Doctor Who: Everything to Come
Everything to Come. Doctor Who: Alt!Ten/Rose, Pg-13.
They sleep in the same bed. She falls in love with the creaks of wood bending under the wind.
The ocean cannot be kind, can only be cold and endless, stretching out past where your vision falters, begins blurring the line that divides heaven and earth until there is only blue in grades, shades, the veil of the world seemingly disappearing, as it does, the way you know it has, and will continue to do. The memory of what is beyond the horizon pulls at the beat of your heart, sinks in your blood with a heaviness you have grown to be familiar with. You can't imagine how it must be, then, for him. 5,630 words.
A/N: I am rereading Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf, and it's probably noticeable.
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There are things that he doesn't understand, and that's alright. Because there are things about him that you sometimes think you will never face, but then he will laugh from across the garden, and the dogwood shines with the sound, and the king's rose sways in its heavy manner.
He wants you to live with him by the ocean, the powerful unknown sweeping up within him, waves which crash through his veins, salt on his tongue and the wind at his back, and you, beside him, always.
It is important for him to know that you are there.
There is forever an ancient stillness which breathes in him still-the knowledge of the universe and the silent sighs which he expels during the most perfectly quiet moments of the day: stopping, suddenly, a book in his hands reaching to be placed on the shelf but a glance out the windows to see you with your knees in the dirt and gloved hands (hiding effortlessly pale skin, a white that glows pale even in dusk) between the stems of the roses and he finds himself motionless, just staring, watching your hands turn the earth and the small basket by your side filling with the signs of spring. And he breathes out, and in again, and can feel the moment, this image of you, being made into a memory, that heavy feeling growing in his heart that this will be important someday, that he can remember many things, but if he begins to slip, this will not be one of the things that leaves him.
Through the glass of the window his figure joins you, surprises you by pulling your hair back, a sweet arc of white falling from your shoulder, and he kisses you on the back of your neck with cool lips and warm breath, but misses the flush that rises against your skin, pink flooding the white.
You say yes. You will live with him in a house on a hill by the sea and forget the rest of the world, for a little while, in favor of the distant shine of a lighthouse, and the deep heavenly rush of ocean wind filling your lungs, setting you free.
He sets you free.
-
It is hard-at first. The ocean cannot be kind, can only be cold and endless, stretching out past where your vision falters, begins blurring the line that divides heaven and earth until there is only blue in grades, shades, the veil of the world seemingly disappearing, as it does, the way you know it has, and will continue to do. The memory of what is beyond the horizon pulls at the beat of your heart, sinks in your blood with a heaviness you have grown to be familiar with. You can't imagine how it must be, then, for him.
You find a house. It seems small against the rocks, the sea beyond it, but the windows are large and let the light in, filling the space with honey and amber, a warm contrast you can feel in your skin, sequins that shine in your eyes when you turn the right way, and something inside him flutters and hesitates. He hasn't seen the rest of it, only the living room and the windows and your face, soaking up the light that comes through, and that's really all there is. Parts of him want to be perfect, to be beyond perfect so you don't find small differences in his demeanor even though he knows he is not the same, not the man you came to love those long years, through all that time.
What he doesn't realize is that you know- and you love him all the same, because his freckles stain him like stars and his skin is rough and smooth at the same time, because his hair blows in the wrong direction when he faces the wind, because he lights up when he sees you though he tries to hide it in the curl of his hands, the twisting of his wrist inside his pocket, the furrow which begins to deepen on his brow.
You know now, that you are all he has, and that it feels like a responsibility or an obligation, but it isn't-only now you have the ocean at your feet and it almost feels like freedom. The shore for you has always been some kind of stigma, a tragedy on the fringe of the world, but now it is made of beginnings, a newness and calmness that mirrors your steady hands.
You smile when you turn to him and find him staring, and reach your steady hand out, and he steps forward as the shyness melts away and turns to confidence, turns to something that feels like he always has been or has had, as if he owns the world itself- but never you.
Hands entwined, you stare at the clouds which bluster and gather and merge together, and you say, "Let's take it."
-
The ship is your idea. Though your house is the only one for a mile each way, and trips to town are a warm giggling horde of items, laughs escaping between aisles of milk and bread, preparing for what seems like the end of things but is really the coming winter and the desire to remain undisturbed by society, you have somewhat adjusted to this, to harbor life. Breathing only salt, sand, and his unrelenting but beautiful sighs, hearing only the rush of waves, and the call of gulls. You have fallen in love with the sound of wood creaking, bending under the wind, making you feel as if you are already out sailing, already exploring.
It's been burning in the back of your mind for some time now, though his only focus has been trying to readjust. To understand the differences between a slow life and one that flows out of order, what it means to have earthly ties, to pay for things (always), and the quiet responsibility of having food and water and love at hand at all times. Trying to be perfect and forgetting what it means to be human, and you there, always reminding him, of the crippling emotion you unknowingly cause to surge through him with only a touch, or a smile. It stings for him, becomes something he must face and no longer has the capacity to hide from himself for centuries at a time. Your laugh burrows through his body, resides in a bright place in his heart, and once when he is with you on your journey to the outside world, he surprises you by picking up wind chimes, hanging them on the small verandah and letting the tones ring through the air. You don't know it's because when you are gone, he needs to hear your laugh, still.
You have resigned from Torchwood and most of the outside world, and he has resigned with you, trying to learn things again, to feel the weight of things on his tongue and in his hands, words spilling out with no rhyme or reason until he finds his cadence. It is a type of regeneration, you think, sometimes. What you do know, quite certainly, is that his voice is still a rolling timber punctuated by laughs and sighs and breathless exclamations of beauty-the last of which burns in you a kind of endless desire.
