had wanted to see on her way to kill Hostile 29. And worse still, Marianna had spotted Julie's gun.

"You're not going to stop me," Julie hissed. "Your Hostile 29 raped me, and I'm not letting it get away with that!"

Julie had expected Marianna to fly off the handle at this. Or freak out, and try to defend that sack of garbage that had the audacity to call itself a person — and a genius, at that. Julie so didn't want to hear a Marianna freak-out right now! Maybe she should just push Marianna out of the way, run off and shoot that alien git between its eyes… but, damn it, the soldiers were right here, and pushing Marianna would surely alert them that something was wrong. They'd catch Julie long before she could make sure that Hostile 29 was dead.

Except… Marianna didn't get angry or upset. She just took the bag out of Julie's hands, and told Julie to follow her. There was something she had to see.

Julie hesitated, but the soldiers guarding Hostile 29 were starting to look at her suspiciously, and without a gun, she'd never manage to kill Hostile 29 fast enough to make sure it was dead before she was caught. So she had no choice. She hurried after Marianna.

Together they made their way into an abandoned workspace, and Marianna slid into the chair in front of the computer, calling up the footage she wanted. She turned the monitor towards Julie.

"Watch," she said.

Julie watched as she — no, not she, just some robotic chip version of herself on remote control — ran after Hostile 29, trying to kiss it, trying to grab at it or tackle it to the ground. And then came the moment Hostile 29 gave in, the moment it started kissing her back.

Julie didn't want to see any more of this. She turned away.

And then came something Julie hadn't expected. A voice — Hostile 29's voice — said, "No."

Julie glanced back at the monitor in time to see Hostile 29 demanding of the camera, "What have you done to her?"

And she stared, as she saw it — no, not it, him — offer to do anything, give them anything, if they stopped this, if they let her go. She watched as he caught her by the arms, and told her that he was sorry, he was so sorry, he hoped that she couldn't remember this. And then he'd done… something to her, something weird and not-human, and she'd passed out in his arms.

He'd laid her down on the ground, gently, and leaned himself on top of her, giving her a kiss and looking like he was groping her. Except… his hands were in the wrong place to grope her. No, he was… picking her pocket, it looked like. And she could tell when he glanced back at the camera, briefly, that this — what he appeared, at first glance, to be doing — was nothing but a diversion tactic. A way to make sure the scientists didn't realize his true intentions until he'd finished.

And Julie's suspicions were confirmed when he hopped off of her, and thrust out the device he'd been fiddling with, off camera, placing it on Julie's chest.

Julie blinked.

It was her remote control for the security system containing him. Green had been stupid enough to shove her into Hostile 29's cell while she still had that on her? Thing was, by the time Hostile 29 had finished modifying it off camera, it didn't shut off the security system anymore. Hostile 29 had turned it into some sort of capacitor.

He'd placed it on her chest — right where they'd embedded the chip — and then asked Agent Finn to shoot him. With a stunning device that — Julie knew — was incredibly painful. As Julie had watched the electricity from the gun go through the Doctor and flow into her limp form, she understood what was happening. The electrical jolt that the soldiers used to subdue Hostile 29 was strong enough, especially concentrated like that, to short out the electrical circuitry of Green's microchip, thereby putting it permanently out of action.

The soldiers had been out of the way. The key to opening his cell had been in his hands. He could have just left her behind and walked right out. But Hostile 29 — no, not Hostile 29, he had a name, didn't he? Doctor, that was what Marianna called him — had stayed behind. For her. For Julie.

"See?" Marianna asked her.

Julie couldn't even speak. The Doctor had cared about her. He'd shouted at the camera that he'd give up everything if they let her go. He'd stayed behind and let himself get shot to disable that chip. And… yes, Julie had seen him defend others before, but… this was her. Julie. The one who — he knew as well as anyone — had always felt he was worth less than the dirt she walked upon (which was saying something, considering how low property values were in Sunnydale). He'd gone through pain for her, he'd been willing to offer anything if Green let her go, and… and…

Why?

Why would he do that? Why would he care? Why would he possibly want to surrender his own happiness for someone else? Why would he sacrifice himself for—

Julie's brain stuck on that word.

Sacrifice.

He'd… been willing to sacrifice everything to help her. And that idea was just so… foreign to Julie. It almost made no sense. Why would anyone sacrifice themselves for someone else? Why would anyone want to hurt themselves when they could let someone else get hurt, instead?

That was the kind of sacrifice Julie knew — the one where she sacrificed someone else in order to gain some sense of personal satisfaction. Sure, she'd been all over that! She and Green had been basically using the Doctor as a surrogate upon which they could hash out all their problems with one another for a while, now. She was all over destroying someone else for her own gain. That's why she figured the Doctor had to have gone through with it — why not, after all? He'd get some fun, and it wasn't like he'd care about what happened to her.

But… the Doctor had cared. And he hadn't raped her.

And the fact that Julie had just assumed that was what the Doctor had done — hadn't even questioned it — what was that saying about her? If the tables had been turned, would she have screwed him and ditched him? No, worse than that. If Julie had been in Green's place, would she have done the same to Green as he'd done to her?

She felt a very deep chill run through her, as she realized the answer to this question. And really, really didn't like it.

(What had happened to her? How'd she become like this?)

Julie stared at the computer monitor, where the footage showed an unconscious Doctor lying, abandoned, on the floor of his cell. He'd been prepared to give his life for her, and what had she done to him? Made his life a living hell, caged him no matter how painful the restraints might be, taken out every frustration she had with Green on him. On the Doctor. She'd been so angry at Green for disrespecting her, humiliating her, screwing her over — and here she was, doing the same thing to the Doctor.

Which meant… she'd been wrong. Not just a little wrong. Really wrong. Great big in-your-face WRONG in capital letters. She'd been about to shoot the Doctor — not because he'd raped her, but because his loss would hurt Green. She'd been about to kill someone who'd stood up for her. Given up everything for her.

Yes, she'd been wrong. Morally wrong. And not just about Green, or about the Doctor, or about Marianna. She'd been wrong about all of it.

"Me and some of the other women are getting together a Petition," Marianna told Julie. "For Colonel Haviland. We think it'll solve all of our problems. Turn the Initiative into what it should be."

But Julie wasn't Marianna. She didn't create 'Petitions' and 'Proposals' and 'Suggestions', and just hope the problem would somehow fix itself. If Julie cared, if she believed strongly enough, she did things. Made things happen. She just… hadn't cared. About anything or anyone except herself.

Well, here was her chance.

Because Julie had been listening to the Doctor. She'd heard all the 'paranoia' that wasn't really paranoia, all the things he kept warning them about and the plans he kept suggesting to them. She'd seen every single escape attempt he'd made. Julie wasn't stupid. She'd always known what was really going on, why the Doctor was really still down in the Initiative.

Adam wanted the Doctor here.

Adam had the whole Initiative completely under his thumb. He'd tuned into all the cameras, wired into all the controls, and knew every single move they made. Julie hadn't noticed right away, of course, but she'd checked up on some of what the Doctor had been shouting at the soldiers to pay attention to — those things everyone else ignored — and she'd managed to work it all out from there. As far as Julie could tell, Adam was gearing up to kill them all.

But Julie had always known she could work out when it was about to happen, and escape before it did.

So she… just… and it was so weird to think about it this way, but… she hadn't cared if everyone else died. Wow, it sounded bad putting it like that! She'd always put the emphasis elsewhere, saying it was a matter of survival. She could get through this as long as she kept quiet about the impending slaughter. As long as she didn't let anyone know that she'd worked out Adam's plans. As long as she had a leg up on the others. The moment she sacrificed that, she was dead.

(Oh, God, was that really how she'd been thinking for the last few years?)

But that attitude was the only thing keeping her alive! Julie knew that if she'd cared one iota about anyone else's life, she'd have been on Adam's chopping block right at the very beginning. He wasn't in the habit of letting people as smart as her survive. She'd have been right there with Penelope, Professor Walsh, and Dr. Angleman. Dead and gone.

(And that justified letting everyone else get butchered?)

No. There was no denying it. Julie had been wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Since she'd begun working here, she'd never cared about anyone else besides herself. Oh, she'd pretended to. She'd claimed to have a sense of justice, a sense of right and wrong. But… well, her actions spoke for themselves, didn't they? She ran through them in her mind — everything she'd done, recently. Every action she'd taken. All thoroughly despicable, thoroughly selfish, and almost horrifyingly cruel. It didn't matter what Julie said. How she felt had been perfectly clear. In the past, Julie never gave a rat's ass about anyone else. Even Adam knew that.

Okay, then. Time to use that to her advantage.

"Fine," said Julie. "I won't shoot it. But leave me out of whatever pro-Hostile 29 thing you're doing this time. It's an HST, Marianna. It's not like I care what happens to it."

Then Julie turned, and walked out the door. Because Julie Parsoner knew that the Doctor was right. Adam had hijacked every camera in this building, and was watching, making sure he could kill anyone that tried to get the Doctor out of here. If Marianna and the others stopped creating stupid petitions and proposals and started doing things that Adam thought might actually work, they'd find themselves dead. In a second. And so would Julie.

Fine, then. She probably deserved it.

Julie wiped every expression that might give away her thoughts off her face, pretended to be just as selfish and uncaring as ever, and went back to her office. It was time to end this, once and for all.

Julie was going to break the Doctor out of the Initiative.

---

Marianna found Agent Finn loitering around the main containment area. He appeared to be just pacing the length of the room, thinking.

"He says thank you," said Marianna. "For the chocolate."

Finn glanced up at her. "I thought they would have taken it away from him."

"He ate it, first," Marianna said. She slumped against the wall, her eyes fixed on Finn. "Why'd you do it?"

"Everyone keeps acting like it's a big deal," said Finn. "I just gave him a chocolate bar. That's it."

"You got in trouble," Marianna said. "Decreased pay. Demerit points. Threat of a dishonorable discharge if you continued to interfere with Hostile 29."

"It was just chocolate," Finn insisted. "It wasn't poison."

Marianna kept staring at Finn. "You beat him senseless a month or two ago."

"Yeah, well, at least I didn't try to force him to rape brain-controlled women," Finn gritted through his teeth.

"I didn't do that," said Marianna. "That was Green."

"I don't really care," Finn snapped. "All I care about is that it happened."

Marianna nodded, her eyes still trained on Finn. This guy who Marianna just couldn't classify, couldn't work out. The kind of guy who'd be perfectly happy beating the Doctor senseless, who was completely fine telling the Doctor he was less than nothing, that no one even missed him. Yet would risk his own career to give the Doctor one chocolate bar.

"You can't see him again, can you?" Marianna asked.

"Nope," said Finn. "Apparently, if you give an HST chocolate, that makes you a renegade who's trying to help him escape." Finn gave a small laugh. "As if."

And Marianna had thought it was silly, as well. One bar of chocolate that Finn had smuggled into the Doctor's food hatch — it didn't mean anything, really. Marianna could tell just by talking to Finn that Finn still hated the Doctor. That Finn still wanted the Doctor locked up here as long as possible.

But the Doctor had seen something else in that gesture. Somehow, in some way that Marianna couldn't fathom, this chocolate bar proved to the Doctor that Riley was a good man. 'Better than I ever was to him,' the Doctor had told her.

Marianna had asked the Doctor to explain, but the Doctor had brushed the question off, telling her it was 'timey-whimey' and not something he wanted to bring up in a place where he was under 24-hour surveillance. But there was one thing that she could do for him — something he thought was vitally important.

"He… wanted me to give you a message," Marianna told Finn.

"Does he, now?" Finn asked, going back to his pacing.

"Yes," said Marianna. "He said to tell you that, when he offered, she still chose you."

Finn stopped in his tracks. His eyes went dark, his entire face flaring with sudden anger. "He did what?" Finn growled.

Marianna frowned. She had thought it was rather sweet, actually. That the Doctor was willing to reassure Finn that his girlfriend really did love him. And yet, somehow, Finn had reacted entirely unlike she'd expected.

The Doctor could gain comfort in a conversation meant to belittle him, and Finn could become enraged over a statement meant to thank him.

If all the Doctor and Finn's meetings resulted in this kind of miscommunication, it was no wonder that they hated each other.

"He offered?" Finn shouted. "How dare he! How dare he even think—"

"I'm not getting in the middle of your love triangle," Marianna interrupted. "I'm just passing on thanks for the chocolate."

And she strode out of the room, Finn's angry gaze still fixed on her. She didn't have time for this, at any rate. Marianna had a very important meeting with Colonel Haviland she had to prepare for.

Chapter 27

Colonel Haviland tried to be polite and courteous to the women, but he already knew what they would present him with. A petition carefully outlining every way in which Hostile 29 was not hostile, not a threat, and, in fact, just as much a person as any human being. All of which meant that Hostile 29 should be released into the wild.

Which Colonel Haviland wasn't about to allow.

"I understand that you ladies are upset about the treatment of Hostile 29," said Colonel Haviland. "I accept that Hostile 29 has been undergoing some rather strenuous testing recently. I have talked to Arthur Green, and he has assured me that Hostile 29 will be treated better in the future."

Which was a lie. Haviland hadn't spoken to Green at all about this subject (he'd been a little too preoccupied shouting at Green about Julie), but that hardly mattered. Hostile 29 wouldn't be in the Initiative very much longer, anyways.

"What about Julie?" one of the women demanded.

"Julie Parsoner will be given monetary compensation in order to make up for the emotional and physical pain she has endured," Colonel Haviland said. "I'm afraid that's all I can offer." He turned to Dr. Forlich. "But surely your Petition is not about Julie Parsoner?"

After all, Julie Parsoner was not part of their group, and they'd arranged this meeting before that particular scandal had taken place.

"Our Petition is about Dr. Arthur Green," said Dr. Forlich, as she handed Colonel Haviland the Petition they'd prepared. "We want him fired. And we found a replacement."

Colonel Haviland stared at the Petition, in wide eyed amazement. It wasn't at all what he'd expected.

"You cannot be serious!" Haviland cried.

"Perfectly serious," said Dr. Forlich. "It's the solution which makes the most sense for everyone. Dr. Green is causing problems. Since he's joined the team, Maggie Walsh, Francis Angleman, and Penelope Hunter have been murdered, and the Initiative has been in chaos. All we have to do to make the Initiative safe and productive is to fire Dr. Green, and make Hostile 29 — or, the Doctor, as he prefers to be called — head of the scientific research division in Green's place."

"Hostile 29?" Haviland cried. "You want to make an HST head of the Initiative?"

"It is perfectly reasonable," said Dr. Forlich. "The Doctor clearly knows far more than Green about the entire field of xenobiology, and is a far better scientific collaborator than Green. Since the Doctor has begun working with us, our productivity has increased exponentially. Imagine what the entire scientific research team at the Initiative could do with the same sort of scientific encouragement!"

"The Doctor won't have to leave the Initiative," one of the other women chimed in. "But he wouldn't be hurt or tortured anymore. And because he isn't human, we wouldn't have to pay him, either. All the money we free up in the budget could go towards providing the Doctor with suitable accommodations and regular meals of high quality."

"And what's to stop Hostile 29 from escaping once it is given free reign at the Initiative?" Colonel Haviland demanded.

"That's the ingenious part," Dr. Forlich explained. "If you look through the footage, you can see that the Doctor will not escape if there is any human being in trouble. The Doctor will always stay here to help someone, even at risk to himself. The best way to make sure the Doctor doesn't escape is to make him not want to escape, because he feels compelled to protect us."

"You want me to release our HSTs on a regular basis?" Colonel Haviland asked. "Or make up some sort of all-powerful threat to keep Hostile 29 docile?"

"We think you should tell the Doctor about Adam," one of the women replied.

Colonel Haviland stared at them.

"Every day that Adam is on the loose, we're in danger," said Dr. Forlich. "Everyone here knows it. If the Doctor knows it, and is put in a position where he can defend us, he'll do exactly what he always does in that situation. He'll neutralize the threat."

"Adam has been gathering an army of nonhumans against us!" snapped Colonel Haviland. "You want me to risk Hostile 29 joining them?"

"He wouldn't be joining them," said one of the women. "He'd be joining us."

"The Doctor doesn't like violence, bloodshed, or weapons," said Dr. Forlich. "If we explain to him that Adam was designed as a super-weapon, amassing an army against humanity, the Doctor will stop Adam. It may not be in the way you expect, but if you put the Doctor in a position where he can help us, he will."

"It's the perfect solution for everyone," said another woman. "The Doctor won't be tortured, anymore, and will be treated with the respect he deserves. The scientific team will excel with the Doctor leading us in our research. The soldiers already rely on the Doctor to help them in times of crisis — we could extend that to apply to teams out in the field, as well. You'd be gaining information — which is what you wanted the Doctor for, anyways. And you'd be getting rid of Adam, which none of us have been able to do, yet."

Colonel Haviland gaped at them. For a moment, he wasn't sure how to react to this. The idea of putting a nonhuman in charge of the science team at the Initiative was… preposterous! It would be like putting a cat in charge of the troops overseas!

Except…

The women were right. It was the perfect solution. Hostile 29 had proved itself smart, capable, strategic, and devoted to protecting the humans at the Initiative. If Hostile 29 was willing to go up against Adam, and was willing to build super-weapons and technologically powerful devices to assist in this goal — it would accomplish everything that Colonel Haviland had set out to do.

And in terms of escape — well, it was sheer luck that Hostile 29 hadn't escaped, yet. Hostile 29 was stubborn, and that had always been an obstacle to Colonel Haviland. But what if that stubbornness could be turned into a strength? It was true that Hostile 29 always aborted its escape attempts if it noticed someone in trouble. Always ran back to defend those who needed defending. Perhaps Dr. Forlich was right. Perhaps this would be more effective in terms of containing Hostile 29.

And it would get rid of Green, which was something Haviland had wanted to do for some time, now.

Colonel Haviland looked over the Petition, again. Yes. It was a very clever plan. Set Hostile 29 to work, give it a sense of responsibility and purpose, give it people to protect and an enemy to defeat, and Hostile 29 would voluntarily integrate itself into the military machine. Months of careful brainwashing, interrogation, and coercion could be circumvented, information might be obtained all at once!

It would be tricky to remove Green, but with the promise of this much knowledge at their disposal — concrete knowledge of the future, constantly at their fingertips, and the possibility of unlocking the secrets of time travel as well — Haviland thought that he could convince the higher-ups fairly easily.

He gave the women a pleasant smile.

"Thank you," he said. "I think you've outlined a very well-thought-out and achievable plan. It may take a few days for the approval to come through from Washington, but unofficially, I would like to accept your Petition."

---

The news spread through the Initiative faster than Lilitu's minions.

Hostile 29… no, wait, they weren't supposed to call it — him — that, anymore. The Doctor was going to be their boss. Head of the Scientific Department of the Initiative. Very shortly.

(And considering the power that entailed, it — he — might as well be considered the head of the whole Initiative. Taking orders from no one but Haviland and the higher-ups in Washington.)

It had blindsided everyone at the Initiative. No one had expected it. Not a single one of them. Marianna and the others had done most of the planning at a local coffee shop above, so no one had even overheard. But… Marianna had done it. She'd finally used the system to her advantage, played the Initiative at its own game, and won.

And it should have caused an uproar. No, not just that. It should have been unthinkable. Placing an HST in charge of the Initiative? Ridiculous! But after what Green had done to Julie, and after two months of Hostile 29 purposely saving human lives — it wasn't ridiculous.

Even though the soldiers had been more down on Hostile 29 recently, and 90% of the scientists still didn't believe Hostile 29 was a real person — for the most part, people were pretty okay with the Petition.

A number of the Initiative employees were downright happy about it.

The entire Initiative had been completely disgusted with what Green had done. And when they discovered how he was getting away with it, both soldiers and scientists (except for Green's team, of course) were incensed. Enraged. Most of the soldiers would probably have left, by now, if the drugs the Initiative had been administering to them since the day Professor Walsh employed them hadn't made that impossible. And if Marianna's Petition hadn't gone through, the scientists would probably have packed up and left, too.

Which meant that, in all fairness, most of the employees were happy to support the Petition simply because it got rid of Green. And didn't really care who the hell they got to replace him. At least Hostile 29 — sorry, the Doctor — acted like a human being, they all said. Green just acted like a sadistic maniac.

But a significant (and growing) minority of the Initiative employees were in full support because it was specifically Hostile 29 — no, the Doctor — who was being put in Green's place.

The soldiers knew that Hostile — no, wait, sorry, the Doctor — had provided backup against creatures inside the Initiative. That, no matter what his allegiances to the other HSTs, he was always completely devoted to saving human lives, even at risk to himself. And a number of the soldiers who had been too nervous to speak up in defense of the alien before now came forwards and voiced their support. Began telling the others about what Hosti — nope, the Doctor — had done for all the people there.

How this wasn't just replacing Green, but replacing him with someone who actually gave a damn.

Some listened. Others dismissed it as insanity. Most were just glad Green was gone.

But even those scientists who were floored by the decision, and even those soldiers who'd thought that the Doctor was just an animal — all of them eventually figured that this was for the best. Even Green's own team, who hadn't thought what they were doing to Julie was wrong, eventually gave in and decided to support the Petition. By the end of the day, nearly every single person at the Initiative believed that accepting Marianna's Petition might have been the wisest choice Colonel Haviland had ever made.

Because Adam was still out there.

It was the subject that none of them wanted to talk about, but the subject that was always on all their minds. Adam was unstoppable, unbeatable — a murderer without conscience or soul. Every day that Adam remained at large, every single one of them was in danger. They'd all been overjoyed when Jonathan had shown up, and when it was revealed that Jonathan had actually just worked a confidence trick on all of them, to make him seem like he was a super-monster-fighter, when he wasn't, everyone in the Initiative had gone back to being worried.

But the soldiers and scientists all knew that the Doctor was clever. Very clever.

The Doctor was strategic.

The Doctor could inspire normal people to do incredible things, could make even the most humdrum of soldiers do the unexpected.

The Doctor was Adam's equal and opposite in every way, and this Petition had just handed the Doctor everything he needed to make sure that Adam was gone for good. An army, a position where he could make a difference, the knowledge and tools he needed to fight back.

If the Initiative employees could just get their pronouns straight ('he', not 'it'), they knew that this Petition was ultimately to all their advantages. And most of them didn't think of the larger implications. The larger consequences of putting the Doctor in charge.

But Marianna knew.

Once the Doctor got rid of Adam, once he'd changed the Initiative for the better and made them all good people again, there would be nothing keeping the Doctor here anymore. And Marianna had carefully worked into the fine-print everything the Doctor needed to get himself out of there. It had taken her two months, but Marianna had done it.

She'd finally tricked Colonel Haviland into letting the Doctor go.

Chapter 28: Tonight

It had come out of nowhere. Completely unexpected. But all of a sudden, the security camera focused on him seemed to shudder, blink, then project an image onto the wall of the Doctor's cell.

"Tonight."

Then the image clicked off, and the camera went back to normal.

And the Doctor knew. Who had sent it. What it meant. If the Doctor didn't escape, now, he was dead. And so was the rest of the Initiative.

Possibly the entire human race.

---

Green hadn't known about the Petition. Hadn't known what Marianna Forlich was planning, or even really cared. But then he received an email from his colleague and collaborator.

"Thought you might find this interesting. There is no doubt Washington will accept. However, I believe we both know a way to prevent Colonel Haviland from placing a monster in charge of the Initiative. (Try to do it tonight.)"

Green opened the attachment, and read Marianna's Petition.

And by the time that Arthur Green reached the end, he knew that Colonel Haviland would accept it. That Washington would leap at the opportunity. That he would be fired to make way for some… inhuman thing to take his place.

No, not an inhuman thing. A dangerous inhuman thing.

More dangerous than anyone else in the Initiative. Human or sub-terrestrial, Finn had told them. The only reason you think Hostile 29 is harmless is because he's still on your side. The moment he isn't, you'll know why all the other HSTs are afraid of him.

Well, then. It seemed his collaborator, as usual, was right. There was one way that Arthur Green could keep his job.

And he'd do it that night.

---

Julie heard about the Petition.

At exactly the moment she realized it would do nothing.

A lesser genius would have claimed that the Petition would never work for the simple reason that Colonel Haviland insisted on calling the Doctor "Hostile 29" — even though, apparently, the rest of the staff were expected to address him by his preferred name. Talk about sending a message! Haviland might as well be wearing a t-shirt around saying, "Hostile 29, remember: you're still my prisoner."

And as long as the Doctor was still a prisoner, he'd still be watched and monitored as heavily as ever. The higher-ups would never allow the cameras to be turned off, or the monitors to be removed. Those same monitors and cameras that Adam had access to. Every one of the Doctor's plans would be learned before he could implement it. Every single action the Doctor took could be countered.

A lesser genius would think that would stop the Doctor. Not Julie.

Solution? Easy! Either the Doctor would disable the cameras himself (Julie knew he could, based on how he'd rewired all her security systems), or use them to his advantage. Make Adam think he was implementing one plan, while he was really implementing another.

And Marianna had to have worked that out. She had to have realized that the Doctor was smart enough to make all this work in his favor. To Marianna, this whole Petition thing probably seemed like a completely solid plan, with no holes or cracks.

But that was the problem. The holes and cracks. Not in Marianna's scheme.

In Adam's.

Thing was, the further Julie looked into this affair, the more troubling it was. Because Adam's whole scheme seemed solid on the outside, but… there were little tiny anomalies, if you looked a bit harder. Things that didn't add up. Things that seemed a little too convenient for Adam, or a little too lucky for the Doctor. Adam's just so happening to know about the Doctor's ship. Green — one of the most sadistic scientists in the Initiative — just so happening to be the one experimenting on the Doctor. The Doctor just so happening to not have the key to his ship on his person when he was captured. Washington just so happening to be in favor of containing the Doctor. Washington just so happening to be stalling the removal of the Doctor from Sunnydale (and Adam's clutches).

Julie had written some complex encoding and encryption to mask her trail as she snooped about. She looked at all the data trails, all the escape attempts, the entire causal chain of events that had happened since the Doctor was locked in the Initiative. And then she landed on something big. Something that she knew no one had wanted her to find.

An inquiry made by Green's collaborator. A collaborator Julie knew, based on a data trail that she'd finally managed to trace to its source, had to be Adam. An inquiry that implied that it was perfectly normal for a Carflodashian Vampire to be alone. An inquiry which was quickly negated and dismissed in the next correspondence, which took place after the Doctor mentioned to Marianna that Carflodashian Vampires did not split up. Julie knew what this inquiry meant.

Adam had never met any Carflodashian Vampires. Ever.

And if this really had been a trap for the Doctor, if someone had made those Carflodashian Vampires split up specifically to peak the Doctor's curiosity, get him away from his Vampire Slayer friend, and get him trapped in the Initiative… and that someone wasn't Adam….

Julie kicked herself for ignoring the Doctor this whole time. Because, damn it, if she'd just looked two feet past her feud with Green, she'd have spotted this right away! All of it! All the little things that kept implying that this situation was far worse than she could have imagined. All the little bits and pieces of the Doctor's incarceration that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

The Doctor had been right. Someone wanted the Doctor down here. Someone wanted Adam to discover the Doctor, take an interest in him, and try to break him. Someone wanted the Doctor weak, someone wanted the Doctor tested on a regular basis by a human scientist who had no compassion or empathy, and someone wanted to make sure that Adam got every single bit of information.

Someone wanted the Doctor helpless.

Julie could guess why. She had intercepted a snippet of a transmission (deleted the moment she read it) — one that proved to Julie that this whole affair went way over the Initiative's heads. Way over the heads of every human being on this planet, Julie suspected. One that spoke of a 'primary objective'. Either this behind-the-scenes someone knew the Doctor could stop them, and wanted him out of the way — or — they wanted the Doctor for themselves. Alive but helpless. A pawn to use in their own nefarious scheme. (But what did Adam have to do with any of this?)

Whoever was really behind all of this, whatever their primary objective was, one thing was clear.

Julie had to get the Doctor out of here.

Marianna's Petition didn't change that. At all. If this had just been Adam they were dealing with, it would have been a clever plan — give the Doctor the tools he needed to destroy Adam, change the Initiative, then just walk away when he was done.

But this went deeper than Adam. Way deeper.

If Adam's plans succeeded, Julie knew, then someone else's plans succeeded, too. And Julie didn't know who that someone else was. Or what their plans were. But everything that Julie had uncovered so far lead her to believe that the worst thing she could do was let them succeed.

The Petition changed nothing. All it changed was the time-scale.

Because this Petition had shifted the balance of power. It had been something unexpected, something threatening, something that Adam was worried might destroy all his plans. Julie had noticed the Doctor's increased number of frantic escape attempts today. She knew what it meant. Adam had heard about the Petition, Adam had felt threatened, and Adam was going to strike back. Make sure the Doctor was out of action, permanently.

Which, Julie suspected, was exactly what this someone behind the scenes was waiting for.

Julie closed her laptop computer. Yes, she still felt guilty for hurting the Doctor. Yes, she still felt seriously pissed at Green for what he'd done. But now, for the first time since Julie had started working at the Initiative, she felt something else.

A sense of moral responsibility.

This was her moment. Her time to shine. Her time to show the world just how much of a genius she, Julie Parsoner, really was. Her time to show the world that she could be just as good as any guy out there, just as amazing and world-shattering as any other person you'd care to name.

She knew the risks, she knew the consequences, she knew exactly what this would mean for her. Green could get away with anything, because he was doing the dirty-work of whoever was behind the scenes. And while she'd been doing the same, she could get away with anything, too. But she was done with that.

Tonight, Julie would get the Doctor out of the Initiative. Tonight, Julie would give the Doctor everything he needed to get back together with his Vampire Slayer friend. Tonight, Julie would create an alien/Vampire Slayer duo with the power and determination to take down Adam once and for all. Tonight, Julie was going to tell the Doctor everything. Tonight, the game was going to change.

Because tonight was the night that Julie Parsoner would save the world.

---

"It's not right," said Forrest, as he put his gun away in the armory. "The Colonel's gone completely nutty."

"For getting rid of Green?" asked Graham, shoving his own gun in next to Forrest's. "He should have done it ages ago."

"Not Green," said Forrest. "Hostile 29. I mean, it's like… electing a dog as President."

"Still gets rid of Green," muttered Agent Litsly, disarming his rifle and putting it away.

"You better get used to it," Graham told Forrest, grabbing Riley's gun from him and shoving it down beside their own. "Nothing's official, yet, but I'm pretty sure in a few days, Hostile 29 — I mean, the Doctor — will be running the scientific department of the Initiative. And it — he — might as well be running the whole thing, at that point."

"You ask me, we're supposed to be killing these animals," muttered Forrest. "Not giving them jobs."

"I thought you liked Hostile 29," said Graham.

"I like Pad Tai, too," said Forrest. "But I wouldn't make it head of the Initiative." He shrugged out of his armored vest. "Don't know why Washington got so excited by the idea."

Riley gave a dry laugh. "I can guess."

Graham and Forrest looked over at him.

Riley shrugged. "Extensive knowledge of battle tactics, experience with and knowledge of sophisticated technology, the ability to save the world at the snap of his fingers… oh, and the time machine. Any excuse to get someone like that working for us, Washington's going to jump at it."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't alter the fact that Hostile 29 is paranoid, delusional, insane, and basically still an animal," said Forrest, putting the vest aside. "I don't care if Hostile 29 does have a time machine. You ask me, it shouldn't be in charge of anything."

Riley didn't answer. As far as he was concerned, this was the best news he'd had so far. The chance to let the Doctor do what he did best, save innocent people and protect the world, without having to be anywhere near Buffy? Giving the Doctor the resources he needed to make sure Adam was gone, thus ensuring that Buffy wouldn't be in any more danger? It was almost too good to be true.

And if Buffy ever found out that Riley had been lying to her, he could always just say that he did it for a really, really good reason.

Chapter 29

The escape began when the Doctor felt the fake alarm that Julie had programmed in.

Julie had never known how the Doctor knew when an alarm was going off in the Initiative, but she'd known he had a way of doing so. She was actually pretty interested to see that he'd been able to feel the vibrations through the wall. Marianna was right — this one was smart.

The Doctor broke out of his cell, easily, and nearly ran right past Julie, before she stepped out in front of him. He stopped, and stared at her.

"Julie?" he asked.

"What?" said Julie. "Surprised?"

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. "Suppose not." He started edging back, his entire posture tense — ready to run, Julie guessed — his eyes darting around, frantically. "You're… going to kill me, aren't you?"

"I'm getting you out of the Initiative," Julie corrected.

The Doctor stopped his edging, and stared at her, his mouth falling open.

"Sorry, you're what?" the Doctor asked her.

"Getting you out," said Julie. "I designed all of these security systems. I can get around them."

"Well, actually, thing is, brilliant as they all are, your security systems aren't actually the ones keeping me here," said the Doctor.

"I know," said Julie. She took a bunch of papers out of her pocket, and waved them in his face. "These are."

The Doctor grabbed the papers from her, his brow furrowing as he looked them over. "You know, you might be the cleverest person here," he said. He considered. "Well, besides me, of course."

