Firefly/Doctor Who crossover fic: A Different Kind of Companion: A Lesson in History (9/9)
It felt like a chasm gulfed the small space between her and the Doctor.
He had followed through on his promise to take her dancing but now that promise held little excitement. Sitting at that small table, half in the shadows, listening to the band play should have been a new experience for Inara to enjoy. She had taken the time to marvel at everything else in this time, but that had been before tonight.
It wasn’t often she was rendered speechless. So far only Mal had the capacity to halt her from forming proper words. Inara had discovered not one, but two aliens tonight. She had been travelling with one for days without knowing it. It wasn’t though she felt betrayed. If the Doctor had told her he was an alien the first time they had met she doubted she would have trusted him and probably never would have seen home again. She should have been able to say something - small talk was practically an art form with a Companion - but what was there to say?
So they sat and listened to the music, hardly saying a word.
As the night wore on, couples filled the club and many of them found their way to the dance floor. Their worlds seemed so uncomplicated.
The Doctor suddenly stood up from his chair, its legs scraping against the floor as he pushed it back. Inara expected him to suggest they should return to the TARDIS, that it was time for her to go home.
He held out his hand to her. “Would you like to dance?”
She automatically began to say yes out of years of habit but Inara took a moment to regard the Doctor. He stood like a perfect gentleman, slightly bent at the waist with one hand behind his back while the other waited for one of hers. He wasn’t trying to distract her; this was his way of taking a step forward towards some sort of conversation. A spark of trepidation hid behind his courteous exterior.
The idea of dancing, that was familiar to Inara. She knew every step for hundreds of dances; she knew where in a particular piece of music when to lean into her partner or when to turn away; she knew that dancing was just the movement of two people across the floor and that’s all it could be if she wanted.
She placed her hand in the Doctor’s, noting how cool his skin felt against hers. He led her to the dance floor, placing his right hand at the small of her back. They moved carefully with the music, as if any sudden moves would spook those around them.
Inara could have easily lost herself in the music. If she closed her eyes she could have been with a client at a ball, the whisper of swirling skirts in the background. But so close to the Doctor she couldn’t ignore the maelstrom of thoughts rushing through her head. There was so much she didn’t know.
“Was Matthews telling the truth?” she said quietly. She meant the question more for herself but the moment she spoke the words aloud she knew she could no longer deny herself of answers.
“There was a war.” The Doctor spoke softly, practically whispering his words into her ear. “Bigger and more devastating than this universe has ever seen. A Time War.”
Inara looked up at the Doctor, seeing the haunted look in his eyes. She had seen death before but not on a universal scale. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like for him. “But is it true? Two races wiped out.” She paused, choosing her next words carefully. “Was it done by your hand?”
They continued to move around the dance floor, keeping time with the other couples. It was as if the Doctor couldn’t stop, not even for one second. “There was no other way. Time and space, the whole of creation, would have ceased to exist.”
“You decided. Entire planets…” Inara was spinning, out of control. She needed everything to stop: the dancing, the music, the turn of the Earth.
The tempo of the music changed as the band launched into a slower song. There was movement off the dance floor but many of the couples stayed, holding each other closer as they swayed simply with the music. The Doctor stopped where he was, near the centre, and he placed his hands on Inara’s shoulders. He didn’t seem to care that they were in the heart of the action.
“One of those races, it was my own. My people. They’re gone, wiped out during the war. I ended it, but with a price.”
Inara put her hands against the Doctor’s chest to steady herself. Earlier today she had wondered to herself how the Doctor could decide the flow of history with ease. She could see now it was far from an easy decision.
“I’m the last of my kind. This universe can be wondrous but there are those out there who would gladly end its existence. I have a responsibility as a Time Lord to ensure that order is maintained, whatever the consequences.”
“I saw an entire planet full of the dead because someone thought they knew how to make people better.” Inara spoke so softly she thought her words were drowned out in the music, though the band and singer were hardly thunderous. But the Doctor heard her speak and held her close. “The knowledge was buried and good people died trying to get the message out.
“You make these decisions every day on your own. How do you know it’s the right thing to do?”
The Doctor smiled sadly. “I’ve travelled so far, Inara, and I’ve seen so much, but I won’t ever know what the universe has planned for all the worlds out there. Someone told me once that I need someone and it’s true. My choice isn’t always the right one.”
Inara became aware of the rhythm of the two heartbeats inside the Doctor’s chest. She could feel them against her hands, one beating slightly behind the other. It was so alien, so beyond anything familiar. But there it was, the life of one man. One man so lonely no matter how hard he tried.
Just a man.
Leaning into the Doctor, Inara rested her head on his shoulder and she wrapped her arms around him. There was a moment’s hesitation from the Doctor before he too embraced Inara in his arms. They held each other, moving in time with the music. On stage, the singer sang her song.