But the ship-the ship! She is lovely, and a fading white, she creaks delightfully and her sails sing through the wind and she seems, of course, the answer you have been looking for. He has been beginning to feel a restlessness in his legs, a desire to learn things beyond you, but with you, always with you, at a time when your self-imposed exile has brought him to love a good red wine and love even more the taste of it on your tongue when you go to bed, but also to the mad impulse to give you things, to give you everything-the world. You have noticed his pauses when he thinks you aren't looking, though he must understand by now that you are always watching, and you can tell that he is craving it, craving adventure. And so you buy it for him. Adventure. A ship and some maps, detailing the Atlantic in waving lines and shapes, and a compass which pulls the needle toward an unerring north.
You wait for the right time to tell him-but it seems every time is the right time, and it's only when (limbs entangled) he murmurs something like love against your skin, do you say the words.
"I found our ship."
Of course he doesn't understand at first, but you allow him this as you grin and detail what you have in store for them, laughing against him and hearing him laugh too, as he pushes the hair from your face with both hands, landing warm kisses everywhere. It's the start.
-
You help him build a small pier, and it's hard work, but it's rewarding when you imagine your ship listing in the water, waiting for the time you will guide him onto the brig and let him watch the water with your arms around his waist, breathing him in. But you will love to look up, hammer and nails in hand, sweat beginning to gleam on the back of your neck, and watch as he works, steadying himself on a board as he hammers away, smile on his face, like he is righting the world, like it is only a matter of time.
You don't really know anything about her, your ship, except that she's known as Mactíre Dona, and the Irish fisherman you bought her from had said in a raspy burr that she was a special thing, and to change her name would only lead to bad luck. You've never been one to go against the grain of things (a falsehood) but here, it seems like the thing to do, to keep her as she is and let her be another sign that this is the life you were meant to have, a life where you and a man and a ship explore the world.
He agrees, and happily, and knows all there is to steer a ship (a ship is a ship is a ship, he says) and it's nearly time to take their leave when somewhere a nervous hesitation flickers to life and he finds that this feeling is something he felt, once, on a long shoreline with your hair in the wind. Fear. Then, it was the fear that you would not accept him, and now it is the fear that somehow the ocean will let you drift apart, not fuse you further together. He grabs your hand, soothes your knuckles with his fingers, caressing them over and over and tries to speak, but the sound is stubborn and does not wish to leave him. He does not like to feel afraid. You understand, because you are a little afraid too, but you are also excited, can feel adrenaline light you up like a firework when you think about what the future holds, for the both of you, and so you pull him closer and tell him you love him, and pause as he lets the words sink through him again and again.
"It's alright to be afraid," you say. "I'm here, always."
"Good," he says, and smiles.
"Yes," you reply. "Very good. Now let's get ready."
-
You go into town with him in tow, and you talk amongst the trees, and the sea, your small car letting the warmth of your breath begin to condense on the glass, and his eyes are glued to you. You can feel it, his gaze, the heat of it, and the loyalty, culminating in small sighs and soft chuckles and smiles from the corner of your eye; you are a steady driver and try not to let him distract you so easily.
"You have the list?" you ask, to break the silence which has until just now been peaceful, companionable, but is now beginning to feel stifling, a hit of fear infusing the space between you.
"Mmm," he hums, in agreement you hope, but it's also something you know in the deep of you, as he taps his long fingers against his temple and nods, a sign that once something enters, nothing can leave. Sometimes you wonder how that must be, and if he is taking the time to remember each of your moments, or if early morning sentences somehow slip away from him, blurring with time and the light that had begun to shine through the windows, becoming only an impression of a morning-you hope he remembers everything. You know you will always try, but can still feel things fading from you, the farther you move from them; you do not recall what the first thing you talked about with him was, after you began to sleep in the same bed, and though it stings slightly, you know it is only human. You will always remember the feeling he gives you, the winding trail of love and longing that threads through you even at the sound of his voice, and you hope that is enough.
"Lovely," you say, and it is. It really, really is.
-
You are packing the groceries into boxes, and he is by your side, creating three-dimensional mosaics, each item fitting just so in the box, and you can't help but want to laugh. You've done your best to fit as much as you can, but you've taken a few liberties to the weight it will eventually be when everything has been stuffed in-you don't want the image of you hobbling down the pier with boxes covering your face to be the last image he sees before you set sail. You're vain enough for that.
But beside you, sculptural grocer's creations aside, he has started to hum in a soft manner, a tune you are familiar with but don't recognize, and from outside you can hear the chimes ring and the wood creak in the house and standing in your socks putting groceries into a box with him, always him, as you prepare for your adventure-it is almost too much and you laugh, or sob, a curious sound that could be both, or either. You can feel him staring at you and you simply laugh, loudly and decidedly, a joyous sound that echoes in the room, and you turn to him, grinning wide and free and knowing beyond anything, that this is your life, and he is in it, and will always be in it, and it's more than you ever could have hoped for, or dreamed of.
"What's so funny?" he asks, smiling, inwardly wondering if his hair is too wild, or his careful work with the supplies is too alien, or if perhaps you really don't want to go, after all. He can feel fright and adrenaline both fluttering within him but they calm when he hears your voice again.
"Oh, nothing," you laugh, and sober.
"I just love you, you idiot," you say to him.
He laughs too, and says, "Quite right."
-
You set off on an early Thursday morning when the light is curiously bright and filtered in a dusty pink, and the waves tip your ship slightly to and fro. The supplies have all been stored and you are wearing your best jeans and your man is already on the bow, waiting for you to join him. As soon as you step onto her, your beloved Dona, and can feel the gentle rocking of the water and her solid frame beneath you, he catches you in his arms and spins you round.
"Alright, Sailor?" you laugh.
"Oh, yes!" he says, letting you stand once again. "We've got a mighty journey ahead of us, Captain, but I think she'll fare just fine."
"Captain, is it? Yeah, I think I like the sound of that. Heave-ho, sailor! Aye, avast!"
The sound of your combined laughter rolls sweetly over the North Sea. You've never been more ready.