Julie snatched the papers back from him. She wanted to point out to him that he had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get himself out of there for two months, while she was going to get him out of there in one day, but there wasn't enough time to argue the point.

"You're right, though," said Julie, "I didn't put these security systems in. Adam did."

The Doctor blinked at her. "You… know about Adam?"

"Everyone knows about Adam," Julie said. "We've all been instructed not to mention him to you, because he's gathering an army of HSTs, and Haviland's afraid you'll join the wrong side. But I'm guessing he already made you an offer, and you refused."

"Everyone knows?" the Doctor said. "But… I've been warning you lot about him over and over again, and no one's taken me seriously."

"Marianna and the others are completely convinced that you were speaking metaphorically," said Julie. "I knew better. What's Adam planning tonight, anyways? You don't usually try to escape this much without a reason."

"No idea," said the Doctor. "Something bad."

"Good thing I'm getting you out, then," said Julie.

"You can't get me out," said the Doctor. "If you do, Adam will kill you."

"Not if I get caught," said Julie.

The Doctor blinked. "Sorry?"

"Letting you out of here is the equivalent of selling a hundred nukes to Cold-War Russia," said Julie. "If the army catches me, first, Adam's not going to bother killing me, because I'll be out of the way."

"Facing either life imprisonment or the death penalty," the Doctor told her.

"Oh, come on!" said Julie. "Like you think I don't deserve it! Grow up. Besides, I'll appeal, try to take this to the Supreme Court, and there's a chance I'll get out of it. If I wait around here for Adam to butcher me, then there's no chance I'll survive."

The Doctor opened his mouth to protest, but Julie cut him off.

"I'll make this easy for you," said Julie. "You can stand around here arguing, or you can escape and save the human race. It's your choice."

The Doctor sighed. "Julie, Adam's security measures, I've been trying to get around them for two months, now. You'll never—"

"I'm not an idiot," said Julie. "They're set up for you, not me. I just made some alterations I knew you'd never make."

The Doctor wouldn't purposely hurt any living creature — but Julie didn't really care if these traps killed off a few vampires. Or demons. Or humans. So she'd reprogrammed the security traps to trigger when the HSTs were around. And, yes, tinkering with them in that way did seriously increase (in the case of the older traps, often ensure) the risk of fatality to the creatures the traps caught. But as long as the Doctor got out, the rest of the HSTs could go to hell and rot, for all Julie cared.

The most important thing those traps would do was to prevent the HSTs from coming into the Doctor's sight or hearing range.

Because Julie had looked over the footage more carefully. And she'd seen exactly what Adam had done. The primary way that Adam ensured that the Doctor stayed put. Adam had figured out that the Doctor wouldn't leave as long as someone's life was in danger and the Doctor could save them. So, Adam being the master-manipulator, every single time the Doctor got too far along in his escape attempt, there was always someone whose life was in danger. Either an HST that got loose and threatened human beings, or some dangerous experimental weapon accidentally programmed to blow them all sky high, or some nonhuman creature that the soldiers were about to kill.

The only reason the Doctor couldn't tell why he wasn't able to leave was because whenever he thought he'd worked out Adam's game, he'd get snagged on the original security systems set up by the mysterious behind-the-scenes someone. But Julie had managed to reconfigure those easily (too easily, she thought, which was worrisome).

As for Adam, well, Julie had figured out how to deal with that, too.

The Doctor always helped those in need — Julie couldn't change that.

Adam made sure there was always someone in need when the Doctor was escaping (either human or sub terrestrial, or, if he got far enough, both) — Julie couldn't change that, either.

But Julie could make sure that the Doctor didn't know about it.

And honestly, considering that the Initiative was mainly filled with jerk-bags like her, who'd just stood around and done nothing while the Doctor was tortured every single day, Julie wasn't really averse to letting some of them die. In fact, if it was Arthur Green, she'd probably enjoy it.

The Doctor gave her a warning stare.

Julie sighed. "I didn't kill anyone." (Not yet, anyways.) "You happy? Now, stop talking, and start running, already!"

"Right, then," said the Doctor, and began to run.

Julie caught up with him, and added, in a very quiet voice, "And Doctor? I think… you might be in a little more trouble than you imagined."

"Oh, I know exactly how much trouble Adam is," said the Doctor. "And I have a pretty good idea of his plans."

Julie raised her eyebrows at him. "Adam," she said, "doesn't know how to make Carflodashian Vampires split up."

The Doctor stared at Julie for a moment. "What do you mean Adam doesn't—"

"Shh!" Julie hissed.

"Are you saying that all these security systems, everything that's been set up at the Initiative—"

"Mostly Adam," Julie confirmed. "He's the primary force keeping you here, but he's not the one who put you here. If Riley Finn hadn't blurted out that you travelled through time, Adam probably wouldn't have cared about you at all."

"Yes, I was a bit upset about that," the Doctor grumbled. He ran a hand through his hair. "But why would someone have wanted me here in the first place?"

"And why are they so keen to make sure that Adam knew about you?" Julie added.

The Doctor glanced at her. "You have a theory?"

"I have a string of data that makes no sense," said Julie. "And a very brief clip from a transmission that was deleted the moment I detected it."

"Tell me," said the Doctor.

Julie did.

Chapter 30

It was bad.

The Doctor knew he still didn't understand just how bad it was, but it was certainly worse than he'd thought. And if he'd had the first idea about what Adam could actually do, he'd have seen that there was another someone right away.

Julie told him about the security systems containing him — not the Initiative's own, but the other ones, the ones that were actually preventing him from escaping. Most were obviously Adam's work, but some of them — the ones laid at the very beginning of the Doctor's incarceration — were… well, at a guess, the Doctor would say they were either alien or from the future. Or both. The genetic lock on the outer door, Julie pointed out, hadn't at all resembled the genetic lock that Adam had installed on the door to the research wing. This one had been subtle and bizarre — enough so that it had taken Julie twenty tries to even detect it.

And then there was Washington.

Colonel Haviland had mentioned that Green had "friends" high up in Washington, protecting him. "Friends" that overlooked things that should have gotten anyone else fired. "Friends" that wanted to make sure that Green continued his tests on the Doctor, and that Adam knew the results of those tests. "Friends" that were making sure that Colonel Haviland couldn't transfer the Doctor to Washington, that the Doctor was kept in the Initiative, in Sunnydale. Adam may be a genius, he may be technologically sophisticated, but he wasn't in Washington. Green's "friends" couldn't possibly be Adam.

"This is big," said Julie. "Bigger than the Initiative, bigger than Adam, bigger than all of it. You may claim that Adam's been manipulating us, but something's been manipulating Adam. And that something wants you."

"I should have seen this sooner," the Doctor muttered, grabbing Julie and thrusting her out of the way of gunfire. "It's so obvious."

"That transmission I intercepted," Julie said, "what is it? What does it mean?"

"I have no idea," said the Doctor. "But if whoever wants information on me is a time traveler…" He snuck out, and managed to dodge past a number of troops that couldn't see him in the power outage that Julie had caused. "There are a lot of time traveling races out there — most of whom I'm not on very good terms with. The Eight Legs. The Osirians. The Time Agency — ooh, that could get paradoxical, if Jack's still around. The Nekkistani. The Slitheen… actually, funny thing, just ran into the Slitheen a short while back, trying to wipe out humanity during the Stone Ages." The Doctor winced, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, I hope it's not the Slitheen, again. That'd be nasty."

"So… it's these… Slitheen, then?" Julie asked, pulling a hand gun out of her bag and taking aim at a sharp-shooter across from them.

"Might not be!" said the Doctor, twisting the gun out of her hands and disassembling it, then ducking to avoid the shot. "Could be any of those, or others that have time travel. I have a nasty suspicion this might tie in with something odd that happened to me a while back. Which would be very, very bad."

"Why?" Julie asked, dragging the Doctor down a back alley and past a disabled security trap.

"Because there would be no way in the universe that that lot would ever ally themselves with Adam," the Doctor said. "Which means if it's really them, they're being clever. And I never like it when they're clever." He gave a sharp hiss, as Julie pushed him down so that he avoided being shot by a barrage of bullets. "Thanks for that."

"You can repay me by figuring out what the hell is going on, here, and stopping it," said Julie, helping him to his feet again and leading him towards the outer door. "Since I'll probably be too busy dying to be much help to you in the future."

The outer door with the genetic lock. The one that the Doctor couldn't open. The one that yielded beneath Julie's touch as if no one had tampered with it at all. The door swung open, revealing the outside world — the moon and sky and stars, the trees and grass.

The Doctor stepped outside.

For the first time in two months, he felt the wind through his hair, the fresh air in his lungs, the sting of night upon his face. It was second only to that feeling he got after being planet-bound for a long time, when he stepped into the TARDIS, and felt the pull of the vortex along her outer shell as he slipped into space and time.

He turned to face Julie, who stood in the doorway, not moving.

"You better run," said Julie. "I'm not going to be around to save your neck if they catch you, again."

"Come with me," the Doctor said.

"I told you," said Julie, "I'm trying to get caught."

Julie Parsoner. The one who always worked alone, always insisted on doing things her own way. Even if that meant being caught, tried, and executed as a traitor to her country, just because she'd helped him.

"You don't have to get caught to escape Adam and whoever else is behind this," the Doctor told her. "You're clever, Julie. Very clever. Come with me, help me. Live."

Julie just laughed at him. "Find your Vampire Slayer friend," she said. "And don't stop, for any reason, until you do. Got that? Any reason!"

"Julie—"

The sounds of marching boots reverberated behind her, and the Doctor knew that the soldiers were coming.

"Get out of here," Julie said. "Before they find you, too."

And the Doctor knew. Julie would never accept his help. She might have realized that she'd been selfish, she might have discovered she'd been doing the wrong thing. But she'd always been proud, and he wouldn't be able to change that — not in the next few seconds.

"Thank you, Julie Parsoner," the Doctor said.

Then he turned, and started running. He stopped, a few steps away, and spun around. "Just in case I don't make it," the Doctor called back to her, "tell the others: UNIT. Code 9. TARDIS."

Julie gave him a thumbs up.

A shout from the soldiers behind her, and the ring of gunfire, and the Doctor knew he'd outstayed his welcome. If he didn't get out of there, now, he never would.

He ran.

Sprinted as fast as he could through the trees, along the grass, ducking and dodging and trying to stay as much in the shadows as possible. And it was so good to run again, out in the open like this. To finally be able to see the sky again, hear the birds again, smell that damp residue left after a spring rainfall. The Initiative troops were out in full force, searching for him. Which would have been a problem in the cramped corridors of the Initiative, but out here in the open, the Doctor could get around them, easily. For a while, the Doctor didn't even care where he was running to, just so long as he was running, and free.

But after about ten minutes, he decided he should probably form a plan.

Well, the first thing he should do was find Buffy. If only to reassure her that he was all right, as she'd probably worked out by now that he was in a wee bit of trouble. Riley had claimed that Buffy thought he was gone, but the Doctor knew better. The TARDIS had, no doubt, been moved by Adam, but it'd still be around to translate. Buffy would know what that meant.

So, yes. Find Buffy. Figure out what she knew about Adam. Work out some way to get everyone out of the Initiative. Rescue Julie. And then all he had to do was defeat a near indestructible biomechanical super-soldier he'd never seen before, who had an intelligence to rival his own and two months worth of knowledge about Time Lord biology.

Easy peasy!

The hard part was working out who'd wanted the Doctor in the Initiative in the first place. And why. And what this other party was planning. The most worrisome thing was that the Doctor had a horrible suspicion he knew the answer already. He just really, really hoped his hunch was wrong.

(Trio of Hell indeed.)

The Doctor was on his way back to the dorms, hoping that Buffy would be somewhere around that area, when he heard the scream.

It was a desperate scream, a scream of utter fear and terror. A scream that cried out for help. The Doctor knew that there were Initiative troops out here, looking for him. He knew that Adam would do anything to get him back into the Initiative, and that this was probably a trap. But he couldn't ignore someone in trouble.

"I'm going to regret this," he muttered to himself, as he plowed through the forest towards the scream.

And there, in a clearing, he found a large, yellow demon with twisting horns and a green tail, lumbering towards an innocent human, growling menacingly.

"Oi!" said the Doctor.

The demon spun around.

"Terribly sorry, but you wouldn't happen to know the way to…" The Doctor trailed off, as his eyes landed on the man he'd been about to rescue. A face he knew better than any other, after these long months of captivity.

Arthur Green.

The Doctor stuffed his hands into his pockets, trying to look far more nonchalant about this than he actually felt. If it had been anyone else, the Doctor wouldn't have hesitated. If it had been anyone else, the Doctor would have swept in to save him right away.

But Green…

How far would you go?

"I've been waiting for you, Time Lord," said the demon. "Adam was very upset that you left the Initiative."

"Actually, pretty sure he wanted me out of the Initiative, eventually," said the Doctor. "Just on his terms. Not mine." He stepped forwards. "You do realize that Adam's just using you lot to do his dirty work, and the moment your backs are turned, he'll kill you all, yes?"

"Adam has warned me of your lies," snarled the demon. "Adam shall bring us out of the darkness, and make us glorious!"

"You don't believe that," said the Doctor. "You're just frightened about what he'll do to you if you refuse to join him."

"I fear nothing," insisted the demon, far too emphatically. "I accepted Adam's offer." He growled. "You should be the one afraid, Time Lord. You're the one who refused. And now you pay the price."

Green tried to crawl away, but the demon turned and grabbed Green by the throat, lifting him up in the moonlight. Green looked completely terrified — more so, the Doctor realized, because neither he nor the demon had been speaking English. To Green, all he could hear of their conversation was growling and hissing.

"Put him down," the Doctor commanded. "Your fight's with me. Not him."

"Adam told us that if you ever left the Initiative, we were to go out and slaughter as many humans as it took to make you return," said the demon.

And they had to start with this one.

How far would he go?

"And what if I don't go back to the Initiative?" the Doctor said. "What if I decide I've reconsidered, and I want to join Adam's army, instead? What then?"

The demon gave a small smile, and then asked, in English, "You would join the army set to destroy humanity?"

"Not join, exactly," the Doctor conceded, also in English. "More surrender. But… well, if it stops this slaughter of innocent humans you've planned for tonight? Absolutely."

The demon waved Green in front of the Doctor, his sharp demonic teeth coming dangerously close to the man's neck. "And what if it prevents the death of only one human? This human?"

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Yes," he admitted.

"The one who tortured you?" said the demon. "The one who tormented you? The one who brought you nothing but pain and misery? You'd surrender everything — your life, your ship, your freedom — to save him?"

"You know, when you put it like that, it does sound a bit daft," the Doctor admitted, scratching the back of his neck. Then he beamed. "But, well. Suppose someone has to! If the chance arises, and whatnot."

The demon eyed the Doctor suspiciously. "The chance has arisen."

"Ah," said the Doctor. "I was hoping you wouldn't mention that."

The demon's hand squeezed around Green's throat.

"Surrender," said the demon, "or this human will be the first to die in a massacre unrivalled in human history."

The Doctor wanted to point out to the demon that that was technically impossible, considering the number of humans who lived in Sunnydale and the number they'd need to rival, say, the fall of Troy, or either World War, or the Yangzhou massacre in China, but this wasn't really the time and place to argue semantics.

Not with Green choking in the demons hands, writhing in panic, tears tumbling out of his eyes. When Green spoke, his choked voice was high and desperate.

"Please! Put me down! Please!" Green said. "I don't want to die. Please!"

"Release him," demanded the Doctor.

"Not unless you surrender," said the demon, as he squeezed harder. "Everything, Doctor. Your life, your ship, your freedom. Your future."

Green's eyes bugged out, and he made a choking sound. He was mouthing something, desperately, over and over again, something that looked like, "Help me."

"All right, all right!" the Doctor snapped. "That's enough!" He took a deep breath. "You want me? You want my TARDIS? Fine. I give up."

The demon's grip loosened, just a hair. "And how do we know you're telling the truth?" he asked. "They call you trickster. Liar. You accept surrender, then stab your adversaries in the back. We know you far too well, now, Lord of Time. You cannot fool us as easily as you've fooled others in the past."

"No tricks," the Doctor promised. "No treachery. Nothing. I'll give Adam everything he wants. All of time and space. On one condition. He leaves the Earth alone."

The demon considered. Then he gave an evil grin. "I don't think Adam's going to like that."

And squeezed again.

Green gasped for air, and the Doctor could see his eyes losing focus, his limbs twitching with lack of oxygen, his head beginning to loll.

"Wait!" the Doctor shouted. "You don't understand what I'm offering! It's not what you think."

"You're offering your services as chauffer," said the demon. "You'll bring us all into your ship, with the promise of taking us to conquer some distant realm, then abandon us on some uninhabited world far away from Earth, where we cannot hope to escape."

Ah, so that was that plan out the window, then.

"No! That's not what I'm offering!" the Doctor insisted.

The demon slackened his grip, and Green drew in a gasp of air.

"I'm listening," the demon said.

"Adam doesn't want me," the Doctor explained. "He only needs me alive because of the symbiotic link. But he doesn't need me sentient."

The demon's grip now released considerably. "What do you mean?"

"If he promises to leave the Earth alone," said the Doctor, "I'll show him how to control my mind without killing me."

The demon lowered Green. "A tempting offer."

"And one with no tricks, no strings attached, get it while it's hot!" said the Doctor.

"But of course, once Adam takes control of your mind, he could take over the Earth, anyways," said the demon. "And there'd be nothing you could do to stop him."

"If he gives me his word," said the Doctor, "that's good enough for me. I'll trust him."

The demon thought the matter over for a long moment, puzzling it out. The Doctor could hear the sounds of Initiative soldiers nearby. Green tried to shout out, but the demon extended a hand across Green's mouth, forcing him silent.

"No deal," came a gruff voice from the nearby trees.

The Doctor and the demon turned to find another demon — this one with red eyes and twisting teeth and shimmering multi-colored scales — coming out from the darkness.

"Adam says the Time Lord lies," said the multi-colored demon. "That he seeks to deceive and trick us into making a mistake."

"How can I?" the Doctor demanded. "I'm offering you everything I have. Me, my ship, my mind. There's no part of me left to trick you with. Myself for the Earth. It's a simple deal."

"And one that Adam refuses," said the multi-colored demon. "Adam gave you your chance, Time Lord. You refused him." He gave a snarly grin. "No second chances."

Oh, bugger.

"Adam says take the Time Lord," the multi-colored demon informed the yellow-skinned one. "Dispose of the human."

"With pleasure," said the yellow-skinned demon, and raised up a clawed hand to slash at Green's chest.

"No!" cried the Doctor, running forwards and shoving the yellow-skinned demon over onto the ground.

The yellow-skinned demon fell, but did not loosen his grip on Green. The multi-colored demon pried the Doctor off of the yellow-skinned demon, pinning his arms to his torso, trapping him in place. The yellow-skinned demon gave a victorious grin, and turned back to his human prey.

How far would you go?

As the Doctor heard the clomp of nearby Initiative soldiers, he knew the answer to that question. To save one human life — even this one — he knew exactly how far he'd go.

He'd do anything.

Even taking the one option left in this situation. The option that, the Doctor knew, would mean doom for him. The one thing he wanted to do less than anything else in the universe, at the moment — and that included having tea with a Dalek, landing on an island full of drashigs, and rushing off to face whatever the Ood kept wanting him to do that would lead to his death. The one thing he knew would destroy him — if not physically, than emotionally. But it was the only way the Doctor knew to save Green's life, so he was going to do it.

The Doctor was going to let himself get caught.

Chapter 31

Riley Finn had been leading his team through the forest, when he heard the voice. That familiar, loud, English-accented voice. Shouting.

"I told you I'd surrender!" the voice shouted. "Me, my ship, anything you want! Just let him go!"

Yeah, that was the Doctor. Riley would recognize that desperate pleading for someone else anywhere. He waved to his team, and they ran forwards. It wasn't really cruel, bringing the Doctor back, Riley decided. After all, the Doctor was going to run the entire Initiative in only a few days.

And then the Doctor could do exactly what he'd always done. Helping save the world and fighting evil monsters. Without the torture and the malnourishment and the other things that would make Riley feel incredibly guilty. The Doctor could just exist, as usual. Except now he'd do it far away from Buffy.

Riley burst out into a clearing, to find the Doctor being restrained by a multi-colored scaly demon with red eyes, continually shouting at a yellow-skinned demon who was currently threatening…

Arthur Green.

Well, that was just typical of the Doctor, wasn't it? Offering himself in return for someone who'd been torturing him. (And as long as Buffy wasn't around, Riley was perfectly happy to let the Doctor keep doing it.)

"You don't want him," the Doctor pleaded. "You want me. Just take me, kill me, chip me, I don't care! But leave him alone!"

Riley gave the signal, and in unison, the entire team fired on the demons.

The yellow-skinned demon sizzled under the electricity, dropping Green onto the ground. Green gasped for air, trying to regain his footing.

The multi-colored demon spun around at the last minute, flinging the Doctor into the path of the electricity, and darting off. Riley and his team ran after it. The Doctor and the other demon were unconscious — they'd stay where they were. Or they'd be found by another team of Initiative soldiers, who were out in full force.

The multi-colored demon was fast, though, and Riley found himself panting to keep up. He darted through trees, across fields of grass, around a building, and…

The demon grunted, as it was suddenly flipped through the air with a flying kick.

The demon rolled with the flip, and managed to land on its feet, lunging for the figure darting towards it. The figure blocked its attack expertly, following it with two punches and a knock to the head that sent it reeling. The demon snarled, and pounced on the figure, who let the demon come at her, then seized it by the arm, using its own momentum to force it against the wall.

"Riley, now!" the figure shouted at him.

And Riley shot the demon unconscious using his Taser Blaster.

The demon cried out as it slumped onto the ground, the petite blond girl dusting her hands off nearby.

"Wow, pretty," she said. "That's something you don't see every day. It's like the Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat of demons."

"Thanks," Riley told Buffy, as his team rounded up the demon. "We're having sort of a rough night."

Buffy's eyes met Riley's. "You haven't seen…?"

Riley had always thought it would be hard to lie to Buffy. He'd always thought that, after revealing the Initiative to her, he'd never be able to look her in the eye and tell her another lie again.

"Nope," he lied.

Turns out, it was pretty easy.

He turned to his team. "Take this one back. Then I want a roundup of the other HST we caught tonight and Hostile 29."

His team nodded, then turned to carry out their orders. Forrest gave him a warning-glare, but went off with the others.

"Hostile 29?" Buffy asked. She gave a small laugh. "You just love your hostile numbers."

"Escaped, recaptured," said Riley, as his team scurried out of earshot. He put his arms around Buffy. "Nothing to worry about."

Nope, nothing to worry about. Not for him. Not for her. Hostile 29 was out of the way, and his life could go back to normal.

"Well, what about that other demon-thing you got when you were recapturing Hostile 29?" said Buffy. "I mean, it was, you know, demon-like, right? It wasn't, like, wearing a brown pinstripe suit or carrying a sonic screwdriver or—"

"Buffy," said Riley, "I keep telling you. The Doctor isn't in the Initiative." He gave a small sigh. "I don't know why you're so worked up about him. I mean, wasn't he just here?"

"That was the next Doctor," said Buffy. "His past-self is still here, somewhere. And he's in trouble. Really big trouble. Buffy-type trouble."

"I'm sure he's just fine," said Riley.

But Riley could tell from the look in Buffy's eyes that she didn't believe him. She never did.

Buffy snuggled into Riley. "Thanks for helping me look all this time. I know the Doctor's not your favorite guy in the world, but…"

"It's all right," said Riley. "As long as you're around, everything is all right."

Riley heard the radio crackle on his belt. "Lilac 12, we have a situation here."

Riley disentangled himself from Buffy, and grabbed the walkie-talkie. "Report."

"Hostile Sub-T not here. I repeat. Hostile 29 is missing."

Riley wanted to hit his head on something. This was all he needed. A Doctor feigning unconsciousness, so he could escape. And worse still, if the Doctor actually succeeded in escaping, now, then Buffy would find out about how Riley had been lying to her, without knowing anything about the Petition or the Doctor becoming head of the Initiative, and… this whole thing was just snowballing out of control.

Who knew one little lie could be so difficult?

"On my way," said Riley, and clipped the walkie-talkie back to his belt.

"Oh, I can go, too!" Buffy offered.

"I thought you were looking for the Doctor," said Riley.

"Well, yeah, but, I mean… you know." Buffy gave a small shrug.

Riley gritted his teeth. He did know. The Doctor could take care of himself, that's what Buffy was thinking, while Riley was just some wimpy stupid human who needed superhuman people constantly looking out for him. The Doctor could save Buffy. But Riley had to wait and get rescued, because he wasn't macho enough for Buffy.

"You said the Doctor was in trouble," said Riley. "Don't stop looking for him just because I'm having a bad night at work."

Buffy hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," said Riley. "I get that he's important to you. So you keep looking for him. I'll go catch and contain Hostile 29, then I'll come back and see if I can help you find him. Okay?"

Buffy gave him one of those smiles that seemed to make the air around her burst with sunlight. She swept him into a very tight hug.

"You have no idea how much this means to me," Buffy told him.

Riley gave her a smile, and watched as she pulled away from him and ran off to look for the Doctor. To look for the man that the entire Initiative was out to catch. To look for the man that Riley had just shot unconscious with a bolt of electricity.

Riley really, really hoped that Buffy didn't find the Doctor. Ever.

Riley turned towards his team. He hadn't done anything wrong, he told himself. He hadn't been the one to torture the Doctor. He hadn't been the one to capture the Doctor. The only thing that Riley was guilty of was sitting around doing nothing while the Doctor had been mistreated.

Riley had done nothing wrong.

He raced to help his team.

Chapter 32

It was another two or three hours before Riley got the all clear on his walkie-talkie. Hostile 29 was secured.

"What happened?" Riley asked Agent Litsly, when he got back to the Initiative.

"No idea," said Litsly. "I was out looking for it — him — when I dropped by here and noticed the footage on the monitor." He pointed to the surveillance monitor beside him, which now displayed an unconscious pinstripe-suited Doctor lying in his cell. "I went down to the cell, and sure enough, there it — he — was. Checked the security footage. Blanked out. No idea who brought Hostile 29 in, or when."

"Dunno why it was trying to run," muttered Forrest. "What with the job promotion."

"Did anyone actually tell him about the job promotion?" Graham asked.

Everyone looked at one another. It was clear that none of them had.

"Everyone knows," said Litsly. "Even Green probably knows, by now."

"If the Doctor was that desperate to escape, I'm guessing he didn't know," said Riley. He faltered. "Or he knew something we didn't."

Which was bad. Very bad. Because Riley knew from bitter experience that the Doctor may sound crazy, but he was usually right.

"He did keep shouting something about tonight," Litsly admitted. "But… we never really pay attention to anything it — he — says." He hesitated. "I guess… what with him about to be our bosses, we… probably should."

Now Riley really did have a bad feeling about this. The Doctor must have believed that something bad was going to happen to him tonight, if he stayed at the Initiative. And here he was, back in the Initiative. Dropped back in his cell, unconscious, after disappearing for a few hours. No one knew where he'd gone or what had happened to him, or who'd brought him back.

But Riley was starting to wonder if it had actually been a member of the Initiative who'd brought the Doctor back. Or if someone or something else had gotten to him, first.

"I'm gonna go check on him," Riley told the others, grabbing Graham's swipe card, and walking towards the secure area where they were keeping the Doctor. "Just to make sure everything's all right."

"He really shouldn't be going down there," Litsly said. "After the whole… chocolate thing."

"Nope," Graham agreed. "I mean, Riley might actually be nice to Hostile — the Doctor — instead of punishing it — him."

"And if we saw something like that happening, it'd be our duty to stop Riley," Forrest added. "And beat up Hostile 29."

They all looked at one another for a moment.

"Wanna go grab a coffee somewhere up top?" asked Forrest, putting his gun away.

"Just what I was thinking," Graham agreed, as he and Litsly put their guns down, and left the Initiative for the evening.

---

Riley peered in at the unconscious Doctor through the electrified glass door. It was just as Riley thought — someone had very obviously done something to the Doctor between the time when Riley'd caught him in the woods, and now. The Doctor's many layers of clothing hid most of his body, but Riley could see the patch of dried blood by the corner of his mouth, and a number of bloodspots soaking through his suit. Riley hoped these were the only things wrong with him.

As if he knew that Riley was there, as if he could tell what was happening in the outside world, the Doctor's eyes popped open.

"Doctor?" Riley asked.

The Doctor's head swiveled over to Riley, eyes fixed on him. Steady, determined eyes. And then he growled.

Riley shifted uneasily. "Doctor?" he tried again.

The Doctor didn't say anything, but climbed to his feet, eyes still fixed on Riley. Eyes filled with anger, hatred, disgust. Eyes filled with venom. Then, without warning, he ran at the electrified glass door, the electricity surging through his body as he struck it, throwing him back against the far side of his cell.

Riley backed away.

The Doctor didn't speak, but gave another growl. His eyes fixed back on Riley, and as he got up, Riley recognized the posture. The way the Doctor stood, the way he growled, every single bit of him screamed Hostile Sub-Terrestrial.

The Doctor leapt at the electrified glass, again, and again, was thrown backwards against the wall.

Riley felt a chill run through him. This was it. Someone had done something to the Doctor's head, taken away his soul or something, and turned him into an animal. This was the Doctor — a super powerful alien creature that could wipe out whole planets — without the compassion, the forgiveness, the stubborn pacifism, and the fondness for humanity. Oh, God, every single person on this planet was doomed.

Especially Riley.

Riley clenched his gun, but… no, wait, even if this had been a real gun and not a Taser Blaster, Riley couldn't kill the Doctor. The Doctor didn't die! He just regenerated! What was Riley going to do? What could Riley possibly do?

"I didn't do anything wrong," Riley pleaded with the Doctor. "You… you like me. I gave you a chocolate bar, remember?"

The Doctor didn't seem to care. He just glared at Riley with that angry hatred in his eyes, his entire body far too still, as if getting ready to pounce.

"I… I just wanted to save your life," said Riley, taking another step back. "I was looking out for you this whole time, I swear. I didn't… it wasn't my fault!"

The Doctor curled his hands into fists, and, as if on cue, the electricity around the Doctor's cell buzzed off, and the glass door slid aside.

How the hell did he do that?

The Doctor glanced around at the glass, the dying down electricity, and the entire new situation he'd been handed. Then he locked eyes with Riley, once more. And Riley thought he could see a spark of something else, in those eyes, a spark of fear and horror.

But he must have been imagining it, because the next second, it was gone.

For a moment, neither one said anything, neither even dared to move. Riley knew what this was. Riley and the Doctor. Captor and captive. Two men in love with the same woman, finally fighting one another face to face. A fight with no morals, no integrity, no holds barred. Just that animalistic urge to attack, to kill, to tear apart piece by piece until nothing remained.

Riley Finn had the horrible feeling that he was going to lose. Big time.

Then, faster than Riley could process, the Doctor surged forwards, a blur of brown pinstripes. Riley raised his Taser Blaster, but discovered it had been twisted out of his hands, and was now being wielded by the crazy pinstripe suited man who was definitely not the Doctor anymore. Not even remotely. The man stared at Riley, anger and pain and pure, raw, burning hatred in his eyes.

Then the Doctor turned the gun on himself, and fired.

Chapter 33

"Interesting," said Green, examining the Doctor within his cell. "Very interesting."

The Doctor had regained consciousness, and resumed running at the electrified glass door, over and over again. He'd been doing it, apparently, since last night.

Becky couldn't quite believe her eyes. The Doctor — the one who never used violence, never attacked, never fought back, had somehow been regressed into a Hostile Sub Terrestrial. When she looked at him, into those angry, hateful eyes, she knew that any bit of Doctor that was once there had been taken away.

"How… long has he been like this?" Becky asked Colonel Haviland.

"Since last night," said Haviland. "Agent Finn says he subdued Hostile 29, left it with Green, then ran off to take down another HST. When Finn returned, Hostile 29 was gone."

"What happened to him?" Becky asked Green.

"What are you asking me for?" said Green. "I ran off as soon as I could. I was lucky to escape with my life."

"You just… left him there?" Becky asked. "All alone?"

Green gave her a look that said, 'why not?' Becky turned away from Green, in disgust. Had that really been her, a short time ago? She'd been ready to shoot the Doctor for daring to annoy them, back when all he'd wanted was to help his friend. She hadn't come into the Initiative acting like that. She'd never been a particularly violent person.

Marianna was right. The Initiative was turning them all into monsters. The Doctor had turned them back.

And this was how they repaid him.

Green walked forwards, studying the Doctor with that hungry curiosity in his face. "It appears that the veneer of humanity has been stripped away," Green noted. "We can finally see the creature for what it really is."

"Or maybe," said Becky, "someone's put some sort of microchip into his head to make him behave this way."

Green ignored her. As usual. But Becky started noticing something else, as Green advanced towards the cell. The Doctor had stopped throwing himself against the door. For a moment, he stood completely still, looking at Green with that same angry bitterness in his eyes.

