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Title: 1. In Balance with the Life
Doctor: Ten
Warnings: Some graphic war imagery
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
From the pit of Hell, to this - a scarlet path captured in the frame of the TARDIS doorway.
Perhaps it was the juxtaposition, the still present taint of sulphur on his skin and the violent colour of the fallen leaves, but it reminded him of Arcadia. He was transported to the blood stained steps that led to the Academy building, imprisoned in the unreality of those terrible final moments.
Above him, the structure beyond the drenched stones was burning orange and red and death, roasting alive too many of his fellow soldiers. A respiratory bypass system was not always an advantage one wanted and, trapped within the beautiful, dying, building, it served only to prolong the agony. He, in turn, spurned its comfort, resolute to allow himself no relief from the scent of their blackening flesh as their mental cries battered at his psyche. His comrades were denied a more gentle death and he would not shield himself from their pain to assuage his own.
Skin blistering, he could feel the flames as clearly as if it was him who stood within them. He looked at his hands, expecting to see them cracked and burning, startled to find them whole.
Help us!
It hurts! Mercy! Rassilon grant us release!
Exterminate!
How did we not see this?
Exterminate!
They’re still coming, Command! We cannot…
Fall back! Fall back! Fall…
A blink - the autonomic sweep of fragile flesh over ocular tissue - and the voices faded, the picture wavered and the pain fled.
He blinked again, deliberately this time.
Wide steps, painted red by fallen leaves.
‘We are the Dead,’ the Doctor whispered, his hearts pounding painfully. ‘Short days ago we lived…’
Enough of him was in the now to recognise dispassionately that it was hardly reminiscent of Arcadia at all and yet it was far too evocative. If only he had had a moment to prepare, to reinforce his defences, to steel his soul to the sight, then the vista before him would not be distorted by the transparency of chilling memory and he would not be fighting back a scream.
He shuddered. Not for the first time, a scolding part of him mourned the loss of the view screen that had once nestled between the roundels, a window on the outside world. Not so then the need to fiddle with the console display - one switch and all was laid bare. Arrogant, reckless, he’d chosen to glory in the thrill of stepping into the unknown, careless of the attendant risk of unanticipated recollection.
Now the Universe collected it dues for that folly.
It’s gone, Romana. Arcadia, it’s…
Then we have no choice.
But we’ll be destroyed. All of us. There will be nothing left!
There is no choice, Doctor.
‘Doctor?’
For a moment it was Romana’s voice he heard at his elbow - unrelenting, irritating, impossibly dear. He smiled, his vision clouding: he was not the last, he was not alone.
‘Ro…’
‘Doctor, are you alright?’
‘R…Rose? Rose! Of course it is! Of course it is. Who else would it be? Ha! Silly me! What was that? Alright? Oh yes. Smashing. Top banana! Tickety boo and all that… just looking at… well, that…’ he waved his arm in a sweeping gesture. Rose let her gaze shift as directed only for the instant it took to acknowledge the view.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Rose observed quietly, cautiously, her eyes fixed on his pale face.
‘Is it? It is! Yes, right. It is. Beautiful. Yep. Very… um, well, very…’
‘Red?’
‘Yep - Red! Well done, Rose. Perfect word for it, that. Red. It’s very red.’
The Doctor kept his gaze averted from his companion, his eyes flitting restlessly before settling on some indeterminate point on the horizon. Rose glanced in the direction of his stare, finding nothing of note. Instead, her attention focused on the Doctor’s tense, immobile face and the tight fists evident through the soft fabric of his coat pockets.
‘So, it’s like autumn, yeah?’ Rose slipped past him, her trainer-clad foot descending onto the scarlet ground.
Tread softly, the Doctor though idly.
‘Yep. Autumn,’ he confirmed.
Rose reached down and picked up a fallen leaf, ignoring the subtle twitch of the Doctor’s jaw. Carelessly, she rubbed the stalk back and forth between her thumb and forefinger, spinning the leaf until it was nothing but a blur of colour.
‘Autumn’s my favourite season,’ Rose informed him quietly.
The Doctor did not respond. He was watching the spinning leaf.
Keeping her tone casual, Rose continued. ‘I always loved it, as a kid. Summer round the Estate smells like warm wee. Autumn’s fresh, but still nice enough not to need a coat and stuff.’ She paused. ‘Aren’t many trees, though. On the Estate. Not like here. Still feels like Autumn, though.’
Rose risked a glance at the Doctor. He was watching her now.
‘That’s what I love about travelling with you. Everywhere you take me is so different, but if you look close enough, under all the green skies and aliens and stuff, there’s always just a little bit of home, too. It’s like Willow said in Buffy, yeah? Everything’s connected.’
Rose turned her back on the Time Lord.