-
The ocean is like nothing you could have imagined. When she is calm, she remains a perfect mirror to the sky, she becomes an endless indiscriminate light which floats around you, simmering between your bodies as you lean against the mizzenmast and your sailor holds his compass in front of him and stares into this vast, empty blue whose confines remain indistinct. These are the hours without a horizon. Some days you drop anchor and pause, listing slowly in the water as you lay on the brig with your back to the sea and your face to the sky and feel like you are drowning in the endlessness. The earth seems so large, so completely infinite and beyond anything, and you struggle with the knowledge that you have ever broken through that same atmosphere which transfixes you now. He will be laying beside you and you will reach out with your hand, trying to find his, so your fingers thread like a sort of anchor, something to keep you grounded lest you float up and away. The silence between you is out of awe, mostly, but also out of perfect contentedness.
She is not always so kind, though-the clouds will gather and darken and force her to spiral up, crashing against the Dona and rocking her harshly in her bosom. The waves are fierce and dark, seeming to bring night itself from her slumber to power these rogues, these tidal forces that rise up and up past where you can see and threaten to overturn your freedom, take you in her depths and drown you with her power. Rains will come, pour through and through and you feel as if you are drowning, simply trying to fix her sails, but he will be there in the dark, letting you do your job as he does his, and when the storm moves onward and the sky begins to lighten, he will let go of you so he can see how far off course you've become.
The first stop you make is in a town outside of Bordeaux, and your rudimentary, secondary school French gets you fresh coffee and goods much needed for the journey ahead. You want to explore the neatly paved roads and the rest of the coastline, jump from rock to rock and watch the sun seemingly gutter out as it hits the sea, brilliant gold dimming to tangerines and deep reds until there is nothing left at all. But it remains a merry night anyway, least of all because of your coy S'il vous plaît, je voudrais une grande bouteille de vin rosé-St. Michel, merci, which gets you a bottle of your favorite blush wine and your giddiness spreads into his very bones, lights them up like dry tinder and suddenly coming aflame at the sight of your tongue between your teeth.
It's a long time out there in the Atlantic before you stop again, for provisions. He thinks that a pause in the Canary Islands would be ideal and you help him steer the ship there, thinking all the while of a bright and beautiful yellow, a consuming second vision of the sun and the trill of birds, but when you finally arrive you laugh on the beach, let your heels sink in the sand and turn your face up to the sun, feeling the light burn on your cheeks and the bridge of your nose, sensing palms in your peripheral. His Spanish is far more eloquent then yours, and it's times like these when you remember, distantly, that he is so much more than he is, a sum of experiences too infinite and wonderful and tragic to put into words, and that he relies so much on you, a concept you have yet to fully grasp.
You stay for a few days, grow full on food and drink and sleep and leave again with the good luck favors of a local family, and you happily string a small flag on the side of the ship, a square of color against the white like a marker, or a distant hail. You've learned some lovely words from your stay, and you let the syllables rest on your tongue for a while, roll your r's with a flourish as you whisper, Querido, querido, but he hears, and he responds in kind with Querida, saying it to the soft spot behind your ear.
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Somehow, in the endless Atlantic, you discover what it really is that you want. The moment you feel it, you don't say anything, just let the thought run through you as you smile at his stories of the old days, and the older days, when he was friends with Magellan. "We ought to do a bit of Magellan," you say suddenly.
"Circumnavigation! Oh, if you could have seen him, ol' Ferdinand. Cape of Good Hope, 1522-what a year!"
"Cape of Good Hope," you repeat, slowly, weighing the feel of it. You like it, you decide. "Let's go there next."
"It's... well, it's months away, really."
"So?"
"So, let's mark it on the map."
And you do.
-
In the time it takes you to reach the tip of Africa, your hair has grown long and brassy, a cascade of copper and gold fading into one another. The girl with white hair you are no longer. You think you kind of love it- being seafarers has made it wild, untamable, long and tumbling in waves past your shoulders. "It's a bit mermaid," he says once, and it's more of an endearment than a criticism and so for a time, in the weeks between coastal visits for provisions, you become a kind of siren. And you find yourself humming Under the Sea in sporadic intervals, which more and more frequently becomes a duet.
When you see it, in the distance, it's only a far off line which jaggedly separates the sea and the sky, and the crisp white and blue water surrounding you seems to turn greener in the distance, teal and emerald in the light, and small circling points which float above it-birds. You never expected Africa to have such beautiful and staggering cliffs, an oasis of greens separating the Atlantic and the Indian, and you end up staying for a week. Everyone is so polite, and your sailor finally has the chance to shave with earth beneath his feet, unafraid a sudden windfall will cause him to find beads of blood on his jawline, happy to hear the gentle scrape of the razor and the water rushing from the sink's faucet. You will be outside the bathroom listening to the water run and the razor scrape, and your hotel room is small but quaint, with a floral pattern papering the walls in pastels and a set of white chairs shining from the light in front of the large window. When you move to look through it, slightly pushing the sheer curtains from your view, you can almost see you ship, but she has friends in the water, and some of them tower over her.
There is a clink from the bathroom and the water stops, but you are still looking out the window, transfixed by the buildings and the earth and the full spectrum of colors which seemingly jump to meet you, muddy browns and violent reds, popping from houses and shops and the people, so small from where you are, walking from place to place and interacting with one another. You are excited to go out and meet them, see what is happening here in town, but you also fear that you have become too much of a fisherman's woman, reclusive with a heart fixed to the sea, only sails and freedom in mind. He stands behind you, takes in the water and the people and the houses and says in a low voice, "Why, Captain, do you miss the sea already?"
You don't really know how to respond. You love the days and nights on the Dona, sprawling with him in various places on deck, hoisting the sails and checking the compass and marking your progress in small red marks on the map. You love feeling him so close to you, and you have learned to breathe the sea, you know the currents and the birds and how to tie some fairly impressive knots. You love that sometimes he calls you a siren, love his voice in the night with the lanterns lit and casting a warm glow on the sea as he tells you about the stars, far more reliable than any map money could buy. You love how he knows things, almost instinctually, love the days you spend trying to fish or sunning or picking through a small novella you found in a French village, with him by your side, always. But sometimes you miss the hearth, miss the trees and the green and sometimes you dream of a ship in the desert and wonder if it's a sign or if you are simply unable to leave your ship out of anything now, even your dreams. You almost never dream of other planets. It seems to you that most of the places you visit feel like different planets, with so many languages and rituals and foods to sample.