Green took another step forwards, and the Doctor took a step back. And again. And again. Until the Doctor's back was against the far wall of his cell, his eyes still fixed, steadily, on Green.

"He's afraid of you," Becky realized.

Oh, and of course he would be! If all higher brain functions had been eliminated, then the Doctor would know only that Green's showing up meant pain. But if that were the case, it suggested that he wasn't being used on remote control, that whatever thing was messing with his brain was hooked into his actual psyche.

"Poor creature," said Green. "I suppose there's nothing we can do now except put it down."

Becky didn't bother answering. She had an idea. An idea she wanted to test. Because if this whatever-had-happened was connected with the Doctor's psyche…

Becky grabbed Green's swipe card and swiped it through the reader beside the cell.

"No!" Colonel Haviland shouted, as the electrified glass panel slid aside.

Green leapt backwards across the room, obvious panic spreading across his face. The Doctor gave a wordless shout, and Green shrieked for the soldiers.

"Kill it!" Green told them, as they flocked around the Doctor's cell, leveling Taser Blasters and some actual bullet firing guns at the Doctor. "Kill it before it kills us all!"

"Wait!" cried Becky, racing out in front of the Doctor. She turned to face the Doctor, that angry, disgusted, enraged look still in his eyes, waiting for something to happen. Anything to happen. But nothing did. She glanced back over her shoulder at the soldiers and Colonel Haviland. "See? He's not hurting me. Or anyone else. He might not have any higher brain functions, but he's not a danger to us."

The soldiers all hesitated, their eyes flicking over to Colonel Haviland. Green kept shrieking that they should kill Hostile 29 before it went crazy and murdered them all. But Colonel Haviland was very clearly noticing Becky's point. He held up his hand, and the soldiers all relaxed, putting their guns down.

Becky looked back at the Doctor, and noticed that he'd backed away from her, too. His eyes darted around, surveying the soldiers nearby. His eyes then flicked back to Becky, and she thought she saw a hint of something desperate in those eyes.

Then he bolted.

The soldiers all made to catch him, to bar his escape, but the Doctor wasn't heading the way they expected. Fast enough that they barely had time to register what was going on, the Doctor raced towards one soldier standing apart from the others, snatched his gun — an actual bullet-firing one — and then came the bang of a gunshot shattering the air.

The Doctor collapsed onto the ground, clutching his now bleeding shoulder.

"It's become a complete idiot," said one of the soldiers, taking back the gun. "That's the fifth time it's gotten its hands on a gun and wound up shooting itself."

Becky leaned down, trying to soothe the writhing Doctor. Guns. That was weird. She'd never known the Doctor to reach for a gun.

"He's gotten out five times?" Colonel Haviland demanded.

The soldiers all looked sheepish.

"It wasn't… exactly its — his — fault," said one of the soldiers.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the first hour after we found it here, the power to its cell kept fluctuating rapidly," one of the other soldiers said. "The door kept opening accidentally."

"It only actually left its cell twice, then," another soldier put in.

"That's two times," said Colonel Haviland. "What about the other three?"

The soldiers all looked away, awkwardly.

"We… opened the cell," one of the soldiers confessed.

"Why?" Colonel Haviland demanded. "Your orders are to keep Hostile 29 alive and contained!"

"That's what we were doing," said the soldier. "Keeping it alive."

"The first time," said another soldier, "it figured out some way to link itself to the electrified door using some wire. The next time, it started stabbing itself with a sharpened piece of chalk. And the third time, it was trying to hang itself with its tie."

Another soldier held up the confiscated neck tie.

Becky looked down at the Doctor. He wasn't looking at her, anymore, but was staring at the floor, eyes still filled with that angry, bitter hatred. And Becky suddenly got an idea. One that seemed so bizarre and random, and yet explained everything.

What if… that hatred and anger in his eyes wasn't directed at them at all?

"He hates himself," Becky breathed.

All eyes fixed on Becky.

"Think about it!" Becky told them. "He's been reduced to an animal, and we all thought that meant that he'd attack us, because we'd hurt him and he hated us. But he's not trying to attack us. He's attacking himself."

"Hostile 29 keeps throwing itself against the electrified door," Green pointed out. "It obviously wants to get out."

"If you unelectrified that door," said Becky, "the Doctor would stop throwing himself against it."

"That's… actually true," one of the soldiers admitted. "After Hostile 29 nearly got fried alive by the electrified door, we stopped the electrical current. Which was when it started trying to hang itself and stab itself. So… we turned the electricity back on, again."

"It's obvious what happened," said Becky. "Those power fluctuations — that wasn't random. Someone made the Doctor like this, someone who wanted him to rampage through the Initiative and kill us all. But it went wrong, and he's stuck trying to kill himself, instead."

The Doctor glanced up at her, and there was fear in his eyes, real fear. Those eyes seemed to be pleading with her, begging her, although Becky didn't understand what for.

A small smile crept up Green's face, and for the first time since Becky had opened the door to the Doctor's cell, Green ventured out from behind the soldiers. The Doctor didn't move. Green tried another step, and still, no reaction from the Doctor.

Green then walked right up to the Doctor, crouching down closer to him, to get a better look. The Doctor's eyes fixed on Green, and his body went very, very still. A smile sprouted on Green's face, as he examined the Doctor, carefully.

"You're not going to kill me?" Green asked the Doctor.

The Doctor didn't answer, didn't move, barely even breathed, his eyes still fixed on Green.

Green reached out a hand towards the Doctor, and Becky could feel his arms and legs trembling, as Green's hand got closer and closer to him.

Becky slapped Green's hand away. "You stay away from him," said Becky, "or I'll make you."

"May I remind you," said Green, in a hard voice, "that this thing is my experiment. My own personal—"

"He's not a thing!" Becky spat. "He's more a man than you, Arthur Green! You may be the one in charge, but everyone here knows you're just a misogynistic, bigoted, insecure nit-wit who takes it out on the Doctor because you can't admit that he's better than you." She narrowed her eyes at Green. "Truth is, even vampires are better than you."

Green gave her a look that told her just how fired she was going to be from this incident.

"Dr. Green, you will stand down," Colonel Haviland demanded.

Green gave an annoyed sigh, then got back to his feet, and stepped away from the Doctor and Becky. Becky felt the tension in the Doctor's body fall away, as Green backed off.

She guessed that months of torture at the hands of one man would do that to a person. She wondered how many times the Doctor had had exactly this reaction, when Green arrived to do his tests, but had been able to suppress it.

The Doctor's eyes flicked over to the camera, then back to Green. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, and with what seemed like a great effort, he let out a wordless shout. Then he gave an angry growl, his eyes snapping open again, and shouted once more. He squirmed out of Becky's grip, and raced back into his cell, to the back wall. He stood beside the chalk board, his entire body shaking, his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw clenched, fishing frantically for a piece of chalk, but all the chalk had been taken away.

"Chalk!" said Becky. She turned to the soldiers. "What did you do with the chalk?"

"Disposed of it," said the soldiers.

But there was no point in getting more, because the next thing they knew, the Doctor had darted over to one of the soldiers holding a Taser Blaster, and shocked himself unconscious.

"Interesting," Green said. "Perhaps some sort of test could determine—"

"You keep your hands off of him!" Becky shouted. "He's scared to death of you! If he's going to get better he needs someone he knows. Someone who can reverse Hostile Sub-Terrestrial behavior. Someone like…" Oh, and the answer was so obvious. "Marianna Forlich."

"Marianna Forlich!" Green shouted. He turned to Colonel Haviland, his eyes blazing. "Hostile 29 is my project. You can't possibly—"

"When Dr. Forlich arrives, I want her sent to my office, immediately," Colonel Haviland demanded of Becky. "I don't care what happened to Hostile 29, I just want him — it — back the way it was."

Becky felt an icy bitterness spread throughout her.

"You don't care," she repeated. "He saves all of our lives countless times, you torture him for two months, and now someone has destroyed his brain, and you don't care!"

Colonel Haviland leveled a steady glare at Becky, then turned around as if to leave. But Becky wasn't finished with him. Because Haviland had stood by while Julie got raped, while the Doctor got tortured. And now… this.

It was too much.

"You know, at least Dr. Green's mind is twisted enough that he thinks what he's been doing is right," said Becky. "You know this is all wrong. You knew from the start that the Doctor was a real person, you knew exactly how much pain you were causing him and how unethical it all was. And you did it anyways. If Green's worse than a vampire, what does that make you, Colonel Haviland?"

Colonel Haviland's mustache twitched with rage, as he turned back to face Becky. And Becky knew that he was about to fire her. Tell her that the Initiative wasn't set up for people like her. That there was no place for that kind of attitude in this kind of workspace.

At least that was something Becky could be proud of.

Chapter 34

"Don't freak out," was the first thing that Marianna heard when she arrived at work that morning.

Marianna hung her head, as she continued towards her office. She'd heard the news already. "Julie?"

Becky considered, tapping her fingers against the empty cardboard box she was carrying under her arm. "Okay, don't freak out about that, either."

Oh. That wasn't good.

She stopped walking, and turned to Becky. "Don't tell me the chips all malfunctioned, and all our HSTs are dead?"

"No, that's definitely not what happened," Becky said.

Marianna thought through the options. They were all looking pretty bad. "Someone else got murdered?" she asked.

Although, if it was Green who got murdered, Marianna wasn't sure she'd get all that choked up about it. Which was kind of a horrible thing to say, but… kind of true, nonetheless.

"Not… exactly," said Becky. "It's… the Doctor."

"Dr. Green?" asked Marianna.

"No," said Becky. "The Hostile 29 Doctor."

Marianna felt the world spin around her. "But… he escaped. Julie got him out of here. That was the whole reason she was arrested."

"They caught him, again," said Becky. "But he's not… he sort of…" Becky faltered. "Colonel Haviland wants to see you."

Marianna dropped her briefcase onto the ground and grabbed Becky by the shoulders. "Becky, what's going on?"

"I… really, really don't know," said Becky. "Just… don't freak out, okay? I know you'll find some way to reverse it."

Marianna didn't know what Becky thought she was going to reverse. But she knew that something bad had happened. Something very, very bad. And she needed to make sure it got fixed. Right away.

Marianna raced off towards Colonel Haviland's office.

"Marianna!" Becky called after her.

Marianna paused, and glanced over her shoulder.

"Just… when you hear the news, remember: he still won't harm any other living person," Becky told her.

Marianna wasn't sure she wanted to know what this meant.

---

Marianna had been told. She'd seen video footage. She'd been briefed by Colonel Haviland and had even had a short dialogue with Green. But none of that had prepared her for actually seeing the Doctor in person.

She stopped in her tracks the moment she saw his face, the moment she saw that hatred and revulsion in his eyes the moment she saw the hunched over pinstripe body and heard the animalistic growling. The Doctor had only been a part of her life for the last two months, but she'd grown close enough to him that she just… relied on the fact that he'd always be there. That he'd always bounce on his feet every time she showed up, always give her that exuberant smile and start rambling on at a thousand words per minute about a new idea he'd just had, something that would be brilliant, truly brilliant, Marianna, and have you ever considered it?

Seeing him look at her with that hatred in his eyes, that hard coldness in his stance, just like the vampires back in the main containment area…

If I'm a real person, Marianna, so are they.

It was the first time in two months that Marianna found herself struggling, desperately, not to cry.

"How… did he wind up like this?" Marianna asked Haviland, her voice coming out as barely more than a whisper.

"No idea," Colonel Haviland told her. "Disappeared for a few hours, and by the time he was back, he was like this. But whatever's been done, I want it undone. And now."

Marianna tried to take a step forwards, but faltered, and couldn't bring herself to do it. Couldn't bring herself to look closer and admit that… the Doctor was gone.

Becky had given her hope, told her that the Doctor wouldn't harm any other living person. Other than himself, it turned out. And Marianna had clung to that, hoped that meant that the Doctor was still in there, at least a little bit. That the same kind, amiable, sweet guy she'd become friends with was still inside of his head.

But looking at him, now, she knew. She recognized that look of self-loathing, that same look he'd worn when Penelope had died. This wasn't kindness he was showing to the others around him. There was no conscience or morality in his actions.

He just honestly hated himself. More than he hated anyone else.

"No sign of any higher brain functions?" Marianna asked, her voice only a hair stronger.

"No," Haviland confirmed. "Hostile 29 acts exactly the same way towards everyone. No variation." He paused. "Except… around Arthur Green."

Of course. The one person the Doctor might hate more than himself. The one who'd been torturing him.

"So that's why you want me to operate on him, instead of Green?" said Marianna. "Because he wants to tear Green apart?"

"Hostile 29 is afraid of Dr. Green," Colonel Haviland informed her.

Marianna frowned. She stared at the Doctor, who was pacing his cell, growling beneath his breath, his hands digging into his skin beneath his suit jacket, his hateful, angry eyes fixed on the white-tiled ground. She didn't think she'd ever seen the Doctor afraid of anything.

The most important thing is that Hostile 29 remains on our side. Because the moment he isn't, every single human being in the world is doomed.

Was this a spark of conscience, then? Was the fear he felt actually fear of Green, or fear for Green? Fear that, if the Doctor let himself go entirely, he'd tear the other man apart?

Marianna walked up to the Doctor's cell, examining his face carefully, trying to find some indication that he was still in there, that there was some part of him left inside his mind.

"How did he react to Agent Finn?" Marianna asked. The one person that Marianna thought he might dislike more than Arthur Green.

"Same as everyone else," said Colonel Haviland. "When Agent Finn was around, Hostile 29 ran out of its cell, stole Finn's gun, then shot itself unconscious."

But Marianna was only half paying attention to Colonel Haviland's answer. Because the moment she'd spoken, the moment she'd been close enough that he could hear her, the Doctor looked up. As if responding to her voice. He snapped his head around, and met her eyes with his own.

It was a look she knew. A look that had burned itself into Marianna's memory.

The anger had fallen away, completely. All that was left inside those eyes was fear and desperation. The same sort of fear and desperation that he'd had when he found out about his friend being in trouble. It was a vast chasm of pain and hurt and worry, so much worry, bubbling through to the outside.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, as if trying to speak, but no sounds came out.

Marianna stepped forwards, again. "Doctor," she said, very softly. "Do you recognize me?"

The Doctor didn't say a word, but his eyes darted around the enclosed area, then fixed back on Marianna. He ran over to the now-un-electrified glass, standing just beside it, watching her.

She saw no recognition in those eyes, no sign of any higher brain functions, but… Becky had been right. There was still some trace part of him left. Something that remembered that Green meant pain, and Marianna meant happiness.

"You know me," said Marianna. "I'm Marianna, remember? I'm…" she hesitated, for a fraction of a second. "I'm your friend. And you're mine."

It was the first time she'd admitted it out loud.

Marianna waited to see some reaction in his eyes. Some spark of joy or friendship or even recognition. But he just kept staring at her with that fear and desperation.

Then he stepped back, and his entire body started shaking. He clenched his jaw, squeezed his eyes shut, and shouted something that sounded… almost like a word.

Except if it was a word, it definitely wasn't English.

The Doctor's eyes snapped open, and he gave an angry, wordless shout. He stepped forwards and started hitting his head against the glass, over and over again, as the shouting turned into something approaching a roar.

"Doctor!" Marianna shouted. "Stop!"

And — for some reason Marianna didn't understand — he stopped.

Just looked up at her, his eyes pleading, desperate. He took a deep breath, then relaxed his hand against the glass, so she could see the lines of his palm. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his jaw, and his index finger twitched against the glass.

No, it wasn't twitching. It was tapping.

Tapping out the same rhythm, over and over and over again.

Tap, pause, tap-tap. Tap, tap, longer-tap. Longer-tap, tap.

"No…" said Colonel Haviland.

Marianna looked over her shoulder at him, at his incredulous eyes, his completely white face, and his slowly melting army rigidness. He glanced over at Marianna, and snapped himself back to attention, once more.

That was when Marianna worked it out. "Morse Code," she realized.

"No it's not," Colonel Haviland dismissed. "This is a fluke. An accident. There is no way that Hostile 29 could possibly…" He trailed off, his eyes fixed on the Doctor. Then he turned to Marianna. "Find some way to fix Hostile 29, Dr. Forlich. I'm counting on you." And he strode out of the secure area.

Marianna put her hand up against the Doctor's on the glass. Hoping that perhaps he could feel something. "I'm going to help you," she said. "I promise, I'm not going to leave you like this. You're… my friend. And I won't leave you."

The rhythm stopped, as the Doctor looked at her. Anger searing through his expression. He pounded his fists against the glass, but all that came from his mouth was an incomprehensible yell. He gave the glass a number of angry kicks, shouting at Marianna wordlessly. Marianna tried to ask him to stop, tried to reassure him that she was going to help him, but this only seemed to make him angrier. No, not angrier. It seemed to make him furious. Marianna wondered if he'd lost everything once more, if whatever spell had brought him back had somehow been broken.

It was only when she went back upstairs and looked up the code he'd been tapping against the glass that Marianna realized why her reassurances had made the Doctor so angry.

The one word he'd been telling her, over and over again.

RUN.

Chapter 35

When Marianna entered Tina's office, she was surprised to find not only Tina, Becky, and Anne there, but also Riley's entire team. All were attired in their normal uniforms, except for Becky, who was in jeans and a t-shirt, a filled cardboard box lying on the ground beside her. Tina was sitting at her desk, typing away at her computer. Becky looked up, as Marianna entered the room.

"Am I interrupting?" Marianna asked.

"We're just here to help figure out what happened," Graham offered. "Tina thinks she might have found some hidden security footage she can hack."

"Whoever it was tried to disable all the cameras," Tina confirmed, her eyes still fixed on the monitor, "but it looks like he missed one. If I can just get the feed to go through here, we should be able to work out exactly what happened, and who made the Doctor like this."

Becky looked over at Marianna. "Did you fix him?"

Marianna slumped down onto a nearby chair. "No," she said. "I looked throughout his brain, but I couldn't find anything wrong. Not that I thought this would work. I don't have the faintest idea what his brain is supposed to look like — I'm hardly going to be able to tell if there's a part of it that's working incorrectly."

"I thought Green did a bunch of tests and scans of it, earlier," said Anne.

"Apparently, that file's been 'misplaced'," said Marianna. She looked over at Becky. "What happened to you?"

"Got fired," said Becky. "I guess telling Haviland he's worse than the misogynistic bigot that let Julie get raped is not proper conduct for the Initiative."

"It needed to be said," said Marianna. "Any word on Julie?"

"Flown out to Washington," said Tina, still typing, eyes not moving from the computer monitor in front of her. "Charged with espionage and treason."

"Don't know why she did it," said Forrest. "Sounds to me like Hostile 29 was doing pretty well until she tried to get it out."

"It's obvious why," said Riley. "Both she and the Doctor knew that this would happen. She was trying to get him out before he got hurt." Riley's shoulders slumped. "I guess I should have let him escape."

"Julie gave me a message last night," Anne said. "She said, 'UNIT, code 9, TARDIS.'"

"UNIT?" asked Becky. "What's UNIT?"

"United Nations Intelligence Taskforce," said Forrest, Graham, and Riley together.

All the women looked over at them.

Graham shrugged. "It deals with supernatural and extra-terrestrial attacks," he said. "I thought everyone here knew about it."

"Black combat garb, red berets," said Forrest.

"And what's a Code 9?" asked Marianna. "Or… that word that Anne said?"

"TARDIS," said Riley. "It's the Doctor's ship. He probably wanted you to drop the word in, to prove that he sent you. No idea about the Code 9."

"Got it!" Tina cried. She paused, and her face fell, her eyes growing worried. "Oh."

Everyone crowded around behind her, peering at the monitor. Upon the monitor was a very obviously angry Dr. Green, dragging an unconscious Doctor into an abandoned lab, and strapping him to the table, securing a piece of duct tape across his mouth. Green's face was red and angry, his entire posture seethed with hatred, loathing, and desperation. He sent an electric jolt through the Doctor's body to wake him up.

Green.

"Oh, God," Becky breathed.

"I know women love you," Green growled at the Doctor. "I know that Colonel Haviland loves you. Everyone loves you, don't they? You're just the loveable Hostile Sub-T that makes cute puppy eyes at the people around you, so they feel they have to take care of you! Go out and steal hard-working people's jobs from them, like you're some kind of person! Like you're something more than an animal!"

Green tore open the Doctor's shirt, and grabbed a scalpel from the table beside him, thrusting it into the Doctor's skin as if it were a knife and not a surgical instrument.

The Doctor's face crinkled in pain, the gag muffling any sound he made.

"But Finn tells me you're a dangerous animal," Green told the Doctor, leaning down into his face. "That if we push you too far, you'll snap. Show us who you really are. Make everyone pay." He took the scalpel back out, brandishing it in front of the Doctor's face. "Let's test that theory, shall we?"

And what followed was… well, something that none of them had ever wanted to watch.

Every single torture that Green could think of, every pain that Green could devise, all focused on the Doctor. Drugs, injuries, electricity, cuts, and even just punches and strikes when Green was particularly angry. Marianna and the others wanted to turn it off, to look away, but… they needed to watch it. They needed to work out what Green had done if they were going to have any hope of reversing it.

It was just… really, really hard.

Minutes turned to hours as Green continued, as the Doctor writhed in the restraints, as the gag muffled a continuous stream of — what sounded like — rapid, desperate, and frustrated speech. Yet, as the torture continued, the muffled speech gave way to muffled screams, every one more frantic and heart-wrenching than the last. And always, always, Green made sure the Doctor was awake. Aware. That he could see, feel, understand.

Waves of guilt washed off Riley, as he stared at the image on the monitor. "I never meant for this to happen."

"There's… there's no scientific merit to any of this!" Anne protested. "These results prove nothing. No data, no collation of information, no purpose! It's just…"

She trailed off, as the women all looked at one another. They knew what this was. This was revenge. This was revenge against them, for what they'd done. Revenge for their Petition.

Forrest looked away from the monitor, in disgust. "That's just… sick," he said. "Wrong in every sense of the word."

"I thought you said Hostile 29 was just an animal," Graham pointed out. "No better than a dog."

"You don't shoot the dog that drags you out of a burning building," Forrest retorted.

"What do you mean?" asked Marianna.

"When we found Hostile 29, Green, here, was in the grip of some big nasty demon," said Forrest. "About to be suffocated. Hostile 29 offered its life in exchange for Green's."

"He wanted to get caught," Riley muttered. "Shouted as loud as he could while surrounded by Initiative soldiers. He knew something bad was going to happen to him, if he stayed here, and he still…."

"Green must have staged it," said Tina. "It must have been a trap."

"It wasn't a trap," said Graham. "We all saw the look in Green's eyes. He was honestly terrified. Whatever happened, there, it was real. Hostile — I mean, the Doctor — saved Green's life. And this was Green's way of repaying him."

"Barbaric, that's what it is," Forrest muttered.

Here was proof that the Doctor was right, that the Initiative employees were no better than the monsters they caged. Green — who'd tortured the Doctor, mercilessly, for months — when he was in trouble, really in trouble, the Doctor had rushed to save his life. And this was the Doctor's reward.

Perhaps the Doctor had thought that Green would see the light. That it would be all right, being captured by the Initiative, because even though the Doctor knew — must have known — Green was planning this, he'd thought that Green would change. Become better. Do a 180, like Julie, and realize that the Doctor was a person who didn't deserve to be tortured. That the Doctor was one of the good guys.

But as everyone in that room kept watching the footage, it was clear to all of them that there was nothing good left in Dr. Arthur Green.

"He didn't touch the Doctor's brain," Becky whispered, as the footage reached its end. "No implant. No microchip. No nothing. He just pushed the Doctor until he snapped."

"But… if Green didn't alter the Doctor's brain," said Anne, "that means… we can't fix him. Ever. The Doctor is gone. Any higher intelligence inside of him has been wiped clean."

Marianna tore her eyes away from the monitor. "No," she said. "There's some part of him still there. When I saw him, today, in his cell, he tapped out a message in Morse Code."

"What did he say?" Becky asked.

Marianna shuddered. "Run."

Everyone looked at one another. None of them really sure what to do. But they thought about the message that Julie had left for them. UNIT. Code 9. TARDIS.

And Marianna remembered. How the Doctor had pleaded with her, after Penelope's death. A monster in the Initiative. No, a monster the Initiative had created. Please. Run. Get out as fast as you can. A monster that wanted to hurt the Doctor. If you don't, you're all going to die. Every single one of you. A monster with no compassion, no mercy, no heart or soul or feeling. What Marianna herself might have turned into, if she hadn't met the Doctor.

Arthur Green.

Leave me behind, Marianna, and run as fast as you can.

That was what the Doctor wanted them to do. Leave him behind, and run for their lives. Leave him here, alone. Because the Doctor knew — had always known — that any attack that started by getting him out of the way would end in the slaughter of all the rest of them.

"Green's going to kill us all," Marianna said.

"No, but Green can't actually… I mean, we're human beings, American citizens," said Anne. "He couldn't…"

"Look what he did to Julie," said Becky.

"He's got connections high up in Washington," Tina confirmed. "Green can get away with anything. No one can stop him."

"We're all going to die?" Anne asked. "Just because we created a Petition?"

"Don't worry," said Graham, folding his arms and trying to look as macho as possible. "We'll make sure nothing happens to you, ladies."

Riley and Forrest also struck macho poses, nodding their agreement.

The women scientists all looked at Finn, Forrest, and Graham. The team that had failed to protect the Doctor. Failed to protect Julie. And they knew that no one at the Initiative could protect them, anymore. The Doctor was right. While they were in the Initiative, they were doomed.

Chapter 36

Once the soldiers had left, the women sprung into action. Tina had worked out a way to run interference on all video surveillance in the office, and Anne had scrambled the audio. They were alone. No one could spy on them or overhear them.

Now, they just had to figure out what to do.

"We should run," said Tina. "I don't care where, but the Doctor's right. We have to get out of here."

"If you run, you leave the Doctor behind," said Becky. "With Green."

"There isn't any Doctor left in him!" said Tina. "Everything that was Doctor is gone. He's just an animal, now, and if we stay here, that's going to happen to us. I don't want to die."

"Marianna said there was some of him left," Becky replied. "He gave her a message, remember?"

"And told her to run!" said Tina. "Which is what we should be doing. Let Finn protect the Doctor. I'm getting out of here while I still can."

"The Doctor wants us to leave him behind," Marianna muttered. "He told me, just after Penelope died. And today, when I told him I was going to stay and help him, he got really upset."

"We could get him out," said Becky. "Rescue him. Make sure…" She faltered.

"If Julie couldn't do it, then we have no chance," said Marianna. "She knew all the security systems, everything that needed to be disassembled or disconnected to get the Doctor out. And he's still here."

"That… what's-her-name? The Slayer," said Becky. "Finn's girlfriend. She's supposed to have superpowers. If we tell her—"

"Then she gets shot," said Marianna. "Superpowers or no, she's still a mortal human girl. You shoot her, and she'll still die."

"The Doctor told us to go to UNIT," said Tina. "He obviously has some sway, there. I say we go to this UNIT place, tell them what's going on, and they'll sweep in and rescue the Doctor themselves."

"UNIT is part of the United Nations," said Becky. "We can't say anything about the Initiative. That would be sharing US military secrets with a foreign power."

"So we just hint at them very strongly!" said Tina. "Nudge them in the right direction. I mean, we're supposed to tell them Code 9 and TARDIS, right? Maybe that's all they need."

"Or maybe the Doctor's just giving us things that will prove he's recommended us," said Marianna, "because he knows he isn't getting out of this alive."

"Look, we all agree that we can't do anything for him here, by ourselves," said Tina. "We tried, Marianna, and all it's done is make the Doctor crazy and put all the rest of us in danger. The best thing we can do, for him and for us, is to leave and get help elsewhere. Do exactly what he told us."

"Someone has to stay behind with the Doctor so Green doesn't do anything worse to him!" said Becky.

"I'm not sticking around to get butchered," said Tina. She looked over at Becky. "If you care so much, you stay with him!"

Becky gestured down at her street clothes. "Fired, remember?"

"I'll stay," said Marianna.

Everyone turned to Marianna. Then, together, they said, "No way."

"Marianna, it was your Petition!" said Anne. "More than any of the rest of us, Green wants revenge on you. If any of the rest of us stay here, we might get off with getting lobotomies or something. If you stay… Green will kill you. No questions asked."

"None of the rest of you are going to stay," said Marianna. "I've got no choice."

"Marianna, we're really not leaving the Doctor behind," said Tina. "He obviously had a plan of his own, and wanted us to follow it. That's all we're doing! Following the Doctor's plan!"

"As much as I hate to leave the Doctor here, on his own," said Becky, "Tina and Anne are right, Marianna. If you stay here, Green will kill you. And you can't help the Doctor if you're dead."

Marianna stared down at her hands.

"Finn may not like the Doctor, but he's scared enough of his girlfriend that he'll keep the Doctor alive," said Anne. "That, and Haviland won't let the Doctor die for all the rice in China. Nothing else is going to happen to the Doctor if we leave here, Marianna. Promise."

Marianna said nothing for a few seconds. "I made a promise, too," she said. "I promised not to leave him." She faltered. "And now I…" She swallowed, taking a few labored breaths. "You're right. I know, you're right. The Doctor has a plan. He's probably had this plan for some time, and we've been ignoring him. And because we've been ignoring him, he's wound up like this. I should just do what he told me."

Becky put a hand on Marianna's shoulder. "Trust me, the Doctor wants you out of here. There's no way he's going to let you die for him."

Marianna gave a small nod, but still didn't meet their eyes. "I wish… I'd told him," she whispered. "I just wish he knew… before all this happened… that I consider him my friend."

"So come to UNIT, get him out, fix him up, and tell him," said Becky. She glanced at all the others. "Well, I guess I don't have a choice. I'm off to UNIT. What about the rest of you?"

They all looked at one another, thinking this over. Thinking through what they'd seen, what they'd worked out, what the Doctor had told them.

"UNIT," Tina said.

"UNIT," said Anne.

Marianna said nothing for a long moment. Then, "I guess I'm for UNIT, too."

"It's agreed, then," said Tina. "We do what the Doctor said. We run."

---

Riley Finn just sat, for a moment, in the Initiative, thinking through everything he'd seen. Everything that Green had shouted as he destroyed the Doctor's faith in humanity. As he had made the Doctor's mind retreat into madness until the Doctor was little more than an animal.

"Women love you," Green had said.

"You think you're so much better than everyone else," Green had said.

"Always showing off. Always trying to be the genius," Green had said.

"Think you can take my place? Think you can do my job so much better than me?" Green had said.

Every single thing that Riley had thought about the Doctor, a million times. All those angry accusations, all that rage and spite and hatred. So familiar, so exactly how Riley felt towards the Doctor, every single time he saw the alien bastard. But… no. Riley wasn't Green. Riley didn't hate the Doctor.

He really, really, really didn't.

Riley was blameless in this whole thing. He had to be, didn't he? He hadn't been the one to capture the Doctor. He hadn't been the one to starve the Doctor, or put him through humiliating and torturous tests. He hadn't been the one to administer punishments, or break the Doctor's legs. He hadn't been the one to lock Julie in a room with him, or strap the Doctor to a lab table and torture him until he was driven completely insane.

Riley had just found the Doctor down here, in the Initiative, and done nothing to get the guy out. He hadn't actually done anything wrong.

(Except for lying to Buffy.)

In fact, he'd stuck up for the Doctor. Made sure the Initiative didn't kill the guy. Made sure that nothing happened to the Doctor's brain.

By alerting the higher-ups that he was here. By making sure that the Doctor was seen as a resource too valuable to ever let go. By forcing the Doctor to reveal things that the Doctor would never have volunteered himself.

Riley could have let the Doctor escape. He'd had two opportunities. That first time, when he'd realized that this was the Doctor, and the other night, when he'd caught the Doctor again.

Buffy was right there. Just a stone's throw away. He could have gotten her to help. He could have been seen, in her eyes, as the hero, the one who got the Doctor out of the Initiative, the one who had the courage to rescue the Doctor from his captivity.

But… how was Riley supposed to know that this would happen?

He'd thought he was doing the Doctor a favor! The Doctor was supposed to become the head of the scientific research team at the Initiative. Placing him in the perfect position to take down Adam, the HSTs around Sunnydale, and save the world.

Riley had just been looking out for the guy's wellbeing. After all, he was the one who convinced the Initiative not to kill the Doctor on that fifth escape attempt. He was the one that had insisted that the Doctor not have massive brain surgery. And… he'd given the Doctor a chocolate bar, hadn't he?

Riley was definitely one of the good guys.

So why did he feel so lousy, now?

Riley shook the feeling off. Some time with Buffy, and Riley would feel better. He'd remember why this was ultimately for the best. Because if the Doctor stayed in the Initiative long enough, then he knew that all future Doctors would just fade away. Disappear from Buffy's past. And then Riley wouldn't have to hate (no, not hate, Riley Finn didn't hate, definitely didn't hate) the Doctor anymore. Because Buffy would be Riley's, and only Riley's, and the Doctor would be out of the way, and Riley wouldn't care what the Doctor did.

If he did this, Buffy would be his. Completely.

