#early second

She had never been to a hospital before.

Brooke knew what they looked like. She knew of them, but the TARDIS had her own little medbay and the Silence never bothered to send her to one. They had doctors designed for her, designed to engineer her, to make sure that every piece of the machine was in working order. That's all she was, anyway. Their machine- but they were making her better, so they said.

She wasn't sure if she always believed them.

But no, she wasn't supposed to think that. She was going to be amazing. She'd be strong and fast and clever like Evelyn. She'd be able to do anything she wanted. 

                   {That's what they told her, anyway.} 

But tonight she was not happy. She was not prepared to think that this was better. Tonight she was sad, and lonely, and wanted nothing but Evelyn to curl up next to her so they could watch some sort of movie together. 

So she'd gone to the older woman, to mummy, as she called her now. She'd gone and asked- and received stony silence instead. Evelyn had pushed her away, telling her that assassins shouldn't need that sort of thing- and besides - besides- Brooke hadn't done well in training that morning. She didn't deserve it, did she? 

        No, she'd answered quietly, no, I don't. 

Satisfied, Evelyn had gone back to her work, leaving Brooke alone and starving for attention. So she'd left.

It was rash, and stupid, and it wouldn't help anything, but Brooke had slipped out the back door and she'd ran- she'd ran farther away from the other woman than she ever had before, even in the early days- when she'd tried to escape. She hadn't been strong enough to get very far. Now, now even with bruises and scrapes and cuts and two broken ribs and a sprained wrist, she had run as far as her legs would take her.

Her hair was a mess and she was hungry and tired. Her side was crying out in sharp pain- so she sank to a bench in the middle of a random hall in the ER and tucked her legs up to her chest.

Evelyn was going to be so mad.