Earth is so much larger than you give her credit for.
You haven't answered his question, and you wonder to yourself, is it true? Do you miss the sea already?
"Yes," you say. "Always."
-
Your timing is, of course, perfect. You go into Cape Town for a music festival that seems to fill every corner of the continent with sound. You stay with him on the fringes, listening to the sultry tones of jazz and the resounding beat of drums that travel up through your body, making you feel your heartbeat with alarming clarity. It is night and you have had a drink, and the lights are making you green, red, purple, blue, pearl, and pink, and you sway to the sound of the saxophone, watching hundreds of people slink together, dance and move like currents in the ocean, a strange sort of synchronicity. From beside you (always beside you), you hear his voice say, "Do you remember that time," and it trails into one of your shared memories. You laugh and it feels so strange to be laughing so loud when the music picks up and you can't even hear it, you just feel the vibrations of the guitar strings from a hundred feet away and the phantom feeling of sound escaping your throat.
He even tries to dance. You're nearly crying with laughter as he imitates a sort of drunk giraffe, raising his eyebrows with exaggeration, trying to wink but completely failing, and the lights from the stage mix with the night air to form a sort of halo around everyone, effortless effervescence going entirely unnoticed as you sway to join him in the crowd. You feel so alive and find yourself a little sad when you leave, when you are packing your things and remembering the feeling of the hottest shower you've ever taken, then looking back at the colors of the town from the pier as he stows things away, with his arm outstretched, waiting for you to grab his hand and climb aboard.
-
Time can be fast and slow in the same moment, and on the ocean it seems to be stretched thin, going on forever yet the sun seeming to set earlier and earlier each day, having less and less time in the light as you sail through the Indian Ocean, heading toward Timor, an island in Southeast Asia. You have planned to visit their hills and trees before traveling up to Ambon Island and Tidore.
You are becalmed for three days before you arrive, and your confidence wanes when dusk settles on the second day, but he bolsters you, makes you tea and hums under his breath, drawing small pictures in a notebook he picked up before you left the reassuring coastline of Africa. He writes in a mysterious language comprised of circles and arcs and it reminds you of working gears and ticking clocks, and sometimes when he is already asleep you will open it and stare at the complex markings which flow so easily from his pen and wonder what it means. Maybe some day he will tell you, but for now you admire the tiny landscapes and nautical symbols which decorate the sides of the pages. You'll close it carefully, hold it in your hands and not look at anything for a full minute, just feeling the tooth of the cover beneath your fingers before returning it to it's place on the bedside table.
It will be a long journey across the Pacific, he says, and even so you find yourselves enjoying the company of the people of Rota, the small island in the Marianas, before you officially take leave. You think you might love it the most, of the places you have visited thus far, although you are excited to explore the coasts of South America. Rota's hills are welcoming, and the flame trees bloom like fire, and you see deer on the mainland and wonder how long it's been since you've seen anything that strong and that peaceful. By the time you are off sailing again, your arms are sore from waving to the people you've met and come to adore, new friends that braided your hair down your back and gave you vibrant flowers to keep with you, and a small bottle of sand that promised the winds would favor your ship.
-
After months, and months, you are on the coast of Ireland, and coincidence brings you to the man you bought the Dona from. You feel like a well-worn sea traveler, a pirate or a rogue who has seen the world, from Vostok Island to the edge of America, down through South America and the Río de la Plata, to Iceland and Greenland and Wales and now, here, in the waters outside Galway, Ireland. Dona waits for you in the water as the fisherman's voice, always a delight, calls down the pier. "A coupl'a bad wolves I see," rings down through the water and you and the Doctor stare at each other (you've started to call him John. He is the Doctor, will always be the Doctor, but he would confess to you late at night in the perfect middle of nowhere, the only sound the steady waves against the ship, that though he is the same man, he is also different-that this life was one he never planned to have and that new chapters need new titles, or something, and it takes you a long time to adjust to this, when Doctor falls so easily from your lips, especially in moments of adoration and teasing, but it begins to stick, somewhere along the way. You still call him the Doctor, and he still answers, but in the evenings you find yourself whispering what next, Mr. Smith? and see the light rise in his eyes).
"What's that?" you call, because you are sure he has made a mistake, this stranger who so easily sold you your adventure, your new beginning with him.
"Oh, nothin'," he says, once he reaches you, shaking hands with you and the Doctor. "Just the ship, ya see, your Mactíre Dona there in the water. Her name means Bad Wolf, and she's a lovely ol' thing but she's not a ship to take for granted."
You laugh, and laugh. Of course, you think, yes of course. This is how it was always meant to be.
-
You return to England and have tea and toast with Jackie who tearfully brings out all the postcards you've sent her while you were away (Nearly two years! she cries, and barely a peep from either of you, save for these), but she could never be mad with you, not with her Rose so happy, who brings the smell of sun with her into any room she enters. You smile and laugh and fawn over how old Tony is, how much he has grown, and you feel much older, much wiser than you have ever felt before.
You stay with them for almost a week before you head back to your house on the water with him, watching the boats sail in and ferry out from the harbor in the distance, small triangles that move slowly through the water until they disappear. You stay there for three months, make trips into town and go further inland to see the trees and to visit Jackie and Pete and Tony, but after a while you feel that itch, and he does too. The feeling that there is so much out there, so many places you've yet to explore, islands and people you missed in your spontaneous circumnavigation, and, if you're truthful, you miss being with him and nothing but the sound of the ocean, in sun and rain alike. It was hard to fall asleep without your ship's gentle rocking.
And so you steal off, during the dawn on a Sunday when the birds are beginning to wake, and you feel the rush of possibilities flood through your system as he takes your hand and whispers Run! as you laughingly skip down the pier and jump onto the ship.