Buffy was worth anything.

(And Riley tried to push aside the voice in his head that asked, "even the torture and destruction of one of her dearest friends?")

---

"A few of the field agents have made it very clear," said Colonel Haviland, "that you were the one responsible for Hostile 29's current mental condition."

"I didn't damage the creature in any way," Green insisted. "I merely lifted the veil of humanity, and exposed the monster within."

"There's also," said Colonel Haviland, "some suspicion that you converted Hostile 29 into a weapon designed to kill everyone at the Initiative."

"Of course not," said Green. "Agent Finn can tell you — Hostile 29 has always had this potential."

And that was true. Finn had said this over and over again, that Hostile 29 was dangerous, that Hostile 29 could become something terrifying and deadly at a moment's notice. And while there was evidence to prove that Green had damaged Hostile 29, there was nothing to prove that Green had ever intended to release Hostile 29 and kill everyone.

In fact, all the evidence they had indicated that Green had planned no such thing.

"Finn told me Hostile 29 was more dangerous than any other creature at the Initiative, human or Sub Terrestrial," Green continued. "All I've done is allow you to see exactly how dangerous it is."

"Dangerous to himself!" Colonel Haviland shouted. Then, with a small cough, corrected, "itself." Colonel Haviland cleared his throat, and addressed Green. "Whatever you've done, I want it undone. Right now."

"You don't actually want Hostile 29, though," said Green, with a smile. "You only want the knowledge inside its head. All that is still intact. I've just made it easier to retrieve. I've helped the project."

"Hostile 29 appears to no longer be able to utter a word of any language," said Colonel Haviland. "The actions you've taken against him — it — have convinced some of the finest members of the Initiative to leave. I fail to see how any of this has helped the project."

"Hostile 29's brain is very complex," Green explained. "All I've done is attempt to simplify it. Converted the data from digital to analogue, so to speak. Made his thoughts in a format that we can read and understand. Now that I've finished that stage, my colleague and myself can construct a machine that will pick out every single piece of knowledge from this creature's mind."

Colonel Haviland paused. "Can you really do that?"

"Of course I can," said Green. "And… I'm sure you'll agree, once you have a copy, you hardly need the original. I can put the poor creature out of its misery."

Colonel Haviland thought about this a moment. If it worked, it could solve a lot of problems. In fact, this could be far more useful than making Hostile 29 head of the scientific research team. They could get every single scrap of knowledge, even those big secrets that Colonel Haviland never thought he'd manage to get out of the alien.

But if it didn't work… Colonel Haviland wasn't about to risk Green's nearly losing such a precious resource again.

"Five days," said Colonel Haviland. "If you don't do it in five days, I'm transferring Hostile 29 to the Pentagon. Perhaps someone there can work out a way to undo the damage you've done."

Chapter 37

The Doctor was in Hell.

Or at least, that was what it felt like. Locked away inside his mind, still able to think, to be himself, to exist in his own existential way, but unable to reach out and affect the world around him. Unable to control a body that was stuck in a logical loop of biomechanical programming, stuck attacking the one thing it hated most.

The Doctor had known. That night, when Green had him strapped down, and had revealed the strange concoction that he'd injected into the Doctor's arm — the moment it had entered his bloodstream, the Doctor knew exactly what it was.

Green hadn't.

He'd thought that the substance was sevoflurane. He'd told the Doctor that he always wanted to see what that did. To test the results of that particular substance. Green had been malicious, he'd been inhuman and senselessly violent, but he hadn't been the one who'd made the Doctor like this.

The Doctor knew who had.

And why. The Doctor had worked that out during Green's extended torture session, just after he'd saved the scientist's life. Green kept shouting something about a Petition, and from what the Doctor could gather, it wasn't just any Petition. This was a Petition that had been accepted. And would give the Doctor enough power and leverage that he'd be able to stop Adam completely. Adam must have intercepted the Petition, and changed his plans. Drastically.

It was obvious what Adam's new, changed plan was supposed to be. The Doctor would be released into the Initiative, his body forced to act on base aggression and hatred, attacking everyone who'd ever hurt him. Which, considering the past two months, would be basically every human here (except for Marianna).

And then the Doctor, locked away inside his mind, would have had to watch. See himself massacring humans without being able to stop it. Trying, in vain, to control a body that would no longer respond to him, and yet knowing that every single impulse came from his own mind.

So the Doctor had fought back.

The moment he worked out what the drug was, what it did, he'd focused every single part of his mind on one thing. The one person he hated more than any of the others.

Himself.

The drug had latched onto that self-hatred, that self-loathing, and had acted on it. Adam had worked in buffers to cut through deception and lies and misdirection, but Adam hadn't counted on the fact that the Doctor might honestly hate himself. More than he hated Green, more than he hated Riley Finn, more than he hated some of the worst monsters in the cosmos.

Ha! One instance where self-loathing was useful! Brilliant.

Well, not so brilliant. Because now the Doctor kept hurting himself. And he wasn't terribly happy about that. He'd been counting on his own survival instinct to prevent him from actually going all the way and killing himself — since he couldn't trigger the regeneration process trapped in his own mind like this — but he'd had some close calls. That time he'd nearly strangled himself with his tie was something he really, really didn't want to repeat.

There was one thing to be thankful for. His survival instinct usually did activate around Green. It seemed, more often than not, that the Doctor would instinctively back away when he was around, or at the very least, look supremely uncomfortable. Which, the Doctor was hoping, was enough to alert his friends to the danger. Get others to notice that Green was a wee bit more psychotic than they'd thought.

Not that anyone but a select few at the Initiative had taken him seriously about anything even before this had happened.

The Doctor kept fighting the drug's effects. Trying to cut off the logical loop at its source. But the concoction was too strong, too precisely engineered for his biology. Adam was certainly clever, there was no doubting that. The Doctor could gain control of basic motor functions, for a short period of time, but speech was still beyond him. All that came out was grunting, growling, or a wordless shout.

And once, Gallifreyan. Which had been completely useless.

But now that the Doctor was in Hell, he'd expected Adam to come and gloat about it.

Yet, still, no Adam.

No anyone, really. Riley had ducked in to check on him, a few times, and Haviland had come in to give him an angry stare once or twice, but it seemed his friends had all taken his advice, and fled for their lives. Which was a relief, really. The Doctor didn't need them putting themselves into needless danger. And they could get UNIT involved, which, the Doctor was hoping, wouldn't just save him, but would also make sure that Adam didn't get his hands on the TARDIS.

And, if the Doctor was very lucky, be able to work out who this mysterious other-someone was.

The Initiative had put him in a straight jacket, and tied up his feet. Which was very nice of them, really, because it meant the Doctor didn't constantly try to hurt himself, and he quite liked not hurting himself. He did seem to continually bash his head against the wall, still, but he was working on controlling that.

He heard footsteps, and the swish of his cell door opening in front of him. The Doctor managed to gain enough control of his motor functions to look up at the man who'd just entered his cell.

Arthur Green.

Well, that was just brilliant. The villain had come to gloat, but it was the wrong villain! This was just like Riley Finn trying to kill him during that year when he'd been preoccupied with working out how to stop Glory and trying to discover why the universe kept nearly falling apart every time he came close. Humans could be so narrow-minded, sometimes, believing their little problems were terribly important.

If the Doctor could speak, he probably would have said:

Yes, thank you, very happy to see you, Arthur Green. No, actually, I'm lying, it's not nice to see you, since I'm actually not all that interested in your personal problems with women not respecting you — although, to be fair, I'm not really certain anyone should respect you, be they men, women, or purple genderless blobs of jelly from the 9th moon of Ickroptona. And I don't really want your job, except maybe as a means to getting rid of a very large threat to humanity, after which I'd probably try to shut this organization down entirely. And I also don't really care about — well, actually, I don't really care about any of the things you believe I'm entirely worked up about. I care about stopping the emergence of another race of purely evil bio-mechanical creatures whose psychology matches the Daleks. I care about finding out who would want me in the Initiative, why they would want to alert Adam, and what they're doing up above that they don't want me knowing about. I care about saving innocent lives, saving the Earth, and making sure Adam doesn't get his hands on time travel technology, which, I have to confess, you are making exceedingly difficult, considering you've been feeding Adam information concerning my biology and basic neurochemical composition, and — you do realize that I'm saving your life, as well, yes? Or has that escaped your notice?

Or maybe the Doctor wouldn't have said exactly that.

Green squatted in front of the Doctor, elbows resting on his knees. He looked into the Doctor's eyes, thoughtfully. Clinically. Coldly.

"You're still in there, aren't you?" Green asked him.

Which was a rather daft thing to ask, considering that the Doctor couldn't answer. Although, since Green never listened to the Doctor's answers, anyways, the Doctor figured that made this a fairly typical conversation for the both of them.

"I can tell from the intelligence in your eyes," said Green. "That little spark of life that enters your corneas every time I speak. You can understand everything that's going on around you. You just can't do anything about it." He gave a little laugh. "Fascinating. Truly fascinating."

Right, yes. Now, the Doctor was starting to think that, if he saw a newspaper article about Green being prematurely smooshed by a boulder, he might actually burn the article specifically to prevent him from returning to that date and preventing the accident.

Green gave an amused smile. "And the amazing thing is, I've done all this. Turned you into the animal you are. Taken away all your friends and allies. Left you alone and helpless. And you still don't hate me, do you? You haven't shown any signs of attacking me."

Well, no, of course not. The Doctor didn't tend to hate people. He was becoming increasingly annoyed by Green, but he didn't really hate him. True, Green was cruel and heartless. True, he had harmed the Doctor. True, he had very nearly harmed Julie, and had probably been intending to harm Marianna and the others. But, thing was, Green might be an idiot, but in the end, he was just a human pawn serving someone else's agenda. Making sure the Doctor was weak, unable to fight back, unable to foil Adam's plans. Really, Green was not so much a villain as a menace.

"I suppose you want to know why I did it," said Green.

Oh, brilliant. The evil villain rant.

"Partially, it was a warning to your little friends," said Green. "Partially, it was a way to show the others what you really are, when you aren't hiding behind that veil of humanity. Partially it was, I'll admit, a way to save my job and reputation. Although, I suppose mostly, it's because I just don't like you."

Right. Yes. The Doctor knew that. Green had been terribly clear about all this during the torture session.

Green gave a little laugh. "Riley Finn called me a monster. Heartless, cruel. Because you saved my life, and then I destroyed you." He leaned in a little closer to the Doctor's face. "But I'm the one who owns you. If you're just a piece of property, isn't that my right? To use you and throw you away?"

They were close enough, now, that the Doctor really didn't want to know what Green had planned next. But the Doctor wasn't ruling out any possibilities. Including the very remote possibility that Green had just done this to get in a good snog. Which, while not terribly pleasant, would certainly be a change of pace.

As it was, this speech was dull enough that the Doctor felt truly frustrated. He focused all his mind and his willpower, trying to gain enough control over his speech center of the brain to shout, "I don't care about you!"

But all that came out was a wordless angry shout.

Green leaned away from the Doctor. "A truth you don't want to accept, then? That you have an owner? A master? That you're little more than a pet for my amusement?"

That was it. If Green delivered one more clichéd villain line, the Doctor was going to do everything in his power to knock himself unconscious. End of story.

"There is another reason, of course," said Green, pulling a syringe and a vial out of his pocket. "You have information. And once I gain that information, I can dispose of you. Permanently."

The Doctor looked at the pale green liquid. He didn't know what it was, but he was guessing it wasn't what Green thought it was.

Green took the cover off the syringe, and slipped the needle into the vial, filling the syringe with the pale green chemical. "I've simplified your brain functions. Made your brain work in a way that computer systems will understand."

Well, that was pure hogwash. Complete and utter rot.

"But a distant colleague of mine, whom I have been in continual correspondence with, has suggested that you have psychic shields, which can trap information inside. This compound is his work, I'm afraid. But the knowledge I gain from it — well, that's all mine."

Oh, no. Distant colleague. Continual correspondence. Psychic shields. No, no, no, no! The Doctor knew exactly what the liquid in the syringe was. Exactly who Green's colleague was. And exactly what this chemical that Green had in his hands would be designed to do to the Doctor.

The Doctor used every single ounce of willpower to leap up, force himself back, away from Green. He needed to get out of here. Right now. But his feet were tied, his hands were bound, and his body wasn't doing what it was supposed to.

The Doctor managed to dodge Green once, hopping aside to avoid the syringe, but then he toppled over, and his body was twitching and moving on its own, caught in that infinite logical loop, and he couldn't escape this. Even though he knew what was about to happen.

The syringe poked into his neck, and the substance poured into his blood stream.

Seeping into his mind, barreling through his mental defenses. He couldn't control himself physically, but that wasn't enough for Adam, oh no, now Adam wanted to make sure the Doctor couldn't control himself mentally, either.

And every single thought, every single bad memory he'd kept locked away came out, circling him, tormenting him, swirling around inside his head.

The Doctor curled in on himself, and as the outside world faded into just a distant haze beyond the nightmares of his own mind, he began to scream.

And knew he'd never stop.

Chapter 38: Part III

Part III

It was one of those seriously weird things (which, Buffy guessed, you had to get used to when you dealt with a time traveler) that you could be looking, frantically, for someone who was lost, and then run into his future self.

Who happened to have just helped her defeat a group of aliens who'd come to Earth in order to conduct a ceremony wherein they'd summon an evil demon that would destroy the world.

And Amy and Rory were there, too, which had been fun.

But now the Doctor was right in front of the TARDIS, about to leave, and Buffy wasn't about to let him get away with that.

She grabbed him by the shirt collar, and thrust him against the side of the Police Box. The Doctor did his traditional flailing-arms routine, looking almost offended that she'd do something like this to him — who was a good 900 years her elder!

"What's that for?" the Doctor demanded.

"Just reminding you that I'm stronger than you," said Buffy.

Amy stomped up to Buffy, clearly about to give Buffy a piece of her mind. Rory put a hand on his wife's shoulder to calm her, and then gave an uneasy cringe.

"You're… um, not actually going to hurt him, right?" Rory asked.

"No, of course not," said the Doctor, glancing over to Amy and Rory. "No need to worry, Ponds. She's just trying to figure out where I am."

Amy frowned, in confusion. "But… you're right here."

"Wrong me," the Doctor explained, cheerfully.

An explanation which didn't prove at all helpful to either Amy or Rory.

"If I don't find Pinstripe you, then Bow Tie you disappears," Buffy told the Doctor. "And I like Bow Tie you. And Pinstripe you. So. Where are you?"

"This… isn't like that ganger incident, right?" Amy checked. "Because… I'm fairly sure that you got disintegrated."

Buffy looked over her shoulder at the bewildered Amy and Rory. "The Doctor's here, twice," she explained. "This him is here, but there's also a younger version of him floating around. And if the younger version dies, then this him never exists, and everything that this him did gets erased. Which means, among other things, that you two will never have met the Doctor at all."

"Well… maybe other-him isn't actually in trouble," Rory suggested.

Amy gave an exasperated sigh. "Rory, it's the Doctor. He's always in trouble."

The Doctor looked down at Buffy. "You know I can't tell you where I am."

Buffy pouted. "Couldn't you just give me a hint? Or twenty questions? Or something?"

"Oh, just tell her, already!" Amy demanded of the Doctor. "Or she'll… I don't know. Hit you."

Rory gave his wife a somewhat startled look.

"What?" said Amy. "I don't want to never-have-met him!"

Buffy shot the Doctor a mischievous smile. "You know," she mused, "I never knew how much fun research could be until the TARDIS started being around to translate for me 24-7. I'm writing this paper on this French aristocrat and her lovers — I think you might have heard of her. Madam de Pompadour? And there was this guy she called 'Fireplace Man', who I've been reading a lot about — particularly accounts of one night when the 'Fireplace Man' made the King of France jealous…. Do I need to go on?"

"That was a lifetime ago!" the Doctor protested. "And on a fifty-first century space ship!"

"You seduced the mistress of the King of France?" Amy said.

"She snogged me!" the Doctor insisted.

"I'm starting to notice that you have a thing for blond, smart women who are also slightly more on the aggressive, self-assertive side," said Buffy. "Do you usually wander around time and space looking for women who are suspiciously similar to me?"

"None of that has anything to do with—"

"Look, I'll make this really easy," said Buffy. "You help me rescue pinstripe you, pinstripe you gets the TARDIS out of this time-zone, and I stop researching really embarrassing parts of your past."

"Could I get a copy of that paper you wrote?" Amy asked.

Buffy grinned at her.

"You know I can't tell you anything that will alter my own past," the Doctor protested. "Can't you just be nice about it and let this go?"

Amy sighed, then decided she'd had enough of this. She pulled out the pair of scissors she'd used to subdue that demon, then strode over to the Doctor and opened the scissors, menacingly, over a loop of the Doctor's bow tie.

"All right," said Amy. "Speak up. Or the bow tie gets it."

"What?" the Doctor cried.

"I'm not sitting around while past you dies and this you disappears," Amy snapped. "So you tell her where you are. Or the bow tie dies."

"Rory," the Doctor pleaded. "Help me out, here."

Rory shifted uncomfortably. "Um…"

"Rory," Amy commanded.

Rory gave a little shrug, then walked over to his wife.

The Doctor looked down and met Buffy's eyes. "You know that I really, really, really can't tell you. Really. I'm not even supposed to be here at all."

Buffy sighed, and released her hold on the Doctor. "I know," she said. "It's just… it's been about two months, now." She slumped. "Couldn't you just tell me why I can't feel you in my head, anymore?"

"Well, I'm suppressing it," the Doctor explained. "Not… this me, I mean. The last me."

"Pinstripe you," said Buffy.

"That's it."

"You can do that?"

"Only when the other Time Lord is very young," the Doctor explained.

Oh. Right. Slayer Consciousness. Baby Time Lord. Got it.

"But… why?" Buffy asked.

"So you won't find me, of course," said the Doctor.

Buffy gave a glum nod. She glanced over at Amy, who took the hint, and tucked the scissors back into her pocket.

"So Riley's right," said Buffy. "I'm just getting all worked up over nothing. You're okay — I mean, you're probably in trouble. But not, you know. Buffy-type-trouble."

The Doctor put his hands on her shoulders, and looked deep into her eyes. "Elizabeth," he said, in a very soft but very serious voice, "I am certainly not okay. And I am in desperate need of your help."

Chapter 39

Buffy knew she was annoying Riley. She knew that Riley was seriously worked up about her relationship with the Doctor, and she wasn't making it any better by constantly obsessing over him.

But that night, just after the Eleventh Doctor left, something happened. For the first time in a very long time, Buffy felt that familiar tingle in her mind. That tingle that meant that the Doctor was around.

She ran out, trying to find him. But she knew she had to hurry, because the Initiative goons were out in full force, that night. Something must have happened down in the Initiative — an escaped HST, Riley had said. And Buffy just kept thinking — what if the Doctor was around here, and in trouble, and the Initiative got him? If the Initiative ever got their hands on the Doctor… Buffy didn't want to even think about that.

They'd put something in his head, and they might completely mess him up because his mind worked all weird and stuff, and Buffy didn't know if he could regenerate from a massive brain injury.

Buffy hadn't found the Doctor.

She'd found a Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat demon, and she'd found Riley, but she hadn't found the Doctor. She'd asked Riley, just in case, if he'd seen the Doctor, if the Doctor had gotten taken by the Initiative, but… she could see that familiar hurt look in Riley's eyes, whenever she brought the Doctor up.

Buffy knew she had to stop harping on the Doctor when she was around Riley. Even if every day she couldn't find the Doctor, she grew more and more worried about him. Riley was being really, really patient with her about this, all things considered. After all, Buffy wouldn't like it if Riley was constantly searching for some attractive female person he'd lost.

So, no, that night, Buffy had not found the Doctor.

She had, however, found the TARDIS.

She'd known that the TARDIS was around here, somewhere, due to the translation thing. But she hadn't known where, and for some reason, she hadn't been able to find it until now.

Buffy knocked on the door. In some vain hope that the Doctor would stick his head out and say, "Well, you took your time."

But, of course, he didn't.

Buffy waited around the TARDIS for a little while. Then she started searching nearby. But there was no sign of the Doctor, and that mental light switch in her head had shut off, again. Eventually, Buffy decided that it was way too late, and trudged off to her dorm to go to sleep.

The next morning, the TARDIS stopped translating.

Buffy ran out to where the TARDIS had been the night before. She really, really, really hoped it wasn't there. She really, really, really hoped that he'd just left without saying goodbye.

The TARDIS was still there.

Was the Doctor dead? If the Doctor was dead, then his ship would be dying, right? Buffy put her hand up against the blue paneling, and felt a shiver of pure fear crawling across her palm. The TARDIS was alive, but scared. Had something happened to the Doctor? Something to sever his connection to his ship?

Buffy took out the key the Doctor had given her and shoved it into the lock, but… paused, before turning it. No, she didn't want to go into the TARDIS. Not right now. That'd be way too depressing — both for her, and for the TARDIS. A TARDIS with no Doctor would just remind Buffy of what she was missing, and a Buffy with no Doctor would just make the TARDIS remember that the Doctor was still in trouble. Buffy took the key back out of the lock, and hung the TARDIS key chain around her neck, once more.

"You're really sure that the Doctor's not in the Initiative?" Buffy asked Riley, that afternoon. "Not even in some super-secret part of it that you haven't searched, yet?"

"I'm really sure he's not," said Riley, for the 70,000th time.

"The spiky-haired one, right?" said Buffy. "You know, with the spiky brown hair and the pinstripe suit and sideburns, and with the great big brown eyes and sort of point uppity cheek bones. Oh, and his chin's sort of smaller, remember? And his eyebrows are all arching and he likes to sort of scratch the back of his neck when he gets nervous, and—"

"Buffy," said Riley. "I remember."

Buffy shifted from foot to foot. "So? Have you seen him?"

"No," said Riley.

Riley wasn't actually the only one getting annoyed at her for bringing up the Doctor, though. Giles had told her to "give it a bloody rest", and Willow had suggested to her that maybe if she thought really good happy thoughts, then the Doctor would just magically appear. Xander had been completely confounded as to how she could be looking for the Doctor, when the Doctor just left, and Anya was just really glad that there wasn't a Time Lord around to uncreate her.

The general consensus was that the Doctor was probably totally fine, and Buffy should really stop worrying.

"But what if Adam has him?" Buffy asked Giles. "I mean, if the Doctor turns up dead, and then history goes all woosh and it turns out that the Daleks actually killed us all a few months ago, that's going to be seriously embarrassing, right?"

"If Adam had him," Giles informed Buffy, "he'd be long dead by now. Adam does not generally keep his adversaries alive."

"Well, what if Adam has some plan for him?" asked Buffy. "Like, Adam's going to turn him into some sort of super-demon-Time Lord?"

"Buffy, this is the Doctor we're talking about, right?" said Willow. "Super big threat, terror of the demon world, able to outsmart the Daleks? If the Doctor was with Adam, either he'd be dead by now, or Adam would."

Riley shot the idea down as well. "He's probably just left without saying goodbye," he said. "You should really just forget about him. Your worrying isn't making him come back any faster."

So Buffy tried to stop worrying. Which she'd pretty much failed at, but she continued trying for about a day and a half after the TARDIS stopped translating.

She was having lunch with Riley — pizza — and was listening to him tell her about some anecdote or other, about how he was all super-impressive and commandoey, and — seriously, why did guys have this insecurity about not being macho enough around her? So she could kick their butt in two seconds! Big deal! The Doctor never cared that she could kick his butt in two seconds (in fact, she sort of thought he secretly liked it). Maybe this was just some human guy thing.

Then she recognized the demon.

"Wait a minute," she said. "I remember that one. It was the one that Amy attacked with that pair of scissors a few days ago."

Riley looked at Buffy, blankly.

"You remember?" Buffy asked. "And then Rory had to run off to get us seven gallons of water, so we could put out the flames from that fire it started, and Amy said—"

"Who are you talking about?" Riley asked. "Buffy, who are Amy and Rory?"

Buffy blinked. "You… don't remember Amy and Rory?"

"No," said Riley. "They friends of yours?"

"And the Doctor?" Buffy checked.

Riley sighed. "Don't get started on the Doctor, again," he muttered. "I'm sure he's perfectly fine."

"But you remember him?" Buffy asked. "You remember the Daleks and the Doctor and all that stuff?"

"Well, it does help that you keep bringing him up all the time," said Riley. He noticed the worry on her face, and gave her a reassuring smile. "Look, Buffy, of course I remember the Daleks. And I also remember that the Doctor saved your life. I'm not going to hate someone who's saved your life."

Okay, yeah, that sounded like Riley actually did remember the Doctor. But he didn't remember Amy and Rory. Which was really, really worrying.

Buffy ran back to her dorm, and yanked out her red notebook. She began flipping through it. And… oh, no. No, no, no! All the stuff that she'd done or heard about from Doctor Eleven was flickering in and out of existence.

A changing temporal probability.

Buffy closed the notebook, and ran to the phone. She dialed Willow at Tara's dorm, and the moment she got Willow on the phone, she just couldn't stop talking.

"Woah, woah, woah, slow down," said Willow. "Okay… I got flickering notebook, and Doctor."

"The probabilities are changing," said Buffy. "He's dying, Will. Or going to die, or, I don't know. Something bad. I've got to find him. Right now."

"You've been sort of saying that for a while, now," Willow said. "It hasn't really helped. I mean, we know he's not in the Initiative, we know he's not with Adam, we know he's not a vampire, and he's definitely not in Jonathan's Jacuzzi. But we don't actually know where he is."

"Well, couldn't you do some kind of locator spell?" Buffy asked.

Willow gave a sigh. "I could, but it's not going to work any better than the last fifty times."

Willow had explained this. The spell used Earth energy in order to locate people. The Doctor not being at all terrestrial, the spell had been completely useless.

"Maybe he's been on Earth long enough that some Earthiness rubbed off on him," Buffy tried.

"Unless he's magically turned human recently, I'd say that's a no-go," said Willow.

Buffy fidgeted with the TARDIS key in her hand, trying to figure out what to do. Then she looked down at the TARDIS key. Police Box. And she had an idea.

"The TARDIS is connected to the Doctor!" Buffy said. "And the TARDIS looks like a Police Box, which is pretty Earthy. So maybe, if you looked for the TARDIS, you'd find the Doctor!"

Willow gave a small sigh. "I'll try," she said. "But I'm not promising anything."

Buffy had been hopeful, after the phone conversation. She'd sat on her bed, staring at the TARDIS key in her hands, just thinking that she was going to do this. She was going to find the Doctor.

That was when the door to her dorm room burst open, and a group of armed commandos jumped out at her, all carrying loaded firearms.

The commandos spread out and aimed their guns at Buffy. Buffy slowly put her hands up, dropping the key down a sleeve of her shirt.

Then she realized that these commandos looked a bit different from the Initiative commandos. They had black combat gear on, but they all wore red berets. She thought she vaguely remembered something about that kind of military garb, but she couldn't put her finger on where she'd seen it before. Something about a highway, and… something else…

Oh, drat, this must have been one of the things she'd done with Doctor 11 that was flickering in and out of existence. Were these good commandoes, or bad commandoes?

"By order of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce," said one of the commandos, "you are currently being taken in for questioning."

Buffy hesitated. She thought she could take them, but she really didn't like beating up humans if they didn't deserve it. And there was the whole secret identity thing, too, which she had to keep in mind. Probably better to just pretend that she was a normal human.

Darn it, were these good commandoes or bad commandoes? Stupid changing probabilities!

"Ma'am," said another commando, "we don't want any trouble. But we would very much appreciate it if you came with us to answer a few questions."

Buffy got up off the bed. "Okay," she said. She guessed that this was just the year of the commandos for her. She let them lead her out of the dorm, not giving them any trouble at all. "What do you want to ask me questions about, anyways?"

"The alien being commonly known as the Doctor," they replied.

Uh-oh. Bad commandos.

Chapter 40

"For the last time," said the big-muscled guy across the table from Buffy, as he banged his hands down so that the sound echoed throughout the small interrogation room that these commandoes had commandeered for their stay in Sunnydale. "Where is the Doctor?"

Buffy just rocked back on her chair, her arms crossed. She knew what was going on. Commando guys with guns who were out looking for the Doctor? These must be the people who'd been keeping the Doctor captive for the last two months. He'd finally managed to escape, and now they wanted him back.

Best thing for Buffy to do was stall them, make them think she knew something even though she didn't, give the Doctor time to get away, get back to the TARDIS.

So Buffy wasn't saying anything.

"I can stay here as long as it takes," said the big-muscled guy.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure you have to release me after 24 hours," said Buffy. She had no idea if this was true, but it was what happened on all those crime shows on TV. "Which gives me another… 23 hours to not answer your questions."

"Listen, we can work out a deal," said the woman standing beside the big-muscled man. She wore a red beret, too, but with a pine-green skirt-suit. A Sergeant Hennings, if Buffy remembered the name right. "If you tell us where he is, we can protect you. We just want to know where he is."

Buffy persisted in her waiting game, her eyes fixed on the clock above the two figures.

"We've taken the TARDIS into our custody," said Hennings. "And we know you've stolen the key. All we need you to do is just tell us where the Doctor is."

Buffy said nothing.

The big-muscled guy rolled up his sleeves. "If you don't talk, we can make this very unpleasant for you."

"Okay," said Buffy, the front legs of her chair clunking down onto the ground. "Make it unpleasant."

Hennings coughed, pointedly, and the big-muscled man rolled down his sleeves again, looking a little sheepish.

Wow, Buffy had actually called his bluff! Either he couldn't legally beat her up, or he just thought she was weak and defenseless.

Buffy had to admit, she was kind of disappointed. She'd sort of been looking forward to throwing him around. Partly because he'd threatened her. But mostly because he'd imprisoned the Doctor, and was now going to do so again.

And… wasn't there some loophole in the "don't hurt humans" rule that if they attacked her, she could attack them back? There should be. It would certainly do something to make up for the lack of an "it's okay to hurt humans that have hurt my friends" rule, which Buffy had been wanting for some time, now.

"Come on," said Buffy. "You're not chicken, are you? Helpless little girl over here! Beat me up, and maybe I'll talk! You never know!"

The big-muscled man hesitated.

"Private Richards," Hennings scolded.

Private Richards glanced over at Hennings, who shook her head at him. He stepped away. It was obvious to Buffy that there was no way she was going to provoke him enough to fight her. Darn.

"Okay, then," she said. "In that case, I'm not telling you all my amazing number of secrets."

"We don't want to know all your secrets!" Richards snapped at her. "We just want to know what you've done with the Doctor!"

Buffy said nothing.

"Is the Doctor at least still in this country?" Hennings demanded. "Or have you already shipped him to London?"

Buffy still didn't answer.

"Is he dead or alive?" Richards shouted.

"Was he in the middle of doing something else when you abducted him, or did you just snag him because the opportunity presented itself?" Hennings asked.

Buffy maintained her silence.

"We know your organization has an outstanding order to kidnap him!" Richards yelled. "So where is he?"

"Wait, my organi-what-tion?" Buffy asked.

Hennings sat down at the table across from Buffy. "Listen, we don't know what you've heard, but the Doctor is not a bad person. We believe this planet is in serious danger, and it's vitally important that we find him. Your colleagues have already spoken up in his defense."

"Huh?" asked Buffy.

Couldn't they have told her this during the first hour? Or was this some interrogation tactic? Hour one: shout at the person. Hour two: confuse the heck out of them. Hour three: …bake cookies? Who even knew?

"We're not asking you to hand him over, we're not asking you to betray the world, we're just asking you to tell us where you've hidden the Doctor," Hennings told her.

"Where I've what?" asked Buffy.

"Playing dumb," said Richards. "Just the same as her commanding officer."

"My commanding — wait, who do you guys think I am?" asked Buffy.

"Buffy Anne Summers," said Hennings. "Chief Slayer of the Watchers Council. Headquarters: London, England. An organization with an outstanding order to secure the Doctor. Dead or alive."

Buffy stared at them. They actually knew who she was? Oh, no wonder that big-muscled guy had backed down once she'd asked him to take her on. If he knew who she was, he probably knew better.

"So what's all this commanding officer stuff?" asked Buffy.

"Rupert Giles," Hennings informed her. "Commanding officer to the current Chief Slayer, based in Sunnydale, California."

Buffy leaned across the desk, and gave them her best menacing look. "What are you doing to Giles?"

"That depends on what you're doing with the Doctor," said Richards.

"Now, we can be very accommodating," Hennings said, "but we need to know what happened to the Doctor, if he's dead or alive, what your organization has done with him, and what he was doing before you intervened. If you give us the information, I assure you that no harm will come to your commanding officer."

Buffy got up from her chair, shifting into a fighting stance, as the rage began to bubble up inside of her. "Oh, you so do not want to mess with me. You really, really don't want to mess with me."

"Quite right," came an English accented voice, as the door opened behind Buffy.

Buffy swung around, her guard still up. An elderly gentleman in full military uniform marched into the room. He carried himself with a posture that spoke of many years of proud service, with a fearlessness that Buffy recognized as the mark of one who'd dealt with supernatural threats many times before.

