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[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

[Oh, look who it is. Not bustling, not running around, not talking. Just quietly there.]

[He's been scarce on the Plane lately, his current situation making him anything but social. As it is, he's here now, staring at the post he has on the Plane, waiting for a promised letter. Feel free to interrupt.]

Comments

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

There's a subtle difference in the image. Emotions are skewed by an implant.

[goes to the one image with the Master, this one must be false]

It's like you're seeing it through a glass. Look.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She doesn't WANT to look. But the plane, she reminds herself, is safe. Safer, at least. And she's not one to avoid confronting the disturbing, the distressing. It's a job. It's all part of her job.]

[That's how to think of this, too.]

[The first thing she notices is the lack of detail. Grotesque, maybe, but God or the Devil or whoever happens to be inhabiting the space today is in the details. It's like a moving image painted in broad strokes, even the blood seeming out of focus the more she tries to pin it down.

The faces are general, almost right, but really only close enough for her to attach familiar names.]

[No wonder it was hard to tell who was who after a while.]

[She places her hands over the Doctor's in a timid, relieved motion.]

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Now, imagine a bin. This is going to be the bin where you can place all of the false memories.

[he helps her along with this, slowly creating a bin out of the floorboards in her mind's hallway]


[he gives a small smile to her relief. He likes knowing he can still help]

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She folds it away into the little imaginary bin, which is much easier now that she's taken the illusion apart herself. The images of Hei and Sam being tortured quickly follow, much to her comfort.]

[Herself on the exam table--that one is harder.]

[Much harder. She keeps her hands over his for the simple contact, shivering a little. This time she has her own details to draw on, her own memories twisted into the lie.]

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

[he can't help her choose what is and isn't real, but he can keep her strong. He places mental blankets over the parts of her that are in pain or afraid, trying to help ease them]

You can do it.

[he leans forward, pressing his forehead to hers]

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She nearly loses focus to panic, once, but the Doctor's mental reassurance gets her back on track. It's slow, surgical, removal of reality from the construct. Several times she's tempted to just scrap the whole thing, but it's her life, and she's not giving it up to the M.E.]

[It takes several minutes--an hour? Longer? she's not sure--to draw the facade away from the amorphous scene they implanted.]

[She drops it into the little bin and takes a massive mental step back. Free from that, the last ones are easy to distinguish. She gives the Doctor's hands a squeeze as the M.E. constructs fade.] Thank you.