Priorities, Chapter Two - The End of the World
The End of the World
“Do we really want to do this?” asked the daemon quietly.
Her Time Lord was busily tinkering with some bit of machinery, but he didn’t ignore her as she had been half sure he would. “Thought you liked them,” he said without looking up.
She drifted around the darkened TARDIS control room like a very strange balloon in the form of some alien cephalopod. Colors, patterns, and textures flickered across her skin. “They nearly died today.”
It would have been painfully ironic for the pair to be brought so far forward in time only to burn along with their own planet.
“They didn’t.”
“But they could have.”
“If they want to leave when . . .” He broke off and tipped his head towards one corridor where the human and her daemon had found a room and bedded down for the night. Senia was willing to bet that it was a very nice room, too. The TARDIS was practically singing with delight at having new passengers. “If they ask, we’ll take them home,” he said with a note of finality, as if that settled it.
She briefly clung to the hat stand before pushing off again. “They won’t ask.”
“Oh, you know that, do you?”
“They’re young and brave and curious. Of course they won’t ask.”
“They all ask eventually.”
“Always much, much later than they should,” she said, allowing the sadness he wouldn’t let himself show to creep into her voice. The only thing worse than losing friends was watching them suffer before they were ripped away, as she knew quite well.
“It won’t come to that,” he murmured, as if to himself.
She snagged the handrail. “Oh, you know that, do you?” she shot back at him, waving a few orange-and-green plaid arms in his direction.
He glared at her. “I won’t let it,” he said. “If it ever comes down to it, I’ll send them away - take them home - make sure they’re safe.”
She launched herself at the ceiling. Emotions - his, hers, and theirs - shifted and swirled through her almost faster than she could decipher. Determination and exasperation fought for dominance. Terror and hope were equally matched as well, though she did her best to ignore both. They had been through all this before. They knew what happened when they took on companions. And yet, no matter how many times they swore that they wouldn’t, they let their hearts be touched by an eager mind or a delighted smile and suddenly the pain of losing them seemed like an equal trade. It had been a long time, even for them, but they could already feel it happening again.
She wound herself around the column of the time rotor and, after a brief moment of concentration, managed to turn most of her tissues translucent. She stretched out her arms to admire the greenish light glowing through them. “It’s already too late.”
“I know.” His crooked smile was almost apologetic.
“What are we going to do?” She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t.
He’d apparently finished toying with the part he’d been holding, because he hopped up and scrambled under the console. She glared at his legs.
“We are going to go back to Earth,” he said.
“Really? Already?” She tried to ignore the sudden burst of pain.
“Of course! Great history.”
He was teasing her, she realized with mild annoyance. It would be a long time before Rose and Dumalis went home.
She glanced down the corridor. They were safe and sound, for the time being, at least. They were probably even having good dreams with the TARDIS humming lullabies in the backs of their minds. In spite of their brush with death, they would wake up, young and brave and curious, ready for the next adventure.
Senia and the Doctor, much older and maybe a little bit wiser, would be waiting for them. Conflicting emotions were still at war within them but somewhere, buried deep within them, something was growing. It was tiny and easy to hide, fragile and vulnerable, so old and almost forgotten that it was practically new again, but it shone like a star in the darkness.