The Lord and her Lady |Thasmin|

Part 23

this chapter is dedicated to MonkeyTail204 !! thank you for supporting me <3

The Doctors POV
The three of us follow Tara's directions, I hang back slightly to  speak to River.

"What'dya think is going on here?" I question, trudging beside her.

"I'm not sure, it's certainly concerning that the population dipped so fast, and there was something wrong with that Tara girl... maybe it's effecting everyone else?" She says, thinking out loud like she does. 
River stops in her tracks, turning to stare at me.

"I love you, Doctor, I can't bare to see you with that Yaz." She whispers, I blink incredulously at her, my mouth hanging open - I don't even know how to respond...

"You- I- what!?" I exclaim, shaking my head in shock.
River doesn't say anything, she just stares at me, looking just as confused as I feel.

"Doctor? Are you okay?" She asks, concern creasing her brows and taking a step closer and placing a hand on my shoulder.

"No! I can't believe... What!?" I sigh in exasperation. I lean out of reach of her hand and step away an inch.

"I mean it, sweetie, you're all I can think about"  She purrs, looking me up and down with almost hunger in her eyes.

"Stop it River... Leave me alone." I shudder, pushing my hands out in front of me as I back up further.
I pick up my pace and catch up with Yaz.

"Something weird is going on" I say, she glances at me and chuckles, continuing to stride along the cobble path.

"Well yeah, that's kinda what we're trying to figure out!" She says, she looks up again and notices the distress plastered across my face. She halts and takes my hand in hers, brushing it with her thumb.

"Oh. What's up?" She asks, concern laced into her voice.

I shake my head, looking over my shoulder at River, she's strolling along staring at her device, like nothing had even happened.

"There's something... not right with River..." I sigh, biting my lip as I look back up at Yaz.
She raises her eyebrows and peers past my shoulder at River too.

Yaz's POV
The Doctor seems... undone. She rarely gets this flustered, whatever happened threw her off completely... Did River say something? Was it about me?

"What did she do?" I blurt, seemingly catching us both off guard.

"It's nothing, don't worry. Come on let's just sort this out and get out of here" She decides. Unfortunately I know her better than she'd like to admit.
I

turn on my heel and march toward River who barely even looks up from the information displayed on the small screen in her hand.

"What did you say to her?" I ask sharply, she stares up at me in shock with wide eyes.

"What, are you jealous?" She laughs, I gape dumbly.

"Pardon?" I exclaim, more so daring her to repeat what she said than asking her to.

"You heard me, You're jealous of me and The Doctor because she will always love me." She tells me, a terrible smirk pulling at her lips. I shake my head.

"No... No I'm not jealous I just... She doesn't love you..." I stutter, scrunching my eyes shut in an attempt to shut her voice out of my mind.

"What? Yaz what are you talking about?" She asks, her eyes skipping from me to The Doctor who is watching uneasily from where I left her.

"You can't keep saying things like- like what you just said..." I stutter.

"I haven't said anything..." She cuts in, her eyes scanning me worriedly.

"Yes you have, you've been..." I trail off, now that i think about it things have been odd since we landed here, The Doctor said something weird to me earlier... 'scared?'
River takes a breath and surveys me as I try to put the pieces of this puzzle together.

"It's like there's some sort of... parasite? Feeding us these- these lies..." I sigh, The Doctor approaches to my side, placing a reassuring hand against my lower back.

"A parasite... A parasite! Yes! Oh Yaz you're brilliant!" The Doctor gasps, grabbing my cheeks between her warm hands and kissing me deeply but briefly.
She releases me and hurries over to River who seems to be searching something on her device.
I walk over to join them, finally getting a good look at the small iPhone-like screen in River's hands.

Unfortunately it's in a language I couldn't possibly understand with weird circles and lines so I choose to watch the -sometimes- much easier to read faces of The Doctor and River as they take in the information displayed on screen.

The Doctor retrieves her sonic from a pocket in her coat and scans the air around us. I quickly duck as her arm nearly knocks into my head as The Doctor absentmindedly waving the device around apparently not noticing her near miss.
The sonic blips and River cranes her neck to read the sonic.

"Well, you're bang on the money, Yaz. We're dealing with the Ellari. They're a sort of parasite, like you said. They get into your head through air molecules exhaled by people directly 'infected' so to speak." River sighs, using air quotes around the term 'infected'.

"They prey on your insecurities and fears and adopt the voices of those you love in order to trick you into madness. It's- it's evil..." She continues.

The Doctor's POV

"Evil, just like you. Isn't that right? Taking normal people like Yaz and the boys and putting them in danger, all because you don't like to be alone"  River's voice chides in my head. I scrunch my eyes closed, trying desperately to shut her taunts out of my already loud mind.
Yaz's familiar hand brushes my shoulder, bringing my attention to her.

"Doctor? You alright?" She asks, squeezing my shoulders reassuringly. I take a shaky breath and nod my head slowly, running my hands through the wind whipped hair on my head. 
She purses her lips, displeased with my answer.

"It's the voices isn't it?" River asks from somewhere to my left, though my ears are ringing so loudly I can barely hear. I nod again and open my eyes just long enough to watch River retrive her sonic from a coat pocket and hold it close to me.  It whirrs beside my head, making the ringing in my ears a million times worse.
I screw my eyes up tight again.