“I’m all alone every evening/All alone, feeling blue/Wond’ring where you are and how you are/And if you are all alone too…”
* * *
Coming upon the first vacant room in the TARDIS that she had found, Inara claimed it as her own and turned in for the night. Though, night was a subjective term on the TARDIS. With no clocks or calendars or timepieces of any kind, time had no meaning onboard the ship, which seemed a bit ironic for a time machine. The Doctor had kept these thoughts to himself as he bid Inara a good night. She deserved a rest after all their non-stop travelling; she didn’t need him rambling on about time or lack thereof.
He wandered back to the console room, taking some of the hallways he hadn’t used in awhile. Space wasn’t infinite inside the TARDIS but it could be shifted. He was sure that was how he had lost his cricket memorabilia room. The TARDIS was probably hiding it from him as punishment for accumulating so many things he didn’t need or use.
The newspaper Inara had found was still sitting on the console when he entered the room. Picking it up, the Doctor idly flipped through the pages, paying little attention to the headlines. It was all history now.
But time was always in flux and even an event in the past could still be changed.
Tossing the paper aside, the Doctor brought up the TARDIS database. There were no electronic resources for him to link up with in 1920s London but it was simple enough to send out a wireless connection to the correct era and pull the information back through the Time Vortex. He could just piggyback on an unprotected wi-fi connection.
Buried amongst the forgotten electronic files of the British Government, the Doctor found what he was looking for after a few minutes.
Matthews, Harry Grindell. Born March 17, 1880, died September 11, 1941.
The file was short but comprehensive. Every invention Matthews had claimed to make was covered in the report. The Doctor skipped ahead to the section about the death ray and read to the end.
He was met with tales about elusive behaviour regarding the sale of the death ray, a new promising invention that could project images onto the clouds but was never developed further, and a mysterious mountaintop laboratory where Matthews spent the remainder of his days, his supposed experiments causing the engines of passing trucks to stop suddenly… It read like fiction, but the Doctor could see the truth between the lines.
Inara had guided him to the right choice.
Patting the glass pillar of the time rotor, the Doctor set a new destination for the TARDIS.
Additional A/N: I would like to mention that Harry Grindell Matthews was an actual guy and he did claim to have invented a death ray. I found a Fortean Times article about him and drew most of the events from that. All the people are from the article as well. So the real world can be just as wacky as Doctor Who. ;-)
He had followed through on his promise to take her dancing but now that promise held little excitement. Sitting at that small table, half in the shadows, listening to the band play should have been a new experience for Inara to enjoy. She had taken the time to marvel at everything else in this time, but that had been before tonight.
It wasn’t often she was rendered speechless. So far only Mal had the capacity to halt her from forming proper words. Inara had discovered not one, but two aliens tonight. She had been travelling with one for days without knowing it. It wasn’t though she felt betrayed. If the Doctor had told her he was an alien the first time they had met she doubted she would have trusted him and probably never would have seen home again. She should have been able to say something - small talk was practically an art form with a Companion - but what was there to say?
So they sat and listened to the music, hardly saying a word.
As the night wore on, couples filled the club and many of them found their way to the dance floor. Their worlds seemed so uncomplicated.
The Doctor suddenly stood up from his chair, its legs scraping against the floor as he pushed it back. Inara expected him to suggest they should return to the TARDIS, that it was time for her to go home.
He held out his hand to her. “Would you like to dance?”
She automatically began to say yes out of years of habit but Inara took a moment to regard the Doctor. He stood like a perfect gentleman, slightly bent at the waist with one hand behind his back while the other waited for one of hers. He wasn’t trying to distract her; this was his way of taking a step forward towards some sort of conversation. A spark of trepidation hid behind his courteous exterior.
The idea of dancing, that was familiar to Inara. She knew every step for hundreds of dances; she knew where in a particular piece of music when to lean into her partner or when to turn away; she knew that dancing was just the movement of two people across the floor and that’s all it could be if she wanted.
She placed her hand in the Doctor’s, noting how cool his skin felt against hers. He led her to the dance floor, placing his right hand at the small of her back. They moved carefully with the music, as if any sudden moves would spook those around them.
Inara could have easily lost herself in the music. If she closed her eyes she could have been with a client at a ball, the whisper of swirling skirts in the background. But so close to the Doctor she couldn’t ignore the maelstrom of thoughts rushing through her head. There was so much she didn’t know.
“Was Matthews telling the truth?” she said quietly. She meant the question more for herself but the moment she spoke the words aloud she knew she could no longer deny herself of answers.
“There was a war.” The Doctor spoke softly, practically whispering his words into her ear. “Bigger and more devastating than this universe has ever seen. A Time War.”
