Part One: An Empire's Criminal
The Scientist by Coldplay
Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you I'll set you apart
Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start
Running in circles, coming in tails
Heads on a science apart
Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start.
I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling your puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing our tails
Coming back as we are
Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start
Chapter One: A Man of Abattoir
She seemed to always be staring at him, and not in an affectionate way, not even a peculiar way either; it was the way that one looks at a ghost, properly frightened, yet with a pang of sorrow and lonesome depression. Amelia Williams never really understood John Smith, and John Smith never really understood her, in fact, John Smith never seemed to understand anyone. He was the type of person to snarl at you when you pressured him to an extent, but when you saw his eyes it was as if you understood. His eyes were a concoction of sadness and grief, like a beast in a cage longing to touch the air that he could never breathe, because someone, or something, claimed it to be uncivilized. It was like the green of his eyes glimmered in wonder and amazement at how one could seem so extraordinary, almost as if he could never be extraordinary himself. What's holding him back? Amelia would ask herself occasionally, for something in his mind had chains around his thoughts, and Amelia never understood why he couldn't just feel alive for once in his life.
Yet she still remembers that day, that one day in which everything seemed different. She forced him into coming with her to a bar on the twenty-first of October, intentionally forcing him to pour unnecessary alcohol down his throat, and though she felt guilty to so much as admit the truth to herself, it was an experiment. An experiment to conduct his persona when he wasn't that grumpy old man stuck in a twenty-seven year old body, when he wasn't sober, when the chains of his thoughts loosened up just enough for him to be set free. Basically, she just wanted to know what he would act like when he was drunk. And needless to say, it was rather entertaining. When John was delirious, it was like his face screamed a persona of independence and humor, as if the man she saw on a daily basis was chucked into a waste basket. (Old man by day, drunk giraffe by night, Amelia would call it.) It was just so different. I should take him out to drinks more often. Amelia suggested to herself. Yet she didn't dare; she couldn't possibly do that again. (John still didn't know the one responsible for his next-day hangover.)
"Why are you nice to him?" Adam asked in a confused state. "John's nothing but hatred, you know, and I suggest that-"
"Adam." Amelia said, staring at him sternly, yet a pleading tone in her voice. "Don't you ever think that he's lonely? Have you ever considered that, maybe he needs somebody to talk to? He's not the best at his conversational skills, I'll say that, but...he has nobody. And he's not going to change if we just ignore him."
John himself didn't understand why this Amelia Williams would talk to him either. He didn't understand why she said hello to him in the office every morning, he didn't understand why she would make him coffee on a regular basis, he didn't understand why she'd just smile at him whenever she said a goodbye. John was a massacre, as if all the things inside himself had died and eroded away, and even he didn't see a reason to like himself. Yet, there was always that Amelia Williams with the ginger red hair and the genuine Scottish accent. It was as if she wasn't afraid of going into a cage of lions. She was a brave one, Amelia Williams.
It wasn't obscure, John Smith was a mad man. He was like a younger Albert Einstein, the gravitational hair and everything. He seemed to have an endless collection of science fiction comics and physics textbooks, Amelia would find them in piles about his office territory in the morning as she came into work, for John certainly wasn't one to read one thing at one time. Books lay open on his chairs and atop his computer monitor, bookmarks sticking out in various places and dust covering the ones he already read. A downside to being 'working buddies' with him was just that he was just so unorganized, yet it was a beautiful sort of messiness.
She walked past the skyscrapers that towered above her ginger hair like titans looking down on mere mortals, her heels too high and her skirt too short. She had gotten the job for technological research about a year ago, right after she found out that a kissogram wasn't exactly an honorable thing to boast about at a Pond reunion, and for the fact that Rory Williams certainly wasn't in love with the whole ideal of it. She'd married him a mere three years ago, and yet it seemed as though he didn't have time for her, but likewise, she didn't have time for him. It just didn't occur to Amelia how terrible that really was, but regardless she did have hopes for her to spend more time with her husband.