‘Way I see it, it’s like nothing’s really lost, not if everything’s connected. So, if like on Krop Tor - if one day you can’t take me home, well then, that’s okay, cause somehow me and my mum would still be together. Sort of.’
With a little shrug, Rose let the leaf drop from her fingers and started to ascend the stone steps. In her wake, the leaf fell back to the ground, rejoining its brothers.
The Doctor frowned. Buffy? He’d debated God with Nietzsche and reality with Plato, and it was with the philosophy of a fictitious witch that Rose challenged him?
He scuffed his foot through the carpet of leaves at his feet. Each leaf was singular, alone, and yet also part of a whole that had once been part of a tree and was now part of a carpet of colour that would ultimately become the energy that fed the tree from which they had fallen.
Being alone, the Doctor thought, was a state of mind.
Such a lonely little boy. Lonely then and lonelier now.
He was the last Time Lord, the very last of his kind, the only remaining Gallifreyian, the last living soul to have gazed into the untempered schism, and the final holder of the secrets of the presidential scrolls, the last witness to the sacrifice of the Time Lords. He was, in so many ways, totally alone. And yet even when he had not been the last, he had felt alone. And now, he travelled within the last TARDIS - the greatest and most remarkable testament to all that had been great about his people - a sentient ship who held within her the majesty of Time and Space and was able to bend it as easily as an Earth vessel cut through water. He lived within her, but she also lived within him - nestled in his consciousness, an ever-present murmur. He was the last, but he was, in actuality, never truly alone. And within them, all his people lived. And in every planet still free to be beautiful or ugly or war torn or barren, lived the legacy of Gallifrey.
The Doctor raised his eyes and sought out Rose. She stood, small and proud and brilliant at the summit of the steps.
He was not alone and this planet was beautiful.
In true remembrance of Arcadia, the Doctor lifted his foot to the first step. It was time to join Rose.
Quotes from:
Title - WB Yeats, An Irish Airman Forsees His Death.
Doctor’s first words - In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae.
The Doctor’s thoughts as Rose steps out of the TARDIS - WB Yeats, He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.
The Doctor’s thoughts after Rose drops the leaf - Reinette in The Girl in the Fireplace.
Title: 2. Whispers
Doctor: Ten
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Through “Unicorn and the Wasp:
Rating: PG-13
It was a whisper on the wind, but he swore he heard the sound of laughter drifting through the autumn air, along with the sound of feet pounding down steps, fallen leaves crunching beneath the rubber soles of trainers that had run on so many planets.
The Doctor took a deep breath, wishing for a moment he hadn't chosen to return here; there were so many places in the universe that he could easily live out his remaining regenerations without ever repeating a single stop. He didn't have to revisit these sights, no reason to open old wounds or relive the memory of Rose racing through the trees, laughing as she did so, looking back over her shoulder at him. Her eyes had dared him to try and catch her, but there had also been the hint of a promise if he succeeded.
He closed his own eyes, bringing the scene sharper into focus -- her hair half-pulled back, strands escaping to float across her face as her head turned toward him. She'd worn hoop earrings that day, pink lip gloss and a touch too much mascara for his taste, though he never would have dared say anything about it. She'd been wearing a t-shirt under a jean jacket, the very kind a girl wore when she was young and confident enough of her charms that she didn't have to always wear a short skirt or revealing top because she knew her figure still attracted despite layers of denim and shoes that were chosen for practicality rather than looks.
She'd been young and he'd been oh-so-old. Old enough to know better; he'd always taken care with his human companions, made certain things didn't get too intense despite the closeness that came with the danger of life on the TARDIS, sending them home or gently encouraging them to take up some other dream when emotions started to get too sticky. The heart could love many times within a millennia, but heartbreak was something that quickly became difficult to endure.
He'd thought he'd known better. He'd seen battle and death and found himself surprised to still be among the living when so many he'd known -- and loved -- were dead. He'd spoken truth when he'd told Rose that living on while she aged was the curse of the Time Lords, but he hadn't said it all, that the true curse was living on when there were no others of your kind to share the burden. But even though he was scarred by battle, aching and wounded inside, she'd found the flicker of life and fanned it, making him consider all the things he thought long gone. His own fault that he'd left it for too little, too late.
Still, he watched the empty space, seeing ghosts of a trip that seemed many lifetimes ago, hearing the laughter and remembering how, for one brief moment, the universe had seemed sunny and happy in her company. He wanted to turn away, but that wasn't going to be easy because he wanted to see the scene again, remember that flicker of joy in what was the darkness of his life. In some ways it was a form of self-punishment for all his crimes, knowing he was once happy and loved and having it torn from his grasp.
"Oi! You going to stand there all day staring off into space? Do that long enough and folks will think you're a nutter."
Donna's voice was cheerful, and he turned to find her bustling up with her hands full of bags. "You know what I love about the TARDIS?" she offered, a grin on her face. "No running out of closet space because it's all bigger on the inside."
