'Gainst All Disaster ('Backward' challenge)

[templeremus]

Title: 'Gainst All Disaster
Genre: Character Study/Horror/Missing Scene
Word Count: 484

Rating: PG for mild body horror, captivity, some dark themes

Summary: Imperfect as they are, all they have for now is each other. Ada and the Doctor wait, each in their own way, for salvation.
Set during episode 7.11, The Crimson Horror

After a while - he doesn't know how long - his time in the cell falls into a routine.

He wakes to the organ playing, discordant over the bang and wheeze of the sham factory. It might be morning, afternoon or early evening; his window gets so little direct sun that most hours of the day feel the same, mapped only by hunger and the degree of stiffness in his limbs. 

 

Ada brings him pilfered things to eat. Stale bread soaked in milk, cold potatoes boiled to the point of collapse: nursery food, to be grasped with clumsy fists and gulped down without chewing. On one occasion she even smuggles in a jar of strawberry preserve, which he tries to refuse - it's too obvious a theft, someone below stairs will doubtless notice - to no avail. On the majority of days the bowl or cup is pushed through the hatch in the door; sometimes, when time allows, she feeds him herself, one hand at his shoulder to guide her. It's the closest she ever dares to get, crouched on the stone flagging with the bowl in her lap, feeling her way with the tip of the spoon. He can't make his lips close around it, can only move his jaw in spasms like a puppet whose wires have rusted, but they manage.

Ada talks or sings as she goes about her tasks, her voice so low that he's not sure the words are even meant for him. He recognises some of the tunes from the organ, and some of the chatter - the backward, pious, nonsensical sort - from her mother.

"We must cleanse ourselves," she'll say, rubbing food and dirt from his hands; or, "Let us pray His wrath is merciful"; or, "Forgive us our sins". She lays out her wrongdoings for him with the frankness of someone who has known death, smelled it and touched it and tidied it away. 
 

He wants to tell her that his own confession would take far longer. 
 

Part of him is afraid even to begin.
 

Once, he almost manages it. The poison mostly spared his vocal chords, and though his tongue feels leaden he forces it to the roof of his mouth: Aaa-Da. At her name Ada turns from off-white to grey, and her hands tremble so violently that he worries she might drop the half-empty bowl. A pink flush, like a dash of paint added to milk, starts at her cheekbones and blossoms out and down. Then she recovers. A tiny smile, and the spoon is lifted again; he accepts it, because what else can he do, because he's hungry, because kindness sometimes looks like surrender. 
 

They keep going until there is nothing left. Afterwards Ada wipes his face with her handkerchief, rinsing it off in the bucket she uses to sluice down the floor. "Dear monster", she says, half to herself, and presses the cloth to her own lips.

 

Comments

[unfeathered]

Very sweet. If you can call something so dark and twisted sweet! But I'm glad he had her to look after him, and I'm glad she had him to look after. :-)

[templeremus]

Thank you. The effects of the lockdown here in the UK are clearly making my brain go to dark and isolating places. But the reason this episode stands out for me at the moment is Ada: her bravery, her compassion, her willingness to defy years of mental and physical torment in order to help another soul in need. And of course the Doctor- in his own flighty, eccentric way - repays that debt to her. Their relationship is a twisted yet tender one.

[unfeathered]

Heh, I think that's happening to a lot of us, yeah!

I have to admit, this episode is not at all one of my favourites and one I sometimes skip over if I'm just watching for enjoyment, but from a writer's perspective yes, Ada is a very interesting character, well and truly messed up and yet, as you say, still strong and brave and compassionate. :-)

[paynesgrey]

Very well written, and the ending gave me a shiver. Well done!

[templeremus]

Thank you. I adore Rachael Stirling's performance in this episode. She takes a character who could be merely grotesque or pitiable and gives her such grace and intelligence. The care she shows the Doctor underscores the horror and sadness of his situation, but it also acts as proof of her innate kindness.