Arcadia's Love (Book TWO)

Little and Broken, But Still Good

The Doctor:

"You really should have left the weapons." I told her, staring at the bow, arrows, knives, guns and ammo on the floor by the door to the TARDIS. "You're lucky the TARDIS still likes you, Phi." Normally, after any form of weapon in here, there was a big song and dance with the sirens and the cloister bells, and flashing red lights that gave me a headache.

She was sat on the seat closest to them, peeling off her gloves and looking at her hands. They were bone white, swollen and twisted. "The TARDIS will always love me. I'm the one who gave birth to her daughter, after all. Melody is a third TARDIS thanks to the Silence." She winced, reaching into her bag for a syringe, similar to the one she used when she was human, but the contents was amber this time. It made her hands shrink and mobility return, meaning that she could easily click her fingers and tie up her hair. "That is so much better, they don't hurt any more."

"Let me have a look, I might be able to cure them." I told her, and she stayed still, letting me inspect her hands. "Arthritis, human grade, and I do have a cure, though there's a chance it could come back. Hang on a tick, it should be in the first aid kit." I moved over to the console, fishing out a small vial of dark green liquid, that should taste like banana milkshake, but I never trusted what labels said.

"Legacy, why are you still talking to me? After what I said to you?" Phina asked me, and I looked up into her eyes, and how much darker they now were after 20 years of being alone. I didn't like spending 2 years alone after my fake death, so the idea of her spending 20 years in near isolation... It horrified me. "No matter what I said to you down there you never gave up. You kept trying to talk to me."

She stood up then, pulling down the hood and the mask, taking them off fully, and then the jacket, showing me more tattoos across her body, as well as countless writings of the future, all in her own language so I couldn't translate it. The tattoos were just of circular Gallifreyan and they looked home job, but a good quality. Innocence, Dauntless, Veritas, Amity, Abnegation, Unity, Peace, Defence, Love, Honour and Family. Dauntless meant bravery, Vertias, truth, amity, kindness, abnegation, selflessness. She was reminding herself daily of what she needed to be, in case she ever forgot, but why was she so scared of that?

"Because I love you, and I will never, ever stop." I told her, looking then at the scars her thin vest showed me, from guns, arrows, swords and teeth. "I'm sorry. I never wanted to make you this, make you the warrior, or the Demon you were fighting against."

Phina smiled a little, the first smile that I'd seen. "I'm scared to get close, yet I hated being alone, I longed to not for the feeling of not feeling at all, the higher I got, the lower I'd sink. I can't drown my demons, they know how to swim. They were always going to win, Doctor. Because in my head they were stronger than me, and I let them. The Demon was in my head, and I let myself see her instead of me. I saw Ryoko instead of Phina."

"Seraphina, did you just tell me you were sorry for what you said, and for what you've done, while using a Bring Me The Horizon song?" I asked her, shaking my head. Music was how she pretended to be deaf, with headphones hidden behind her mask and hood, I'd worked that much out. "What is it with you and that band? To be fair, it could have been MCR, or Paramore."

"You're not helping."

"I know, but these tattoo's, Phi. It was like you were scared you would forget what you were fighting for. And innocence? No matter what you tried, even I knew you weren't innocent. We fight on a daily basis, and you're more soaked in blood than I am. I love you with everything and I always will, you and our daughter, but you were never innocent." I told her, tracing my fingers along the lines of the ink, the different circles and lines.