Amelia found John outside of their office building, a cigarette held between his index and middle finger. She cringed at the simple sight of it, she didn't exactly know why, it's just that after knowing how dilapidated your lungs could become after an unhealthy habit of smoking, she didn't have too pretty opinions on the whole idea. He took a long drag on his cigarette and then blew somewhat amazingly pristine smoke rings, which Amelia did have to admit looked pretty amazing, and yet so disgusting at the same time. She sighed, her grip on the strap of her purse tightening as she tried to manage herself. "...must you smoke?" she questioned him in slight distaste, narrowing her eyebrows as the scent of the foul smoke could be tasted in her mouth. He looked at her with a blank expression, almost as if he hadn't been acknowledging her presence until that point, at which he just stared at her, turned away to look at the passing cars, and just stuffed his hands in his pockets, the cigarette dangling from his mouth. "It's a metaphor." he said dryly, his eyes still fixed onto the road. Amelia rolled her eyes. The back-talk of a bookworm.
She sighed in exasperation, for her persuasion typically had the least bit of effect on John Smith. Amelia pushed her way past him to walk through the revolving doors, John finishing his cigarette and rubbing it into the ground with the sole of his shoe, him following Amelia directly behind her. "You know, one day you're going to realize how all that smoking leads up to terrible lung support." she reprimanded him nevertheless, strutting into the building as most women do, having exquisite sass with one foot in front of another. "I mean, at least learn to control it. Sure, Adam and a lot of other coworkers smoke, but not so much as three packs a day,"
"They smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die."
"And would you stop quoting books?" she turned around to face him, her heels planted firmly on the ground. "And...and stop being so negative all the time!" she cried.
"I'm not negative, I'm realistic." he gave her an unforgivable look, pushing past her and heading towards the elevator, leaving Amelia to ponder for herself. She never really considered John ruining his lungs for the purpose of death, sure, he wasn't the most easy-going social, but she never thought that his perspective on life would seem so morbid. It was when Amelia realized that maybe she was going insane. She didn't know what she was doing with John when all she was to him was his clingy mother figure, and he was the teenager going through that unforgiving phase of adolescence. She was really trying to at least get them to the point in which they could have a comfortable conversation, yet out of two years of working with him, she had resolved with nothing other than a giggly drunk giraffe.
But yet crazy she may be, she still wasn't giving up.
Three Years Ago, April
Malcolm walked into the UNIT underground entrance, the metal door giving a generous bang as it slammed behind him, yet he was used to it. (Well, after ten years of hearing that sound, not hearing it would seem suspicious.) He walked down the gloomy corridor alone, for he was a single worker for UNIT's technological research, and therefore was known as the lone secretary. Malcolm didn't mind though,working alone. What mattered was that Kate trusted him with the minutes of their confidential meetings and their notations of UNIT's new project, titled as 'Regeneration'. The whole project was really quite fascinating, and luckily, it seemed simple to explain. (Just difficult to perform.)
Kate was simply perturbed that criminals around the Gallifreyan area were getting generously out of hand, so she had the new idea of how to manage their behavior without the punishment of a prison cell. She had conducted a mind of a criminal and simulated them through a series of tests in order to design an apt mental microcircuit that would contain the basics of living a normal life, for example, having a career. They would inject the microcircuit through a mere surgical procedure, therefore rewriting the history of a criminal's life of felonies and replacing it with the life of an ordinary human being. It was a brilliant idea.
Kate had strictly informed Malcolm not to let any details of the project leave UNIT headquarters until everything was confirmed and set to start, which was a decent seven months away. "We don't want the media to question us until we know all of our answers." she had told him, and being the respectful and loyal worker that he was, he kept his mouth shut. UNIT never wanted attention; they never made it in the news. What happened in UNIT stayed in UNIT, and that's how it always was. The computer in the technicians office was located at the back of the room, away from sight and away from attention. But before heading over to start the day of organizing files, he took a quick stop to his work locker to drop of his coat.
As he opened the metal door, a fresh aroma of coffee greeted him atop of his books, the caffeine still fresh and hot. Malcolm spotted a sticky note attached to it's white mug, it's handwriting unrecognizable. Drink up. Malcolm looked around the empty corridor, wondering who could have placed it inside. It could have been Vastra for all he knew, she did want that promotion. Nevertheless, free coffee was free coffee, and being somewhat delirious, Malcolm carefully picked it up and took a sip of it. It was a bitter and yet different taste, and Malcolm seemed to take a particular liking into it. He should thank whoever made it for him. If he ever found out.
Grabbing his keys to the technicians office, hidden at the back of his locker, he closed the door, taking a sip of his coffee and walking towards the back room, his footsteps rebelling against the persisting silence. Fumbling with his keys, he picked out the correct one, unlocking the door and opening it, him shocked to see that the room was in utter ruins.
It was a complete scene of a finished chaos. The shelves were tipped over, books lay defiantly on the ground, the computer monitor shattered into glass remains, the hard drive crashed into pieces, containing information that he knew that UNIT would never get back. Malcolm looked at it all in shock, his eyes wide and his snarl becoming even angrier. He bent down to inspect the broken metal and glass, in the midst of the wreckage, the cap of a pen drive.
He jumped back onto his feet in fright. Someone had been here, someone had taken UNIT's archives and has destroyed the computer to get rid of them. At least that was Malcolm's theory. But as he looked up from the shatters, something even more perturbing was there to greet him.
On the wall, directly in front of him, there were words spray painted in a blood crimson.
Much Love, The Doctor
The coffee mug fell to the ground, breaking into pieces and adding along to the disarray, Malcolm falling with it, landing dead on the floor.
No wonder the coffee tasted so bitter.
All his life he had been running.
Okay, not literally all his life, (Hyperbole issues...) but one would understand the primary point. John kept secrets that lingered inside of him like poison, yet he kept them well hidden, to the point in which poison became his blood. He was like Pandora's box, open him and all immorality would be shot into the world like the bullet of a gun, fast, and deathly. People thought he was hollowed out, no, he was quite the opposite. He had been hiding things that an ordinary child had nightmares about. He was insane. He thought nightmares were beautiful. John was holding too much in, like a balloon ready to burst, and yet he had managed to keep himself withdrawn from any attention, all except Amy's. She was the needle.
Nobody could expect him to the suspect of their problems, an anti social office worker with a quiff that rebelled against all laws of gravity. And in order to keep it that way, he had to tell lies, he had to keep secrets hidden. Secrets keep us safe. He wasn't the most likable person, no, but he was sure clever. He had always been clever.
John had motives of his felonies. He didn't commit them for money, he didn't commit them for attention.
He committed them out of jealousy.
Three Years Ago, August
Martha Jones walked into the TARDIS Chronicle at a precise time of six in the morning, a red leather coat draped around her left arm and a purse in her right hand, dumping all of the contents onto her desk. She was TARDIS's top reporter, a reliable one at the least, writing front page headlines for a minimum wage. It was a decent life, one that would be described at content, but that didn't always mean satisfying. Martha had a husband, she had a child, she had an overall pleasant life, but nothing really seemed to happen. Sure, she was writing about these top political stories and new enlightenment in science, but she was writing about other lives, other people's success. Nobody notices the one who tells, just the one who stars.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she walked over to the wall of commercial mailboxes on the opposite side of the room, pulling her mailbox key out of her pocket and unlocking the fifth one on the second row. As she pulled open the door, an assortment of slim white letters were pulled out, but what seemed unusual was a large manila envelope stuffed in the back. Martha carefully pulled it out, trying not to dent or fold the packaging. There was no return address on the front, just her name and the address of TARDIS printed neatly in a permanent marker. She looked at it in puzzlement, for it wasn't suspicious, it was just unexpected. Nobody ever sent her packages, for there was no need to.
Martha disregarded the rest of the envelopes, placing them in her desk drawer for later and scooting her chair up to straighten her posture. The manila envelope stared back at her blankly, her conscious instructing her to open it, and yet she found the resentment not to do so. Whatever was inside, it was meant for her. So with an oblivious mind as to what the contents could be, Martha carefully opened the envelope and peered inside. Her eyes narrowed at the small device that lay at the back of the envelope, so she carefully took it out, baffled at the sight of it. She held it in between her index and middle finger. A pen drive. Why such large packaging had been used to carry such a little object? But another question had already claimed her mind.
Where was the cap?
Amelia typed faster than she usually did that morning, maybe it was the coffee, or maybe it was to get the worries farther away from her mind; she wasn't quite sure. All she knew was that today, all cities in Gallifrey were lining up to be included in its mass of a population. The nation had a census every other year, to calculate its cities populations and add all of them up to its total. Amelia lived in Gallifrey's capitol. It was the rising nation out of all; it was the most wealthy, and yet the most dangerous. There were murderers and robbers prowling about its cities, hiding from attention, and though Gallifrey was powerful, its citizens slept scared. Yet they needed the money it provided, including Amelia.