The Doctor shook his head. "I don't think any of my companions have every praised the TARDIS for her closet capacity. Of course, none of them came aboard with the amount of luggage you have."
"Maybe they didn't tell you, but any woman would have to be blind not to notice. If we were to market just that one little thing, expanding closets without losing space in the bedroom, we could rule the universe."
For a moment, it was on his lips to remind her that she couldn't go selling alien technology on Earth, just as she wasn't supposed to tell Agatha Christie what her future plotlines were, but then the sheer lunacy of it struck him. He remembered Martha's tiny flat with clothes on racks and storage bins shoved odd places because there simply wasn't room elsewhere and knew Donna spoke the truth. Oh, certainly someone would eventually figure out how to use the Transdimensional Physics to carry troops or keep prisoners, but the image of thousands of women happily installing closets that kept expanding started him laughing, something he hadn't done much of lately.
Donna didn't squawk, but simply waited until he stopped. "Better?"
Wiping tears from his eyes, the Doctor nodded. "Yes. I needed to remember there's humor in the universe. Sometimes I forget."
"What? You forget anything with the big spaceman brain of yours?" She snorted. "I don't believe it." Then her voice softened. "You came here with Rose, didn't you?"
"Yeah," he admitted, because he could admit it to Donna. "Long, long time ago. Don't know why I suggested it."
"Because it holds happy memories for you. Because you want to remember her, even if you won't talk about her." She paused. "Like Mum won't talk about Dad, but you know she can't forget him."
For a moment, they were silent, the pain of absent loved ones hanging heavily. Then Donna shrugged her shoulders slightly, as if physically casting the heaviness away. "Come on; I've got more shopping to do, so you can come help carry things and tell me more about the trouble you got into last time you were here."
He felt himself grin, unaccountably pleased to be invited to tell the story without the hushed tones that all too often accompanied the few mentions of Rose he was willing to offer. "We didn't get into trouble. Welllll, not much trouble and it really was just a misunderstanding because there were certain local customs..."
As they strolled away, he allowed himself one final glance back. For just a moment, he could swear he saw Rose racing down those steps once more, Jack in hot pursuit in more ways than one, but it was him she glanced back toward, him she wanted to follow and catch her, her intent and invitation clear. And he saw himself looking so different, another face and life, but grinning with an enthusiasm he'd thought he'd never feel again as he started after her, his first steps a little tentative, but growing stronger and surer as he moved. The heart could love many times within a millennia and heartbreak something that quickly became difficult to endure, but there was always someone who was worth it all.
Title: 3. To Everything There is a Season
Doctor: TenII, Rose
Warnings: Teen-ish content.
Spoilers: Vague spoilers for Journey’s End
Rating: Teen
She tells him once, as they lay together with moonlight filtering over naked skin, that her body is like the passage of a year, because she has all of the seasons from her chest to her toes. He doesn’t have to ask what she means. Her body - the body that used to be soft and flawless and smooth - is painted with bruises, a dubious storyboard of her recent life which he hates so fiercely it’s difficult to touch her.
“I’m broken,” she whispered to him earlier that night, those bitter little words taunting him, goading him, begging him to take the lead, to kiss her first because she didn’t have the strength. And he did, he succumbed, he leaned forward and he kissed her with a passion that was hard and unforgiving and never tender, and they made love harshly with the curtains open so that he could see the stars.
As they move together in a restless rhythm, he wonders why their love isn’t the one from fairytales. He wonders why they never got the happy ending, why she never saw him as the handsome prince who rescued her from the gloom of her misery. Because he’s not Prince Charming, and she’s not Cinderella. She could have been, once upon a time, when she was young and vibrant and gorgeous, but now her beauty is harder, colder, and when she kisses him it feels like a punishment, because he’s not the man she wanted and he never will be.
Now, in the pale light of the moon, he trails his fingers over her body with the most delicate of touches, a touch which should have felt intimate, caressing, but which is detached, reserved. He can’t bear to see the marks where someone else has hurt her, the bruises which will fade even when the memory remains. There’s a part of her missing - her awe, her delight - and he aches with the loss, aches with the helplessness that says he doesn’t know how to make her better.
“Can you see it?” Her voice is low again, rough like the scrape of a jagged nail on a woollen jumper, and he doesn’t know if he loves her or hates her or whether it’s something in between but he’s sure that she’s not the same. Her fingers skate the tops of her arms, the protuberances of her ribs. They’re stained with a patchwork of dark blue and she hisses when his hands mirror hers, gliding over her chest with a touch that presses just a little too hard.
“Winter,” he murmurs, and there’s a smile on her face. “Ice and snow and dark mornings and defrosting the windscreen.” He looks at her and she’s watching him, and there’s a morbid curiosity in her wide amber eyes.