It is as it should be-a woman and her man and their ship, off to see the world, together.
Always.
-
They sleep in the same bed. She falls in love with the creaks of wood bending under the wind.
The ocean cannot be kind, can only be cold and endless, stretching out past where your vision falters, begins blurring the line that divides heaven and earth until there is only blue in grades, shades, the veil of the world seemingly disappearing, as it does, the way you know it has, and will continue to do. The memory of what is beyond the horizon pulls at the beat of your heart, sinks in your blood with a heaviness you have grown to be familiar with. You can't imagine how it must be, then, for him. 5,630 words.
A/N: I am rereading Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf, and it's probably noticeable.
-
There are things that he doesn't understand, and that's alright. Because there are things about him that you sometimes think you will never face, but then he will laugh from across the garden, and the dogwood shines with the sound, and the king's rose sways in its heavy manner.
He wants you to live with him by the ocean, the powerful unknown sweeping up within him, waves which crash through his veins, salt on his tongue and the wind at his back, and you, beside him, always.
It is important for him to know that you are there.
There is forever an ancient stillness which breathes in him still-the knowledge of the universe and the silent sighs which he expels during the most perfectly quiet moments of the day: stopping, suddenly, a book in his hands reaching to be placed on the shelf but a glance out the windows to see you with your knees in the dirt and gloved hands (hiding effortlessly pale skin, a white that glows pale even in dusk) between the stems of the roses and he finds himself motionless, just staring, watching your hands turn the earth and the small basket by your side filling with the signs of spring. And he breathes out, and in again, and can feel the moment, this image of you, being made into a memory, that heavy feeling growing in his heart that this will be important someday, that he can remember many things, but if he begins to slip, this will not be one of the things that leaves him.
Through the glass of the window his figure joins you, surprises you by pulling your hair back, a sweet arc of white falling from your shoulder, and he kisses you on the back of your neck with cool lips and warm breath, but misses the flush that rises against your skin, pink flooding the white.
You say yes. You will live with him in a house on a hill by the sea and forget the rest of the world, for a little while, in favor of the distant shine of a lighthouse, and the deep heavenly rush of ocean wind filling your lungs, setting you free.
He sets you free.
-
It is hard-at first. The ocean cannot be kind, can only be cold and endless, stretching out past where your vision falters, begins blurring the line that divides heaven and earth until there is only blue in grades, shades, the veil of the world seemingly disappearing, as it does, the way you know it has, and will continue to do. The memory of what is beyond the horizon pulls at the beat of your heart, sinks in your blood with a heaviness you have grown to be familiar with. You can't imagine how it must be, then, for him.
You find a house. It seems small against the rocks, the sea beyond it, but the windows are large and let the light in, filling the space with honey and amber, a warm contrast you can feel in your skin, sequins that shine in your eyes when you turn the right way, and something inside him flutters and hesitates. He hasn't seen the rest of it, only the living room and the windows and your face, soaking up the light that comes through, and that's really all there is. Parts of him want to be perfect, to be beyond perfect so you don't find small differences in his demeanor even though he knows he is not the same, not the man you came to love those long years, through all that time.
What he doesn't realize is that you know- and you love him all the same, because his freckles stain him like stars and his skin is rough and smooth at the same time, because his hair blows in the wrong direction when he faces the wind, because he lights up when he sees you though he tries to hide it in the curl of his hands, the twisting of his wrist inside his pocket, the furrow which begins to deepen on his brow.
You know now, that you are all he has, and that it feels like a responsibility or an obligation, but it isn't-only now you have the ocean at your feet and it almost feels like freedom. The shore for you has always been some kind of stigma, a tragedy on the fringe of the world, but now it is made of beginnings, a newness and calmness that mirrors your steady hands.
You smile when you turn to him and find him staring, and reach your steady hand out, and he steps forward as the shyness melts away and turns to confidence, turns to something that feels like he always has been or has had, as if he owns the world itself- but never you.
Hands entwined, you stare at the clouds which bluster and gather and merge together, and you say, "Let's take it."
-
The ship is your idea. Though your house is the only one for a mile each way, and trips to town are a warm giggling horde of items, laughs escaping between aisles of milk and bread, preparing for what seems like the end of things but is really the coming winter and the desire to remain undisturbed by society, you have somewhat adjusted to this, to harbor life. Breathing only salt, sand, and his unrelenting but beautiful sighs, hearing only the rush of waves, and the call of gulls. You have fallen in love with the sound of wood creaking, bending under the wind, making you feel as if you are already out sailing, already exploring.
It's been burning in the back of your mind for some time now, though his only focus has been trying to readjust. To understand the differences between a slow life and one that flows out of order, what it means to have earthly ties, to pay for things (always), and the quiet responsibility of having food and water and love at hand at all times. Trying to be perfect and forgetting what it means to be human, and you there, always reminding him, of the crippling emotion you unknowingly cause to surge through him with only a touch, or a smile. It stings for him, becomes something he must face and no longer has the capacity to hide from himself for centuries at a time. Your laugh burrows through his body, resides in a bright place in his heart, and once when he is with you on your journey to the outside world, he surprises you by picking up wind chimes, hanging them on the small verandah and letting the tones ring through the air. You don't know it's because when you are gone, he needs to hear your laugh, still.
You have resigned from Torchwood and most of the outside world, and he has resigned with you, trying to learn things again, to feel the weight of things on his tongue and in his hands, words spilling out with no rhyme or reason until he finds his cadence. It is a type of regeneration, you think, sometimes. What you do know, quite certainly, is that his voice is still a rolling timber punctuated by laughs and sighs and breathless exclamations of beauty-the last of which burns in you a kind of endless desire.
But the ship-the ship! She is lovely, and a fading white, she creaks delightfully and her sails sing through the wind and she seems, of course, the answer you have been looking for. He has been beginning to feel a restlessness in his legs, a desire to learn things beyond you, but with you, always with you, at a time when your self-imposed exile has brought him to love a good red wine and love even more the taste of it on your tongue when you go to bed, but also to the mad impulse to give you things, to give you everything-the world. You have noticed his pauses when he thinks you aren't looking, though he must understand by now that you are always watching, and you can tell that he is craving it, craving adventure. And so you buy it for him. Adventure. A ship and some maps, detailing the Atlantic in waving lines and shapes, and a compass which pulls the needle toward an unerring north.