He stood to attention, then nodded at the two people in front of Buffy, who had both saluted him. "Sergeant Hennings, Private Richards, you may stand down. This girl does not belong to the organization we're looking for. In fact, I've been told she's rather a good friend of the Doctor's." He turned to Buffy. "Dreadfully sorry. We seem to have a bit of a mix up. Rupert Giles is quite all right, and after a nice cup of English tea and a short conversation with myself, has been released."

"Brigadier," said Hennings. "I was not aware that you had been called in."

"Nor was I," said the old man — the Brigadier? "But after a few months in Maryland, clearing up after that Dashwood Institute fiasco, I was informed that the old-blighter had gotten himself in trouble yet again. He does seem to make a habit of it. Any idea which one we're dealing with, this time?"

"No, sir," said Richards. "Miss Summers refuses to talk."

The Brigadier turned to Buffy. "And you must be Miss Summers," he said, extending a hand to shake. "Delighted to meet you. Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, at your service. An old friend of the Doctor's."

Buffy didn't take the hand. She was still wary. "If you're a friend of the Doctor's," she said, "then why with the guns?"

The Brigadier sighed. "That's precisely what the Doctor always asked me," he confessed. "Doesn't seem to realize, poor fellow, that some of us are only human, and need weapons to fight back. I don't suppose he's mentioned me at all? Or UNIT?"

Buffy shook her head.

"Typical, really," said the Brigadier. "Charley didn't know who I was, either. Rather interesting new regeneration, that one. A young Edwardian gentleman, slightly Byronic with a green frock coat. I don't suppose the one you know looks like that?"

Buffy blinked at him. That description… rang a bell. From way back. Way, way back, when she'd first met the Doctor. And he'd told her about an old face of his…

Rather dashing good looks with a Byronic twist.

"If you're the Doctor's friend, prove it," said Buffy. "What doesn't he like?"

"Paperwork," said the Brigadier. "Guns and weapons of all kinds, as well — although I've noticed that he sometimes depends on our supplying them, despite his protests. And… well, anything from his home planet, really. One of the first things I learned, working with him. If the Doctor's received a summons from the Time Lords, he'll be ranting and raving for at least the next week."

Buffy wasn't really sure what to say to this. The first two — okay, yeah, that was definitely the Doctor. The last one… well, she kind of had no idea. But it suggested… and if the Brigadier had known the Doctor back when he'd worn the same face as he had when he'd been travelling with Elizabeth…

Buffy relaxed her fighting stance. "Okay," she said. "I'm giving you a chance. But if you're actually evil, I'm going to kick your ass."

"Excellent," said the Brigadier. He walked over to the desk, and sat down in the seat that had been vacated by Hennings. He nodded at the two interrogators, who saluted him, and left the room. The moment they left, the Brigadier started in again. "Now. If you'd be so kind as to explain the situation at the moment, we can begin to strategize, and plan a proper mode of attack."

"Situation?" asked Buffy, sitting down across from the Brigadier. "You kidnapped me, threatened me, then told me you were the Doctor's friend. Am I missing anything so far?"

"Not that," the Brigadier replied. "I mean the situation with the Doctor. The trouble he's found himself in this time." He caught the blank expression on Buffy's face. "Surely you've at least noticed something odd around here, lately? Lights in the sky, that sort of thing?"

"Yeah, this is Sunnydale," said Buffy. "Weird is our middle name. We're like… um, what's that place, in Wales? Cardiff! We're like the Cardiff of North America."

"Ah," said the Brigadier. "So… very little information as to what the trouble might be."

"I know what the Doctor looks like," said Buffy. "He's sort of tall, skinny, pinstripe suit, red trainers, spiky brown hair. And he's super-talkative, and he really likes licking stuff, and he does this bouncy thing on the balls of his feet when he gets excited, and…" She glanced up at the Brigadier, as she realized that she was rambling. Trying to remember all those little things she liked about the Doctor. The fondness and admiration in his voice when he called her 'Elizabeth'. The way his eyes twinkled when he came across something new. The way his ears twitched a little whenever he gave a radiant, excited beam. She glanced down at her hands, which were folded on the tabletop. "Sorry."

She missed the Doctor so much, sometimes.

"Not to worry," the Brigadier assured her. "We're going to get him back. Stiff upper lip and all that." He cleared his throat. "Now, then. Here's what we at UNIT know about the situation. A few days ago, a number of scientists who had recently left a top-secret agency arrived at UNIT, along with a top-secret alert code which indicates that the Doctor has discovered a threat to the Earth, and requires our help to neutralize it. Due to some legal technicalities, we haven't been able to work out any of the details, but it didn't take us very long to discover that the Doctor had to be somewhere in Sunnydale."

"Why?" asked Buffy.

"Well, because of you, of course," said the Brigadier. "Legal technicalities, as I said. Most of the information these scientists had about the Doctor and the current situation was classified. But your name, it seems, was not."

"My name?"

"Yes," said the Brigadier. "Hence the mix-up. We thought that your organization was the one holding the Doctor. Which raised some worries in UNIT, seeing as the Watchers Council does not necessarily want the Doctor alive."

"Yeah, I'm not really part of the Watchers Council anymore," said Buffy. "I quit. For… a lot of reasons. Including that one."

"But after speaking to a Dr. Marianna Forlich, several minutes ago," the Brigadier continued, "I learned that you were actually the Doctor's friend, and not at all responsible for his abduction."

"Wait, Dr. Marianna What-lich?" said Buffy. "I don't know any Marianna What-lich!"

"Ah, yes, she doesn't seem to know you, either," the Brigadier agreed. "None of the scientists do, really. At least, not in person. Although they all seem terribly well acquainted with your boyfriend. Whose name we don't know. Classified and all that."

Buffy's eyes widened. "Hang on… you said… something about a top-secret institution, right?"

"That's correct," the Brigadier agreed.

Buffy felt the entire world crashing down on top of her. Scientists from a top-secret institution, who knew about her but hadn't met her in person, who abducted nonhumans, who knew Riley…

Buffy got up from her chair. "Would you excuse me?" she asked. "I have to go beat up my boyfriend, now."

Chapter 41

Riley was trying to act innocent. Like he had no idea why Buffy had asked him here. Like he was completely clueless. But he knew. It was something about the way he was all huddled in on himself as he sat on her bed that gave him away.

"How long?" Buffy demanded.

"What?" Riley asked.

"How long has he been down there?" Buffy shouted. "How long have you been lying to me? How long has this gone on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Riley.

Buffy bunched her hands into fists. "You told me, over and over again, that you hadn't seen the Doctor," she said, trying to keep her voice way calmer than she felt. "You told me, over and over again, that I should just stop looking for him, that I should forget about him, that he left me behind. And I felt all guilty that whole time, because I thought I was making you feel bad and inadequate and stuff. But you were feeling bad about a whole something else, weren't you?"

"Buffy, I really don't know what you're talking about," Riley insisted.

Buffy barely restrained herself from grabbing him up by his shirt and hurling him against somewhere hard. She couldn't let herself actually strike out at him. In this mood, in this temper, Buffy was afraid that if she started hitting Riley… she'd actually kill him.

(And she wasn't sure she'd stop with Riley, either.)

Buffy started pacing the room, trying to burn off her anger. She wasn't going to go all mega-pissed-off-Slayer, not on humans, but… damn it, she didn't want the innocent act! She just wanted to know why! Why Riley had done it! What had happened to the Doctor, and why Riley hadn't gotten him out!

"Did you give him a whole Hostile Number thing?" Buffy snapped. "Did you lock him up and cut open his brain and start poking things inside it? Did you…?"

Then she trailed off, as she started to put the pieces together. That time she'd felt the Doctor's warm fuzzy something in her head — that had been the same night that swarms of Initiative soldiers had been scouring the woods for an escaped prisoner. It had been just before the TARDIS' sudden silence. Just before UNIT's sudden influx of scientists.

Buffy gaped at Riley, in horror. "Hostile 29."

Riley didn't answer.

"You handed him over to them," Buffy breathed, hardly daring to believe it.

"No!" Riley insisted. "Look, none of this was my fault. I didn't even know it was him, at first."

"You knew pretty fast!" Buffy snapped. "I told you about regeneration the day after he disappeared. I described him to you over and over again!"

"And as soon as I found out who he really was, I helped him," Riley said. "I'm not the bad guy, here, Buffy. They were going to kill him, and I intervened. Made sure they didn't kill him or mess with his mind, until… I mean, the Doctor is completely fine."

"Until what?" asked Buffy, stalking towards him, her eyes dark and biting. "Until two days ago? Until he escaped? Until you shot him down, dragged him back, and sucked his brain out?"

"I didn't… I thought I was doing him a favor," said Riley, flinching away from her. "It's not the way you think."

"You thought that making him a brain-dead vegetable was doing him a favor?" Buffy shouted.

"They were making him head of the scientific team at the Initiative!" Riley retorted. "I thought he'd be happy."

Buffy stopped, just in front of him, crossing her arms over her chest. "You know, maybe it's the fact that you had to shoot him and drag him back down there at gunpoint, then skewer his brain to get him to cooperate, but somehow, I don't believe you."

"That was… an accident," said Riley. "He… trusted someone he shouldn't have."

"Yeah," said Buffy, turning away. "So did I."

"No, it wasn't me!" said Riley. "It's… look, Buffy, it's really complicated. Everything that's been going on with the Doctor. It's just… really, really complicated."

Buffy paused, squeezed her eyes shut, and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She couldn't let herself get this angry. She was the Slayer — she needed to be in control. She needed to hold herself back. If she didn't, she would kill someone.

She sat down on Willow's bed, facing Riley. "Okay. So explain it."

"I… can't," said Riley, elbows on his knees.

"Those scientists that arrived at UNIT all knew I had some connection to the Doctor," said Buffy. "I didn't mention him when I was at the Initiative. So obviously either you, or the Doctor, or both, mentioned me. Why?"

"Why do you think?" Riley snapped. "He's head over heels in love with you, Buffy. You came up."

Oh, great. Not this again.

"UNIT also told me," she continued, "that they'd gotten a super-bad red code from the Doctor for right around this area. Which I'm guessing is the real reason he wanted me involved. So. What happened?"

"Nothing happened," Riley said. "It was just... really, really complicated."

"You keep saying that," said Buffy. "What does that mean?"

"It means I don't know!" Riley shouted. "Are you happy, now? I don't know what happened to the Doctor! He was perfectly fine at first, and next thing I knew, he was so desperate for food, he electrified a woman just so he could get his hands on a chocolate bar. And now…"

Buffy waited for him to continue, but he didn't.

"Riley," said Buffy, in the softest, most soothing tone of voice she could manage right now, "tell me what happened. From the beginning."

"I didn't know," said Riley. "At first I didn't know. And then, when I worked it out, they were going to shoot him, because he was a menace, and I… look, he saved your life, Buffy. I stopped them. Kept him alive and unchipped."

Buffy felt a bit of her anger dropping away from her. "You stood up for him."

"I told you," said Riley. "I'm not the one to blame, here. I kept the Doctor alive. I'm not proud of how I did it, but it was the only way to get the stubborn bastard to cooperate. But they labeled him a high security risk, made his brain a classified weapon, decided he was the property of the US Military. If you'd tried to rescue him, they'd have shot you down in two seconds. Even the Doctor knew that. He told me not to tell you where he was."

Just like the later Doctor had told her. The repressed mental signal, so she wouldn't find him. If all accounts matched up, it meant that Riley was telling her the truth. Finally.

"Then what happened?" Buffy asked.

"I don't know," said Riley. "I think… he got lonely. Started talking to some of the scientists."

Oh, that sounded so like the Doctor. Knowing him, he started trying to convince the scientists that the demons and vampires were real people who deserved a chance.

"I didn't have that much to do with him," Riley told her. "I found out that they were starving him, so I tried to make them feed him something better. And more regularly. I warned them, told them that… if they treated the Doctor like a monster, they'd find out why all the other monsters are afraid of him. I guess… it backfired."

"How?"

"The Doctor… escaped," said Riley. "We weren't really sure why, because that day, our CO unofficially decided to make him head of the scientific research division of the Initiative. But I guess he knew something bad would happen to him, if he stayed."

"That was the first time he escaped?" Buffy asked. That didn't sound right at all. If Spike had escaped from the Initiative, the Doctor should have found it a cakewalk.

"He never stopped trying," said Riley. "But this was the first time he actually got outside. We thought if he ever got out, we'd never see him again."

"But you found him, and brought him back," said Buffy.

"He wanted me to!" Riley insisted. "He was shouting and making a commotion, trying to attract our attention. He was… trying to save the guy who'd been torturing him."

Buffy felt her heart sinking. That was so something the Doctor would do.

"There were two demons nearby," Riley explained. "We knocked out one, but the demon you attacked — the one with the multi-colored scales — it used the Doctor as a shield and ran off."

"The demon I attacked?!" Buffy shouted, jumping up off the bed. "You mean that you sent me off to search for the Doctor, when he was two feet away from me the entire time?"

"I told you, I thought it was for the best!" Riley protested. "We only left the Doctor behind so we could track down that multi-colored demon."

"You should have told me where he was!" shouted Buffy. "I was right there, Riley! If you'd said anything at all, if you'd given me any sign—"

"They were going to make him head of the Initiative!" Riley insisted.

"He'd still have been a prisoner!" Buffy screamed.

Riley shook his head. "It didn't matter anyways. When we went to round the Doctor up, it turned out that the… guy he'd saved… got to him, first. And… messed with his head."

Buffy's breath caught in her throat. She'd known — or suspected — that this had happened, but hearing it confirmed, like this, hearing the words spoken out loud… it just made a horrible sick feeling churn in the pit of her stomach.

"You chipped his brain," Buffy whispered.

"I… it wasn't… no one… there wasn't a chip."

"Huh?"

Riley looked over at Buffy. "Buffy, there isn't a chip. There was no surgery, no behavior-altering drugs, no nothing. This someone the Doctor saved just… pushed him too far, and he broke. Too many deaths, too much guilt, too much torture. It all sort of snowballed, I guess, and he just… snapped."

Oh, no. No, no, no. This could not be happening. This really, really couldn't be happening.

"How… snapped?" Buffy ventured.

"Reduced to animal instincts," said Riley. "No higher brain functions, no sense of self awareness. Just base hatred and aggression. Stuck attacking the one person he hates most."

And Buffy knew who that was all too well.

She knew about that sea of self-loathing inside the Doctor. That sea of guilt and sorrow that always threatened to consume him. Buffy knew what happened when he wallowed in it for too long.

This time, he had no Buffy around to help him through a rough patch.

Buffy's legs turned to rubber, and she collapsed back down on Willow's bed, sitting there with her hands on her knees, trying to control her breathing.

"I'm sorry," said Riley. "He always seemed so happy. I had no idea—"

"He didn't kill…" Buffy faltered. "I mean, he's still…"

"He didn't kill himself," Riley said. "He tried a few times, but we always caught him before it happened. Mostly, he just kept trying to… hurt himself. Attack himself. But that's stopped, now."

"Good," said Buffy.

"Now he just won't stop screaming."

Buffy buried her face in her hands.

"I'm sorry," said Riley. "I've been… checking on him, from time to time, but… they've got him strapped to this big machine, now, and I don't know what it's been doing to him."

"You didn't… there's no chip?" asked Buffy. "Nothing you can undo?"

"I'm sorry," Riley repeated. He sighed. "I guess… the Initiative just isn't really set up for that kind of naïve mindset. Too many deaths, too much torture, and it just… you know."

Wait a sec. Buffy looked up from her hands. Wait, wait, wait a sec. Something about this was starting to sound not even remotely right.

"What do you mean, naïve?" Buffy asked.

"Well, no, not naïve," Riley backpedalled. "Just… not… exactly… realistic. I mean, it's okay. It's just… you know. Mind not able to handle a situation with this much death and destruction."

Not like me, was the thought that Riley didn't bother to express.

"Riley, he fought in a war that nearly ripped apart the universe," said Buffy. "He was tortured for months by the Concurrence, and didn't say a word. A few months ago, he lost his memory, then got sucked into a Hell Dimension and nearly raped by a half-naked demon with serious self-esteem issues. Whatever happened at the Initiative, he's seen, done, and been through way worse. If he's snapped, it's not because of the torture or the deaths. It's because someone did something to him."

Riley nodded in that way that meant, 'if you insist'.

Buffy ignored him. She got up from the bed, and began pacing the dorm room, her brain a whirl of ideas. "Those vampires — the Carkoflashians or whatever — they were acting weird. Splitting up. He said they never did that. He said it didn't make biological sense."

And if that was when the Initiative had caught him — while he was going after that vampire in the warehouse — that meant that someone had wanted the Doctor to wind up at the Initiative. Someone had wanted to make sure he didn't leave.

Oh, and of course someone would! Because there was no way that the Doctor should have had that much difficulty escaping from the Initiative! If it had taken him 2 months to even get close, then someone was obviously stacking the odds against him.

Someone who could get into the Initiative at any time, undetected.

Someone who could convince vampires and demons to do things they wouldn't normally do.

Someone who would be smart enough to quickly work out exactly which buttons to press to make sure the Doctor cooperated.

Someone who the Doctor would be worried enough about to call for serious military firepower.

"Adam," said Buffy, stopping in the middle of the dorm room.

"Huh?" asked Riley.

"It's the only thing that makes sense!" cried Buffy, turning to face Riley. "Adam wants the Doctor. I don't know why, or what for, but… Adam needs him for something."

"Buffy, if Adam had been the one behind this, the Doctor would be long dead," said Riley.

"Not if Adam needs him alive." And then Buffy got a horrible idea. An idea that made a lot of things make a lot more sense — including why the TARDIS had been moved. "The Doctor's the only one that can fly his ship."

"Huh?"

"It's not the Doctor Adam wants!" said Buffy. "It's the ship! The TARDIS. Adam — evil, unstoppable killing machine Adam — is trying to gain the ability to travel through time."

"That's ridiculous," said Riley. "If Adam…" He trailed off, and frowned. "Actually, that's not ridiculous. That makes a lot of things make a lot more sense."

"We've got to get the Doctor out of there," said Buffy. "Adam's just had two months of tests from your Initiative scientists to learn exactly how the Doctor's biology works. Now he's cashing in. Big time. And every single person in the universe is going to suffer."

Chapter 42

Riley went down into the Initiative. He didn't hear screaming from the Pit, this time — which might be a good sign, might mean that they'd managed to fix the Doctor. Or it might mean that they'd killed him.

Which, as long as they killed him for good, might be better than the alternative. An Adam with time travel — that was something Riley didn't want to think about.

How would you kill the Doctor for good, anyways? How would you manage to kill the Doctor and make it stick, make the regeneration process not happen? Was it even possible?

Riley went over to the Pit, and looked down. They'd finally taken the Doctor out of that machine, and now Green and the other scientists were frantically looking the contraption over. They took off parts and adjusted the wiring inside, read the output, then shouted complicated-sounding things at each other, before continuing to fiddle.

The Doctor was lying, still strapped to a gurney, some ways away. Except… he wasn't moving, anymore. Wasn't blinking, wasn't twitching, wasn't struggling. He just lay, his eyes fixed unseeingly on the ceiling.

Riley wasn't really sure how to feel about that.

The stomp of footsteps, as Colonel Haviland appeared down in the Pit. He looked very, very angry. He paused by the Doctor, waving a hand in front of his face. No reaction.

"Is it dead?" Haviland demanded.

"Vital signs are all normal," Green insisted. "Everything should be working perfectly. I don't know what the problem is."

"The problem is that your machine is making Hostile 29 become completely unresponsive!" Haviland snapped. "Have you even gotten any data out of that machine, yet?"

"We're still having some… technical difficulties," Green said. "They will be fixed. Believe me, this is a collaboration between myself and a colleague — one of the most highly sophisticated scientific minds in the United States. In three days, we'll have a complete database of knowledge."

"With all due respect, Dr. Green," said one of the scientists, a little hesitantly, "I don't… think there's any knowledge left. I think… I think we killed it."

"Nonsense!" insisted Green. "It's perfectly fine."

Colonel Haviland's face turned red with rage.

"Three days," promised Green. "I told you."

"We don't have three days," said Haviland. "UNIT's shown up asking questions. I've decided. We transfer Hostile 29 to Washington DC tonight."

"Tonight?" cried Green. "But my work—"

"Your 'work'," shouted Colonel Haviland, "is useless! Do you realize what you have done? The opportunity you've squandered? You haven't destroyed an HST, Dr. Green! You have single-handedly destroyed one of the greatest weapons the United States military might have been able to get our hands on! I don't know what's wrong with it, or how to make it better, but one thing's perfectly clear! Whenever you get your hands on it, it gets worse."

"I'll consult with my colleague," Green promised. "Understand the biology better. Perhaps—"

"You've had your chance," said Haviland. "It's Washington's turn, now. I just hope they'll find some way to undo whatever it is you've done." He turned to one of the other scientists. "Get Hostile 29 ready for transfer. Military convoy leaves at 0100 hours. No trouble, no delays. I will be accompanying Hostile 29, personally, to ensure that Green stays away from it."

"You can't do this!" Green shouted. He pointed at the Doctor. "That is my experiment! My project! My property! That's my ticket to a Nobel Prize!"

"That," Colonel Haviland shouted back, "is the property of the United States military! And the only thing it's a ticket for, now, is a federal indictment for sabotage and espionage. But until the warrant for your arrest is official, Dr. Green, you're fired."

Green stared. "You can't fire me! I have connections! Friends in—"

"Your 'friends' have stood down," said Colonel Haviland. "It seems that your use to them is at an end." He turned on his heel, and stormed out towards the stairs of the Pit. Then he paused, and glanced over his shoulder. "Oh, and Dr. Green? Stay far away from Hostile 29."

Riley tried to figure out what he should do. He knew that Buffy was right — this was bigger than just his relationship with her. He had to think big. Think beyond Buffy. Think beyond even global implications. Cosmic implications.

Buffy was right. He either had to get the Doctor out of there, or kill him. And if Riley messed up killing the Doctor, if Riley just regenerated him, then Adam would know about regeneration as well, and that would be yet another thing that Adam would use to his own advantage.

Safer to leave the Doctor alive, then.

(Seriously, how would you kill the Doctor without regenerating him?)

---

"So you're Buffy Summers," said a woman with neatly pinned-up brown hair, black-rimmed glasses, and a white lab coat. She came over to Buffy, and held out a hand to shake. "I'm Dr. Marianna Forlich. I've heard a lot about you."

Buffy didn't take the hand. "You're one of the Initiative scientists who hurt the Doctor."

"Not… exactly," Marianna told her, dropping the hand. "I was the one trying to stop it."

"If you'd really wanted to stop it," said Buffy, "you'd have gotten him out. Or told me, and let me get him out."

"I did try to get him out," said Marianna. "I appealed to the higher-ups to let him go. They refused."

"I could have told you that," Buffy muttered.

"And as for informing you… well, I very nearly did, that time when he almost killed himself trying to help you," said Marianna. "But Finn intersected me before I could. And the Doctor was very insistent that you not know where he was."

"Wait, almost killed himself?" Buffy cried.

Marianna shifted on her feet. She glanced around, not really sure what to do. Then looked back at Buffy, and grimaced.

"I suppose… there's no harm in telling you, now," she said, a little hesitantly. "Since you already know the Doctor is… well…"

Buffy crossed her arms, waiting for Marianna to continue.

Marianna opened her mouth to start, then reconsidered, and started again. "Finn had this… well, I believe he's insecure about your relationship with him," said Marianna. "He sort of… considers the Doctor the 'other man'. As far as I could figure it, every time you and Finn slept together, Finn would go down to the Doctor's cell and… um, brag about it."

Buffy felt her face burning — with embarrassment or rage or both.

"I think he was trying to make the Doctor jealous," said Marianna. "I'm not sure. But it appears that one time, when Finn slept with you,… it wasn't really you. Some sort of synaptic mind transference, that was what the Doctor said."

Oh, God. Riley had come down to brag to the Doctor about having sex with her, and the Doctor had figured out that she and Faith had swapped bodies. The Doctor was exactly the kind of person who would know, too. He'd have known right away.

"He tried to get out," Buffy whispered. "To help me."

"For about two days," Marianna confirmed. "I don't know what happened up here, but down in the Initiative… the Doctor nearly died trying to get to you."

Buffy felt a chill run through her. She kept remembering what it had been like, stuck in Faith's body, being treated like a murderer and knowing that no one would believe her. The way that Giles looked at her like she was dangerous. The way that everyone seemed to back away from her. She'd been alone — so alone.

And so had the Doctor.

Marianna looked off into the distance, the echo of extreme pain in her eyes. "He… he really cares about you. I don't know if you two are friends or lovers, and I don't want to pass judgment on your relationship, but… that sort of desperation and worry…" She met Buffy's eyes. "It was the first time I'd seen real love in a nonhuman's eyes."

"He doesn't… it's not like that," Buffy insisted. "We're just really, really good friends. He's not in love with me."

"He was willing to do anything to make sure you were all right," said Marianna. "Anything at all. He was willing to surrender himself to the US military, to give up his secrets and his freedom, to lay down his own life, just so long as it meant you were safe." She paused. "Except… he wouldn't kill off all sentient nonhuman life on Earth."

Kill off what!?

"What the hell were you guys doing to him!" Buffy shouted.

Marianna gave a small, sad laugh. "You should ask what he was doing to us."

Buffy blinked. "Huh?"

Marianna looked away. "You ask why I didn't try to get him out sooner," she said. "Truth is… I didn't want him out. I didn't think it was wrong. Any of it."

"Every single sentient nonhuman life form on Earth?!" Buffy said. "You didn't think that was wrong? I'm the Slayer — she who kills evil bad nonhuman things — and even I wouldn't do something like that! It's insane!"

"But that was how we all thought," said Marianna. "Until the Doctor came around."

Buffy's anger started to fall away. "Oh."

"I still don't understand how he did it," said Marianna. "But he changed us. He made us think, made us question, made us see what we were doing. After so long teaching ourselves to ignore right and wrong, to become no better than the creatures we were experimenting on, the Doctor… well, I guess you could say he gave us back our souls."

Of course he did. Just the way the Doctor always did.

"That time, when you were in trouble, he kept trying to escape," said Marianna. "And every time he escaped, he was punished. Beaten. But… four hours in, the soldiers said no. Went against their orders. Refused to beat him for the crime of wanting to save human lives. Even Agent Forrest stood up for him, and Agent Forrest doesn't stand up for anyone but the members of his team."

"But none of you tried to get him out," Buffy said.

"It was the first time I did," Marianna told her. "And the others did, too, eventually. When they got to know him. Our engineer, Julie, she…" Marianna's head dropped, and she stared down at the ground. "She's in jail for high treason, right now. Because she got him out. She might be executed by the state simply because she allowed the Doctor to escape. And in the end, it was all for nothing. In the end, he wound up right back in the Initiative."

"I'm… sorry," said Buffy.

"Yeah," said Marianna. "Me too."

Buffy swallowed. "Riley said… the Doctor wasn't okay anymore. That someone did something to his brain, when they brought him back, and now he's…" She stared at Marianna, trying to force the tears out of her eyes. "If you really wanted to help him, why would you leave him all alone?"

"He told us to," said Marianna. "He said to come to UNIT, and gave us some sort of alert code. I… very nearly stayed behind. Every time I played the scenario out in my mind, I always assumed I'd stay with him, make sure he was all right. I guess I just… got scared, in the end. When I saw what had happened to the Doctor — what would happen to us. I got scared, and fled for my life."

There was so much guilt and anger and self-reproach in Marianna's voice that Buffy was beginning to find it hard to stay mad at her. Yeah, she'd locked up and tortured the Doctor, but… it seemed like Marianna had honestly cared about him.

"What happened to the Doctor?" asked Buffy.

"It's my fault," said Marianna, with a sigh. "I told you that I was trying to stop the Initiative from mistreating the Doctor. I knew the Washington higher-ups wouldn't let the Doctor leave — he was too valuable a resource. So I came up with a way to fix everything. I submitted a Petition that suggested replacing the current head of the scientific research department at the Initiative with the Doctor. It was accepted."

Buffy stared at her. "You do realize that the Doctor would probably have tried to shut the place down, right?"

"All the Doctor ever wanted to do was protect us," said Marianna. "I was simply giving him the opportunity to do so. He might have changed the purpose of the Initiative, but he would have changed it for the better. Then he'd have everything he needed to leave." She shrugged. "Besides, he wouldn't have destroyed the Initiative. Not while it gave him the means to protect us from the monster we'd created."

That's when Buffy's brain suddenly worked it out. "You wanted him to protect you from Adam."

And of course, it made perfect sense, now. Exactly what Marianna was thinking, exactly why Marianna had done what she'd done. In fact… it was a really, really clever plan. Because everything Adam did — inspiring and amassing an army of demons and vampires — the Doctor did, too, except that he inspired people to be better, not worse. If Marianna had done what she'd set out to do, she would have placed the Doctor in the perfect position to take Adam out.

No wonder Adam had wanted to make sure the Doctor was out of the picture! Because Adam knew that Marianna's Petition meant the end of all his plans.

"Someone stopped that from happening," said Buffy. "Right? The day you submitted that Petition, the Doctor wound up all crazy brain-damaged and stuff."

"Yes," said Marianna. "The Doctor saved my boss's life. And in return, my boss brought the Doctor back to the Initiative, and tortured him until he snapped."

"He didn't snap," said Buffy. "Something's been done to him. Adam found out about your Petition, and made sure that something happened to the Doctor to take him out of the picture. Make sure he wasn't a threat."

"Adam?" the Brigadier cut in. He'd been loitering nearby, trying to gain information about the Doctor's whereabouts, while also half listening in on Buffy and Marianna's conversation. "Who, precisely, is this Adam fellow?"

"A freaky Frankenstein-looking thing," said Buffy. "He's all patched together parts from different demons, with a bunch of computerized stuff holding it all together. Powered up by a uranium core. The Initiative created him as the perfect soldier, but he has no heart, no conscience, no soul. He's just… super smart, super manipulative, and super-big on the whole complete destruction of humanity front."

"Really?" the Brigadier asked. He glanced over at Marianna, who was looking supremely guilty.

"Adam's been on the loose now for a while," said Buffy. "We didn't know what he was planning, but he's able to get vampires and demons to do anything he wants."

"We must talk to whoever created this monstrosity," said the Brigadier. "Discover some weakness or…"

"Yeah, they're both pretty dead," said Buffy. "And as for a weakness — there isn't one. Bullets don't hurt Adam. He soaks up electricity and energy blasts like a sponge. I've tried going up against him several times, with Slayer-skills, and he won't go down. I don't think even chopping off his head would stop him."

"And this Adam fellow wants the Doctor in the Initiative because…?" the Brigadier asked.

"He doesn't care about the Doctor," said Buffy. "He wants the ship. The TARDIS. He wants to be able to travel through time."

"Are you sure…?" Marianna asked.

"I'm positive," said Buffy. "It's why the Doctor's still alive. Adam knows that if he kills the Doctor, he kills the TARDIS. The link is telepathic, so Adam wouldn't risk brain surgery — not unless he was really desperate — just in case he accidentally cut off the link and killed the ship, anyways. Adam must have tried to convince the Doctor to join him, just the same way Adam's been convincing all the other nonhumans to join him. But the Doctor refused."

"So Julie was right," Marianna muttered. "The Doctor really did mean it all literally."

"I'm betting Adam had another plan for the Doctor, at first," said Buffy. "But the moment you turned in your Petition, the Doctor turned into a very real threat. Your Petition didn't just hand the Doctor an army, it handed him access to every scrap of information at the Initiative. The Doctor would have worked out a way to defeat Adam in about 10 seconds flat, with that kind of knowledge at his fingertips. Adam got desperate, and that's why the Doctor's like this."

"But Adam didn't make the Doctor like this," said Marianna. "It was Green."

"Either they're connected, or Green's being manipulated and he doesn't know it," said Buffy. She ran a hand through her hair. "But, see, if Adam was the one who messed up the Doctor's head, then all we have to do is get the Doctor back, and we can work out some way to fix him."

A spark of hope appeared in Marianna's eyes, but it died away, back into sorrow. "I can't," she confessed to Buffy. "I have no idea what the Doctor's physiology is supposed to look like when it's stable, and the Initiative won't help us."

"Actually," said the Brigadier, "I believe UNIT might be able to give you the information you require, Dr. Forlich."

Chapter 43

This was it. This was the last straw for Arthur Green.

He'd done everything right. He'd done everything the way he was supposed to. And somehow, it had all gone wrong. Ever since Hostile 29 had shown up.

Hostile 29.

Who had all those ladies fawning over it and adoring it. Who kept getting all that undeserved attention and devotion. Who kept getting treated as if it were something more than an animal — no, not more than an animal. More than Green. As if it were somehow better than him, smarter than him, more attractive and intelligent and deserving of respect.

Hostile 29 had ruined him.

But not for long. No, Green was going to find that creature and destroy it for good. He wanted to wring its neck. Tear off its arms and legs and listen to it scream as it died from blood loss. But better to do this stealthily. Wisely. Show Hostile 29 that no one made a fool of Arthur Green.