“Spring,” she continues, guiding his hands to the brown bruises scattered like heaps of earth on her belly. “Digging and planting and watching the first blooms of daffodils.” Her voice entrances him and he hates himself for it, can’t help his nausea at the bitter twist of her words. How can she compare something so ugly to something so miraculous?
“Summer,” he says finally, because she needs him to carry on and if there’s one thing he’s realised, it’s that he can’t deny her anything anymore. His fingers move to her thighs, where the bruises are greener, older. “Like foliage,” he whispers, and he has to choke the words out because they feel like blades in his throat. “Like freshly cut grass and bright green stems and picnics in the garden.” He swallows and he suddenly wants to cry though he’s not sure why. She’s still watching him as though he’s a curiosity in a shop window, and another part of him wants to scream.
“And autumn,” she finishes, fingers dancing over the few bruises which have turned yellow, the ones which are fading, which might even be gone tomorrow. “Conkers and falling leaves and the sense that we’re beginning the cycle again and we’ll never escape.” She turns her head away, and her voice breaks unexpectedly on the last syllable. He has the fiercest desire to prove her wrong, to make her see, to give her back some of the magic that this horrific life has taken from her.
“No.” He shakes his head, gets abruptly out of bed, starts to dress in the silvery light. She watches him with a lost expression, the most naked he has seen since he arrived here, and it’s not good and it’s not healthy but it feels like coming home, because in that moment she looks real again. “Get dressed, Rose.” He’s already stepping into his trousers and he finally has a purpose, and it makes him feel so much better, as though he isn’t just a spare part, an unwanted copy. He tosses her jeans at her and gestures. “Hurry up.”
For once, she obeys. She doesn’t try to torture him, doesn’t try to press his buttons with words of pain that she knows twist like wire deep into his soul. She senses his urgency and she responds - perhaps with a reflex from years working at Torchwood - and he feels a thrill shiver through him, because they are going on an adventure and they’re doing it together.
He drives, and she sits beside him. They don’t listen to music because the CD player is faulty so instead they drive in silence, winding through sleeping streets as the sun rises and a new day begins. She doesn’t ask where they’re going, nor does he tell her. He’s going to taunt her for a change, he’s going to make her guess and wonder and frown.
When they arrive, it’s nine o’clock in the morning and the sun is bright in an azure sky. He helps her out of the car, pays their entry, leads her through the park until they’re standing at the bottom of a flight of stone steps. A huge tree looms above them, its leaves burning red like pure, flickering flames, and it casts them in a ruby light which makes Rose’s eyes glow gold. She’s still for a very long time. And then she turns, moves in a slow circle, gazing at the greenery in the distance, the golden yew, the earth that’s only recently been turned for a new planting.
“You’re not the seasons, Rose,” he whispers, stepping up close behind her and resting his hands lightly, tentatively on her hips. “These are the seasons. They’re alive and they’re beautiful and they’re majestic, not ugly, painful bruises.” He closes his eyes and inhales. There’s a dizzying scent in the air and he’s not sure if it’s the flowers or if it’s Rose, but he likes to think it’s the latter. “I hate it when they hurt you.”
She turns in his arms, looks up at him with a face that is dappled with sunshine and shade. She is bewitching and he knows, in that moment, that she’s his. She stands on her tiptoes and moves her mouth to his ear, drags her bottom lip lightly over the lobe before biting down just once.
“Then protect me.”
He draws his head back and looks at her, really looks, and for the first time he can see through the resistance and the coldness and the impassivity. She is scared and she is hurting but she needs him now more than she’s ever needed him before. And what’s more, she’s accepted it.
He doesn’t know how he can protect her, and he doesn’t know what she wants him to say. But he knows he will do whatever is in his power to make her love him again.
“I will,” he replies softly, and he lets his lips hover against her cheek. “I’ll protect you.”
And so they stand, two humans dwarfed by the splendour of Mother Nature and the relentless patter of time, and they make silent promises to try harder, to slow down, to make things right. They vow to love each other, to stop hurting, to try and heal. They will hold hands and make macaroni cheese and buy shoes.
And slowly, gradually, the bruises fade altogether.
And lost in the smiles and the holding hands and the quiet new hope, neither of them notices.
Title: 4. The Floating Bridge of Dreams
Doctor: Ten
Warnings: Extremely dodgy history
Spoilers: None
Rating: All ages
The dark was nearly impenetrable, with the moon just a tiny, pale sliver. The Doctor's voice jarred Rose out of a troubled sleep, and she rolled over and off of her futon, on to the floor.
"What are you doing here?" Rose whispered through a tiny opening in the rice-paper screen that separated her sleeping quarters from the porch and the gardens beyond. "Men aren't allowed on this side."