You wait for the right time to tell him-but it seems every time is the right time, and it's only when (limbs entangled) he murmurs something like love against your skin, do you say the words.
"I found our ship."
Of course he doesn't understand at first, but you allow him this as you grin and detail what you have in store for them, laughing against him and hearing him laugh too, as he pushes the hair from your face with both hands, landing warm kisses everywhere. It's the start.
-
You help him build a small pier, and it's hard work, but it's rewarding when you imagine your ship listing in the water, waiting for the time you will guide him onto the brig and let him watch the water with your arms around his waist, breathing him in. But you will love to look up, hammer and nails in hand, sweat beginning to gleam on the back of your neck, and watch as he works, steadying himself on a board as he hammers away, smile on his face, like he is righting the world, like it is only a matter of time.
You don't really know anything about her, your ship, except that she's known as Mactíre Dona, and the Irish fisherman you bought her from had said in a raspy burr that she was a special thing, and to change her name would only lead to bad luck. You've never been one to go against the grain of things (a falsehood) but here, it seems like the thing to do, to keep her as she is and let her be another sign that this is the life you were meant to have, a life where you and a man and a ship explore the world.
He agrees, and happily, and knows all there is to steer a ship (a ship is a ship is a ship, he says) and it's nearly time to take their leave when somewhere a nervous hesitation flickers to life and he finds that this feeling is something he felt, once, on a long shoreline with your hair in the wind. Fear. Then, it was the fear that you would not accept him, and now it is the fear that somehow the ocean will let you drift apart, not fuse you further together. He grabs your hand, soothes your knuckles with his fingers, caressing them over and over and tries to speak, but the sound is stubborn and does not wish to leave him. He does not like to feel afraid. You understand, because you are a little afraid too, but you are also excited, can feel adrenaline light you up like a firework when you think about what the future holds, for the both of you, and so you pull him closer and tell him you love him, and pause as he lets the words sink through him again and again.
"It's alright to be afraid," you say. "I'm here, always."
"Good," he says, and smiles.
"Yes," you reply. "Very good. Now let's get ready."
-
You go into town with him in tow, and you talk amongst the trees, and the sea, your small car letting the warmth of your breath begin to condense on the glass, and his eyes are glued to you. You can feel it, his gaze, the heat of it, and the loyalty, culminating in small sighs and soft chuckles and smiles from the corner of your eye; you are a steady driver and try not to let him distract you so easily.
"You have the list?" you ask, to break the silence which has until just now been peaceful, companionable, but is now beginning to feel stifling, a hit of fear infusing the space between you.
"Mmm," he hums, in agreement you hope, but it's also something you know in the deep of you, as he taps his long fingers against his temple and nods, a sign that once something enters, nothing can leave. Sometimes you wonder how that must be, and if he is taking the time to remember each of your moments, or if early morning sentences somehow slip away from him, blurring with time and the light that had begun to shine through the windows, becoming only an impression of a morning-you hope he remembers everything. You know you will always try, but can still feel things fading from you, the farther you move from them; you do not recall what the first thing you talked about with him was, after you began to sleep in the same bed, and though it stings slightly, you know it is only human. You will always remember the feeling he gives you, the winding trail of love and longing that threads through you even at the sound of his voice, and you hope that is enough.
"Lovely," you say, and it is. It really, really is.
-
You are packing the groceries into boxes, and he is by your side, creating three-dimensional mosaics, each item fitting just so in the box, and you can't help but want to laugh. You've done your best to fit as much as you can, but you've taken a few liberties to the weight it will eventually be when everything has been stuffed in-you don't want the image of you hobbling down the pier with boxes covering your face to be the last image he sees before you set sail. You're vain enough for that.
But beside you, sculptural grocer's creations aside, he has started to hum in a soft manner, a tune you are familiar with but don't recognize, and from outside you can hear the chimes ring and the wood creak in the house and standing in your socks putting groceries into a box with him, always him, as you prepare for your adventure-it is almost too much and you laugh, or sob, a curious sound that could be both, or either. You can feel him staring at you and you simply laugh, loudly and decidedly, a joyous sound that echoes in the room, and you turn to him, grinning wide and free and knowing beyond anything, that this is your life, and he is in it, and will always be in it, and it's more than you ever could have hoped for, or dreamed of.
"What's so funny?" he asks, smiling, inwardly wondering if his hair is too wild, or his careful work with the supplies is too alien, or if perhaps you really don't want to go, after all. He can feel fright and adrenaline both fluttering within him but they calm when he hears your voice again.
"Oh, nothing," you laugh, and sober.
"I just love you, you idiot," you say to him.
He laughs too, and says, "Quite right."
-
You set off on an early Thursday morning when the light is curiously bright and filtered in a dusty pink, and the waves tip your ship slightly to and fro. The supplies have all been stored and you are wearing your best jeans and your man is already on the bow, waiting for you to join him. As soon as you step onto her, your beloved Dona, and can feel the gentle rocking of the water and her solid frame beneath you, he catches you in his arms and spins you round.
"Alright, Sailor?" you laugh.
"Oh, yes!" he says, letting you stand once again. "We've got a mighty journey ahead of us, Captain, but I think she'll fare just fine."
"Captain, is it? Yeah, I think I like the sound of that. Heave-ho, sailor! Aye, avast!"
The sound of your combined laughter rolls sweetly over the North Sea. You've never been more ready.
