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The Novus-Shanghai Aquarium is the most depressing place in the universe, and yet whenever the Doctor is wounded she finds herself here, uncomfortably wedged between two liquid methane tanks, watching them swirl with the movements of the creatures inside. 

Maybe she’s hiding like an animal who expects to be devoured by a larger predator in her moment of weakness. Maybe she’s seeking the quiet of an attraction that attracts no patrons. Well, none except her, but the staff doesn’t know she’s here, so she hardly counts.

“Would you like to get out of here, friend?” the Doctor asks the cephanoid in the tank to her right. 

The cephanoid doesn’t answer, but that’s all right. It observes her with three pairs of mostly blind eyes and sharp psychic feelers. The mental touch is painful, like a splinter she’s let the skin grow over, but the Doctor sucks it up, letting it bleed into the pain of the laser burn in her thigh. Pain is an annoyance, at worst. It’s worth it for someone to talk to.

Talk is all she can do. The cephanoid understands her, but it has no language to speak back. That’s its curse. That’s why it’s trapped here behind the glass with barely enough room to unfurl its tentacles.

“I could break you out,” the Doctor says. “They haven’t created a prison yet that can hold me.”

The barbs in her mind shift, grinding along the outlines of her psyche. The cephanoid isn’t convinced. It crowds closer to the wall and slides a tentacle along the glass, seeking deeper contact.

“The TARDIS could make a room just for you, as big as you want. Plenty of planets out there with liquid methane seas to visit. Granted, I’d need a little oxygen, too. Not as much as the humans running this place, but some.”

The cephanoid gathers its tentacles and pushes itself away, rocketing across the tank. The other side is so close it barely manages to stretch out completely before it thumps into the opposite wall. The psychic connection between it and the Doctor twangs.

“Sorry, mate. I get it.” The Doctor slides down until she’s sitting with her back to the tank’s transparent wall. “You’re right to be skeptical. My tank might be bigger, but I’m just as trapped.”

Returning, the cephanoid lays its head against the glass, behind the Doctor’s shoulder.

“If we could escape, though… I would show you the seas of Viatune. Haven’t been swimming, but I chased a Gallifreyan time bandit there, once. I’ve been wanting to go back and see what the water looks like during the sunrise. But, well, I've been a bit busy.”

The Doctor lets her head bang back into the glass. On the other side, five kiloliters of liquid methane lap at the wall, cooling it to an almost painful degree.

“The water is so clear you can still see the sun fifty kilometers below the surface. We’d hang off the side of the Byvia Cliffs to watch it. Well out of the sensor range of Division patrols or human zoologists.”

An affirmative jolts along the Doctor’s nerves. It’s a nice thought, sightseeing with someone who gets it. She grins. “You may find this hard to believe, but I wouldn’t mind not speaking verbally. Quiet suits me.”

The cephanoid bangs two tentacles on the glass. 

“Okay, okay, you’re right. It doesn’t. But I’d be willing to deal with it. For as long as it took us to swim through the Riptide Canyons, taste the coral reefs—they’re edible, you know—and visit the Viats that live on the seafloor. Sort of giant aquatic spiders. I think you’d get along. I know I said I’d need oxygen, but I can hold my breath a really long time. It’s a talent. We could do all of that before I needed to go back to the surface.”

Wrongness slithers through the pit of the Doctor’s stomach. It’s not coming from her; it’s the cephanoid, its psychic barbs tugging at her again, passing along something it can’t put into words. But she thinks she gets it.

“You can feel that from me, huh? No, I can’t take you there. Not really. Division is tracking me too closely. What would I do with a companion, anyway?” With the back of her hand, she traces the outline of a fake rock clinging to the inside of the cephanoid’s tank. “No offense meant, mate. I’m sure you’re lovely company. But I don’t really make friends.”

The cephanoid bobs to the surface of its tank, flips a tentacle into the air, then rejoins the Doctor near the floor. The intensity of its focus is a weight behind her eyes. 

“I could still break you out, though,” the Doctor says. “I know your home is gone, but I could drop you somewhere else. Somewhere you could start over.”

A repeat of that feeling of wrongness. The Doctor updates her interpretation to rejection. 

“I’m trying to help. Why would you want to stay here?”

No response.

Gathering herself, the Doctor stands. The wound on her thigh pulls painfully, but it’s already half healed. She should be going. “I respect your decision. But I’ll be checking back in with you, when I can. Don’t know how often that will be.” 

As she limps between the two tanks, she drags her palm against the cephanoid’s, gently disengaging its psychic touch from her mind. The emptiness left behind threatens to engulf her.

“Gotta go. They’re expecting me. I guess I’m not willing to leave my cage yet, either.”

Maybe next time she’ll convince the cephanoid. Maybe next time she’ll convince herself.