"They are if they're wooing," the Doctor replied, and she could nearly hear him winking.
"Wooing?"
"It's serious business, wooing. I'm going to recite some poetry, which will make me seem very deep and sensitive." He paused and slid the screen open just a fraction of an inch further. "And then you're going to let me see just the hem of your sleeve. This will drive me mad with desire, at which point I will beg you to-"
He was cut off by the blood-curdling shriek, from quite nearby: "No! Get away! Help!"
Rose flung the screen all the way to the side and joined the Doctor in running bare-footed down the wooden walkway and towards the sounds of several screaming women. Lanterns were being lit all around the courtyard, and servants scrambled this way and that.
"It's a demon! Get the priests!" came a call, as a young serving girl, her face pale and her eyes filled with terror, flung another screen open.
"That's me, here I am," said the Doctor. "One priest, coming right up!"
Rose stood behind him and grinned. "And priest... ess?" she added.
"But-" the girl stammered.
"Do you know the one hundred and forty-three schools of demon-exorcising priests?" the Doctor asked placing one hand on each of the girl's shoulders and moving her to the side.
The girl shook her head mutely.
"Well, then, I'd say you were hardly the expert on what a priest looks like, are you?"
Rose entered the pavilion as well and took the girl's hand. "Now, why don't you tell us what's happened. Can you do that?"
"I... I was sleeping, but I was having bad dreams. I meant to just open the screen, see if it was morning, but that's...." The girl lowered her voice to a whisper. "That's when I saw it!"
"A demon," the Doctor said, with a bit of a patronising tone in his voice, which Rose really found quite uncalled-for when speaking to such a young girl.
The girl nodded. "It's possessing Lady Murasaki!"
"Oh? And where is she now?"
The girl pointed to a set of curtains and screens in the centre of the room, but refused to say anything else. Rose smoothed the girl's hair and cooed soothingly.
"Brilliant!" the Doctor enthused, jamming his hands in his pockets.
"Doctor, I hardly think this is the time for-"
"Rose Tyler, you're about to meet one of the most remarkable women in human history, so I think it is precisely the right time for saying how brilliant that is." He reached a hand down to help her to standing, though she stepped on the hem of her kimono and nearly tripped. "Lady Murasaki Shikibu wrote the first novel ever," he looked at his wrist as though to check his watch, "though not quite yet."
"I thought that was... what, Robinson Crusoe?"
"Humans! So tribal. Lady Murasaki has your lot beat by quite a bit, I'm afraid. Or will."
They approached the curtains and the Doctor reached out to pull one aside, still muttering about Daniel Dafoe.
"Well, that's not something you see every day."
Rose looked over his shoulder to see a young woman (about her own age, if she had to guess), in simple sleeping garments, levitating above her futon.
"Not so much," Rose muttered, giving the situation a good long look to make sure they weren't missing something obvious-if there was anything obvious that could cause spontaneous levitation. "What's wrong with her?"
The Doctor peered around the room, and even made a show of looking under his own feet.
"Dunno," the Doctor pronounced. "But I'm willing to bet it's got something to do with the novomorphic somnigressial parasite."
Rose waited for a moment to see if the other penny would drop without her prompting, but it seemed that the Doctor was quite eagerly looking forward to her next question. The word parasite didn’t make her in too much of a hurry to find out what they were dealing with, which was probably worm-like and gross.
"The what?" she asked dutifully.
"Novomorphic somnigressial parasite. A stealer of dreams. It feeds off the delta waves produced by dream states. And Lady Mursaki is a dreamer," he said wistfully, looking with great admiration towards the woman hanging limply in the air before them. "Four hundred characters, all living and loving and dying, in her head. Such beautiful dreams.... That parasite could live off of the energy for centuries." He turned abruptly and faced the serving girl, who now seemed to be making her way towards the door. "Couldn't you?" he said sternly.
"Me?" The girl pointed to her own chest.
"Her?" Rose asked.
"Not just a dream-eater, are you? A shape-shifter as well." He aimed his sonic screwdriver at the doors and they slid silently shut. "Isn't that right, you clever creature?"
The girl dropped her innocent, frightened mien like a discarded mask and now wore a very perturbed look indeed.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to escort you off the premises, cosmically speaking," the Doctor said, shutting the curtains as Lady Murasaki, without waking, landed gently again on the futon, her masses of hair spread out around her like dark water.
Rose snuck another look in at the sleeping woman, as the Doctor forced the parasite to revert to its original form (not so worm-like, but still kind of gross). A lap desk sat nearby on the floor, but the pages laid across it were all blank.
***
"It feels nice to be in a chair again." Rose settled in to an overstuffed sofa in the TARDIS library and pulled her favourite afghan around her shoulders. "Sitting on the floor makes my feet fall asleep."
The Doctor just gave a little snort from over top of the large volume he was leafing through.