Green snuck into the laboratory where Hostile 29 was being kept. Looks like the other scientists had all gone. Good. Green had planned this well. One little distraction, and that was all it took to make sure Hostile 29 was dead.

Salicylic acid. That's what he'd do. That was one thing that Finn had been clear on from the start — that salicylic acid was poisonous to Hostile 29. That even half a tablet of aspirin would kill it stone dead.

Green filled a syringe, and approached that… thing still strapped to the gurney.

"I know you're in there," Green spat. "You have to be. No matter what they say. You're in there. Laughing at me. Making fun of me. Telling all your little jokes."

Hostile 29 didn't respond. Didn't even blink. Just stared straight ahead. Unseeing. Unfeeling. Unthinking.

"You were supposed to make my career!" Green hissed. "Instead, you destroyed my life."

Still, no response.

Green took out the syringe. "Well, I'm not letting you become anyone else's little pet project," said Green. "You're mine. And you'll go to your grave being mine."

Finally, finally, a flicker of life in those eyes, as Hostile 29 glanced over at him.

And then a sudden, piercing pain shot through Green's chest. A burning, searing pain, that made his hands shake, as he dropped the syringe onto the floor.

Green looked down, and saw a bone skewer poking out of his chest.

"Sorry, collaborator," said a smooth, deep voice. "I'm afraid I need him alive."

The skewer retracted, and Green felt himself slumping to the floor, as the world faded around him. He coughed, struggling to get air into his punctured lungs, as a part-demon, part-man, bio-mechanoid stepped out towards Hostile 29.

"Who… what…?" Green rasped out.

But he knew who and what. It was Adam.

(His collaborator.)

Which meant… all that work, all that time, everything that Green had done… was for Adam. That Green had been a cog in someone else's machine. Green gasped for air, as he realized that he wasn't just dying — he was dying as a traitor.

Adam didn't pay Green any attention. He strode over to Hostile 29, studying the limp pinstripe-suited body with interest. Then, he reached for one of the Taser Blasters nearby, and shocked Hostile 29 through its right heart.

Hostile 29 jolted in the gurney and screamed.

"So there's still some of you alive in there," said Adam. "Fighting to the bitter end. Fascinating."

Adam smiled, as he pulled out a small set of — what looked like — chunky black headphones, and settled them across Hostile 29's head. Green, with his dying breaths, recognized the technology. It was the same device he had been using on Hostile 29 — the one that was supposed to read the creature's thoughts, if it had been functioning correctly.

Or… had it been functioning correctly, all this time, but wasn't supposed to do what Green thought?

"You were right," Adam said to Hostile 29. "I need you alive. But I don't need you sentient." He flipped on the device, which buzzed into life with a high-pitched whine. "Goodbye, Doctor."

The last thing Green saw, before the darkness took him, was Hostile 29's body arching and writhing in sudden, horrified pain. And the last thing Green heard, before the end, was the final tortured scream of Hostile 29, as it died.

---

"The Doctor's leaving the Initiative," said Riley.

Riley wasn't sure if he felt comfortable telling everyone here what was obviously a US government secret, but he guessed that if Adam did get access to all of time and space, it wouldn't really matter if Riley was tried as a traitor to his country or not. Because there'd be no country, no world, and no people.

Buffy had been explaining to the UNIT people exactly what Adam was, what Adam had been doing around Sunnydale, and why Adam really, really shouldn't get his hands on the TARDIS.

Riley had then met Marianna Forlich again, who was now attired in UNIT garb instead of Initiative garb, and had, apparently, had a rather long talk with Buffy. Marianna claimed that they'd been trading ideas about what was wrong with the Doctor and how to fix him, but considering that Buffy's greeting to Riley had been the slap to rival all other slaps, Riley was pretty sure that Marianna had spilled some other things, as well.

"They're shipping him out to Washington tonight," Riley continued. "0100 hours. I believe they have a military convoy to the nearest air base, at which point he'll be flown out."

"So… no chopper down, Doctor packed in, chopper up?" asked Buffy.

"I think they're trying to be discreet," said Riley. "They know UNIT's in town, looking for the Doctor. They… don't want you guys to find out what they're up to."

"Okay, but now that we do, we can just jump in and grab him," said Buffy.

"Ah," said the Brigadier. "I'm afraid that rather leads to my next point. Officially, UNIT cannot intervene in the affairs of the Initiative. It would start an international fiasco."

"I thought that, officially, the Doctor worked for us," Marianna said. "Wouldn't we be able to negotiate some sort of release?"

"UNIT's been in contact with the Initiative since the moment we arrived in Sunnydale, Dr. Forlich," the Brigadier said. "I, myself, have only just spoken to Colonel Haviland moments ago. He insists the Doctor is not there."

"What?" Buffy cried.

"He's definitely there," said Riley. "I just saw him."

"Nevertheless," said the Brigadier, "the Initiative maintains that they do not have the Doctor. And while we've been searching relentlessly for evidence to the contrary, we've found nothing to dispute their story. It seems the Initiative is very good at keeping secrets."

"You've got evidence," said Buffy. "Marianna said he was there. And Riley. And all those other scientists you told me about, before."

Marianna stared at the ground, a little uneasily. "It's… not that simple."

"If anyone finds out that these particular individuals have leaked US government secrets, it could be very bad for them," the Brigadier explained. He clasped his hands behind his back. "There are, of course, official channels that we could go through in order to bypass all of this — appeals based on anonymous information, jurisdictional procedures, that sort of thing — but that would require rather more time than we have. And I believe that, right now, our top priority should be removing the Doctor from the Initiative as soon as possible."

Buffy thought about this a moment, absorbing it. Then she shrugged. "Okay, I'm not UNIT," she said. "I'll get him out myself."

"Buffy," Riley warned.

Buffy turned on him, her eyes blazing. "Don't you start!" she hissed.

Riley backed down.

(Stupid alien bastard. If it wasn't for the Doctor, Buffy wouldn't be mad like this. If it wasn't for the Doctor, Buffy would still love Riley just the way she did yesterday.)

"Officially, you understand," the Brigadier told Buffy, "UNIT knows nothing of your actions, and in no way endorses them. However…" He took a set of keys out of his pocket, and placed them on a nearby table. "…officially, I'm retired. And that's never stopped UNIT in the past." He nudged the keys towards Buffy. "And, seeing as I'm old enough that my memory's fading, I suppose my accidentally misplacing the keys to the armory would be only natural." He gave Buffy a smile, then strolled off.

Buffy picked up the keys from the table, grinning. Her mind seemed to be awhirl with possibilities and strategies.

"If you intervene, Buffy, the Initiative will shoot you," Marianna warned Buffy. "They won't think twice."

"Don't worry," said Buffy, clenching her fist around the keys. "I've got a plan."

Chapter 44

So far, the plan had gone perfectly. The distraction had rerouted the convoy to exactly the area Buffy had expected, and Riley had successfully sabotaged the engines of the trucks. They should all break down exactly in front of where Buffy was hiding. Now all Buffy had to do was wait for them to appear, and she could run in and get the Doctor. Any minute now… any minute now… any… minute…

Okay, seriously, what was taking them so long?

Buffy checked her watch. They should have been there ten minutes ago. Was there traffic or something? No, that was stupid, it was one in the morning. There was no traffic.

Maybe there had been a problem, and the trucks had broken down way too early? That was a possibility. Buffy swung the machine gun she'd taken from the armory over her shoulder, then set off, walking down the road, her eyes peeled for any military transport vehicles.

When she heard the blood-curdling scream, she started to run.

By the time she arrived at the military convoy, she discovered that someone had beat her to it. The ground was littered with dead bodies. Every single soldier that had gone with the convoy — including, if Riley was correct, George Haviland — had been butchered.

No, not butchered. Skewered.

Adam.

Had Adam already come and gone? Gotten the Doctor and left? But… no, one of the soldiers had just screamed. That one had only just been killed. Maybe the Doctor was still around here, somewhere. Maybe Buffy could still find him.

And then Adam stepped out of the back of an army jeep.

The Doctor's limp, unresponsive body in his arms.

Buffy felt her heart stop, for just a moment, as she saw the Doctor. His glassy, unseeing eyes open, staring at the sky. His lips in a silent scream. His face too pale, his eyes too sunken, his frame too skinny. His whole body too still — so still and lifeless!

Buffy mouthed the word, "No," over and over again.

"Oh, he isn't dead," Adam informed her, with that sinister, half-demon smile. "But I saw his pain, his sorrow, his self-hatred." He patted the Doctor's head. "And freed him from it."

No. No, no, no, no, no. No, this couldn't be happening. It was… a fake. A bluff! He couldn't really be gone! After all, Buffy had met his next…

Wait, who had she met?

Buffy felt a deep chill run across her spine. There was something she was supposed to be remembering. Something about Daleks and driving lessons and… bow ties? That didn't sound right at all. But no matter how hard she thought, she just… couldn't remember it. Like none of it had ever really happened, except maybe in some long-forgotten dream.

No!

This couldn't be the end for the Doctor. She couldn't possibly have lost him! She just… had to get the Doctor back from Adam and the Initiative. UNIT would fix him, as long as she got him back. She swung the gun she'd brought off her back, and then paused.

Damn it, she couldn't risk shooting Adam. If she did, she'd risk hitting the Doctor. She threw the gun away, and shifted into a fighting stance. Hand-to-hand it was.

"I've been thinking," said Adam, "about freedom. The freedom to walk upon whatever land you want. The freedom to travel in whatever time you wish. The freedom to choose what side you're on." His eyes flicked down to the Doctor. "The consequences of choosing the wrong one."

Buffy charged at Adam, but he kicked out, and caught her in the stomach with his foot. Buffy was knocked back and thunked against the ground with a crippling force.

"I offered to save your life," said Adam, "if he joined me. Gave me what I wanted. He refused."

"Good for him," said Buffy, climbing to her feet.

"I thought about testing that," Adam mused. "But then I realized, I didn't have to. Why threaten, cajole, persuade, when I could just break him apart?" He gazed down at the beaten Doctor. "I tore his mind to pieces, and it was beautiful. Watching every single piece of him die away, until all that was left was an empty shell. The very last of his kind." His eyes flicked over to Buffy. "Genocide, I believe that's called." His grin widened as he said the word, as if savoring every syllable.

Buffy flew at Adam again — not aiming for Adam, this time, but instead reaching for the limp body in his arms, hoping to scoop it out of his grasp and run off before Adam could lash out at her. But Adam didn't strike back. He just dropped the Doctor's body onto the cement road, and grabbed Buffy instead.

Buffy cried out, as the Doctor's body crashed to the ground.

"You see, I have learned," said Adam, "that I don't have to ask. Or beg. I don't have to offer a chance." He grabbed the rope around Buffy's neck — the one holding the Doctor's TARDIS key — and tugged it until the string broke, then tossed Buffy away. "I just have to take."

Buffy felt herself flying through the air, and somersaulted, trying to land on her feet. But she missed, wobbled on one foot, then came crashing down. She stared out at the Doctor, again, at his pale moonlit body.

And that was when she caught it.

That flicker of life in the Doctor's eyes, that movement of his pupils, as he looked over at her. And the moment she met his eyes with her own, she just knew that it was him, that he was there, that he was still alive, somewhere deep inside his mind. Oh, thank God, the Doctor was still alive, in there, somewhere! Adam hadn't killed him off completely.

Then the Doctor's body was dragged from the ground, as Adam draped the Doctor across his arms.

"Thank you for this," said Adam, nodding at the TARDIS key in his hand.

Buffy staggered to her feet, hoping to lunge out at Adam again, but Adam clearly considered the altercation over. He turned and, with one giant leap, bounded off into the dark night.

---

He shouldn't be alive.

The Doctor knew he shouldn't be alive. Adam had done everything to get rid of him. He'd made the Doctor unable to control himself, physically, then barreled through his mental defenses, and finally, stuck the Doctor into a machine specifically designed to eradicate his mental consciousness.

His mental landscape was as chaotic as any battlefield he'd seen during the War.

Mental doors torn off their hinges, mental shields shattered, information and memories ripped into tiny pieces, their debris floating through the dark ether of his mind. And every time the machine started, every time that whir began, the mechanical arms delved into the Doctor's mind, hacking and slashing at his thoughts, separating them into pure information and pure Doctor, and then shattering the Doctor element.

Any pleasant memory, any hint of self-awareness, any spark of uniquely Doctor — gone in an instant. And Adam had made the Doctor's mind far too weak to pose any opposition.

The Doctor ran.

Grabbed as many things as he could, then retreated deep into his own mind, barricaded himself in there — or barricaded himself as much as he could, given the drugs that continued to barrel through his psychic defenses. He shut himself away, then played dead. Pretended there was nothing left of him.

Except then Green had been about to kill him. The Doctor had peaked out, just to defend himself — but it was too much. Adam had found him out.

Once again, the whirring pulse of that machine. The evil mechanical arms, seeking him out, now more persistent than ever, slicing through the barricade as if it were made of tissue paper.

So the Doctor had fled, once more, hiding himself away so deep down that he wasn't sure he'd ever get out again. But those mechanical arms were still making their way through his mind, seeking him out. Adam was being thorough, this time. Learning from his mistakes. The arms would find him. Even down here. They'd tear him apart. The only part of him that was left.

So the Doctor had done the only thing he could think of.

He'd shut down.

Hibernated his mental consciousness, turned himself into something completely empty, completely vacant. It was risky — terribly, terribly risky — and he knew the odds were 99-1 that he'd never come back out of this process alive. Every probability was against him.

But there was still a 1% chance that he'd come back. Wake up. There was still a slim sliver of hope that he'd get through this. It was a sliver of hope that he clung to, as he sunk down into an icy darkness deeper than death. A hope that reminded him that, as long as there was some part of him left alive and awake in his mind, he could fight back.

It was Buffy who had saved him.

He wished he could say that it was something sweet, like her calling his name, that had woken him up. Or her touch. Or the ring of her voice. Or even just her presence — the fact that she was here, with him, again, after so long. But that wasn't what had reawakened him from his hibernation.

It had been her cry of distress. That desperate cry of despair and emptiness.

That cry for help, that ever familiar voice so clearly in need of assistance — it had sparked something so deep within him that he'd come back. Reawakened. Seen the world outside and the death and the destruction and… her, in the middle of all of it, desperately struggling to fight back. Fighting for the human race. For time and space and the universe. Fighting with moonlight in her eyes and determination in her stance.

Watching someone fight, that hard and determinedly, for justice and freedom and what was right — it was one of the most powerful, most beautiful sights in the universe.

She looked so strong, so brave, so exactly the way he had remembered her, during those long, empty days locked in the Initiative. But he had forgotten just how… bright she was! How she shone — even here, in the present — just the same way she shone throughout the pages of history. How her timeline — so powerful, so unique — surged through her soul and brought it forwards for all to see. How the love and devotion and inspiration that dwelled within her heart illuminated the air around her every time she moved.

She was Buffy Anne Summers. His light in the darkness.

Adam flung Buffy through the air, and she slammed down onto the ground some ways away from him. He wanted to reach out for her, wanted to catch her and take her back to the TARDIS and make her feel warm and happy like she deserved. But he couldn't.

She caught his eyes with her own, and he could see that horrible loss and sadness in them, that terrible pain and desperation.

He hadn't been able to tell her that he was okay. Or alive. He hadn't been able to do anything that might show Adam that there was still some Doctor left alive inside his head. He needed to keep playing dead, so he could find some way to gain the upper hand.

Then Adam had scooped him up, and left.

Now, the Doctor was biding his time. He had the advantage, because Adam didn't know that he was awake, aware, able to fight back.

Well, admittedly, the Doctor wasn't actually able to move his arms, legs, head, or any other part of his body. Nor was he even really able to think clearly, what with the swirl of shattered thoughts and bulldozed mental landscapes constantly whirling about him.

But he'd certainly find a way to fight back. Because he wasn't about to give up. Oh, no. He was the Doctor, and he never gave up. He'd keep fighting — for Martha, and Donna, and Marianna, and all the other human friends he had on this planet. And for Rose… sweet, wonderful Rose, still growing up on the Powell Estates. And for Buffy.

Yes, he was going to fight. And he was going to win. It didn't matter if this wasn't even remotely how he imagined this final faceoff occurring. It didn't matter if he had no plan and no idea how he could possibly win in the face of certain doom. He was going to defeat Adam, no matter what.

His complete and utter inability to do so was simply a… minor setback.

He'd been through worse! At least this time, he wasn't aged a hundred years and chained to a wheelchair while the Earth burned beneath his feet.

The Doctor kept waiting for Adam to gloat, to say something about what he was going to do with the Doctor, but it seemed that Adam really was convinced that the Doctor was no longer sentient. And what would be the point of gloating to an adversary who was no longer alive to hear it? Admittedly, that sort of logic hadn't stopped a large number of other villains the Doctor had faced. But Adam, with his logical mind, would never think to do something like that.

The Doctor took in his surroundings. What he could hear, smell. Feel. What he knew.

The sound of feet on leaves turned into the hollow echo of footsteps bouncing off a cave wall. Ah. Well then. A cave network, seemed like.

They kept going for a short while, before Adam's steps slowed.

"That's it?" came a voice that wasn't Adam's. "That's this great big prize you've been going on about forever, now?"

"This is the means," Adam explained, "by which I will attain my prize. The means by which I will control her. The means by which I shall unfold my plan across time and space."

"But they took the blue box," the other voice protested. "We'll have to get it back."

"No need," said Adam. He patted the Doctor's head. "I have everything I require right here."

Oh, no. The Doctor knew that Adam needed him alive but not sentient, but… if Adam believed he could summon the Doctor's ship… that suggested more than just basic mind control.

"Is the device ready?" Adam asked.

"Yeah," said the other voice. "It's hooked up to these computers."

"No computer will be powerful enough to channel the energy of the symbiotic link," said Adam. "I shall channel it. It shall go through me. I will enhance it, merge with it, and in so doing, I shall gain its power."

This was bad. This was very, very bad. A computer chip — or any sort of mental manipulation — the Doctor could fight back against and manage to quarantine inside his mind. But channeling the link between Doctor and TARDIS into Adam would give Adam the power of the time vortex at his heart, and that would make him completely unstoppable.

The Doctor tried to shut down the telepathic link between him and his ship, but Adam had done his work too well. No mental shields were operational, anymore. The Doctor couldn't close the link, which meant that there was no way for the Doctor to deny Adam what he wanted.

The Doctor felt himself strapped into another device. One that drove sharp needles into his mind, all tingling with residual energy.

There had to be some way to stop this! If he couldn't stop it, maybe the TARDIS could! He tried to make contact with his ship, tell her what was going on, alert her defenses. But his mind was too weak for that.

He was about to create a race as deadly as the Daleks, and give it the power of the Time Lords as well.

"Initiate the procedure," Adam commanded.

Every single pinprick inside the Doctor's mind surged into life at once, all narrowing in on that link, that precious connection the Doctor held with his ship. Drawing it out, teasing its tendril of psychic energy towards them, towards Adam.

The Doctor had run out of options. He couldn't stop Adam. He couldn't stop the TARDIS. He couldn't stop himself. There was only one thing he could do. One option he had left.

To give Adam exactly what he wanted.

The Doctor reached inside his mind to the telepathic link, and threw it open as wide as it went. Adam wanted a trickle of vortex energy to merge with? Well, the Doctor would give him a flood. The Doctor pulled the TARDIS energies into his brain. Let them roar through his neural pathways, through the machine, through every fiber of his being, every cell of his body.

The Doctor knew it'd work — he'd seen evidence, in the future, that Buffy had done exactly this sort of thing before, and it had worked for her. But he also knew that he would never survive it.

Buffy was human. He was not.

With no ability to regenerate trapped in his own mind like this, and no ability to control himself once he gave into the energy, the Doctor knew this was the end. But it was the only way. The only thing that Adam didn't know, didn't understand. The only secret the Doctor had left.

The power of the Time Lords.

The Doctor gave into it, gave into the energy, let himself become absorbed by the song and the power and the raw surge of time and TARDIS and inevitability. He felt the pull of every other self across time and space, as they were all combined within his mind, all united in one fiery swirl of dancing energy.

And the Doctor knew no more.

---

Buffy felt the jolt as soon as it hit her. As the wave of golden energy, pulsing in a circle out from its original source, passed through her, knocking the air from her lungs. She didn't understand what it was, or what it meant, but she could guess who had created it.

She ran.

Ran towards the center of the circle, the place where the ripple of golden light had originated. She raced across fields, through smatterings of trees, and into cave tunnels, her feet barely touching the ground. She could feel the pull of that golden energy, as if it were calling to her, singing to her.

She stopped, as she arrived at its source.

A large opening, filled with the sizzled crackling of computer monitors, the burnt smell of melting plastic and metal. A pile of ash lay beside the destroyed computer terminals. And thrown back against the cave wall, lay Adam — awake, aware, but unable to move, his mechanical circuits crackling and sizzling.

And standing over him, TARDIS key in hand, was the Doctor.

Except… it both was and wasn't the Doctor. Buffy didn't understand what that meant or how she knew that, but it was clear just from looking at him. The way he glowed with that faint golden mist, the way his eyes pulsed with light, the way he stood, as if he were someone else — everyone else — and not really him at all.

Adam smiled at the Doctor. "You can't do it."

The Doctor said nothing, but gave that familiar arch of his eyebrow which meant, I most certainly can, I just don't know if I should.

"I will repair myself," said Adam. "You know that. And when I do, I will become stronger. Smarter. More adaptable. I will be the future, because I am the future. I will get your ship, and your power. You will never—"

The Doctor waved his hand — which shimmered, very faintly, with a golden glow. Adam's voice left him.

Buffy came over to the Doctor, cautiously. "Doctor?"

"He's right," said the Doctor, and his voice resonated with the echo of ten other voices, all with different English accents, all speaking at once. "He could get out of any trap. Repair any damage. I have to destroy him."

"So… do it, then!" said Buffy.

The Doctor glanced back at her. "If I do it," he explained, "I destroy myself."

Buffy said nothing.

"I've taken only as much vortex energy as I needed," the Doctor told her, "to gather multiple regenerations together, activate the collective consciousness of one soul scattered across all of time and space. If I take more than that, if I take enough to destroy Adam… I'm not human, Buffy Anne Summers. I can't come back from that. Either I'll die, or I'll go mad."

Adam's grin widened.

"But perhaps," said the Doctor, "I should. Give my life for the universe. Go out the way I always wanted — saving the lives of everyone I ever knew, ever loved. I can channel the energy, make sure it burns out my mind before I go mad."

"Um… or you could not," Buffy proposed. "And say you did?"

"If I don't, Adam goes free," said the Doctor. "Survives. Continues with his plan of decimation and slaughter. It's me, or the Earth." He turned his gaze back to Adam. "I suppose that means I have no choice."

"Not really," Buffy agreed.

And with a strength she didn't realize she had in her, one that echoed with the pain and anger and despair she'd felt since she first discovered what had happened to the Doctor over the last two months, she knocked the Doctor across the back of the head, so that he dropped, unconscious, to the floor.

Adam just watched in fascination.

Buffy spun around and raised the machine gun she'd borrowed from UNIT, opening fire on Adam.

She knew it'd probably do no good in terms of killing him (stupid uranium power core), but she was certainly not expecting what came next. The moment the Doctor fell unconscious, the circuits on Adam's body began blinking rapidly. As if some system somewhere was activating. The bullets passed right through Adam's body, as he faded out of existence in front of her eyes. Some… teleport or something, Buffy guessed.

"I am the future," Adam told her, as he faded away. "Neither of you can stop that."

Then Adam completely disappeared.

And — it was odd, but Buffy felt a shiver run through her, when she heard those words. As if they were tingling, vibrating on some resonance pattern too deeply woven into the universe for her to understand. As if they were… true. Far truer than even Adam knew.

From beside her, the Doctor took in a gasp, and then let out a long, deep breath, one that was filled with a gold light that misted into the air and vanished.

Buffy let her previous thoughts go. She wasn't about to let Adam get to her. After all, she had far more important things to attend to, now.

She gathered the Doctor up in her arms — so light, God, they really had been starving him, hadn't they? — and began the long walk back to UNIT.

Chapter 45

The Doctor didn't wake up.

He breathed out the gold light a few more times, but he never regained consciousness. All vital signs were normal, and apart from the malnutrition and the wear of the constant barrage of tests from the Initiative, his body seemed to be completely undamaged.

It was his mind that was the problem. Marianna tested his brain activity, with a carefully blank expression on her face. And after the final measurement was made, the final computation completed, Marianna turned back to Buffy, and Buffy knew, then, without Marianna's having to say a word. Buffy could read the answer in that look of mild horror in Marianna's eyes, that look of despair that settled across the lines of her face.

The Doctor was completely brain-dead.

Whatever he had done in the caves had not been real, not been maintainable. It was one last hurrah, one last chance to fix things, before he died forever.

(Buffy had thought she was helping him. She'd thought she was saving his life.)

The Doctor was dead.

Prematurely dead, unable to regenerate dead, unable to be revived dead. Dead. Buffy just sat, staring straight ahead, not really able to take it all in. What this meant. What had just happened. He was dead, and he hadn't done anything, hadn't saved her or Sunnydale or the world. She'd forced him to die for nothing, forced him not to kill Adam — all because she'd been selfish. Wanted him alive and well. Wanted him to survive.

She knew what she should be doing, for the good of the world. She should be killing the Doctor's body before Adam could get his hands on it. Letting the Doctor go. Buffy just… couldn't, yet.

Adam would be busy repairing the damage. Buffy had some time before she had to let the Doctor go, give up all hope that she could get him back. And even then… maybe she never needed to! Maybe she could just lock him up inside the TARDIS or something, let him spend eternity in there, neither dead nor alive. Allowing herself to believe that he'd woken up, started hopping around again and chattering like he used to, with no way of knowing.

Schrodinger's Doctor.

Riley tried to comfort her. Put his arms around her. Held her close, told her to cry it all out. But Buffy didn't cry. Barely even felt the hands around her. Barely even noticed what was going on around her. Buffy had thought she'd be sad. She'd thought she'd be devastated.

But Buffy just felt numb. Disbelieving. Empty.

She'd lived eighteen years without ever meeting the Doctor. She should be able to cope without him! But she had met him. She'd met him, hung out with him, and learned to look up to him. He was her mentor, her role model, her inspiration. No. More than that.

He was her starlight. Her Warm Fuzzy. Her Doctor.

Now he was gone.

And the world seemed so much bleaker. The colors so much less vibrant. The ground so much colder. Buffy's breath misted in the night air, and she wondered when the night had grown so dark.

(She'd done this, this had been her fault, she couldn't blame anyone else for this because it was her, Buffy Summers, she was the reason this had happened. All of it.)

She never thought she'd get to sleep. She thought she'd stay awake forever, unable to think, or feel, or breathe. Unable to move. But it seemed that even the soul-crushed had to sleep, some time.

And dream.

Buffy found herself in a vast and empty desert, the sun beating down on her head. She wandered through it, calling out for someone, anyone.

A dart of motion out of the corner of Buffy's eyes, a figure moving too quickly for her to process. She dismissed it, as she laid her eyes on the image of a small boy with wispy blond hair and hazel eyes, huddled behind a small rock on a gently sloping sand dune. He had his arms wrapped around his knees, and was slowly rocking, back and forth. Buffy thought he looked — scared. Frightened.

Buffy gathered up her courage. In the Doctor's memory, she had to do this. Put her own personal sorrows behind her, and carry on helping people the way he always did.

She went over to the boy, and knelt down so she was at his eye level. "Hey."

The boy tucked his head into his knees. "Go away," he mumbled.

"It's okay," Buffy said. "I'm Buffy. But… I guess you sort of know that." She tucked her hair behind her ears. "This is a prophecy dream, right? I mean, you tell me something, and then I go all 'huh?' And then I ask Giles about it and he goes all, 'well, that's certainly worrisome', and then bad stuff happens. I get how this works."

"I'm not here," the boy insisted. "Just leave me alone. I'm hiding."

"What are you hiding from?" asked Buffy.

The boy fidgeted. "The scary place," he confessed.

He really was a very young little boy — no older than five or six, Buffy thought. And she could see his entire body shaking as he huddled in his hiding place. Scared to death, all alone, and in the middle of her dreamscape desert.

Buffy got up, and offered the boy a hand. "Come on," she said. "Let's go find your parents."

"Can't," the boy mumbled. "They're gone."

"Oh," said Buffy. She frowned. Was this part of the prophecy? Had his parents been murdered by this whatever it was that was coming, and she had to stop it?

She was about to ask the boy something else — how his parents had died, what the scary place was, what had frightened him so much — when the fast something darted into and out of the corner of Buffy's eye again.

The boy leapt to his feet, a terrified gasp coming out of his lips. "She's found me," the boy whispered, staring out into the distance with wide eyes.

"Who?" asked Buffy.

She had an odd feeling that she knew the figure who kept darting around, but she couldn't put her finger on who or what, precisely, that figure was. Another flash of movement out of the corner of her eyes, and Buffy glanced around, trying to get a good glimpse of this hidden nightmare of her dreams, but she could not.

The boy took a step back, as the sky turned dark around them. Then he turned, and ran.

Buffy chased after him, as the landscape seemed to swarm around the young boy, attacking him. Sand swirled around his arms, legs, face, thunder and lightning cracked above him, and a howling wind nearly dragged him away into the distance.

A large snake emerged from the desert sands, and struck out at the little boy. He screamed.

Buffy grabbed him and jerked him away from the snake. He didn't grab onto her, just let her pick him up, his eyes on the surrounding landscape, his entire body trembling.

"She knows I'm here," the boy breathed. "She's come for me."

"Who?" Buffy asked, again. "Who is 'she'?"

"Please," the boy said. He started struggling, trying to get out of Buffy's arms. "I have to get away from her!"

"What's her name?" said Buffy. Giles was going to be seriously pissed if she came out of this prophecy dream without at least a name or physical description. "What does she look like? Why can't I see her?"

"No name," said the boy. As if in response, the wind seemed to tear at him, the sand kicked up in his face, and the lightning struck a tree branch directly over his head. Buffy just barely managed to get him away from the branch in time, and he squeezed his eyes shut, his head resting against her shoulder. "Don't let her out. She'll eat you."

"Who'll eat me?" said Buffy. "And if I'm the one she wants to eat, then why's she so obsessed with hurting you?"

"She's you," the little boy whispered. "That's why you can't see her. Not yet."

And that was when it suddenly dawned on Buffy who this was, and why this presence felt so familiar to her. The tempestuous, raging part of her, the dark section of her own mind that she knew was there but never wanted to tap into.

"The Slayer," Buffy said, looking at the landscape around her. "The essence of the Slayer."

Clouds gathered in a thick, black bunch around Buffy and the little boy, and a voice boomed through the air. A voice like a growl, a voice that blew across their faces like a slap.

"You killed me."

The little boy buried his face into Buffy's shoulder.

"Stop that!" Buffy called out. "What do you want? Why are you so angry at this little kid?"

"He killed me!" the voice roared. Slamming against Buffy's face like a tidal wave, like a storm of anger and hurt and pain. "He killed all of us!"

The little boy began to cry.

Buffy cuddled the boy, trying to hush him. Trying to soothe this poor, lost, lonely little boy she held in her arms. Wait. Lost, lonely little boy. Running away.

Oh, God.

Buffy had a horrible feeling she'd just worked out who this little boy was. And why the Slayer was so pissed off at him. Buffy gently pulled his face from her shoulder, so she could look into his eyes.

"Doctor?" she asked him.

That scared look of deer-caught-in-the-headlights gave him away.

A screaming, roaring wind suddenly surged into their ears, trying to tear the little boy from Buffy's arms. Buffy snapped her head up to the storm clouds above their heads. This was her subconscious. Her rules.

"Okay, cut it out!" she shouted. "Now!"

The landscape around her seemed to hesitate, pausing at her command. Then, the storm clouds and angry winds retreated. The sun re-emerged, the landscape went back to being calm, peaceful, and quiet.

Buffy turned back to the boy. The Doctor. That young, lonely little Doctor. And now that she knew, she could feel the double pulse of his hearts beneath her hand, as she stroked his back. She could see that familiar warm wonderfulness in his eyes, that familiar compassion and sweetness about him that made her want to hug him even tighter. So she did.

He didn't hug back.

Buffy could hear a steady mumbling coming from the young boy's lips, and it took her a while to realize that he was apologizing. Not just apologizing. Begging her for forgiveness. Pleading for mercy from her. And it sounded so formal, the way he was doing it, as if he were addressing a queen or princess, and didn't want to piss her off.

Formal apologies…

Buffy gently set the Little Doctor back down onto the sand, and knelt down beside him, to look into his eyes. Her hand still lingered on his shoulder, because… she couldn't actually bear to let him go, now that she'd found him.

"Doctor," she said, cutting off his apology. "This is you, isn't it? You're not… a figment of my imagination or some dream or anything. This is really you."

The little boy shuffled, awkwardly, but nodded. His eyes darted down to the sand beneath his feet.

