The Doctor cannot breathe.

It's touching his mind. It's grasping and gripping and trying to tear inside.

People are shouting. It is repeating their words.

The cabin is gone.

They are panicking, and he cannot focus because that thing is touching him from across the space.

Why is it touching him? How is it touching him? Their physical forms are so far away it shouldn't be possible, yet every beat of his hearts is like a hit of a drum, a step closer to his demise. It crawls on the surface of his very being, searching the mental barrier for weak spots, and the worst thing is that it isn't careless. It is calculating and planning every step. It's poking around with its claws like a Master did, and the Doctor shudders.

He cannot breathe, and he cannot focus, and they all might die because of it.

They're not thinking, they're calling for murder. They want to throw an innocent to death because of something she cannot control.

She's not like him, she's a mere human without mental training, without natural barriers that come with telepathy and instinctual shielding that you learn at a young age because being too careless with touching might end up in harm, and you don't want to hurt yourself or the world, and you want to touch and explore.

It's an accident that the thing has chosen her over any other frightened human on board, and they're lucky it's thinking it's easier to stay in one person, but they don't see it. They don't want to see it because it's not them now and that's enough for their fear.

Oh, how he wishes for Donna, for her commanding presence at his side. She would shut them all up so he could focus, she would believe in him so they would too, and he would be able to save them. She would be so disgusted at the suggestion of murder, they wouldn't dare to insist. She's the brilliant force of nature, and she doesn't even realize her own might most of the time.

The thing is sitting still, not blinking, repeating or more like talking with them at that point. They're still shouting at each other and at him, and it's still looking at them, into their eyes, and he just knows it wants to smirk.

They're helpless in its eyes and, worse, he has a suspicion it's finding pleasure in their fear. Or maybe it's feeding on it, maybe for the first time in all eternity. Oh, what a feast it must be after millennia of starving, the whole system deprived of life, and then, when the civilization had come, it must have become even more aware of its hunger. It's like someone put a plate before it and then put an eclectic fence around the meal. It couldn't get inside, and it got angry... mad with hunger. Now it's stuffing itself to the brim.

He must stop it, but he can't while it's scratching his mind, his self uncontained by three dimensions and the laws of physics. The thing, like him, exists on a plane unreachable for humans and all their instincts are alarmed because for their small souls it's like basking in the presence of a god.

He shouldn't blame them for their reaction, but he kind of does and would rather not analyze what it means about him.

"Shut up!" he finally manages to scream. "Just... shut up and let me think. No one's killing anybody!"

Shut up. Just shut up and let me think. No one's killing anybody.

"Tell that to that thing," snarled a man in a pink polo shirt.

Tell that to that thing.

"Besides, we must do something. We need to act! It might want to hurt us. It killed the pilot and the mechanic already!" added the professor with a clearly false conviction.

Besides, we must do something. We need to act! It might want to hurt us. It killed the pilot and the mechanic already!

They're too terrified to think, and the thing only incites them, he realizes once again, and acts.

He crouches before it and looks it in the piercing blue eyes. They were blue before, when it was only Sky, but now they shine like his own tends to do. Its claws retract as he speaks.

He proposes, they negotiate and when all is said, he tries to stand up but can't. The thing smiles sharply and caresses his hand.

"Thank you," it whispers, and his throat closes.

It's inside, in his mind, and its presence is overwhelming. It's not at all like sharing his consciousness with Rose or Reinette or any human he invited in, it's not like Master's coldness either, forceful and brutal but familiar. It's something new, uncharted, incomprehensible. He feels like he's drowning.

It is drowning him.

He cannot breathe.

He cannot speak.

He cannot move.

And it is using his voice, it is manipulating and spitting lies, and they are listening. Why are they listening? Is he really that convincing? He's not. He doesn't want to be. He doesn't want to ever again order troops to kill. It's not fair.

It is not fair!

The thing falters just for a second, but it's enough.

His mind's a storm, thunders booming and waves crashing into an alien presence. He's not afraid, not anymore, or maybe he's so afraid it doesn't matter. It wanted to eat, so he shoves his fury into its throat till it's choking and whining, and he feeds it more still. Handful after handful, let it feast, let it have a fear it so craved. He has plenty. He may share.

Yet it's still not enough in the end. It could have been, but he will never know as the hostess — only human, couldn't see the thing stumbling — takes it with herself into the planet's deadly radiation, its poisonous air and they both vanish.

It's like a charm has been lifted. All passengers suddenly in their right mind, shaken by a tragedy but not murderous and crazy with fear.

They let him go, and he just lays there with his eyes closed, wishing for his ears to stop ringing in the sudden silence of his mind.

He still cannot really breathe.

He sits up after a while. He doesn't look at anyone. He doesn't want to look at them, into their shell shocked eyes and whitened faces. They want guidance he cannot provide, not right now.

They wait.

No one's talking, like the silence is any better.

He feels drained and empty and so, so, alone. He wishes for someone, but a mare thought of touch is too much yet, his barriers still tender and aching like bruises.

It's still around twenty minutes till the help arrives. He's going to pull himself together, he's going to be himself again before coming back to Donna, but right now that's still a storm inside.

The Doctor cannot breathe.