"Is that her book?"
He nodded. "The Tale of Genji. You'd like it. Not only was it the first novel, but it's a romance, to boot. You like those, right?"
"Well, I wouldn't say like. It's just a habit I got into from Mum." She went quiet and hugged the blanket closer to her, turning the question she'd wanted to ask him so many times over in her head. "Doctor, why me?"
"Why you what?" He looked up again, his glasses sliding down his nose and making him look more annoyed than he probably actually was.
She hated that she had to explain herself, as if clarifying her question made her failings all the more apparent.
"When I first met you I guess I didn't really think about why you'd invite someone like me along, but now... I'll never write a novel. I'll never be a poet or a brilliant scientist or anything like that. I'm not like Lady Murasaki."
He gave her a sad look, which was not the response she was expecting at all. "If I tell you that you're more alike than you think, would you believe me?"
"You can, but the fact is, you're sitting there sighing over her book. I’ll never do anything like that."
"But the same thing that led Lady Murasaki to write this book, it's what you've got, too. In spades, if I may say so."
Rose blinked and pursed her lips. It was what she had wanted to hear from him, on the surface, but she still didn't understand what he meant. Maybe she didn't want to understand, and it was easier with his feelings being a mystery.
"What's that?" she said finally, her voice cracking a little.
"The courage to escape." He set the book down on a table and moved over to join her on the sofa. She scooted down to make room, but he sat on her feet anyway.
"Running away isn't courage. In fact, I think that's pretty much the definition of 'not courage.'"
"Rose Tyler, I am surprised at you!" he said, laughing. "With all the running we do, I'd have thought you'd know by now that a well-timed escape is often the better part of valour. Is that how the saying goes? It doesn't sound right. Never mind, though, because it's true."
"Yeah... I actually have no idea what you're talking about." This was not going at all as she had planned, and she chided herself for not knowing better that he'd find some way to talk deftly around the issues. "It's not important anyway."
"Now, there you are correct." He leaned over to unlace his shoes, flinging them off so they landed in opposite corners of the room. "It's not important. What is important is that your toes are freezing and they're making my bum cold. So, I’ll light a fire, and then I'm going to recite some poetry, which will make me seem very deep and sensitive."
Rose looked at her sleeves, which were of the normal t-shirt variety, but she arranged the afghan so that just the hem of one was showing.
Title: Last Autumn
Doctor: Tenth
Rating: All Ages
Spoilers: None
The steps were too numerous for me that day. Up and up and up they climbed to the temple at the top, and Ma would climb them everyday without fail, for she was as loyal to the temple as the some of the monks there.
I had never been a strong child, and so on days when the wind blew cold and the moisture in the air made my lungs hurt, I would sit at the bottom with a stick and rock and wait for her. It used to be that she would carry me up those stairs on her hip, but gradually, I had grown too old for such indignities and would rather amuse myself.
The autumn wind grew stronger that day and tossed up a patch of leaves from one side of the stairs to the other and I watched in fascination as they danced under the breeze's pull and came to rest, almost reluctantly, twitching and fluttering on the ground. Watching their choreography made me somehow lonelier than I had been before so I picked up my stick and drew a character in the ground.
“Mountain is green, water is blue, the high mountains and the flowing water are playing musical sounds,” I sang, circling the character and dancing a little - not too much or too fast for Ma would kill me if she found me weak, panting and white-faced when she'd meant to spare me such exertion by asking me not to climb the stairs.
The sound of footsteps alerted me to another presence and immediately I stopped, stiffening. Not many people walked up and down these stairs just before nightfall. The heavy traffic was during the day, so I was not expecting to be interrupted.
“China!” A man was saying. “The year of your Lord 19... oh, I'd say 25 or thereabouts.” He drew in a deep breath and sighed. “Autumn, too. Nothing like autumn in China.”
“It's beautiful,” a woman said as they came into view. Her hair was startlingly white - she must be a European, and he was tall and gangly. Hands clasped together, they talked with their heads bent towards the other, their bodies swaying in a somehow disjointed but yet understood rhythm. They were beautiful together.
Ma always said it's because of having to be still all the time, but my imagination ran wild as it usually does. I imagined all the things they could be, all the things they might think... but mostly I imagined I could walk like that - long strides, quick as you please, nearly brushing past me when...
The woman stopped. “Hullo!” she said brightly. “I'm Rose Tyler, and this is the Doctor.”
“Hullo!” The Doctor said.
“Hi,” I managed, looking down at the ground. They were both extremely tall, and their voices were so loud when the only sound I'd heard in hours was the wind singing in the mountains.
Without ceremony, Rose plopped down next to me and picked up a stick. “What are you sitting down here for? Bet it's more fun up at the top, yeah?”
“Not allowed today,” I said. “I haven't been allowed in a while.”
The Doctor was staring at me, something of perception lighting in his eyes, but he let his companion continue.
“Why's that? They got silly rules about girls not being allowed places or something?”
“No,” I said. “I am not... well.”
“Consumption,” the Doctor said, raising his eyebrows at Rose. “The later stages of it, unless I miss my guess. The exercise would aggravate her lungs.”
Although the words made no sense to me, they obviously meant something to Rose, for she grabbed my hand and squeezed. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to rub it in.”
“Your apology is most welcome,” I said, and picked up my stick again, drawing another character in the sand.
The Doctor stood, his arms crossed over his chest, while Rose sat in silence for a few minutes. “I don't suppose you can...” she started.
“Not this time, I'm sorry,” the Doctor said, shaking his head. “I really am sorry.”
The sorrow of the two of them for me felt painfully like the looks my mother gave me in the middle of the night when I soaked my pillow with blood and prayed for the light to go out.
“No need to apologize to a stranger for their own misfortunes,” I said stiffly, and wished I had the energy to walk away from this strange man and his companion. “Please, enjoy the beauty at the top of the mountain. It is breathtaking.”
Rose narrowed her eyes at me, but nodded. “I think we will.” She squeezed my hand, and got to her feet again.
They walked up the stairs, their voices eventually disappearing until I could hear them no longer, and I started my song again, singing it over and over until Ma came down the stairs and took my hand and we began the slow and difficult walk home.
We had almost reached our land when I heard them again. I turned too quickly and got a little dizzy, but Ma steadied me with a hand on my shoulder.
“This is for you,” the woman named Rose said, handing me a piece of paper. “It's called a photograph, and it's a picture I took today, from the top of the mountain. So you can remember.”
My eyes filled with tears and clutched it, marveling at the beauty and the vivacity of the colors. “You have a true gift. I thank you,” I said, hugging it to my chest. “Thank you very, very much. I will remember this always.”
“You're welcome,” she said, and turned to her Doctor, who had stopped several paces away and stuck his hands in his large brown coat. “We're leaving now, I think.”
“Good journey to you,” I said, and bowed.
“Good journey to you,” the Doctor called, and bowed as well, and I could sense a great sadness in him, almost a longing, and I knew then with certainty what I had known for a long time.
This would be my last autumn.
Comments have been turned off as some people have voted or left feedback here which is the wrong thing to do.
Title: 1. In Balance with the Life
Doctor: Ten
Warnings: Some graphic war imagery
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
From the pit of Hell, to this - a scarlet path captured in the frame of the TARDIS doorway.
Perhaps it was the juxtaposition, the still present taint of sulphur on his skin and the violent colour of the fallen leaves, but it reminded him of Arcadia. He was transported to the blood stained steps that led to the Academy building, imprisoned in the unreality of those terrible final moments.
Above him, the structure beyond the drenched stones was burning orange and red and death, roasting alive too many of his fellow soldiers. A respiratory bypass system was not always an advantage one wanted and, trapped within the beautiful, dying, building, it served only to prolong the agony. He, in turn, spurned its comfort, resolute to allow himself no relief from the scent of their blackening flesh as their mental cries battered at his psyche. His comrades were denied a more gentle death and he would not shield himself from their pain to assuage his own.
Skin blistering, he could feel the flames as clearly as if it was him who stood within them. He looked at his hands, expecting to see them cracked and burning, startled to find them whole.
Help us!
It hurts! Mercy! Rassilon grant us release!
Exterminate!
How did we not see this?
Exterminate!
They’re still coming, Command! We cannot…
Fall back! Fall back! Fall…
A blink - the autonomic sweep of fragile flesh over ocular tissue - and the voices faded, the picture wavered and the pain fled.
He blinked again, deliberately this time.
Wide steps, painted red by fallen leaves.
‘We are the Dead,’ the Doctor whispered, his hearts pounding painfully. ‘Short days ago we lived…’
Enough of him was in the now to recognise dispassionately that it was hardly reminiscent of Arcadia at all and yet it was far too evocative. If only he had had a moment to prepare, to reinforce his defences, to steel his soul to the sight, then the vista before him would not be distorted by the transparency of chilling memory and he would not be fighting back a scream.
He shuddered. Not for the first time, a scolding part of him mourned the loss of the view screen that had once nestled between the roundels, a window on the outside world. Not so then the need to fiddle with the console display - one switch and all was laid bare. Arrogant, reckless, he’d chosen to glory in the thrill of stepping into the unknown, careless of the attendant risk of unanticipated recollection.
Now the Universe collected it dues for that folly.
It’s gone, Romana. Arcadia, it’s…
Then we have no choice.
But we’ll be destroyed. All of us. There will be nothing left!
There is no choice, Doctor.
‘Doctor?’