-
The ocean is like nothing you could have imagined. When she is calm, she remains a perfect mirror to the sky, she becomes an endless indiscriminate light which floats around you, simmering between your bodies as you lean against the mizzenmast and your sailor holds his compass in front of him and stares into this vast, empty blue whose confines remain indistinct. These are the hours without a horizon. Some days you drop anchor and pause, listing slowly in the water as you lay on the brig with your back to the sea and your face to the sky and feel like you are drowning in the endlessness. The earth seems so large, so completely infinite and beyond anything, and you struggle with the knowledge that you have ever broken through that same atmosphere which transfixes you now. He will be laying beside you and you will reach out with your hand, trying to find his, so your fingers thread like a sort of anchor, something to keep you grounded lest you float up and away. The silence between you is out of awe, mostly, but also out of perfect contentedness.
She is not always so kind, though-the clouds will gather and darken and force her to spiral up, crashing against the Dona and rocking her harshly in her bosom. The waves are fierce and dark, seeming to bring night itself from her slumber to power these rogues, these tidal forces that rise up and up past where you can see and threaten to overturn your freedom, take you in her depths and drown you with her power. Rains will come, pour through and through and you feel as if you are drowning, simply trying to fix her sails, but he will be there in the dark, letting you do your job as he does his, and when the storm moves onward and the sky begins to lighten, he will let go of you so he can see how far off course you've become.
The first stop you make is in a town outside of Bordeaux, and your rudimentary, secondary school French gets you fresh coffee and goods much needed for the journey ahead. You want to explore the neatly paved roads and the rest of the coastline, jump from rock to rock and watch the sun seemingly gutter out as it hits the sea, brilliant gold dimming to tangerines and deep reds until there is nothing left at all. But it remains a merry night anyway, least of all because of your coy S'il vous plaît, je voudrais une grande bouteille de vin rosé-St. Michel, merci, which gets you a bottle of your favorite blush wine and your giddiness spreads into his very bones, lights them up like dry tinder and suddenly coming aflame at the sight of your tongue between your teeth.
It's a long time out there in the Atlantic before you stop again, for provisions. He thinks that a pause in the Canary Islands would be ideal and you help him steer the ship there, thinking all the while of a bright and beautiful yellow, a consuming second vision of the sun and the trill of birds, but when you finally arrive you laugh on the beach, let your heels sink in the sand and turn your face up to the sun, feeling the light burn on your cheeks and the bridge of your nose, sensing palms in your peripheral. His Spanish is far more eloquent then yours, and it's times like these when you remember, distantly, that he is so much more than he is, a sum of experiences too infinite and wonderful and tragic to put into words, and that he relies so much on you, a concept you have yet to fully grasp.
You stay for a few days, grow full on food and drink and sleep and leave again with the good luck favors of a local family, and you happily string a small flag on the side of the ship, a square of color against the white like a marker, or a distant hail. You've learned some lovely words from your stay, and you let the syllables rest on your tongue for a while, roll your r's with a flourish as you whisper, Querido, querido, but he hears, and he responds in kind with Querida, saying it to the soft spot behind your ear.
-
Somehow, in the endless Atlantic, you discover what it really is that you want. The moment you feel it, you don't say anything, just let the thought run through you as you smile at his stories of the old days, and the older days, when he was friends with Magellan. "We ought to do a bit of Magellan," you say suddenly.
"Circumnavigation! Oh, if you could have seen him, ol' Ferdinand. Cape of Good Hope, 1522-what a year!"
"Cape of Good Hope," you repeat, slowly, weighing the feel of it. You like it, you decide. "Let's go there next."
"It's... well, it's months away, really."
"So?"
"So, let's mark it on the map."
And you do.
-
In the time it takes you to reach the tip of Africa, your hair has grown long and brassy, a cascade of copper and gold fading into one another. The girl with white hair you are no longer. You think you kind of love it- being seafarers has made it wild, untamable, long and tumbling in waves past your shoulders. "It's a bit mermaid," he says once, and it's more of an endearment than a criticism and so for a time, in the weeks between coastal visits for provisions, you become a kind of siren. And you find yourself humming Under the Sea in sporadic intervals, which more and more frequently becomes a duet.
When you see it, in the distance, it's only a far off line which jaggedly separates the sea and the sky, and the crisp white and blue water surrounding you seems to turn greener in the distance, teal and emerald in the light, and small circling points which float above it-birds. You never expected Africa to have such beautiful and staggering cliffs, an oasis of greens separating the Atlantic and the Indian, and you end up staying for a week. Everyone is so polite, and your sailor finally has the chance to shave with earth beneath his feet, unafraid a sudden windfall will cause him to find beads of blood on his jawline, happy to hear the gentle scrape of the razor and the water rushing from the sink's faucet. You will be outside the bathroom listening to the water run and the razor scrape, and your hotel room is small but quaint, with a floral pattern papering the walls in pastels and a set of white chairs shining from the light in front of the large window. When you move to look through it, slightly pushing the sheer curtains from your view, you can almost see you ship, but she has friends in the water, and some of them tower over her.
There is a clink from the bathroom and the water stops, but you are still looking out the window, transfixed by the buildings and the earth and the full spectrum of colors which seemingly jump to meet you, muddy browns and violent reds, popping from houses and shops and the people, so small from where you are, walking from place to place and interacting with one another. You are excited to go out and meet them, see what is happening here in town, but you also fear that you have become too much of a fisherman's woman, reclusive with a heart fixed to the sea, only sails and freedom in mind. He stands behind you, takes in the water and the people and the houses and says in a low voice, "Why, Captain, do you miss the sea already?"
You don't really know how to respond. You love the days and nights on the Dona, sprawling with him in various places on deck, hoisting the sails and checking the compass and marking your progress in small red marks on the map. You love feeling him so close to you, and you have learned to breathe the sea, you know the currents and the birds and how to tie some fairly impressive knots. You love that sometimes he calls you a siren, love his voice in the night with the lanterns lit and casting a warm glow on the sea as he tells you about the stars, far more reliable than any map money could buy. You love how he knows things, almost instinctually, love the days you spend trying to fish or sunning or picking through a small novella you found in a French village, with him by your side, always. But sometimes you miss the hearth, miss the trees and the green and sometimes you dream of a ship in the desert and wonder if it's a sign or if you are simply unable to leave your ship out of anything now, even your dreams. You almost never dream of other planets. It seems to you that most of the places you visit feel like different planets, with so many languages and rituals and foods to sample.
