Fitz didn’t care where he was being dragged to. It was away from Burton and that was enough. He sensed another corridor, with daylight flashing briefly over him as he was taken past the windows, its brightness hurting his swollen eyes. Then into another room. He was deposited into another hard wooden chair. He wondered briefly if this was some new trick. Take him for a nice wander and then dump him back in with Burton. Raise a little interest out of him, maybe even some hope. His concentration was shot though, he could barely remember a few seconds ago, let alone a few minutes. He didn’t care what they did any more. Maybe the Doctor would come. Why hadn’t the Doctor come? Because he doesn’t know where you are, you idiot.
‘I’ll take it from here,’ a new voice told the two guards. Fitz didn’t bother to glance up. He picked slightly at the bandage on his hand, wondering when – if – he could get a clean bit of lint for it. It was going brown now, drying stiff and hard against his raw palm.
‘With respect, comrade –’
‘Fine. Stay. Given the state of him I may have need of your muscle anyway.’
Fitz sensed the new man come forward, standing so that his smart boots were in Fitz’s downcast eyeline.
‘Fitz?’ the voice was saying quietly. He reluctantly opened his eyes and tilted his head back to look, not bothering to shove his hair back. He stared in disbelief at the man stood in front of him. Sasha was looking haggard. He was in civvies, smarter than before. Much the same anonymous clothing as worn by the men who had been at the bar when the arrests started. His hair had grown since Fitz had last seen him at the station, and he’d clearly not shaved for a few days. His face blurred slightly before Fitz’s eyes, and he narrowed them to try to hold the focus. God, he was feeling woozy.
‘Sa-’
‘Don’t talk unless I tell you to,’ the Russian barked at him.
Sasha grabbed his chin and held his eyes, glaring into them. Then he winked briefly. Fitz groaned.
‘I’ve nothing to say,’ he said, gritting his teeth and trying to sound as stubborn as possible.
‘We’ll see about that once you’re at Alcala de Henares. I have your transfer details right here.’
With that, Fitz felt himself being lifted again. This time he tried to pay attention as he was hurried down another corridor, across a landing, down more stairs and then out into a cooling evening. The yard was busy with movement and Fitz realised it was the yard of the building in Barcelona. Of course, he should have realised as soon as he saw Pia, but her blanking of his greeting had made him wonder if he was hallucinating her. No, here were the same battered cars, the same gates. Then the two men had shoved him, none too gently, into the back of an old Citro¨en. One of them deliberately squeezed his bad arm as he manhandled him.
‘Comrade, will you require an escort?’
‘Look at him, comrade. Do you really think he could overpower me?’
When it looked as if the guard was to argue, Fitz felt a handcuff snap tight around his good wrist, heard it thunk around the looped leather strap of the car door handle. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He wasn’t feigning disinterest in what was going on around him, he realised, he really was too exhausted to care.
The car jolted into life, chugged a short way. Then Sasha was arguing with someone at the gate, a lengthy torrent of Spanish and French ending with some kind of command. Then the car was moving again, bumping and jarring over the uneven cobblestones, growling against a kerb when a corner was taken too tightly. The light flickered as Sasha drove them down sidestreets, looping blocks. Fitz lost all track within moments. The car slowed to a crawl as they drove through a long archway into a square, parked.
Fitz groaned as the front door opened and then slammed, the shock jolting through the body. The back door was being opened and the handcuff removed from his wrist.
‘Fitz? It’s OK. I think we’ll be OK for a while.’
‘Sasha?’
‘Yes.’
‘I looked for you. They said you didn’t exist. Yet here you are in Party civvies. Getting me out of a Party prison.’
Fitz opened his eyes and saw the genuine concern and hurt on his friend’s face. The Russian was lifting his bad hand up gently, turning it over as he inspected the bandages. ‘They did this?’
‘What? Yes. No. I mean, they fixed it up. Can’t have a prisoner dying on you, can you?’
‘I’m not party to that.’
Fitz barked a laugh at that. He used the ball of his good hand to rub his eyes, pressing it in so he saw colours swirling. Then he looked back at Sasha. The Russian was pulling more papers from an inner pocket.
‘Fitz. The TARDIS is just here, just outside. The Doctor gave me a list of instructions for you.’
Fitz frowned. ‘The Doctor?’
Sasha glanced away, out of the window to the twilight square. The huge lanterns in the centre were being lit, making the trees stark and huge, bright against the squared sky. Fitz continued to watch him. How had Sasha run into the Doctor? Why had the Doctor trusted him? Why should he even believe Sasha? The man had lied to him, was involved in some seriously grim stuff.
‘Look. He told me to say something, so you’d know to trust me. He said: “the planet is called Albert”.’
Fitz started to laugh then, hiccuping to a stop after a moment and grinning weakly at Sasha. Sasha grinned back, shrugged. ‘I don’t know what the hell that means, but he said you would.’
Fitz nodded. He closed his eyes briefly, letting his current situation vanish for a moment.
‘Fitz?’
‘Wha-’ Sasha was shaking his good shoulder, peering at him in concern.