Inara looked up at the Doctor, seeing the haunted look in his eyes. She had seen death before but not on a universal scale. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like for him. “But is it true? Two races wiped out.” She paused, choosing her next words carefully. “Was it done by your hand?”
They continued to move around the dance floor, keeping time with the other couples. It was as if the Doctor couldn’t stop, not even for one second. “There was no other way. Time and space, the whole of creation, would have ceased to exist.”
“You decided. Entire planets…” Inara was spinning, out of control. She needed everything to stop: the dancing, the music, the turn of the Earth.
The tempo of the music changed as the band launched into a slower song. There was movement off the dance floor but many of the couples stayed, holding each other closer as they swayed simply with the music. The Doctor stopped where he was, near the centre, and he placed his hands on Inara’s shoulders. He didn’t seem to care that they were in the heart of the action.
“One of those races, it was my own. My people. They’re gone, wiped out during the war. I ended it, but with a price.”
Inara put her hands against the Doctor’s chest to steady herself. Earlier today she had wondered to herself how the Doctor could decide the flow of history with ease. She could see now it was far from an easy decision.
“I’m the last of my kind. This universe can be wondrous but there are those out there who would gladly end its existence. I have a responsibility as a Time Lord to ensure that order is maintained, whatever the consequences.”
“I saw an entire planet full of the dead because someone thought they knew how to make people better.” Inara spoke so softly she thought her words were drowned out in the music, though the band and singer were hardly thunderous. But the Doctor heard her speak and held her close. “The knowledge was buried and good people died trying to get the message out.
“You make these decisions every day on your own. How do you know it’s the right thing to do?”
The Doctor smiled sadly. “I’ve travelled so far, Inara, and I’ve seen so much, but I won’t ever know what the universe has planned for all the worlds out there. Someone told me once that I need someone and it’s true. My choice isn’t always the right one.”
Inara became aware of the rhythm of the two heartbeats inside the Doctor’s chest. She could feel them against her hands, one beating slightly behind the other. It was so alien, so beyond anything familiar. But there it was, the life of one man. One man so lonely no matter how hard he tried.
Just a man.
Leaning into the Doctor, Inara rested her head on his shoulder and she wrapped her arms around him. There was a moment’s hesitation from the Doctor before he too embraced Inara in his arms. They held each other, moving in time with the music. On stage, the singer sang her song.
“I’m all alone every evening/All alone, feeling blue/Wond’ring where you are and how you are/And if you are all alone too…”
* * *
Coming upon the first vacant room in the TARDIS that she had found, Inara claimed it as her own and turned in for the night. Though, night was a subjective term on the TARDIS. With no clocks or calendars or timepieces of any kind, time had no meaning onboard the ship, which seemed a bit ironic for a time machine. The Doctor had kept these thoughts to himself as he bid Inara a good night. She deserved a rest after all their non-stop travelling; she didn’t need him rambling on about time or lack thereof.
He wandered back to the console room, taking some of the hallways he hadn’t used in awhile. Space wasn’t infinite inside the TARDIS but it could be shifted. He was sure that was how he had lost his cricket memorabilia room. The TARDIS was probably hiding it from him as punishment for accumulating so many things he didn’t need or use.
The newspaper Inara had found was still sitting on the console when he entered the room. Picking it up, the Doctor idly flipped through the pages, paying little attention to the headlines. It was all history now.
But time was always in flux and even an event in the past could still be changed.
Tossing the paper aside, the Doctor brought up the TARDIS database. There were no electronic resources for him to link up with in 1920s London but it was simple enough to send out a wireless connection to the correct era and pull the information back through the Time Vortex. He could just piggyback on an unprotected wi-fi connection.
Buried amongst the forgotten electronic files of the British Government, the Doctor found what he was looking for after a few minutes.
Matthews, Harry Grindell. Born March 17, 1880, died September 11, 1941.
The file was short but comprehensive. Every invention Matthews had claimed to make was covered in the report. The Doctor skipped ahead to the section about the death ray and read to the end.
He was met with tales about elusive behaviour regarding the sale of the death ray, a new promising invention that could project images onto the clouds but was never developed further, and a mysterious mountaintop laboratory where Matthews spent the remainder of his days, his supposed experiments causing the engines of passing trucks to stop suddenly… It read like fiction, but the Doctor could see the truth between the lines.
Inara had guided him to the right choice.
Patting the glass pillar of the time rotor, the Doctor set a new destination for the TARDIS.
Additional A/N: I would like to mention that Harry Grindell Matthews was an actual guy and he did claim to have invented a death ray. I found a Fortean Times article about him and drew most of the events from that. All the people are from the article as well. So the real world can be just as wacky as Doctor Who. ;-)