Doctor Who - 01 - Past Future Continuous

11. Revelations

Gasping, the Doctor raised his head to look at the creature, which had appeared in his cell. Slightly taller than an average human being, covered with armour resembling a chitin crust of an insect, it moved deceptively slowly. Deceptively, because a moment ago, when the Doctor had tried to attack the creature, he got hit by one of its extremities and thrown against the wall with an impetus that left him breathless. He slammed the back of his head against the plastimetallic wall, momentarily close to loosing consciousness. He tried to get up, but his arms and legs would not listen. He had never been physically strong, but after many days of, well, let's say it – after many days of tortures – he had just enough strength to raise his head.

"I don't know you," he gasped. "I don't even know who you are."

"It's because I've changed," answered the insect-like creature. "You have changed since our last meeting as well. I've never thought you vain, but I've must been mistaken. A pretty face for a pretty companion. And, Little Prince, where's your Rose now? Lost behind a wall of a different garden, on a different world, in a different reality."

It crouched next to the Doctor, piercing him with human eyes looking out of the insect's face. Its eyes were old, blurred with milky cataracts.

"So, which incarnation is it?" it asked. "Tenth? Oh, you and your regeneration. How interesting."

The Doctor bit his lips. This creature had played with his life for so many days, bringing him to the brink of regeneration through injuries and pain, depriving him of food and water, light and air, injecting medicines and poisons, making fun of him. A lot had happened in the Doctor's lengthy life, but never had he felt a helpless prisoner. He was never a victim. Well, maybe except the times when... Forget it!

The worst of it was the fact that no one would help him. In desperate times he could always count on people or other entities, even those he had met just in passing. Rose, pulverising the Dalek Emperor's army into atoms; Mickey, at right moment using his mobile phone; Ian Chesterton, risking his life in the Aztec's tunnels; Martha, crossing the wastelands of the Master; even K9, sacrificing its metal existence for the Doctor. And now he was alone.

Alone, except...

"Just tell me who you are," he repeated. "If we have met in the past, tell me when?"

"A hundred years ago," the insect answered. "In three years. Yesterday. What difference does it make, Time Lord?"

The Doctor gave it a pale smile. "I could name you."

"Ah!" The creature uttered an unpleasant laughter. "So important. Naming things. Taming the shadows."

It bent over the Doctor.

"You are predictable. You have named yourself the Doctor, the learned one, because you are afraid of superstition, ignorance and darkness. You named yourself the Engineer, because you believe that you can fix anything."

It stretched again, tall and slightly scary, with its old, human eyes burning in the alien face.

"I didn't name myself; I was named by my parents, but I've decided that their choice was right. The First. The First created. The First banished. The First punished disproportionately to his crime."

For a long time the Doctor was starring at the creature with wide open eyes.

"Adam," he said at last, quietly, almost whispering.

The creature took a whistling breath.

"Congratulations! So you do remember. Geocomtex. Henry van Statten's underground base, Utah, 2012. Adam Mitchell."