‘You blanked out for a couple of minutes then. Listen, the Doctor said you’re to use the emergency phone, dial a number,’ he held out a piece of ticker tape, with the Doctor’s odd copperplate scrawl over it, ‘and convince von Richthofen to use the VB/88 squadron in the attack on Guernica.’
Fitz nodded. Emergency phone. Richthofen. V-88. Guernica. He saw the flames again, the blood red sky and him helpless to stop it. The Doctor wanted him to...? ‘No.’
‘What?’
‘Killing thousands. Not right. I won’t.’
‘Fitz, the Doctor says you must. He says the consensus is shifting, that everyone believes the Reds did it themselves. You have to ensure there’s a documentary trail, evidence so that people believe the truth. He thinks there’s a link: that the Absolute’s system can be used to actually travel back to the right place and time and that the TARDIS can ensure you get there.’
An old farmer stood alone in a field, cut down with machine guns by a fighter. Another building crumbling and smashing, even the masonry burning. No. No, it was wrong. Thousands would die. But he’d seen it: the fighters, the bombers. And he knew that it was the version that people should be believing, the version that had screamed to the whole world that total war meant this utter destruction. That war was never civilised. But to be involved, to help in those deaths... just to ensure the reports communicated that horror. To create that horror...
‘He said you’d be able to do it, that he trusted you,’ Sasha said, nudging him gently.
‘I can’t.’
Sasha was sat on the edge of the door, facing him and looking upwards. ‘He’s doing his part, Fitz, but he needs you to do yours.
Fitz leaned back. It always came down to this. The Doctor trusted him. The Doctor needed him. He couldn’t let the Doctor down. Not ever. The Doctor was the brains, the instinct, the one who could make the hard decisions. And he wasn’t here for Fitz to question in person. History isn’t just a list of events, it’s how they are perceived. He pushed himself more upright, glanced at Sasha’s face.
‘OK. I don’t like it, but I’ll try.’ Fitz gestured for the Russian to move out of the way, swung his legs round and tried to get out of the car. The ground continued to swirl under him for a moment. ‘OK, I’ll try, if you can just give me a hand as far as the TARDIS.’
Sasha hurried to get a hand under his bad arm, swung the good one over his shoulder. Getting out of the car became a chorus of cursing, as various elbows and heads bumped on the framework. Once out, Sasha shifted his grip to around Fitz’s waist and they stumbled the few feet to the doors of the TARDIS. Fitz leant against it, feeling the cool almost-wood under his forehead. Sasha ran his hand down it gently, cautiously.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
For Norton, cn just after he's been tortured, war crimes
Date: 2023-04-22 02:28 am (UTC)eyes. Then into another room. He was deposited into another hard wooden chair. He wondered briefly if this was some new trick. Take him for a nice wander and then dump him back in with Burton. Raise a little interest out of him, maybe even some hope. His concentration was shot though, he could barely remember a few seconds ago, let alone a few minutes. He didn’t care what they did any more. Maybe the Doctor would come. Why hadn’t the Doctor come? Because he doesn’t know where you are, you idiot.
‘I’ll take it from here,’ a new voice told the two guards. Fitz didn’t bother to glance up. He picked slightly at the bandage on his hand, wondering when – if – he could get a clean bit of lint for it. It was going brown now, drying stiff and hard against his raw palm.
‘With respect, comrade –’
‘Fine. Stay. Given the state of him I may have need of your muscle anyway.’
Fitz sensed the new man come forward, standing so that his smart boots were in Fitz’s downcast eyeline.
‘Fitz?’ the voice was saying quietly. He reluctantly opened his eyes and tilted his head back to look, not bothering to shove his hair back. He stared in disbelief at the man stood in front of him. Sasha was looking haggard. He was in civvies, smarter than before. Much the same anonymous clothing as worn by the men who had been at the bar when the arrests started. His hair had grown since Fitz had last seen him at the station, and he’d clearly not shaved for a few days. His face blurred slightly before Fitz’s eyes, and he narrowed them to try to hold the focus. God, he was feeling woozy.
‘Sa-’
‘Don’t talk unless I tell you to,’ the Russian barked at him.
Sasha grabbed his chin and held his eyes, glaring into them. Then he winked briefly. Fitz groaned.
‘I’ve nothing to say,’ he said, gritting his teeth and trying to sound as stubborn as possible.
‘We’ll see about that once you’re at Alcala de Henares. I have your transfer details right here.’
With that, Fitz felt himself being lifted again. This time he tried to pay attention as he was hurried down another corridor, across a landing, down more stairs and then out into a cooling evening. The yard was busy with movement and Fitz realised it was the yard of the building in Barcelona. Of course, he should have realised as soon as he saw Pia, but her blanking of his greeting had made him wonder if he was hallucinating her. No, here were the same battered cars, the same gates. Then the two men had shoved him, none too gently, into the back of an old Citro¨en. One of them deliberately squeezed his bad arm as he manhandled him.
‘Comrade, will you require an escort?’