"How?" Buffy cried. "Why? I thought… I thought you were dead."

"It was scary," Little Doctor told her. "There were too many things. Bad things. I ran away." He fidgeted. "Please don't make me go back. I like it here. It's pretty, and there's so much love and happiness."

Which, Buffy knew, was saying something about the state of the Doctor's mind, if he thought hers was full of love and happiness. Most of her head was filled with death and darkness and memories of evil monsters. And there were very few places, Buffy suspected, that the Doctor could hide without running into the spirit of the Slayer.

"She doesn't like me," Little Doctor said, as if in answer to Buffy's thoughts.

No, scratch that. In answer to Buffy's thoughts. Because he was in her head. He could probably hear everything she was thinking.

"You think very loud," Little Doctor replied. "I didn't mean to snoop."

Buffy decided to ignore this. Particularly because she suspected that the Doctor probably had meant to snoop, since he could never resist a good nosing in on other people's problems.

"I… I thought you couldn't get inside my head without touching me!" Buffy said, instead. "I'm way far away from you, right now! How's this even possible?"

Little Doctor shuffled, his feet dragging in the sand, his eyes fixed on the ground. "I sort of… suppressed some stuff I shouldn't have," he admitted. "Slingshot effect. The more I drew back the rubber band out of sight, the further it'd throw when the link reengaged. Strong telepathic connection. Strong enough for me to see faint traces of it. So I ran."

Oh. That was right. The Eleventh Doctor had told her that. His younger self was withholding that telepathic link, making sure that she couldn't feel his presence. Looks like the telepathic link was strengthened, now, as a result. To the point that he could get inside her mind.

"That's why the scans said you were brain-dead," Buffy realized. "You weren't brain-dead at all. You were just hiding in here."

"I was good!" Little Doctor protested. "I stayed out on the surface, and I didn't go peeking into any of your thoughts or memories, not even when you left all the doors open and I was really, really curious. And I didn't run or play too loud. You didn't even know I was here!"

Buffy threw her arms around him, hugging him close to her. She'd never felt so relieved. She'd thought that she'd lost him. Really lost him. She'd thought that she'd never see him or speak to him again.

And… oh, this was the little-kid Doctor, wasn't it? Not the memory-lossed Doctor, who'd been happy and bubbly and excited, but the Doctor who'd been abused and neglected as a child — and she could tell, because of the way he didn't hug her back.

The way he curled in on himself, when he was frightened, as if he were the only one he could trust.

"Can you go back?" asked Buffy. "Into your own head?"

Little Doctor looked up at her with wide eyes. "Please don't make me go. I want to stay here, with you. I promise, I'll be really, really quiet, and I'll sit still and follow all the rules!"

"You never follow the rules," Buffy sighed. "And you're never still or quiet, either." She looked down at the terror in the Doctor's eyes, and felt her heart break a little more. "I'm not going to send you back, but… if you wanted to get back, could you?"

Little Doctor said nothing for a moment. Then, reluctantly, he nodded. "Koschei did," he said. "The last time this happened. When we were little. We got in so much trouble for that."

"Who's Koschei?" asked Buffy.

"My best friend," said Little Doctor. "Or he used to be. Before he went mad." Little Doctor pouted. "He chained me to a wheel chair and made me watch while he killed all of my friends. I don't like him so much anymore."

"Oh," said Buffy.

"Now he's dead," said Little Doctor, "and I'm alone again." His eyes welled up with tears, and for the first time, he reached out for Buffy. "I don't like being alone."

Buffy eased the child into her arms, rubbing his back, soothing him. "You're not alone," she said. "You've got me. I mean, sure, I don't go all microwave oven light in your head when I'm around, but... you know. I'm still me."

"It's not the same," Little Doctor muttered. "Even now."

"Yeah," Buffy sighed. "I know." If she ever found a genie to grant her one wish, it'd probably be to get that link with him working on his side. Let him feel that same sense of warmth and comfort she always got from him.

Little Doctor pulled away from her, huddling in on himself, in the sand. "Thought I'd be like him. Koschei. After I opened the link in my mind."

"You… you said it would kill you," said Buffy. "I mean, that's what you told me."

"Kill me, or drive me mad," said Little Doctor. He glanced up at her. "What else did I tell you? What did I do?"

"You…" Buffy trailed off. "Wait a sec. You don't remember?"

"You never remember something like that," Little Doctor explained. Then he turned to her, with wide, terrified eyes. "I killed Adam, didn't I? I killed him, the action drove me mad, and my mind expelled the only sane part of me in here!"

"No, no, you're not… you're not insane," Buffy assured him. "I… stopped you."

"And Adam?" asked Little Doctor. "What happened to Adam?"

Buffy put all her focus into shutting up the thoughts that followed. Because she didn't want the Doctor to know how much he'd scared her. How much the idea of his death had torn her apart. And how terrified she still was for him. Because Adam was still coming for the Doctor, Adam still wanted his ship, and Buffy knew that the Doctor was stubborn enough to sacrifice himself so Adam didn't get it.

Buffy took the thought, stuffed it into a locked door, and shoved 50 padlocks and 200 feet of barbed wire across the outside.

"Gone," Buffy lied to the little kid. "Gone forever."

Little Doctor very obviously didn't believe her. He stared at the ground. "Koschei always wanted that. The power over life and death. Thought I felt like a god." He shuddered. "I never do."

Buffy leaned back on her hands. "Tell me about it."

"They kept yelling at me," Little Doctor said. "When I was trapped. They wanted me to build weapons. Kill people. Genocide. They wanted me to… do it again."

"But you didn't," Buffy reminded him. "You said no."

Little Doctor buried his face in his knees. "Thought about it," he admitted. "To save your life. Just… didn't want to lose you."

Buffy took his hand in her own. "Don't worry about me. I'm able to take care of myself. You know that."

"Doesn't help, sometimes," said Little Doctor.

Yeah, Buffy knew about that. She knew about that so very, very well. Because even when she knew that her friends could defend themselves, she still wanted to take all that away from them. To hold them tight, protect them from all the dangers that awaited them out in the world.

Particularly with the Doctor looking so young and vulnerable, she wanted to shelter him.

"The way you did with the glowing girl, you mean?" Little Doctor said. "Remember that. Didn't work too well, did it?"

"Huh?"

"Sorry," said Little Doctor. "Forgot she isn't in here, yet."

Okay, Buffy was starting to get seriously sick of the whole enigmatic thing. And it really bugged her that he kept replying to her thoughts.

"Then stop thinking so loud," Little Doctor told her.

"Doctor," said Buffy, ignoring him, "what did you do to Adam?"

"Not telling," said Little Doctor.

Buffy wanted to hit her head on something. He'd been the only one who'd gotten anywhere close to killing Adam, and she needed to know how he'd done it. Without revealing to him that Adam was still on the loose. Without endangering his life.

"Why?" asked Buffy. "I mean, Adam's gone, right? What harm could it do?"

Little Doctor stared off into the distance, his eyes searching the horizon as if looking for something. "She'll eat you," he whispered. "Just like all the others."

"Huh?" asked Buffy.

But the Doctor wasn't about to explain this to her.

Okay. Right. Buffy tucked all this away in her head, hoping to puzzle it out some time when the Doctor wasn't in here, reading all her thoughts.

"Doctor," said Buffy, "what did Adam do to your brain? Why won't you go back into your own body?"

Little Doctor shuddered, curling into himself.

"Made it scary," he said. "He couldn't wipe my mind. Didn't want to risk destroying the symbiotic link. So he took my mind all apart. Shattered every memory, every thought, every sense of me. Hunted me down, tried to crush me out of existence. I hid."

Shattered every memory? "But you still remember things!" Buffy protested. "You're not all blank slate and stuff like last time."

"Took some things with me," said Little Doctor. "Everything I could carry. Recent things, mostly. A few good moments. And I still remember all the bad things. The scary things. Adam left those. Thought he might need the information, later. Be able to use it."

Oh, God. No wonder the Doctor didn't want to go back to his own head. All those horrible memories, all those terrible thoughts, with nothing good to balance them out? He'd fall apart.

He'd lost almost all his good memories, almost everything he had, and all because Buffy had been too stupid to get him out of there sooner! Too stupid to know that the Doctor was right there when she'd gotten rid of that Joseph's Technicolor Dream Coat demon! Too stupid to realize that Riley was talking about the Doctor when he'd mentioned "Hostile 29"!

"Don't call me that," said the little boy.

Buffy faltered, as she noticed the hurt and pain and fear all painted onto his face. His eyes welling up with tears. Everything that Buffy never saw in the Doctor, when he talked about himself. All the inner emotions and pain that he never admitted he felt.

But we all have an inner child inside of us. One that still cries every time we stub our toes, still screams every time we are afraid, still whines and throws a fit when life isn't fair.

This was the Doctor's.

"What did they do to you, in there?" asked Buffy.

He just started crying.

Buffy tried to soothe him, tried to tell him that it was okay, that everything was going to be fine, that he was out of the Initiative, now. That he was safe, and she wouldn't let anyone hurt him ever again.

Even if she knew that last one was a lie.

"They thought I wasn't a person," sobbed the little boy in her arms. "Couldn't feel pain. Couldn't feel friendship. Couldn't feel anything. Not even an animal. Less than that. I was… so lonely."

He clung to her, then. Threw his arms around her waist and cried into her shirt. This poor little boy, who was actually at least 900 years older than her, and an alien that she was — okay, not in love with, but really, really attached to — and also happened to be one of the most guilt-trippy and selfless people she'd ever met.

Couldn't feel pain? Sometimes Buffy thought all he could feel was pain.

"Did they… hurt you physically?" asked Buffy.

Little Doctor just nodded, through tears.

And Buffy had to remind herself that she didn't kill humans. She definitely, definitely didn't kill humans. Even if they were evil heartless bastards, she still couldn't kill them.

"Not everyone," said Little Doctor. "Just… Green. Mostly. He hurt me. Then I saved his life. So he hurt me, more."

Okay. Can't kill humans. Can't kill humans. Really, really, really can't kill humans.

(Even if they keep hurting the one person in the universe who kept risking his life to defend them. Even if they keep beating him down over and over again, even if they only want him as a computer database or lab experiment and cannot see how much he suffers. Even if he keeps giving up everything for their sakes and they don't even care.)

"Green's dead," Little Doctor told her. "Adam killed him. And Haviland. And Penelope. And Ectohothromin and Yarzaldonia and all the others. Adam killed them all and I couldn't save them." He squeezed his eyes shut. "I just… wanted everyone alive!"

Buffy hugged him, tightly.

The Doctor. Living proof to Buffy that her life didn't suck nearly as much as she'd always believed. Because as sucky as her life was, it could always get suckier.

(At least her planet was still around.)

"You did your best," said Buffy. "And you did save some people. I mean, Marianna told me you gave them all back their souls."

And maybe the Initiative scientists just hadn't known. As Marianna had said. Maybe they honestly didn't realize the Doctor could feel pain. Honestly didn't understand how much he really cared, how much he hurt on the inside. Honestly didn't understand how the Doctor would give up his own life for any of theirs, even if they didn't deserve it.

(Seriously, how could the Initiative scientists not have seen that?)

"They didn't look," the Doctor answered. He sniffled. "Except Marianna. I liked her. She was my friend."

And Marianna had told Buffy that once she knew the Doctor was a person just like her and the others, she'd tried to get him out. Protect him. And so had the other scientists, once they'd worked it out. That Julie person that Marianna mentioned had sacrificed herself for the Doctor's best chance of leaving the Initiative. Maybe Buffy could give the scientists the benefit of the doubt, could believe that they would have treated the Doctor better if they'd known…

(This "Green" jerk had known, and it hadn't stopped him)

…but there was one person at the Initiative who'd known right from the start. Known who and what the Doctor was. Had seen him save the world, had seen him save the lives of all his friends and loved ones. Had understood that the Doctor wasn't a demon, wasn't a vampire, wasn't even hostile. And had still kept him locked up in the Initiative for two months.

Riley Finn.

Her boyfriend. The guy she'd fallen in love with. The guy who she'd seen so caring, so compassionate, so completely selfless and determined to help those around him. No — help the humans around him.

Buffy hadn't told Riley about Angel. She'd thought… start small. Someone not human who was obviously good. The Doctor wasn't a vampire, wasn't a demon, wasn't even born on this planet. He could go out in the sunlight, he acted human most of the time, and he was… well, he was so obviously selfless and good that even Buffy had worked it out pretty soon after meeting him.

Riley had known about the Doctor. He'd known enough to prove to the guys in charge of the Initiative that they shouldn't slice open the Doctor's head. So why hadn't he done anything? Why'd he let this happen? Why'd he stepped aside and watched as the Initiative guys had hurt the Doctor, over and over and over again?

(Because Riley Finn hates the Doctor. Even Buffy knew that.)

"He's not so bad," said the Little Doctor in her arms.

She looked down at the little boy, and found he'd stopped crying. He just looked up at her with large, hazel eyes.

"Riley Finn," said the Little Doctor. "He made them stop, sometimes. And he gave me chocolate."

"They starved you enough that you'd forgive him everything just because he gave you chocolate?" Buffy cried.

She knew that he could go without food for longer than she could, even if it was uncomfortable, but she hadn't realized how desperate for food the Doctor had become, by the end. Even Riley had mentioned that he was shocked to find out to what extent the Initiative was starving the Doctor.

"I… used Riley, while I was stuck down there," Little Doctor admitted. "Did it a lot. Especially right at the beginning. Before I met Marianna. I… manipulated him into doing things for me. Hiding some things about my biology. And… mostly… I made sure he wouldn't tell you where I was."

Buffy's jaw fell open. All that manipulation and deceit… had that actually come from… the Doctor?

"Kind of," the Little Doctor mumbled. "He… was thinking about doing it, anyways. I just… nudged him in the right direction. Fueled his jealousy. Tried to annoy him. That kind of thing."

"Why?" Buffy asked.

"Just… never wanted you to know," Little Doctor confessed. "That I was in the Initiative. Got… scared. Thought you might… just like last time…" His eyes drifted off into the distance, then looked back at Buffy. "Don't let her eat you. Please. Don't give in to the darkness."

Buffy blinked. "What?"

"I wasn't very nice to Riley," said the Little Doctor, changing the topic with an abruptness that caught Buffy off her guard. "Treated him a bit like the Initiative treated me. A means to an end. But when I was at the end of my rope, he was still kind to me. Gave me a chocolate bar. Acted selflessly." Little Doctor looked down at the ground. "I never did that to him."

"I don't understand," said Buffy.

"I never cared about him," the Doctor explained. "When he needed help, when he was falling apart and reached out to me, I ignored him. Didn't bother to help. I was so angry about… what happened when we met. I think… I might have been unfair to Riley."

"But… he knew you were in the Initiative, the whole time, and did nothing to get you out!" Buffy protested.

"He helped Julie," the Little Doctor told her. "And Ectohothromin. And Green, when I wanted him to. And he helped me. Riley Finn — he's not perfect, but… he's treated me better than I've ever treated him."

Which was weird, because every time that Buffy had seen the Doctor and Riley together, Riley had been belligerent, and the Doctor had been kind and sympathetic and understanding. The Doctor had always treated Riley better than Riley treated him.

"That's my future," Little Doctor told her, meeting her eyes with his own. "Not my past."

"Okay, I know there isn't a whole lot you can do, seeing as this is my head and everything, but it's still super weird when you reply to my thoughts," said Buffy.

"Sorry," said the Doctor, staring back down at the ground. "I just… think maybe I was a little too mean to Riley. He's… not so bad, when you get to know him. You've been a good influence on him."

Buffy had about a thousand things she wanted to say to this. Asking about what Marianna had told her — Riley's bragging sessions — and what Riley had said ("I'm not proud of how I did it"), but she'd just had another urgent thought. One that was far more important than any other.

"You can't regenerate when you're stuck in my head like this, right?" Buffy asked him.

Little Doctor shook his head.

"Then I have to wake up," said Buffy, "before they burn your body or bury you or something. Outside, everyone thinks you're dead."

Little Doctor frowned, his brow creased in thought. "I'm supposed to tell you something," he said. "Something about the 314 project. Something really, really important." He gritted his teeth, trying to dredge up a memory that was, very clearly, not there.

"It doesn't matter, now," Buffy told him. "Adam's gone. Remember?"

"I found out something," said Little Doctor. "I don't remember who told me, or how I found out, or any of the context. But… Adam… his plans. No. Something else. I mean… I think…" He held his head in his hands, trying desperately to retrieve the information. Then he sighed. "I don't remember."

"We'll work it out," said Buffy. "I promise. But first, I need to make sure you're all right."

Buffy woke up.

She found herself snuggled beneath the covers of her bed in her dorm room, the sun just peaking up past the trees in the window, spreading warm light across the floor. She threw on some clothes, and ran out to the UNIT people nearby.

Chapter 46

"He's not dead," Buffy told Marianna.

Marianna juddered awake from her spot beside the Doctor's bed, where she'd fallen asleep on the chair next to him. It took her a few moments to compose herself.

"I'm sorry, what…?" Marianna said.

"He's not dead!" said Buffy. "Not brain-dead, not real-dead, not anything. He got sling-shotted into my head! Except… it's sort of just his inner child, and his normal brain is really messed up right now. He said that Adam thought that his really bad memories might be useful, so all those are intact, along with anything the Doctor could carry with him, and he won't go back until we fix his normal brain."

"Slow down, slow down," said Marianna. She brushed some hair out of her eyes. "What… are you talking about?"

"The Doctor's in my head," said Buffy. "I just didn't realize it."

"I… see," said Marianna.

"But it's just his inner child," Buffy explained. "Adam was trying to tear apart his head or something, make sure that the memories remained but the Doctor was gone — I mean, the bad memories, he tossed out all the good ones — so the Doctor grabbed all the memories he could and ran. And he wound up in my head."

Marianna gave a slow nod. "You do realize that scientifically, that makes no sense," she said.

"I dunno," said Buffy. "The Doctor had a monster stuck in his head a little while ago, and he didn't know anything about it." Her eyes widened. "The red crystal!"

Marianna looked completely lost.

"We still have it!" said Buffy. "And it used to have all the Doctor's memories. I think the Doctor was past that point when he came here. If all the memories he grabbed are the recent ones, it'll bridge the gap. We can get the Doctor back!" She faltered. "Unless… the crystal doesn't have those memories, anymore."

"I don't follow you," said Marianna.

And so Buffy explained about Carmen, the red crystal, the Facksisil of Balime and the Kalenford of Corcheck. Marianna seemed completely dumbfounded.

"But that's all impossible!" she insisted. "That's… that's…"

"Magic," said Buffy. "I told you."

"Magic doesn't exist," said Marianna. "The very idea of it is insane. You recite some group of words, and suddenly, physically impossible things occur? I cannot accept that."

"Clarke's Law, Dr. Forlich," said the Brigadier, as he strode into the room. "Any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from magic."

"But there's no technology," Marianna protested. "She's talking about people reciting words and waving their hands and making things suddenly happen for no logical reason!"

"I've seen the Doctor make super-advanced stuff with rubber bands and paper clips," Buffy pointed out. "Maybe we're just super advanced and we don't know it!"

Marianna conceded defeat.

"Curious, that," said the Brigadier. "The Doctor once told me the reverse was true, as well. That any sufficiently advanced magic was indistinguishable from technology. Never understood what he meant by that."

"I'll go and talk to Willow and Giles," said Buffy. "Figure out if we can use this red crystal thing to access the Doctor's memories. Maybe I can put them back."

"Can I come with you?" asked Marianna. "Perhaps I can help."

Buffy gave a laugh. "You're just coming to snoop around and see if we have some high-tech piece of equipment hidden nearby, aren't you?"

Marianna didn't answer for a second too long. "No."

"Come on, then," said Buffy. "Willow can go all science-geek with you."

---

"Well," said Giles, fiddling with his glasses, "I suppose it's an interesting theory. The Doctor would certainly be missing bits and pieces by the end, if it worked, but… well, it would at least give him enough to make him stable once more."

"Wait," said Xander, waving his hands in the air. "I'm still caught on the fact that Mr. Impressive Commando Boyfriend knew the whole time that the Doctor was in the Initiative, and never told us about it."

"Yeah, I'm kind of stuck on that, too," Willow agreed.

"Riley said he was protecting the Doctor," Buffy told them. "And the Doctor said he didn't want Riley to tell me where he was. The Doctor doesn't blame Riley for any of it."

Willow and Xander both looked at one another. Then back at Buffy.

"Okay, I know that the Doctor always has crazy irrational plans that make no sense," said Willow. "But all that aside — did Riley ever actually want to tell you the Doctor was in the Initiative?"

Buffy didn't answer.

"Because it sounds to me," said Willow, "like Riley had everything to gain from the Doctor being stuck down there. And the Doctor had basically nothing."

"The Doctor probably… didn't even want to get out of the Initiative!" Buffy protested. "He was probably staying in there on purpose."

Marianna hesitated. "Actually, the Doctor always wanted to escape," said Marianna. "He simply didn't want you to be the one to help him do it. If Finn had offered him assistance, at any point, the Doctor would have taken it."

"But — let me guess — Riley didn't offer any?" Willow asked.

"Not that I'm aware of," said Marianna.

Xander nodded, slowly, absorbing all of this. "Buffy," he said, "I'm starting to think your boyfriend's a jerk."

"You always say that about the guys I like," Buffy dismissed.

"Yeah, but I don't usually agree with him," Willow chimed in.

"But… but… you guys were just the same!" Buffy insisted. "You were all, 'don't worry, Buffy, the Doctor's fine.'"

"Riley didn't say the Doctor was 'fine'!" Willow said. "He said you should forget about him!"

Xander raised his hand. "And… I can't speak for anyone else," he said, "but… the Doctor's a scary alien guy who can eat up whole armies for breakfast. When I said I thought he was fine, I meant it."

"Buffy, I'll be the first to admit that our tempers might have run a bit thin over the past two months," said Giles, "and it is true that we were often sidetracked from finding the Doctor — what with your own life being in danger, much of the time — but we never purposely tried to mislead you. Whatever our personal opinions about the Doctor, he is your friend."

"Look, the Doctor wanted Riley to lie to me!" said Buffy. "The Doctor must have had a reason. A good reason. And I trust the Doctor. So, you see, it really wasn't Riley's—"

"Okay, so why didn't Riley tell the rest of us?" Willow asked. She gestured at the assembled Scoobies. "Marianna might not have known about us or been able to predict how we'd react, but Riley did. He knew that we'd try to get the Doctor out of there. If he'd mentioned anything at all to me, or Giles, or Xander, we could have figured out some rescue plan without you having to know anything about it."

Buffy faltered. That was… actually… a really, really good point.

"Oh, come on!" she said, at last. "You've all been anti-Doctor, too, in the past. Riley just… thinks he's evil or something. This is just a misunderstanding, and Riley will see that the Doctor's good, in the end."

"I believe," Marianna interposed, "that Finn has always been of the opinion that the Doctor is 'a good guy'. As far as I could tell, his malice derives strictly from jealousy."

"Besides," said Willow, "we didn't stand aside and let people torture the Doctor, even when we did think he was evil. We went in and rescued him from the Concurrence, remember?"

"Look, it's… it's really not Riley's fault," Buffy said. "Really! It's…" She squeezed her eyes shut, and then confessed the truth. "It's mine."

Everyone in the room looked at one another. Then at Buffy.

"Okay, that makes no sense," said Xander.

"There are many people to blame for this," said Marianna. "Myself included. But I can safely say that you were one of the only individuals who was entirely blameless."

"Buffy, you couldn't possibly have known what was occurring in the Initiative," Giles soothed her. "If you had, you'd certainly have gotten him free as soon as possible."

"Yeah, I mean, we all kind of ruled out the Initiative right at the very beginning," said Willow, "remember? Because we all said that if Spike escaped, then the Doctor should have escaped forever ago."

"It's still my fault," Buffy said. "It just… is."

"Nope," said Xander. "This one's got crazy commando boyfriend written all over it."

"Buffy, in Riley's perfect world, the Doctor would be locked in the Initiative forever, while you were out here, thinking the Doctor had ditched you," said Willow. "Xander's right. Riley's a jerk."

"But… I love him," said Buffy, her eyes fixed on the floor. "I really do. And… he's learning his lesson, isn't he? I mean, sure, he locked up the Doctor and then let him get tortured for two months, but Riley's really, really sorry he did that, now."

"Is this the first time the Doctor met Riley?" asked Willow.

"I… don't know," said Buffy. She frowned. "No. No, it's not. He's already done that thing where he came here and was super-depressed and wanted me to kill him and stuff. And he knew about Riley, then."

"You know what that means," said Willow.

Of course Buffy knew what that meant. It meant that at some point in the future, Riley was going to try to kill the Doctor. That this incident wasn't teaching Riley a lesson of tolerance and acceptance. This incident hadn't shown Riley that the Doctor wasn't a threat to him and was actually a pretty good guy. Everything that had happened at the Initiative, everything that had transpired between the Doctor and Riley down in the containment cells, it was all just fueling Riley's anger.

"The future can be rewritten," said Buffy, determinedly. "I'll make sure that Riley understands."

"Uh, does anyone want to explain this?" said Xander. "Or is this just 'confuse Xander' day?"

"It's not important," said Buffy, quickly. "Look, Will. Riley said he didn't know what was happening to the Doctor. He said that things got out of control. And Marianna told me that he stood up for the Doctor when no one else would."

Marianna nodded in confirmation. "As much as I dislike Agent Finn, he did stick his neck out for the Doctor over and over again."

"And the Doctor told me Riley treated him a lot better than he deserved," said Buffy.

"Okay, just to check, this is the same Doctor that told you he deserved to be thrown into the depths of Hell, right?" asked Willow. "The same one you claim would forgive a vampire with its teeth in his throat?"

Buffy said nothing.

"Once again, might I point out that Riley didn't just tell you to stop worrying about the Doctor," Xander reminded her. "He told you to forget about him."

"You don't like the Doctor, either!" said Buffy.

"No, but I've found a happy medium," said Xander. "As long as he sticks to the acceptable categories of Doctor Annoyingness, he's okay."

"Buffy, Riley didn't get the Doctor out," said Willow. "He didn't even try. If he'd had his way, the Doctor would have stayed down there forever, and none of us would ever have known about it."

Buffy couldn't deny that. She couldn't deny that Riley had been making sure that the Doctor was stuck in the Initiative. After all, Riley had brought the Doctor back after he'd escaped. And… yeah, sure, the Doctor had wanted to get caught, again, but… Buffy was right there! Riley could have told her! He should have told her, no matter what the Doctor wanted! He should have said something to her, or her friends, or… anyone! He should have helped get the Doctor to safety.

But none of that altered the fact that the Doctor's captivity and torture was her fault.

Buffy knew it with every fiber of her being (and shut up, Little Doctor in her head who kept telling her otherwise!). She was the Slayer! She should have stopped this… should have figured it out… should have… should have…

Oh, God, all those times, over the last two months, when she'd been laughing! Smiling! Running around beneath the sunlight! All that while, just beneath her feet, the Doctor had been… locked up… tortured… lonely and deserted… harmed again and again, and…

How could she have been so happy? How could she have laughed and joked and felt joy, while the Doctor had been screaming in pain?

(Her fault. All of it. Her fault.)

"None of this matters," Buffy insisted, pushing the thoughts out of her mind. "What matters right now is that the Doctor's in my head, and I want to get him back in his head. Can you do it?"

Giles had been flipping through books this whole time. "Well, I think you might be in luck," he said. "It appears that the blast of energy that went through the red crystal was enough to imprint a very faint trace of the memories into its structure. Even though the memories are gone, there's still a residual element of them left behind."

"Great," said Buffy. "So we can get them back into the Doctor's head."

"However," Giles continued, "they would be mutated in some way. These trace memories have been fused with the crystalline structure. They'd need to be rebuilt before we could return them."

"Oh," said Buffy, slumping a little.

"Mutated?" said Marianna.

Buffy turned to her, and noticed a gleam in the scientist's eyes. A small smile crawling up her face.

"How?" Marianna asked Giles. "In what way are these traces of neuronic encoding structures fused with the cellular structure of the crystal? Is it in the same way that the host DNA mutates when it is infected with the vampiric virus?"

"I… have no idea," said Giles.

"If what you refer to as 'magic' is, in fact, as Willow says, some sort of massive psychic energy transfer," said Marianna, "then the energy running through the crystal must have triggered some sort of encoded neuronic transmission. When you gave the Doctor back his memories, the neurons themselves would have been returned to the Doctor's mind, but the encoded sections would have remained, interwoven with the structure of the crystal. Mutated, as you say."

Xander made a gesture that clearly indicated that this was all going over his head.

Willow frowned. "I think that makes sense, actually."

From somewhere deep inside of Buffy's head, she could hear a little person's voice chime in, "Cor, that's brilliant!"

"The Doctor thinks it makes sense, too," said Buffy.

Everyone stared at her.

"I told you," said Buffy, with a sigh. "He's in my head."

"When I was at the Initiative," said Marianna, "the Doctor and I were working on creating some sort of cure for the vampiric virus. Some way of removing the mutation and restoring the original."

Oh, yeah, that's very Doctor. He wouldn't just hand Buffy the cure, but if he found some human being on Earth who was close, he'd give them a nudge in the right direction. Let her work it out. And never mention that he knew the answer, already.

"I thought the Doctor could already…" Xander trailed off as he caught Buffy's death-glare. "Okay, or maybe not."

Marianna's excitement fell away. "Only… we never finished. I couldn't figure out how to create a large enough psychic charge to open up the anterior prefrontal cortex—"

"The what?" asked Xander.

"Conscience," said Buffy. "And the Doctor's conscience is open, so we don't need to worry about that."

"I know," said Marianna. "The main thing I'd need to restore these encoded neuronic traces would be… well, some sort of vast regenerative source. Something with enough energy to not just grow back an arm or a leg, but an entirely new body."

Everyone just stared at Marianna.

"What?" Marianna asked them.

"You… never tested the Doctor's blood?" asked Buffy.

"Green did," said Marianna. "He said it was unusually ordinary, considering its source." She frowned. "Why?"

From somewhere deep inside Buffy's mind, the Little Doctor started jumping up and down. "I knew that Riley would switch the blood if I told him the whole Earth was at risk! I'm so clever! I'm a genius!" Then Little Doctor started racing around in circles.

Buffy grinned. "If all we need to make this work is a vast regenerative source," she said, "I think we can get the Doctor back."

Chapter 47

Marianna hadn't realized how much the Doctor had been easing her into all of this. Suddenly, Marianna was being hit with all sorts of scientific concepts and ideas she'd never even considered. Bouncing psychic energy off of the Earth's morphic field in order to amplify it — and calling that process magic — was something Marianna hadn't conceived of.

The idea that the Doctor could, upon the moment of his death, actually turn into an entirely new person was something Marianna could barely come to terms with.

"I've seen it happen," the Brigadier confirmed. "Right after a rather nasty affair involving giant spiders from Metebelis III. It's really rather remarkable."

"He doesn't change, exactly," Buffy told her. "He just changes his body, personality, likes and dislikes, the way he reacts to things, the way he thinks about things, and the way he does stuff."

"I don't understand how he doesn't change," said Marianna.

"Well, he still feels the same," said Buffy. "In… you know. Here." She tapped the side of her head. "It's like… same soul, different body."

"I'm surprised you didn't notice," Willow told Marianna, later. "His blood's kind of… shimmery. Sometimes."

"We noticed he was only five years old," said Marianna.

"This body, I guess," said Willow. "But he's actually more like nine-hundred-and-something."

Finn was a little sheepish, when confronted about the discrepancy in the blood. "I… switched the blood," he confessed. "Green was going to feed his blood to the vampires at the Initiative, and the Doctor kept shouting that if any vampire in there drank his blood, the world would end. So I took pig's blood, added in some food coloring, and you guys never knew the difference."

Marianna remembered when she told Finn that the Doctor was dead. How Finn had known that the Doctor wasn't, when he heard the Doctor's skin was cold. "You knew about this the entire time," Marianna said.

"I keep telling everyone, I didn't know who the Doctor was when I first saw him in the Initiative," said Riley. "The Doctor I met before that didn't look, sound, or act like this one. I only learned about regeneration because Buffy kept freaking out that you guys would find out about it. Start killing him over and over again to see how it worked."

That was something that Green would certainly have done.

But Marianna wasn't planning to. If the Doctor's body would take care of the regenerative source, she could reverse the mutation. At the moment, she could only reverse the vampiric mutation, but after analyzing the crystal in question, Marianna knew it wouldn't take her very long to alter the formula so that it worked with the cellular structure of the crystal, as well.

"Oh, no," said Buffy, as Marianna was just finishing mixing in the last chemical she needed.

Marianna turned, and looked back at Buffy, who was cradling her head in her hands.

"Are you all right?" she asked. It took her a few moments to realize that she should be rushing over to check, make sure that the child was all right, see if there was anything she could do to help. Just the way she'd have reacted before she joined the Initiative, before she'd been trained to block those responses out.

So Marianna ran over to help Buffy.