Earth is so much larger than you give her credit for.
You haven't answered his question, and you wonder to yourself, is it true? Do you miss the sea already?
"Yes," you say. "Always."
-
Your timing is, of course, perfect. You go into Cape Town for a music festival that seems to fill every corner of the continent with sound. You stay with him on the fringes, listening to the sultry tones of jazz and the resounding beat of drums that travel up through your body, making you feel your heartbeat with alarming clarity. It is night and you have had a drink, and the lights are making you green, red, purple, blue, pearl, and pink, and you sway to the sound of the saxophone, watching hundreds of people slink together, dance and move like currents in the ocean, a strange sort of synchronicity. From beside you (always beside you), you hear his voice say, "Do you remember that time," and it trails into one of your shared memories. You laugh and it feels so strange to be laughing so loud when the music picks up and you can't even hear it, you just feel the vibrations of the guitar strings from a hundred feet away and the phantom feeling of sound escaping your throat.
He even tries to dance. You're nearly crying with laughter as he imitates a sort of drunk giraffe, raising his eyebrows with exaggeration, trying to wink but completely failing, and the lights from the stage mix with the night air to form a sort of halo around everyone, effortless effervescence going entirely unnoticed as you sway to join him in the crowd. You feel so alive and find yourself a little sad when you leave, when you are packing your things and remembering the feeling of the hottest shower you've ever taken, then looking back at the colors of the town from the pier as he stows things away, with his arm outstretched, waiting for you to grab his hand and climb aboard.
-
Time can be fast and slow in the same moment, and on the ocean it seems to be stretched thin, going on forever yet the sun seeming to set earlier and earlier each day, having less and less time in the light as you sail through the Indian Ocean, heading toward Timor, an island in Southeast Asia. You have planned to visit their hills and trees before traveling up to Ambon Island and Tidore.
You are becalmed for three days before you arrive, and your confidence wanes when dusk settles on the second day, but he bolsters you, makes you tea and hums under his breath, drawing small pictures in a notebook he picked up before you left the reassuring coastline of Africa. He writes in a mysterious language comprised of circles and arcs and it reminds you of working gears and ticking clocks, and sometimes when he is already asleep you will open it and stare at the complex markings which flow so easily from his pen and wonder what it means. Maybe some day he will tell you, but for now you admire the tiny landscapes and nautical symbols which decorate the sides of the pages. You'll close it carefully, hold it in your hands and not look at anything for a full minute, just feeling the tooth of the cover beneath your fingers before returning it to it's place on the bedside table.
It will be a long journey across the Pacific, he says, and even so you find yourselves enjoying the company of the people of Rota, the small island in the Marianas, before you officially take leave. You think you might love it the most, of the places you have visited thus far, although you are excited to explore the coasts of South America. Rota's hills are welcoming, and the flame trees bloom like fire, and you see deer on the mainland and wonder how long it's been since you've seen anything that strong and that peaceful. By the time you are off sailing again, your arms are sore from waving to the people you've met and come to adore, new friends that braided your hair down your back and gave you vibrant flowers to keep with you, and a small bottle of sand that promised the winds would favor your ship.
-
After months, and months, you are on the coast of Ireland, and coincidence brings you to the man you bought the Dona from. You feel like a well-worn sea traveler, a pirate or a rogue who has seen the world, from Vostok Island to the edge of America, down through South America and the Río de la Plata, to Iceland and Greenland and Wales and now, here, in the waters outside Galway, Ireland. Dona waits for you in the water as the fisherman's voice, always a delight, calls down the pier. "A coupl'a bad wolves I see," rings down through the water and you and the Doctor stare at each other (you've started to call him John. He is the Doctor, will always be the Doctor, but he would confess to you late at night in the perfect middle of nowhere, the only sound the steady waves against the ship, that though he is the same man, he is also different-that this life was one he never planned to have and that new chapters need new titles, or something, and it takes you a long time to adjust to this, when Doctor falls so easily from your lips, especially in moments of adoration and teasing, but it begins to stick, somewhere along the way. You still call him the Doctor, and he still answers, but in the evenings you find yourself whispering what next, Mr. Smith? and see the light rise in his eyes).
"What's that?" you call, because you are sure he has made a mistake, this stranger who so easily sold you your adventure, your new beginning with him.
"Oh, nothin'," he says, once he reaches you, shaking hands with you and the Doctor. "Just the ship, ya see, your Mactíre Dona there in the water. Her name means Bad Wolf, and she's a lovely ol' thing but she's not a ship to take for granted."
You laugh, and laugh. Of course, you think, yes of course. This is how it was always meant to be.
-
You return to England and have tea and toast with Jackie who tearfully brings out all the postcards you've sent her while you were away (Nearly two years! she cries, and barely a peep from either of you, save for these), but she could never be mad with you, not with her Rose so happy, who brings the smell of sun with her into any room she enters. You smile and laugh and fawn over how old Tony is, how much he has grown, and you feel much older, much wiser than you have ever felt before.
You stay with them for almost a week before you head back to your house on the water with him, watching the boats sail in and ferry out from the harbor in the distance, small triangles that move slowly through the water until they disappear. You stay there for three months, make trips into town and go further inland to see the trees and to visit Jackie and Pete and Tony, but after a while you feel that itch, and he does too. The feeling that there is so much out there, so many places you've yet to explore, islands and people you missed in your spontaneous circumnavigation, and, if you're truthful, you miss being with him and nothing but the sound of the ocean, in sun and rain alike. It was hard to fall asleep without your ship's gentle rocking.
And so you steal off, during the dawn on a Sunday when the birds are beginning to wake, and you feel the rush of possibilities flood through your system as he takes your hand and whispers Run! as you laughingly skip down the pier and jump onto the ship.
It is as it should be-a woman and her man and their ship, off to see the world, together.
Always.
-