Ephemera, Part Two
Title: Ephemera, Part Two
Rating: R
Characters/pairings: Ten, Donna, O/C
Warnings/spoilers: Through series four, just to be safe. Warnings for violence and disturbing images/themes throughout the story. Also, this is very AU.
Author's Notes: This is chapter is a bit short, I know, but hopefully there will be more soon. :)
Chapter One can be found here.
The world around her lashed at her senses until she wanted to scream. She kept her eyes closed because the light, that precious light that she thought had heralded her salvation, felt like daggers digging into her eye sockets. The fabric of whatever surface she was lying on rasped against her heavily sensitized flesh, and a cacophony of sounds, jumbled and confusing, assaulted her ears. Here were too many Somethings! She was accustomed to Nothing, to pain, yes, but not this deluge of sensory input.
She heard a voice close to her head, a male voice, low and smooth and slightly melodic. She listened to the words, and then replayed them in her mind, and then again, and again, and slowly they began to make sense.
Can you hear me? He had asked.
She decided she liked his voice, though she didn't know why.
I should answer him, she thought, rather belatedly. She shifted her focus to her mouth, her tongue, moistening her lips, feeling their chafed solidity, their reality. She tried to speak, but could only manage an inarticulate sound that was probably inaudible. But then, she felt a cool hand pressed against hers, and the voice was saying, “I'm here.”
She moistened her lips again and managed a whisper this time. “I know.”
The hand tightened around hers, just slightly, and the voice breathed, “Who are you? Who...” Then, “I'm sorry. You should rest.”
The hand released hers, and she found herself reaching blindly to pull it back. But it was gone.
~~<~~@@~~>~~
The Doctor stepped into the corridor and leaned against the door to the medical bay, closing his eyes and rubbing a hand over his face.
Of course it wasn't her. This frail, broken creature who was already recovering at a rate beyond anything he'd ever seen before was not human. All of his scans confirmed this, but none of them were able to identify her species. She looked human enough, though of course, “human” was a rather relative descriptor when considering the breadth of the universe. The flesh had repaired itself across a visage that was delicate and almost elfin, and the glassy, unfocused eyes had opened slightly once to reveal soft blue-grey irises. The patches of hair that remained on the scalp were almost light enough to be called silver, though he had seen a few threads of shimmering gold. Beautiful. She would be beautiful, when she healed; even he could see that. But it wasn't her.
He felt himself heave a sigh of relief despite the heaviness of his hearts. He could never wish this on her. He wouldn't wish this on anyone.
She was saturated with void stuff.
The TARDIS had picked up on energy signatures and particle surges on earth that indicated a tunneling, a tear forming in the fabric of the world. He had traced the disturbances to a tiny island somewhere in the Caribbean. He had intended to seal it, to leave and be done with it, until they found her.
He had been unable to stop the first, insistent thought that had formed, wreathed in a twisted bramble of horror and hope. Rose. But she was lost.
He stood straight, setting his jaw, refusing to allow that train of thought to carry him in its wake, those nightmarish images of his Rose being pulled away from him as he reached towards her in vain, his mind, his essence, the very core of his being straining to slow her time as she tumbled towards the inevitable-- No. No. She was home, with her family, in the other universe. She was safe. He wouldn't let himself dwell on what could have been, on her absence from his life now; he knew he would drown in it, as he nearly had before.
He began to stride through the corridor, in search of the kitchens. What he needed was a nice cup of tea, get the synapses firing. His focus needed to be here and now, not on that blank wall that he saw so often in his nightmares on those few times he dared to sleep. Whomever this girl was, she needed help; that much was apparent. He doubted any other would be qualified to give her what she needed, though he amended that he wasn't certain of what that would be just yet either. But she had fallen through the void. She shouldn't even exist now, let alone be lying in the medical bay recovering at an almost incomprehensible speed. The agony she must be in... yet she made barely a sound. Perhaps she was too weak to do so still, or perhaps the few painkillers he had dared to give her had taken the edge off of her suffering.
He reached the small kitchenette-- the TARDIS evidently didn't think the full-sized galley was necessary for a cup of tea-- and set the kettle to boiling.
The tear in reality had sealed itself, presumably as soon as she had come through, far too quickly for it to be simply a matter of nature repairing herself. He frowned thoughtfully as he scooped a couple spoonfuls of Darjeeling into the teapot that the TARDIS kept warm.
“There enough in there for two?”
He glanced behind him to the doorway, which framed his dressing-gown clad companion. Donna's fiery hair was mussed, her eyes slightly unfocused, the freckles standing out on her pale skin. She wore a pair of blue fuzzy slippers that matched the color of her dressing-gown. She pulled a chair out from the small table and slid into it, looking at him pointedly. “Couldn't sleep either, Spaceman?” she asked, her voice gentle.
He turned quickly to the stovetop to remove the squealing kettle, effecting nonchalance. “Aw, what does a Time Lord need sleep for? Things to do, places to see.” He poured the water into the pot. “Tea to drink.” He glanced up at her, folding his arms across his chest. “What about you? Up and about rather late, aren't you? Usually deep into your beauty sleep by now.”
Donna snorted inelegantly. The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged and then stood, selecting one of the mugs from their place hanging over the sink. “Just couldn't sleep, Doctor. I kept seeing... kept seeing that.. that poor girl.” She dropped a sugar cube in the cup before sliding back into her chair. She folded both hands around the cup, as though anchoring herself, and asked, “How is she, Doctor?”
He selected a cup and sat in the chair opposite her. “She's... recovering. Rapidly. More rapidly than I've ever seen. It's almost as if she's...”
“What?”
“The energy readouts. They--” He paused. “The scanners; they can't get a fix on her species. They literally cannot recognize her existence. But her body is repairing itself with what amounts to Vortex energy.” He sighed. “She fell through the Void. Her species might not even exist here. We're dealing with something completely new. An unknown.” Suddenly, he grinned. “Isn't that brilliant?”
She was staring at him. He hopped to his feet and grabbed the pot, pouring the tea into their cups. “Once she recovers enough, we'll have to find out all about her people, her world, her universe. Of course, she can never go back...” he hesitated in his pouring, but only for a fraction of a second. “But we'll have a marvelous opportunity to learn about an entirely new species. And then... oh, I suppose we'll have to find a place for her somewhere, wherever would be closest to what--”
“Doctor!”
“What?” He looked at her again. Oh, lovely; she was fuming. “What did I do now?”
“Sometimes you can be the most insensitive, incorrigible git I've ever met!”
“Insensitive? How am I being insensitive?”
“That woman is suffering in there, and all you can think of is what information you'll be able to drag out of her once she recovers!”
No, no, that really wasn't true. But his thoughts were still straining to go in a direction that he was absolutely unwilling to make tangible by voicing them, and so he ended up running his gob as he always did. “I wasn't,” he said softly, “I wasn't exactly fixating on that, no.”
He could see it on her face the moment she pieced it together, and a part of him was relieved, though he had hoped she wouldn't. “Oh,” she said softly. “Doctor... you thought it would be... would be R--”
“Don't. Donna, just don't.”
She stood, walked over to him, and wrapped her arms around him. He stood stiffly for a brief moment before letting his arms slip around her and resting his chin on her shoulder.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered.