The Ability to Love (Dottore x fem!Y/N)

~Chapter 3~

"This guy... I swear...", Dottore says as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Sorry about him..."

"It's fine, I'm used to his behavior by now." I say, following with a light chuckle. "Ooo! I found one! This is a formula for a strength serum I made a while ago. We could test it out, and then maybe rest a bit? I'll get my secretary to do the paperwork."

"Sure, let me see that real quick..." His eyes scan over the paper as he nods in approval and starts preparing the ingredients. 

We spent the next hour or two working on the serum, and perfecting it. It was quite an interesting recipe, I wonder how my past self even managed to uncover it. Anyway, when we finished it, we used one of Dottore's "lab rats" to test the serum out.

"Right, we're gonna inject this into you now, and then you'll have to punch me, okay? As hard as you can." I say to the test subject, and i clearly saw her shaken-up feel. I'm pretty sure that she hasn't eaten for a few days, which was quite convenient for this test.

"B-but, if i hurt you, I'll r-receive punishment for acting up..." Poor girl. She was around 19, by her appearance, and she looked like she thought I wanted to eat her or something.

"No, it's fine, I assure you. This is for research purposes, you won't get punishment." I say, starting to look a bit irritated, yet I opted to stay calm and gain her trust.

"O-okay..." she said shakily, still terrified out of her mind. I inject the serum into her system, and wait a bit before telling her to go on. She delivered a punch to my stomach, and though I didn't show a reaction, she basically blew the air out from my lungs. The test was a success.

"Okay, good. Uhh, do you feel any side effects?" Dottore asked, still happy about the success of a possibly 500 year old recipe. 

"I-... I only feel more hungry, that's all..."

"Right, we'll get you some food then. Be sure to write down any other side effects, and whenever the serum wears off." I tell her as I go get some food for her, and come back shortly with a few sandwiches. I take her back to her cell as she eats them, and also give her a few pieces of paper and some graphite to write down any further after-effects.

"Right, we should get going then." I say to Dottore as we leave the lab, and go back to my garden to sit down a bit.

"Today was wonderful, thank you." I say to him as it starts to lightly snow.

"No problem, thank you for coming with me." He replies. It had actually been a long time since I genuinely smiled for this long, so much so that my jaw was starting to hurt. We sat there in a bit of silence, just enjoying each other's company.

Ultimately though, we had to part ways, since it was getting dark. I couldn't really sleep that night, because of the adrenaline in me. I was far too excited.

The next day, I had another debt collection. Sadly, alone this time. I made my way down to my kitchen, had some coffee, and reluctantly left the palace. 

The person I was going to collect from was known at the fatui as one of the feistiest people to collect from. That's exactly why they're sending a damn harbinger over there.

When I arrived at the person's house, I breathed a sigh of annoyance. Their house was rather small, broken up in a few places, and overall looked like they didn't have a penny to their name. This is gonna be "fun".

I knock at the door, and someone hesitantly answers. It was a little girl. I don't usually have a knack for liking children, but this one seemed too... not innocent? She looked like she had seen things. She reminded me of myself, in a way.