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THE SOUND IT MAKES IS LIKE PUNCHING A HOLE THROUGH RAW MEAT. It smells like burning blood. The beast within her begins to salivate as time slows, (but not for food.) When her mouth opens to release the howl from her heart, the sound that escapes from her lungs instead is surprisingly far less savage than it is horribly aggrieved: the wolf is drowned out by a woman's wailing shriek. In retaliation to being overshadowed, it begins to gnaw at her seams from within... heating up the blood in her veins, tugging at her canine teeth, sharpening her fingernails to points. Pulling amber into the silver of her eyes, and darkening the veins in a sea of white. She watches the life hesitate before it flees from Bill's dark eyes, and feels her churning guts splash hot bile against the back of her throat as the young woman falls limply to the cold floor. Before Reed's own body can begin to reanimate from the place she's become stuck to the floor, Nardole has already rushed over and locked his arms around her from the back, working to drag her behind the console with surprising strength (maybe because he's the only one who can keep her at bay ─ even Time Lords didn't have the physical prowess of an android.)
She fights him, but not very hard; seconds begin to blur into moments, and her strength wanes beneath shock of disbelief like the tide laps at an empty shore. One moment she's straining against the hold on her to get across the room, to get to Bill, the next she's not even sure her own heart is still beating. Her eyes are still fixated on Bill, even as the Doctor motions to kneel beside her. Her nails are digging deep into Nardole's sleeve, but he doesn't seem to take any notice. He's looking at Bill, too.
"I'm... I'm sorry," the stranger's voice is smothered by grieving hearts.
Lyra's voice tips over the precipice of suffocating quiet, but comes spilling out hoarse and breathless: "Doctor.. I can't hear her heart."
Even Missy is silent. The lifts across the room hiss, and from within, creatures emerge stiffly, wrapped up in gauze. Their bare feet pad against the floor with every staggering step they take.
"What are they?" Nardole manages, seemingly untroubled by the energy exerted by holding Lyra tightly in place. "What are those things?"
"You're too late," the stranger says. The one who'd killed her. "She's dead."
Lyra's pupils dilate. She strains against an unrelenting pair of arms, and barks the Doctor's name again.
"Don't you touch her," He says, as they begin to gather around where Bill had fallen. "Don't you lay a finger on her."
An automated voice rises to meet him, and takes them all a little aback:
-STAND. AWAY. STAND. AWAY.
-SHE. WILL BE. REPAIRED.
His brows pinch, "Repaired?"
-STAND. AWAY.
"You can help her, is that what you mean?"
Lyra cries out his name for the third time as they lift Bill's body onto a cold, metal gurney and begin to wheel her away.
"Where are you going? What are you gonna do with her?"
-REPAIR.
The stranger looks over at the old man as he tries after them, "Don't try to stop them, they'll snap you in half." but the Doctor ignores him aside from going still on his feet.
"─When do you bring her back?"
-WE. WILL. NOT.
The lift door hisses closed, and the Doctor rushes forward to lie his hands along the crack between the closed doors. "Wait for me... Wait for me."
To which Missy tilts her head, "What are you doing?"
"Leaving a message in her subconscious,"
The stranger now, again: "How? She's dead!"
"Those things are going to repair her, so clearly, she isn't." Nardole finally releases Lyra from his grasp. In truth, he doesn't even really know why he does.
The Doctor points his sonic toward the lift doors, and after a moment, Missy joins him and quips: "Assumption."
"Deduction."
"Hope."
"Faith."
"Idiot!"
"Always."
The stranger in the room advances them both, aims the blaster at the Doctor's back, and it hums with power as it gets ready to fire again. "Sir, step away from those doors. You'll bring them back."
Missy aims her sonic at him in reply, "What do you care, smurf? They're not even interested in you."
"Sir, I swear to you. Step away from that lift, or I will kill you."
"Don't, you will only make me angry--"
"Honey, listen to him."
"Why?"
In a flash of fevered movement, Reed vaults herself over the console with a single hand; in the context of any other scenario, the sight might have been an impressive one to behold. Everything that follows happens fast, beneath a veil of burning red. The crew-member hadn't even managed to turn the blaster upon her before her hands had wrapped around his neck. She feels his pulse spike beneath her palms, and listens to the sound of his blood roaring.
The wolf is foaming through the muzzle... the chains that contain it rust, and snap.
With a low growl of exertion, lips curled over savage teeth; it's little more than a sharp twist and a foul cracking noise as bone splinters, and cartilage snaps. Once the body goes limp in her hands, she merely lets him go, and allows gravity to take hold. What's left of him falls pitifully through the space between the Doctor and Missy and plummets into the abyss of the open lift. Lyra watches him disappear from the edge of the floor with barely the blink of her distant eyes. Tears have begun to well there, but her composure remains eerily still; she's like a lake, when the water turns to glass.
"Lyra, no-no-no! No!..." The Doctor's wide blue eyes dart to his companion, before he's peering again down into the lift ─ the expanse of it seems endless. There isn't even an audible thud when the body falls. Just silence. He leans back again, and grabs hold of her by the arms. "What have you done?.. Lyra, why did you do that?"
When her eyes finally meet his, a few stray tears begin to spill down her cheeks.. but through the glassy sheen in her eyes, he's not sure he's ever seen her bare this sort of clear, discernible hatred. Like she's been unraveled. Stripped raw, and trembling between his hands like an exposed nerve. THE WOLF GOT WHAT IT WANTED, and now it rests: all this anger he finds himself faced with now is hers alone. It makes the marrow of his bones run cold. "Look at me. You didn't have to kill him. Why? Do you think Bill would have wanted that for him? For you?"
Her eyebrows raise to his question, and when she goes to reply, it's with shaking lips and bared teeth, "... I had a duty of care." She manages darkly, before stepping back from him of her own accord. He lets her go, and they both seem a little deaf to the sound of Missy's jovial squeal of laughter echoing into the room.
"WOW! And she's the good one? Isn't that-- am I right about that? After a while all your wee little friend's faces start to look the same, Doctor. Egg-man, did you see that too?" She doesn't receive an answer, but it seems she didn't need one. She goes skipping past the Doctor, and knocks her shoulder to his when she does. "Oooh, you bad, bad girl. Does she get to be locked up in a vault now too? Can we be cozy little roomies? You play the piano, I'll do the singing." She flits in front of where Lyra is walking, and stops her in her tracks before daring to throw her arms brazenly around her neck. "Seriously, I have never found you more hypnotizingly beautiful than I do in this exact moment. Before, I'll admit, I thought it was a little bit of an excess. Like seriously, what's she over-compensating for, with a face like that?--NGK!" Lyra Reed seizes her by the jaw, and snarls through her teeth like a rabid dog when she yelps. "WHOA, WHOA! Okay, down girl. Too soon, got it. Don't go and be hasty, now─"
"Lyra, let her go. Now." The Doctor's voice cracks the air like a whip. For half a moment's breath, her eyes remain hard within Missy's.. but the moment passes and she obeys, pushing the Time Lady a little away from her once she releases her. Missy guffaws, and rubs her sore jaw as Lyra moves across the room again, sinking stiffly into a chair beside Nardole. Her eyes glaze over as she stares bleakly toward the lift, and digs her nails into her palms. After a little while, Nardole puts a hand gently on one of her shoulders.