But she knew that when Gallifrey's UNIT had caught a new criminal, they would take care of them in a way that didn't include punishment. Three years back, an anonymous source had leaked UNIT's project information to the media, information that wasn't supposed to be spoken of until everything was clarified. UNIT didn't speak about the matter, they kept their mouth shut about Regeneration, that's the was the name that was chosen for the project, according to the media. But what they did say to the media was to look out for a new criminal, a mysterious criminal.
They said to 'fear The Doctor'.
It practically became the new hash tag.
The media had started the rumor that this 'Doctor' was the one who leaked out the information, yet UNIT didn't say anything else. Amelia didn't know exactly what to say to all of the nonsense, or even more so how to react. All she knew was that The Doctor was running away from UNIT, and he sure as hell didn't want to get caught. It was self-explanatory. He could have committed any of the other anonymous crimes that were spoken of in the news, she didn't know. Nobody did. He was a mystery, he was an enigma, invisible felonies lay on his hands and nobody except him knew it. Amelia was scared, of course she was, but that didn't get in the way of her life. She had a husband, she had friends, she had a job, and no Doctor was going to kill the moment. No matter how close he was.
Three Years Ago, October
"Kate!" Osgood scrambled down the hallway, managing to pick up her scarf and her lab papers in one trip. "Kate, I have some new data, and...though it's not much, it gives us some new leads...and some new dead ends." she shook her head, walking into her office on a rainy Thursday morning, the rain pounding down from above their underground headquarters. Kate stared at her in concern, indicating for her to continue. Osgood nodded her head promptly, flipping the papers attached to her clipboard. "Uh, well, judging by the fingerprint simulations this one's definitely a man, and though we have DNA from the computer wreckage it doesn't match anybody in our records."
"Nobody?" Kate asked, somewhat baffled.
"I know, it's peculiar, it's just as if whoever this man was, he erased himself from any form of database on UNIT." she shook her head, flipping through her papers yet again.
"You got to admire that man's cleverness." Kate admitted staring off into the far distance. "We have to find him before he does anything else to release us to the media."
John had dexterity, it was no lie. Amelia depended on him for when her computer froze, or whatever computer technician's problem she had, and he didn't mind; it was the only good thing that he could do. Staring at computer screens and surrounding him with books and science was his life, well, his life now. Things were so different years ago, and he'd tried to forget everything and just live like an ordinary human being, but an ordinary human being was the one thing he could never be. John lived in regret, he lived in depression, he lived in the ashes of smoke, and he couldn't help but do anything but that. He had been insane, that part still in him but keeping itself quiet, like a tumor that could come back any day it wanted to. His life was a massacre, and there was no way out of it, other than death. But death, to him, was an act of cowardliness, and he was in no way a coward. At least he thought so.
Amelia glanced over to the bottom right hand corner of her computer screen, the tiny letters telling the time. 11: 42. "John," she said to him across desks, not looking up from her work and continuing to type. "We have to get going if we want a decent place in line, you know the crowds are like hell in this city." she shook her head, her mouse at hand and clicking to save her work. He looked up from his computer to give her a puzzled look. "Where are we going; what lines?" he asked. Amelia stood still for a few moments, wondering how he didn't know. "We're...we're going to the census." she eyed him suspiciously, for it had been the headline news for the past few weeks. He gulped. "That's...today?"
Amelia raised an eyebrow. "John, they've been talking about the census for weeks now, don't you read the newspaper?" He didn't respond, only to look down at his hands, which were still poised atop his keyboard. "No...I guess not." he muttered. Amelia scratched her head, for it seemed as though everyone in Gallifrey knew about the census, it wasn't confidential and it certainly wasn't an ordinary gathering of citizens. "You have been to the census before, right?" she asked, for it was mandatory for all to go. "Um, yeah, course, why wouldn't I have gone?" he sputtered out, which wasn't a complete lie. He stopped going after he turned twenty, for reasons that were strictly confidential. "...well then," she finally said after a long respite dedicated to her confusion and thinking, closing down her computer. "It's today, and...you're coming with me."
His head snapped up. "Amelia...I can't, really, you don't have to-"
"John-"
"Amy, I can't go-"
"You have to-"
"I can't-"
"John!" she shut him up, staring at him coldly. "I'm...I'm trying here, okay? For the past two years I've been trying to be nice to you, and with a little thing like this you can't even agree on it?" she blurted out. "John, I don't know why you keep shutting people out and I don't know why but don't you think that one day you finally need to stop?" she sounded angry, but even more sad. "Please..." she said weakly. "Just...trust me for once." she looked helpless, as if John had hurt her more that he had himself. He stared at her for a moment, giving her that look again, the look in which his eyes glimmered a soft longing for something that she thought was so easy to contain. "...when..." she took in a sharp breath, exhaling slowly. "When did you start calling me Amy?"