‘Look at him, comrade. Do you really think he could overpower me?’
When it looked as if the guard was to argue, Fitz felt a handcuff snap tight
around his good wrist, heard it thunk around the looped leather strap of the car door handle. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He wasn’t feigning disinterest in what was going on around him, he realised, he really was too exhausted to care.
The car jolted into life, chugged a short way. Then Sasha was arguing with someone at the gate, a lengthy torrent of Spanish and French ending with some kind of command. Then the car was moving again, bumping and jarring over the uneven cobblestones, growling against a kerb when a corner was taken too tightly. The light flickered as Sasha drove them down sidestreets, looping blocks. Fitz lost all track within moments. The car slowed to a crawl as they drove through a long archway into a square, parked.
Fitz groaned as the front door opened and then slammed, the shock jolting through the body. The back door was being opened and the handcuff removed from his wrist.
‘Fitz? It’s OK. I think we’ll be OK for a while.’
‘Sasha?’
‘Yes.’
‘I looked for you. They said you didn’t exist. Yet here you are in Party civvies. Getting me out of a Party prison.’
Fitz opened his eyes and saw the genuine concern and hurt on his friend’s face. The Russian was lifting his bad hand up gently, turning it over as he inspected the bandages. ‘They did this?’
‘What? Yes. No. I mean, they fixed it up. Can’t have a prisoner dying on you, can you?’
‘I’m not party to that.’
Fitz barked a laugh at that. He used the ball of his good hand to rub his eyes, pressing it in so he saw colours swirling. Then he looked back at Sasha. The Russian was pulling more papers from an inner pocket.
‘Fitz. The TARDIS is just here, just outside. The Doctor gave me a list of instructions for you.’
Fitz frowned. ‘The Doctor?’
Sasha glanced away, out of the window to the twilight square. The huge lanterns in the centre were being lit, making the trees stark and huge, bright against the squared sky. Fitz continued to watch him. How had Sasha run into the Doctor? Why had the Doctor trusted him? Why should he even believe Sasha? The man had lied to him, was involved in some seriously grim stuff.
‘Look. He told me to say something, so you’d know to trust me. He said: “the planet is called Albert”.’
Fitz started to laugh then, hiccuping to a stop after a moment and grinning weakly at Sasha. Sasha grinned back, shrugged. ‘I don’t know what the hell that means, but he said you would.’
Fitz nodded. He closed his eyes briefly, letting his current situation vanish for a moment.
‘Fitz?’
‘Wha-’ Sasha was shaking his good shoulder, peering at him in concern.
‘You blanked out for a couple of minutes then. Listen, the Doctor said you’re to use the emergency phone, dial a number,’ he held out a piece of ticker tape, with the Doctor’s odd copperplate scrawl over it, ‘and convince von Richthofen to use the VB/88 squadron in the attack on Guernica.’
Fitz nodded. Emergency phone. Richthofen. V-88. Guernica. He saw the flames again, the blood red sky and him helpless to stop it. The Doctor wanted him to...? ‘No.’
‘What?’
‘Killing thousands. Not right. I won’t.’
‘Fitz, the Doctor says you must. He says the consensus is shifting, that everyone believes the Reds did it themselves. You have to ensure there’s a documentary trail, evidence so that people believe the truth. He thinks there’s a link: that the Absolute’s system can be used to actually travel back to the right place and time and that the TARDIS can ensure you get there.’
An old farmer stood alone in a field, cut down with machine guns by a fighter. Another building crumbling and smashing, even the masonry burning. No. No, it was wrong. Thousands would die. But he’d seen it: the fighters, the bombers. And he knew that it was the version that people should be believing, the version that had screamed to the whole world that total war meant this utter destruction. That war was never civilised. But to be involved, to help in those deaths... just to ensure the reports communicated that horror. To create that horror...
‘He said you’d be able to do it, that he trusted you,’ Sasha said, nudging him gently.
‘I can’t.’
Sasha was sat on the edge of the door, facing him and looking upwards. ‘He’s doing his part, Fitz, but he needs you to do yours.
Fitz leaned back. It always came down to this. The Doctor trusted him. The Doctor needed him. He couldn’t let the Doctor down. Not ever. The Doctor was the brains, the instinct, the one who could make the hard decisions. And he wasn’t here for Fitz to question in person. History isn’t just a list of events, it’s how they are perceived. He pushed himself more upright, glanced at Sasha’s face.
‘OK. I don’t like it, but I’ll try.’ Fitz gestured for the Russian to move out of the way, swung his legs round and tried to get out of the car. The ground continued to swirl under him for a moment. ‘OK, I’ll try, if you can just give me a hand as far as the TARDIS.’
Sasha hurried to get a hand under his bad arm, swung the good one over his shoulder. Getting out of the car became a chorus of cursing, as various elbows and heads bumped on the framework. Once out, Sasha shifted his grip to around Fitz’s waist and they stumbled the few feet to the doors of the TARDIS. Fitz leant against it, feeling the cool almost-wood under his forehead. Sasha ran his hand down it gently, cautiously.