Buffy gave a small laugh, as Marianna checked her for concussion or neurological trauma.

"I'm fine," Buffy told her. "It's just that the Doctor Inner Child has found the Buffy Inner Child. And they're getting along way too well. They're kind of running around up here and making a mess."

"I… see," said Marianna. This was another thing she didn't completely understand.

"It's kind of good for me, I guess," said Buffy, with a smile, "because now the Doctor's all distracted, so he's not reading my thoughts. But… the moment they start playing 'Daleks versus Vampires', I'm calling serious naptime."

Marianna examined the look in Buffy's eyes. The love that seemed to shine through her irises, whenever she mentioned the Doctor. Marianna hesitated. "You two are… very close, aren't you?"

Buffy's expression fell. There was a sorrow about her, that horrible look of complete devastation that so exactly mirrored the Doctor's, back when he'd been trying to get out of the Initiative to help Buffy. That look of so much pain and sorrow and grief, like it had bored a hole inside her heart.

"Not close enough," Buffy whispered.

Marianna frowned. "I'm sorry. I don't understand."

Buffy said nothing for a long moment. Then, very quietly, she asked, "The Doctor. Who tortured him?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Who…" Buffy swallowed. "Specifically. Who tortured him? Was it…"

"It was not Riley Finn," Marianna told her. "He might not have helped the Doctor escape, but he did not torture the Doctor himself."

"…humans?" Buffy finished.

Marianna wasn't sure how to answer this.

"I mean, I know that Adam's the reason he was down there," Buffy put in. "But… all the really bad parts… the torture and the loneliness and… stuff like that…"

Marianna cringed. This was the painful part. Admitting responsibility. Facing up to the consequences of her own actions.

"I'm sorry," she told Buffy. "That wasn't Adam. It was… us. The Initiative employees." She paused. "Myself, I suppose."

(She had so many crimes to repent for.)

"But… I mean, maybe those scientists that tortured the Doctor were… vampires or something!" said Buffy. "Or… aliens! Or demons! Or… or…" She faltered, the sorrow clouding her face even more than before. "…mind control, or…"

"I'm sorry," Marianna said, again.

(She wasn't certain she'd ever be able to say it enough.)

Buffy took a long, shaky breath. The pain inside of her seemed to grow, until it burned through every cell of her body, seizing her like a fever.

"Human beings," Buffy repeated, her voice completely flat. "The people of Sunnydale. We… tortured him."

Marianna put a hand on Buffy's shoulder. "Buffy," she said. "Please believe me. This isn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done to stop…"

"Why not?" asked Buffy. "I stopped the Master. And the Judge. And the Mayor. And… everyone else who wanted to destroy the humans of Sunnydale." She gave a sad, morose shrug. "The Initiative is in Sunnydale. That means… every single sick, twisted human being down there who tortured the Doctor and didn't care at all… I'm the reason they're alive. I'm the reason this happened."

Marianna had no idea what she could say to that. She opened her mouth to offer some platitude, hesitated, then tried again.

"The Doctor… saved the lives of those at the Initiative, as well," Marianna offered. "Over and over again, he rushed out to defend—"

"He's the Doctor," said Buffy. She stared down at her hands, clenched tight into fists in her lap. "I'm not."

Marianna frowned.

"I'm the Slayer — I kill stuff without souls," said Buffy. "I don't do second chances. I don't do better ways. I kill evil. That's it. If human beings… can be so much like vampires…. If we can keep doing… this kind of thing to… to…." She stared straight ahead of her. "Maybe I should have let the Mayor eat us all."

Marianna knew she was not the right person to be guiding Buffy through this sort of moral crisis. Not when her own morality had been so twisted and warped for years.

"I think… this is one of those things you should talk to the Doctor about," she said. She paused. "Or… think to him about. When he's done… running around… with your inner child."

Whatever that meant.

Buffy raised an eyebrow at Marianna. "Yeah, I don't know if I mentioned it to you, but… he's five, right now. Up here." She tapped her head. "He may know lots of stuff, and he might still be the Doctor, but emotionally, he's definitely a five-year-old. If I started talking to him, seriously, about this, he'd probably throw a temper tantrum."

Marianna nodded, slowly. Every time that Buffy mentioned something more about the situation occurring inside her head, Marianna had the feeling that science had decided to take an extended vacation away from Sunnydale.

Buffy said nothing for a long moment, clearly thinking the matter over. Then she sighed, and gave a small shrug. "I guess it doesn't matter, anyways," she said. "In this timeline, at least, I'm the Slayer. I've got a duty to protect the Earth, and I'm not allowed to kill humans. So that's the end of it."

That seemed perfectly reasonable to Marianna. She gave Buffy a warm smile, and got up.

In an instant, all of Buffy's sadness and pain and anger was thrust out of her face, and she was back to her normal self. "Doctor's started paying attention to my thoughts, again," she explained to Marianna.

Oh. Well… good, then. If the Doctor had stopped running around in Buffy's head (whatever that meant) and started paying attention to all of Buffy's worries and concerns, then he'd be able to help Buffy work through this moral crisis. Or… he'd be able to help far more than Marianna, at any rate.

Buffy cringed. "And here comes the temper tantrum."

Or… perhaps not.

"Is… he saying anything useful at all?" Marianna asked, after a short time watching Buffy react to a temper tantrum Marianna couldn't see or hear.

"Not really," said Buffy. "But he's really, really worked up about how I'm not allowed to go anywhere near some… Association for the Development and Advancement of Mankind." She scrunched her face up in confusion. "And… something to do with ibuprofen."

"Ibuprofen?" asked Marianna. "Did you say ibuprofen?"

Buffy gave a slightly-forced laugh. "I dunno. It's where this A.D.A.M. thing is. Like maybe a planet or a city or a town or…" She paused a moment. "Oh, okay, it's an island. On Aria 314, in the Andromeda Galaxy, and… I guess the Doctor's not taking me there. Ever."

Marianna turned back to her work, mixing in the final chemical compounds, and running the last few tests on her solution. Finding a way to fix the Doctor's mind. Finding a way to repent, in some small way, for what she'd done so often at the Initiative. And to repent for her own part in the Doctor's destruction.

Marianna was so absorbed in her work, she almost didn't hear Buffy muttering beneath her breath:

"Iphidrin… ibuprofen… it all sounds the same to me, Doctor."

---

"Is that it?" Willow asked Marianna.

"That's the solution I came up with," Marianna agreed. "Lacking the regenerative source, of course."

Willow handed the substance to her friend, Tara, who was apparently a very powerful witch who could help channel the energy into the Doctor's mind. Marianna thought it all looked like superstitious nonsense, although she didn't say this out loud.

They'd set up a large array of candles nearby, along with incense, some newt eyeballs, a number of flower petals, and some powder whose chemical composition was unknown to Marianna.

If this actually worked, Marianna would probably do everything in her power to work out how the powder and the other elements worked together to create the effect that they were going for.

"Are you certain you two are quite ready for this?" asked Giles. "It's a far more complex spell than the one we used to restore the memories to the Doctor in the first place. This one might be… terribly dangerous."

Willow took Tara's hand. "We're ready."

"Dangerous?" said Marianna.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "He says that about toothpaste," she explained. "It doesn't mean anything."

"No, really," Giles insisted. "These sorts of energies are calling on the primal force of Bura Bheriya, an entity of unspeakable power whose source is unknown but whose influence is felt throughout the ages."

Which, once again, felt a lot like superstition, instead of science.

"Don't worry," said Willow. "Tara and I can handle it. I promise." She hesitated, and turned to Marianna. "Except… there's going to be kind of a lot of screaming."

"Sorry?" asked Marianna.

"Just… I mean, if this is anything like last time, the Doctor's going to have trouble with it," Willow explained. "Buffy said it was pretty brutal."

"I thought… we were just giving back good memories, this time," said Tara.

Willow considered this. "Hey, Buffy!" she said. "Can you ask the Doctor if this will be as emotionally difficult as last time?"

Buffy sighed. "I can't," she confessed. "He's playing Hide-and-Seek with my inner child."

"Should we wait until they're done?" Willow asked.

"No!" said Buffy. "Do you have any idea what it's like having a five-year-old running around inside your head? If you don't fix the Doctor soon, I'm going to go completely insane!"

Willow and Tara looked at one another, then lit the candles. They sat, cross-legged, their eyes meeting, the red crystal lying in a glass bowl. Tara held Marianna's formula in her hand.

"Quod mutuata redderetur," said Willow, sprinkling the powder across the crystal.

"May all things be returned to their source," said Tara. She poured Marianna's liquid upon the crystal, which hissed and began to dissolve.

Willow waved her hand above the dissolving crystal.

"By the power of the Bura Bheriya, let all be set to right, all mischief be undone," said Willow.

"Quaerere nota litora, domum," said Tara.

A shimmering cloud seemed to pour out from the crystal, one too faint to make out, but just visible enough to know that something was gathering beneath Willow's palm.

"May soul and mind be united," Willow and Tara said together. "May all be restored."

Then Willow turned her palm face-up, and the shimmering cloud raced over to the Doctor's unconscious body, seeping into his mind, until it disappeared.

Marianna braced herself for screaming, or some reaction from the Doctor, but there was nothing.

Well, except for Buffy muttering, "Thanks, Doctor. I'll keep that in mind."

Willow glanced over at Buffy, who rolled her eyes. She mouthed the word, "Technobabble."

"So… that's it?" Marianna asked, as Willow and Tara got up from the floor.

"Oh, it… doesn't happen all at once," Willow explained. "It's 900 years of memories. That's kind of a lot."

"We still have quite a few hours before the screaming begins," Giles assured her.

"No screaming," said Buffy, tilting her head as if listening to something. "Apparently, the Doctor's staying in my head until everything's back to normal in his, then he'll pop back in and everything will be 'brilliant'."

"If Adam only needs his body, and not his mind, wouldn't that mean—" Marianna began.

"Adam's gone," Buffy said in a very pointed and emphatic way. "The Doctor got rid of him."

"Wait, what?" said Willow.

"Really?" said Giles. "But that's wonderful news!"

Buffy smiled at them, and they chatted for a while longer, sharing enthusiasm and congratulations. But when Buffy turned away, there was a flicker of something across her face that made Marianna think that maybe… Buffy was trying to hide the truth. Perhaps Adam wasn't quite as gone as they all thought.

Yet as Marianna continued to look at Buffy, as the Slayer walked away from UNIT and her friends, Marianna remembered the way that the Doctor nearly killed himself trying to save this girl's life. And Marianna knew that Finn had been right. Buffy would do exactly the same for the Doctor as the Doctor had done for her.

If Adam was still out there, still looking for the Doctor, still intent on controlling the Doctor's ship, then Buffy would want the Doctor as far away as possible.

And Marianna knew it was selfish. But she agreed with Buffy.

Chapter 48

The Doctor groaned.

Buffy was at his side in an instant. And, yes, she'd had him in her head until a few hours ago, but that hadn't exactly been him him. It'd been little-kid him. Which hadn't felt right, somehow. It hadn't felt… exciting like having him him in her mind.

"Hey, you," she said.

"Hello," said the Doctor, as his eyes opened. He squinted at her. "No, wait. That's not right." He paused, thinking a moment. "Goodbye. That's what I was supposed to be doing. Dropping by to tell you goodbye before I left."

Two months ago.

The Doctor bolted upright, his eyes growing wide. He turned to her. "Adam…"

"Gone," said Buffy. "Really, really gone."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her.

"I swear!" said Buffy. "You got rid of him." She noticed the skepticism in his eyes, and hoped he couldn't still read her thoughts. She'd triple-locked the door that held this particular tidbit.

"How?" the Doctor asked.

"I dunno," said Buffy. "There was a lot of gold light and stuff."

This seemed to satisfy the Doctor. He glanced down at his own hands.

"Should be dead, after that," he muttered. "Or mad. Not human enough to counteract it."

"Counteract what?" Buffy asked him.

"Nothing," the Doctor said. "Nothing at all. Certainly nothing you should be messing around with, at any rate."

He looked deep into her eyes, and Buffy turned away.

"You're not telling me something," the Doctor observed.

"I tell you lots of stuff," Buffy insisted.

The Doctor was quiet for a short moment, and Buffy waited, with baited breath, for him to catch her out on her lie about Adam. For him to supply her with some evidence she couldn't contradict.

"Elizabeth," the Doctor said, in a very low voice that held just a hint of threat, "what did you do to the Initiative?"

Buffy started. Okay, that wasn't the line of questioning that she'd been expecting.

"Huh?" Buffy asked.

The darkness left the Doctor's face, and he gave a shrug, suddenly morphing back into his lighthearted, carefree self. "Oh, nothing! Not important!"

Buffy struggled for something to say, but… oh, no, the Doctor had been in her head while she'd been thinking… and she had kind of implied that she'd wanted to… and he might have thought…

But it was at that point that Marianna entered the room, and the topic was dismissed before it was even brought up. The Doctor jumped to his feet the moment he saw Marianna, and rushed over to her, swooping her into a great big hug.

"Dr. Marianna Forlich!" he cried. "How brilliant are you?"

Marianna seemed completely taken aback by this behavior. And Buffy realized — Marianna had only ever interacted with him through an electrified glass panel. To spend so much time with the Doctor, and never have him touch you, take your hand, grab you up into a hug, run with you through the night air — Buffy couldn't imagine it.

"Are you all right?" Marianna asked him, when the embrace had ended.

"Never better!" said the Doctor, with a grin. He knocked at his head. "Brain completely intact, all memories restored, all shields back in place! Which means I'm ready to go off and get rid of Adam once and for all."

Buffy tried to hide her sudden flair of nerves. The Doctor knew she was lying. He'd worked it out. And if Marianna had worked it out, too, then Buffy knew her whole game might be blown.

"You're a little late for that," said Marianna. "Adam's gone."

Phew.

"Ah," said the Doctor. He ran a hand through his hair. "Well, suppose it wouldn't hurt to stick around a bit. Just… make sure his army's disbanded and the Initiative's on its way out and everything's back to normal." He furrowed his brow. "There's something I should remember about this. Something terribly, terribly important. Something that changed the entire nature of this situation."

Buffy opened her mouth to protest, but Marianna got in first.

"Doctor," said Marianna, holding a piece of paper out in front of the Doctor, "I thought you might be interested in hearing about this."

"No, no," said the Doctor, pushing past Marianna without reading the paper. "There was something very important. Something I had to remember. Someone... wanted it out of my head. I'm sure of that. But there's something else going on. Something bad. Something very, very bad."

He raced out of the room he'd been sleeping in, and burst into the main room that UNIT had taken over for their brief stay in Sunnydale. As he did so, he ran straight into the Brigadier, nearly making both of them fall over.

"Doctor!" said the Brigadier, steadying himself. "Is that you?"

The Doctor beamed. "Brigadier! Just as brilliant and young as ever. Tell me, you wouldn't happen to have noticed anything odd, lately? Alien technology that shouldn't be about, that sort of thing?"

"I can ask some of our experts to run scans, if you'd like," the Brigadier offered, "but so far, I must confess, we've found nothing." He paused. "You don't think Adam was constructed using some sort of alien—?"

"No, no, it's not Adam," the Doctor insisted. He massaged his temples, as if trying to coax the answer back to him. "It's… there's something…" He gritted his teeth, then snapped his head back up. "Alien tech! You have to scan for alien tech! Double scan! Triple scan!"

Buffy and Marianna burst into the room.

"Doctor, what is it?" Buffy asked. "What do you mean, something else going on? Did you find out Adam's plans or something?"

"Oh, yes," the Doctor said. "Not important, if Adam's gone. This isn't Adam. This is…" He gave a hiss of frustration, as he combed his hands through his hair. "It's on the tip of my tongue! Something very, very important! Some… communication. Encryption. About something here… or was it something somewhere else?"

"Doctor," said Marianna, holding out the paper to him, again. "I really think that you should read this."

"Not now! Not now!" said the Doctor. "I remember, this is… something! A very bad something! A something that made no sense. No, wait, none of it made any sense." He spun around. "Elizabeth! You're good at working these things out! What about this doesn't make sense?"

"Well, we never found out what Adam was actually planning," Buffy offered. "I mean, he might have wanted time travel, but I'm guessing he had other ideas before you came along. And… oh, I know! If Adam knew how to make you all brain damagey and stuff, why did he keep you down in the Initiative so long?"

The Doctor frowned. "Actually, that one I do remember." He put his hands on Buffy's shoulders, and looked deep into her eyes. "Elizabeth. Promise me. Please, please promise me that you will never set foot in the Initiative. Not even if I — or anyone else you know — wind up stuck down there."

Buffy was about to speak, but the Brigadier, who had been chatting with a team of scientists to the side, walked over and cut in at that moment, saving Buffy from the pain of massively lying to the Doctor. Again.

"We've done a complete scan of the area," said the Brigadier, "and there is absolutely no alien technology present."

"None?" the Doctor asked, letting go of Buffy and spinning around to face the Brigadier.

"None," the Brigadier confirmed. "Not here, at any rate." He gave a concerned frown. "You mentioned something about somewhere else. You don't believe that this goes deeper than this affair in Sunnydale, do you? Some sort of larger scheme that you've been sucked into — one with a cleanup operation capable of scarpering with all the evidence?"

The Doctor pondered this a moment. "That sounds… right," he admitted. "I remember something about somewhere else. About things being bigger, worse. I remember realizing that this was all far more desperate than I had thought. But… I don't remember…" The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up at all sorts of angles. Then he blew a breath out of his cheeks. "Any rate. Better stick around. Shut down the Initiative, find a way to release its prisoners safely, that sort of thing."

"Doctor," said Marianna, "you really, really want to read this, first."

"Read what?" asked the Doctor, spinning around to face Marianna. His eyes landed on the paper. "Oh, that! Right!"

He snatched the paper from Marianna, eyes skimming across its surface, his face going very grave. He looked from Buffy to Marianna, then back to Buffy.

"You're sure that Adam's gone?" he asked. "Completely and utterly positive?"

"Yep," said Buffy.

"You're really not lying to me?" the Doctor double-checked.

"Really, really not," Buffy told him.

The Doctor turned to the Brigadier. "And you're absolutely positive that there's no suspicious alien tech lying about at the Initiative?"

"None that I can see," the Brigadier replied. "Although that doesn't mean there was none before. As I said, it could be a hit-and-run. Particularly if someone wanted information on your biology, Doctor…"

The Doctor sighed. "I suppose so." He stared at the paper, his mind skimming over the possibilities. He glanced up at Buffy. "Really, really not lying to me?"

"Really, really, really!" Buffy insisted.

"Then I suppose this is goodbye," the Doctor said, handing the paper back to Marianna. "If Adam's gone, then shutting down the Initiative can wait. Important business elsewhere and whatnot."

"Tracking down this whatever thing that you think took your Initiative lab results and bolted, you mean?" asked Buffy.

The Doctor frowned. "That too." He flicked his eyes over to Buffy. "Be careful, Elizabeth. Be very, very careful. Because there's something larger than just Adam and the Initiative going on. And it's a truly bad something."

"I'll be careful," Buffy promised him.

Then she gave him a great big hug. And felt the terrible happiness and sadness that her victory entailed. Happiness that the Doctor was going to be safe, somewhere far away from Adam. Sadness that he was leaving, again, even though she really, really needed him here.

But she wasn't going to risk it. She wasn't going to risk the Doctor.

If it was a choice between herself and him, there was no question who she'd choose.

"Just be safe," Buffy muttered into his pinstripe suit.

The Doctor laughed. "And you, too. Miss Vampire Slayer."

---

The Doctor had left.

The Scoobies and herself were assembled in Giles' living room, where Buffy had gathered them for an urgent talking-to.

"Well, I suppose now that Adam's out of the way, our lives are far simpler," said Giles. "Whatever this new threat may be, it couldn't be worse than what we've faced."

"Adam's not gone," Buffy informed him.

Giles and the others stared at her.

"Wait, but… you said the Doctor got rid of him," said Willow.

"I was lying," Buffy replied. She glanced at the others gathered nearby. "Adam's still around, and by now, he's probably not just repaired himself, but upgraded himself. He's more dangerous than ever, and we have to be ready."

"You were lying?" Riley said. "You just… pretended that the Doctor destroyed Adam, and the Doctor believed you? He isn't usually that gullible!"

"The Doctor did some weird thing that paralyzed Adam," said Buffy. "When the Doctor came to, he couldn't remember what happened, so I lied to him about it."

"Are you telling me," said Giles, "that you discovered an ally who could actually hurt Adam — maybe even kill him — and you encouraged this ally to leave Sunnydale?"

"Yep," said Buffy.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but… that sounds really stupid," said Xander.

"My thoughts precisely," Giles muttered.

"I mean, none of us have ever even gotten close to knocking this Adam super-monster out," Xander continued. "We finally find someone who can. And you say, 'okay, bye-bye!'"

"I had to," said Buffy. "With the Doctor around, there was too much of a risk that Adam would get his hands on time travel. And time travelling Adam is something we really don't want to deal with."

Riley grumbled, clearly not buying this explanation at all.

Buffy turned on him, and gave him a glare that plainly expressed that he'd lost all rights to protest to anything that happened between her and the Doctor.

"I'm all for the protect-the-Doctor thing you have going on," said Willow, "and I get that after what he's been through, you probably have a right to worry. But… Buffy, you could die going up against this thing!"

"I had to make sure he left," said Buffy. "Will, the Doctor said that whatever Adam's planning, it's worse than we could ever imagine. There's something super bad going on. Maybe… maybe there are aliens upgrading Adam with alien tech! Or maybe Professor Walsh was an alien, and Adam's just some sort of planetary conquest tool! Or maybe…"

"Wait, wait, hold on," said Xander. "So… this thing is way worse than we thought. And probably alieny. And you sent our alien expert away… why?"

Buffy fidgeted. "I didn't 'send him away', exactly. I just kind of…" She looked off into the distance. "…sent… him… away…"

"Can we call him back?" asked Willow.

Buffy shot the others a glare that said that if anyone called the Doctor back to Sunnydale, they'd be Slayered into next year.

"Listen, Buffy, as much as I understand your reluctance to involve him in any further… unpleasantness, especially considering what he's gone through already," Giles said, "I must admit that… well, if things are, in fact, worse than we imagined…"

"And, keep in mind, our imaginations were generally going the route of 'major apocalypse'," Xander put in.

"…then we might need his help," Giles finished.

"I'm the Slayer," said Buffy. "I can handle this on my own."

All the Scoobies looked at one another, unease written across their faces.

"Look, thanks to the Initiative, Adam has a ton of information about the Doctor," said Buffy. "If we're going to win, we can't get the Doctor involved. It'd be putting him in danger, and it'd be creating a major weak-spot in our defensive line."

"Adam also has a ton of information on Mr. Commando Boyfriend, there," Xander said, pointing his thumb at Riley. "In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Adam has more information on Commando Boyfriend than we do. But you're not sending Commando Boyfriend away."

"Riley can help us," said Buffy. She gave him a warning look. "To make up for certain… bad decisions he's made in the past."

Riley's eyes lingered on the carpet.

"And anyways," said Buffy, "the most important thing is that Adam doesn't get his hands on time travel technology. The moment that happens, I'm guessing none of us will ever have been born."

"Did you at least recover some information about how the Doctor might have been able to harm Adam?" Giles asked Buffy. "Something we might be able to use?"

"I tried!" said Buffy. "But it was really hard to ask too many questions, without letting on that Adam wasn't really dead!"

"So we're back to square one," said Xander. "Great!"

"I know that he did something with gold light that would either turn him mad or kill him if he actually got rid of Adam, because, apparently, he wasn't human enough to come back from it," said Buffy. "Oh, and he talked with a whole bunch of different voices all at once. And there was something about gathering multiple regenerations together." She glanced over at Giles. "That helpful?"

"Not… terribly," said Giles.

"You think the Doctor's just going to stay away?" Riley scoffed. "He'll come back for you, Buffy. He always does."

"Right now he's off doing something for a friend of his," said Buffy. "And as long as UNIT's distracting him with other stuff, we can go in and get rid of Adam on our own before he works out that there's anything wrong."

"What about that whole future-versions visiting while past-versions are already here thing?" Xander pointed out.

"That's why I need Willow to do some kind of TARDIS repelling spell," said Buffy. She turned to Willow. "Please?"

Willow hesitated. "But, I mean, I know that you're really upset about what happened, Buffy, but… you know, maybe if the Doctor was here, he could—"

"Will," said Buffy, very softly, "you saw what it was like, seeing him…" Her eyes filled with the horrified memories of that time, the things she didn't want to contemplate. "I can't go through that again."

"Buffy, I don't want you to die," Willow insisted.

"If I lose him for real, it'd be like dying," Buffy said. "When I thought he was gone, really gone, it was like… I lost part of myself. Even if I never see him again, I need to know he's still out there fighting, Will. I need to know he's safe. Please."

Willow thought a long moment, examining Buffy carefully. Trying to think through all the implications. Then, finally, she conceded. "All right."

---

Adam had nearly fixed every system in his body, and even upgraded a number to be far more powerful than what he had before. The Doctor was gone, as was his ship, but that hardly mattered. Soon enough, both Doctor and TARDIS would return. Soon enough, the Doctor would come back, armed, dangerous, and every bit the threat that Adam knew he could be.

But Adam would be ready for him.

The first step was for Adam to find some other way to get Buffy down into the Initiative. His mission was to create an army that could destroy any other form of life he'd come across, and to create his army, he needed body parts. To do that, he'd need the humans and the nonhumans in the Initiative to completely massacre one another. The Slayer would be essential to balancing the score between the humans and nonhumans.

And the Slayer, clearly, knew every one of the Doctor's weaknesses.

All Adam had to do was get the Slayer down into the Initiative, close off all the doors, and wait until every single person was dead. Then he'd find the Slayer's body, reanimate it, and gain her knowledge. He would give Buffy Summers a second life, one that she could lose at the correct date and time, while using her knowledge, strength, and universal importance as a constant threat to the Doctor.

Adam knew.

He would gain the knowledge of time travel. He would win, in the end. He was perfection. He was the future. All he needed, now, was to get the Slayer into the Initiative.

He crept into the crypt where the vampire known as Spike was lying, asleep, on a stone coffin. Adam reached out.

Without even opening his eyes, Spike grabbed Adam by the wrist.

"By the sound of those impressive mud-flaps, I'd peg you as a demon," said Spike, his eyes still shut. "Which means you're in for a world of…"

Spike opened his eyes and, seeing Adam's face, suddenly jumped up.

"…pain," Spike squeaked.

Adam stepped forwards. "Spike," he said, "I want you to come with me."

"Do you?" said Spike, with a casual shrug. "Well, let's go then." Spike turned, as if to walk off, then spun around and tried to punch Adam in the stomach. With no success.

Ah, yes. It seemed that Adam was back, once more, to dealing with creatures too stupid to be worth his time. Creatures who were so beneath him, they were like specks of dust, and didn't even know it.

"Come," said Adam to Spike, with a smile. "You are going to help me with my problem. And I am going to help you with yours."

And he grinned even wider, as they went away together.

Next time Adam faced the Doctor, they'd both be prepared. Next time, they'd both have upgrades, both have knowledge, both have an army at their disposal. Next time, they'd be fighting for the survival of the human race, and the result would be slaughter and bloodshed on a scale rarely seen before on the surface of this planet.

Oh, yes.

Next time Adam faced the Doctor, it would be fun.

---

Colonel McNamara, assigned to oversee the Initiative after Colonel Haviland's death, made sure, on his first day there, that he'd know everything about the Initiative.

Everything at the Initiative. Every HST in the cells, every scientist on the roster. Every soldier on duty. Every single system and how everything worked. He wasn't going to make the same mistakes as his predecessors.

He examined the archived footage of the Initiative. He examined the files on Hostile 29. He examined the case report on Julie Parsoner. He even analyzed Professor Walsh's notes on Adam.

And then… that was odd.

The word "spies" had caught his eye, and Colonel McNamara studied the passage in Professor Walsh's journal more carefully.

Spies infiltrated the Initiative, today. A young man and a girl, both roughly 20, at a guess. They are not Torchwood, but appear to come from the United Kingdom, judging by their accents — although these could have been faked.

The only names we have for them are 'Amy' and 'Rory'.

These two persons disappeared before we could apprehend them. All soldiers' memories have been erased, along with a good deal of the scientific staff, in order to preserve the secrecy of the 314 project. But despite these spies' best efforts, I believe the two of them are hardly important.

Not compared to what they left behind.

---

Riley Finn didn't hate the Doctor.

Riley wasn't upset that Buffy had chosen to send the Doctor away because she couldn't bear the thought of him dying. Riley didn't care that Buffy had majorly obsessed over the Doctor for about two months, now, and completely flipped out when she discovered that the Doctor had been in the Initiative all that time. And Riley definitely wasn't annoyed about the way that Buffy had reacted when she honestly thought the Doctor was dead.

Nope, Riley didn't hate the Doctor. After all, the Doctor was good, and saved Buffy's life, and…

Oh, who was Riley kidding?

The Initiative was going downhill, Adam was still on the loose, Buffy was seriously pissed off at Riley, and in less than a year, their relationship would completely dissolve. And there was only one person to blame for all of it.

The Doctor.

Riley could tell himself he didn't hate the guy. That he hadn't found some deep sense of personal satisfaction beating the guy up. That he hadn't loved watching that alien jerk squirm when Riley described his sexual escapades with Buffy. That he didn't sometimes fantasize about killing the Doctor. But that didn't make it true.

He had to come to terms with it, sooner or later.

Riley Finn didn't hate the Doctor.

He despised him.

Chapter 49: Epilogue

Julie was going to die.

They were still scheduling the lethal injection, but she'd already been tried and sentenced. She'd appealed, of course, tried to take her case to the highest level of authority, but none of it had panned out.

Especially once the Initiative went under.

Julie didn't know exactly what had happened, but she'd been able to work some of it out based on the little scraps of information she'd overheard. Adam had taken down all security in the Initiative, letting loose every evil monster they had in there, at which point there'd been a huge fight between humans and HSTs, during which nearly everyone had died.

Adam had been destroyed. She'd been told that was certain.

She guessed the Doctor had done it. Or that Vampire Slayer friend of his. She had no idea how they'd managed to destroy Adam, or why the massacre had still occurred. Nor did she know who had survived that massacre, or even how many. Or what had happened to the Doctor and his Vampire Slayer friend, in the end.

But she was hoping that the Doctor had, at least, worked out who it was that really wanted him down in the Initiative. Who had actually split up those Carflodashian Vampires, who had lured the Doctor into a trap, and then let Adam take advantage of the situation.

And that the Doctor had worked out the meaning of the words that he hadn't understood, back when she'd told him them, back when they'd been escaping. Those few words she'd managed to extract from that encrypted transmission.

"…calibration test of the Fountain of Kulkmattoll and the Genetic Disintegrator. Temporal surveillance team will incarcerate the Doctor on 21st century Earth. The primary objective will be gained. The Doctor will be…"

The Doctor hadn't known what it meant, or what race of aliens had sent the transmission. But he'd been worried. Very worried. Julie had known that. She figured he'd run off to the future or whenever — he did have a time machine, after all — and was probably doing whatever it was that needed to be done, there, right now.

Which was why it came completely out of the blue when a military officer approached her cell, and said, in a clipped, military voice, "Julie Parsoner. You're free to go."

Julie just stared at him. "I'm what?"

"You've been granted a presidential pardon," said the military officer.

"I've been granted what?" Julie exclaimed.

But it had been true. Somehow, she'd been granted a presidential pardon which cleared her of all charges, and had been released. At which point, she'd been immediately brought in for a job interview.

Julie wasn't exactly sure what job she was interviewing for, or what was going on, but she worked it out the moment she saw Marianna.

"This… is UNIT, isn't it?" asked Julie. "Whatever UNIT is."

"It's an organization that deals with extraterrestrial and supernatural threats," Marianna explained. "You have no idea how hard it was to get you that pardon. This president is really not big on pardons. We had to save the world about three times and his immediate family twice before he gave in."

"You got me the pardon?" Julie asked.

"Well, not me," Marianna confessed.

Julie stared at her, blankly. Then, all of a sudden, it clicked. Someone who could save the world with the snap of his fingers. Someone who knew about UNIT. Someone who'd be able to make sure they employed her.

"The Doctor?" Julie asked.

Marianna nodded. "He's gone, now," she said. "Somewhere in time and space."

Tracking down the creatures behind all this, if Julie guessed correctly.

"But he stuck around long enough to make sure you were out of jail and free," Marianna said.

Julie had to admit, she was stunned. No, more than that. Floored. She realized her jaw had dropped open, and tried to close it.

"What?" asked Marianna. "You didn't think he'd just let you rot in jail."

"Why not?" said Julie. "It's what I deserved."

Marianna met Julie's eyes with her own, and Julie could see that Marianna was remembering all those horrible things that had been done to the Doctor, all the pain they'd put him through. All the times they'd sat back and done nothing, when they should have stepped in.

"I guess we all have a lot to make up for," Marianna told her.

Julie gave a small laugh. "Guess we do."

Series this work belongs to:

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