He looked up from his shoes, quiet as nothing. He had never meant to affect Amy the way that he had. She was really trying to get him to talk, she was trying to be his best friend, and it wasn't that she didn't try enough, it was that he didn't let her. He had been avoiding the census for seven years. Three censuses he had missed. He knew what would happen when he got there, and he knew that he couldn't run, because if he did, another person in the world would come to hate him. And for once in his life, he was willing to give in; he knew what UNIT was going to do to him, in fact, he was the first person from the outside to find out.
He knew what would happen. But he still agreed to going.
He was doing it for Amy.
Time seemed to be ticking by slowly, and one would see that as an advantage for John, and yet it was agony to wait. He wanted to get everything over with. He stood as stiff as a board, waiting in the tedious line as people passed through each scanner. That was how the census would work. Twenty lines, thousands of people, twenty scanners, one population. At each scanner sat a UNIT officer, the scanner detecting their DNA and pulling up their UNIT profile on the computer that sat before them. That's what John seemed to fear the most. UNIT had his DNA somewhere in their files, and even though he was deleted from their database, they still had him. He didn't sweat though, yet his brain was a disarray as it felt the impact coming from the beat in his heart. He was scared.
Amy was right in at the front of the line soon enough, almost as if John had traveled through time too quickly, and watched her as she stepped though the metal scanner, the UNIT officer reading the computer information before him, the screen turned away from his eye sight for security reasons. After a few slow seconds, the officer nodded his head towards Amy, allowing her to walk through the metal turnstile. John froze. This was it.
The UNIT officer stared at John suspiciously, for his feet had refused to move. "Sir, please step through the scanner." the officer said calmly, gesturing her hand towards the contraption that could shut down John's life of running for good. He looked more closely at the UNIT officer, her blonde hair and brown eyes looking at him with concern. John did a double-take, for he had recognized her. She was on the television in the worker's lounge years ago, her mugshot looking deathly and yet flirtatious at the same time. John had heard about used to be a criminal, living a life of stealing from exhibits, leaving her signature Bad Wolf name spray painted in a hot pink across the walls of the rooms in which she had stolen from, that's the life she used to have, running, stealing, being called the Bad Wolf. And now, as John had heard from his coworkers, she was called Rose Tyler, working for UNIT like her past life had never happened.
That was what UNIT did.
They didn't discipline them to live a better life.
They brainwashed them to live a new one.
"Sir," Bad Wolf, or, now as they say it, Rose Tyler said, snapping John out of his thoughts. "Please, step through." she repeated herself. John suddenly looked ahead of him, and as if operated by parts, he did as he was told. He then stood in the middle of the scanner, frozen, as if he knew what was coming, and everything in his mind seeming to be blank for a few moments. To his left, Rose looked at his profile in concern, her eyes suddenly filling with hatred. The DNA, it matched a man that should be dead for what he had done.
It matched The Doctor's DNA.
Alarms went off like firecrackers as officers surrounded him in an instant, guns pointed out in as a severe warning of death, the one thing that John hated the most. Guns. Amy immediately turned around, shocked to see John surrounded by men and women with things that could shoot. "We found The Doctor, UNIT HQ, I repeat, we have found The Doctor." one of them spoke into a receiver. And suddenly, everything began to fall into place for Amy. The looks, the blockade of her life into his, him trying to kill himself slowly with cigarettes. It all seemed to make sense. "No..." Amy said, for John wasn't a criminal. "No!" she screamed, forcing herself over the turnstiles and trying to push herself through the officers to him, disadvantaged to their strength and persistence. She didn't knew when she had started crying either. "No, please!" she pleaded. "You can't take him, you can't!" she was able to allow herself into the circle of officers, only to be held by two at each of her arms. "Please..." she cried, staring at him. He walked up to her slowly, guns still pointed but not willing to shoot, and staring at her kindly, he gently placed a kiss on her forehead, and for once in his life, he smiled at her. "I'm sorry." he muttered to her as the grip on her arms by the officers were strengthened. Amy winced at the pain and the torment as John stood in the middle yet again, laughing mockingly at everyone around him. "So," he yelled out, his anger reappearing. "You got me."