The base was buried so deep underground it didn’t show up on maps—not the digital kind, not the psychic kind, not even the kind the Doctor kept tucked in the corner of his memory for places that shouldn’t exist. No roads led here. No signs. Just cold concrete, locked doors, and the stink of human fear, bureaucratic silence, and something else. Something not human.

He moved fast. Faster than they expected. One guard disarmed with a flick of the sonic screwdriver, another tripping over his own tranquilizer rifle. No one really knew who he was. Just that he didn’t show up on their scanners, didn’t have clearance, and shouldn’t have been able to override every electronic lock in the complex.

But he was the Doctor.

And someone had made a very big mistake.

When he reached the final door—thick steel with a bio-lock that had burned out hours ago—he paused. Just for a second. The hum behind it wasn’t mechanical. It was living. Breathing. And in pain.

He kicked it open.

The room was dim, lined with observation windows where no one watched anymore. Monitors flickered, machines beeped at irregular intervals, and in the center, under too-bright lights and wrapped in restraints clearly designed by someone who feared what they didn’t understand—you.

You were sitting, barely upright, limbs bound in place, something buzzing faintly around your throat. Your skin shimmered, not quite like any texture he’d seen before—layered, reactive, softly iridescent where it caught the light. Your eyes met his the second the door opened.

Not afraid. Not surprised. Just… tired.

He froze. Not from fear. From the sharp, sudden realization that you weren’t like anything he’d seen. And he’d seen more than most could imagine. A species he didn’t recognize, from a system not listed, with energy signatures his screwdriver couldn’t even parse without whining in protest.

He stepped closer.

“What did they do to you?” he asked, voice low, dangerous now. “No… don’t answer. Not yet.”

You didn’t flinch as he moved. You watched him, curious but guarded. He could feel it—the way you measured his every step. Not hostile. Just unsure.

He hated that. Hated that anyone had made you doubt.

The restraints hissed and released one by one under his touch. The collar sparked when he disabled it, sending a faint jolt through your body, and his jaw clenched at the way you absorbed it without a sound.

He crouched beside you as your hands fell free.

“They didn’t even ask what you were, did they?” he said. “Didn’t ask why you were here. Just locked you away. Prodded. Cut. Measured.”

His voice was calm, but something simmered beneath it—fury, old and sharp and righteous. Not at you. Never at you.

“They always do this. Always. Anything that doesn’t fit their tidy little boxes? They bury it. Hurt it. Pretend it’s dangerous until it becomes dangerous.”

You tilted your head slightly. He noticed the way your eyes shifted color with each blink—soft violet, then pale blue, like emotions translating through light. He’d seen species that communicated in scent, in vibrations, in memories shared through touch. But you were something new. Something beautiful. And they’d tried to break you.

He stood, offered his hand—not forced, not assumed. Offered.

You looked at it for a long moment. Then took it.

“Come on,” he said, a smile tugging at his mouth but not softening his eyes. “Let’s get you out of here. And then maybe, if you feel like it, you can tell me what you are. Because I have so many questions.”

He glanced once at the observation windows—shattered now, alarms flickering uselessly.

“And if they try to come after you again,” he added, voice colder than space, “they’ll answer to me.”