For a moment it was Romana’s voice he heard at his elbow - unrelenting, irritating, impossibly dear. He smiled, his vision clouding: he was not the last, he was not alone.
‘Ro…’
‘Doctor, are you alright?’
‘R…Rose? Rose! Of course it is! Of course it is. Who else would it be? Ha! Silly me! What was that? Alright? Oh yes. Smashing. Top banana! Tickety boo and all that… just looking at… well, that…’ he waved his arm in a sweeping gesture. Rose let her gaze shift as directed only for the instant it took to acknowledge the view.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Rose observed quietly, cautiously, her eyes fixed on his pale face.
‘Is it? It is! Yes, right. It is. Beautiful. Yep. Very… um, well, very…’
‘Red?’
‘Yep - Red! Well done, Rose. Perfect word for it, that. Red. It’s very red.’
The Doctor kept his gaze averted from his companion, his eyes flitting restlessly before settling on some indeterminate point on the horizon. Rose glanced in the direction of his stare, finding nothing of note. Instead, her attention focused on the Doctor’s tense, immobile face and the tight fists evident through the soft fabric of his coat pockets.
‘So, it’s like autumn, yeah?’ Rose slipped past him, her trainer-clad foot descending onto the scarlet ground.
Tread softly, the Doctor though idly.
‘Yep. Autumn,’ he confirmed.
Rose reached down and picked up a fallen leaf, ignoring the subtle twitch of the Doctor’s jaw. Carelessly, she rubbed the stalk back and forth between her thumb and forefinger, spinning the leaf until it was nothing but a blur of colour.
‘Autumn’s my favourite season,’ Rose informed him quietly.
The Doctor did not respond. He was watching the spinning leaf.
Keeping her tone casual, Rose continued. ‘I always loved it, as a kid. Summer round the Estate smells like warm wee. Autumn’s fresh, but still nice enough not to need a coat and stuff.’ She paused. ‘Aren’t many trees, though. On the Estate. Not like here. Still feels like Autumn, though.’
Rose risked a glance at the Doctor. He was watching her now.
‘That’s what I love about travelling with you. Everywhere you take me is so different, but if you look close enough, under all the green skies and aliens and stuff, there’s always just a little bit of home, too. It’s like Willow said in Buffy, yeah? Everything’s connected.’
Rose turned her back on the Time Lord.
‘Way I see it, it’s like nothing’s really lost, not if everything’s connected. So, if like on Krop Tor - if one day you can’t take me home, well then, that’s okay, cause somehow me and my mum would still be together. Sort of.’
With a little shrug, Rose let the leaf drop from her fingers and started to ascend the stone steps. In her wake, the leaf fell back to the ground, rejoining its brothers.
The Doctor frowned. Buffy? He’d debated God with Nietzsche and reality with Plato, and it was with the philosophy of a fictitious witch that Rose challenged him?
He scuffed his foot through the carpet of leaves at his feet. Each leaf was singular, alone, and yet also part of a whole that had once been part of a tree and was now part of a carpet of colour that would ultimately become the energy that fed the tree from which they had fallen.
Being alone, the Doctor thought, was a state of mind.
Such a lonely little boy. Lonely then and lonelier now.
He was the last Time Lord, the very last of his kind, the only remaining Gallifreyian, the last living soul to have gazed into the untempered schism, and the final holder of the secrets of the presidential scrolls, the last witness to the sacrifice of the Time Lords. He was, in so many ways, totally alone. And yet even when he had not been the last, he had felt alone. And now, he travelled within the last TARDIS - the greatest and most remarkable testament to all that had been great about his people - a sentient ship who held within her the majesty of Time and Space and was able to bend it as easily as an Earth vessel cut through water. He lived within her, but she also lived within him - nestled in his consciousness, an ever-present murmur. He was the last, but he was, in actuality, never truly alone. And within them, all his people lived. And in every planet still free to be beautiful or ugly or war torn or barren, lived the legacy of Gallifrey.
The Doctor raised his eyes and sought out Rose. She stood, small and proud and brilliant at the summit of the steps.
He was not alone and this planet was beautiful.
In true remembrance of Arcadia, the Doctor lifted his foot to the first step. It was time to join Rose.
Quotes from:
Title - WB Yeats, An Irish Airman Forsees His Death.
Doctor’s first words - In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae.
The Doctor’s thoughts as Rose steps out of the TARDIS - WB Yeats, He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.
The Doctor’s thoughts after Rose drops the leaf - Reinette in The Girl in the Fireplace.
Title: 2. Whispers
Doctor: Ten
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Through “Unicorn and the Wasp:
Rating: PG-13
It was a whisper on the wind, but he swore he heard the sound of laughter drifting through the autumn air, along with the sound of feet pounding down steps, fallen leaves crunching beneath the rubber soles of trainers that had run on so many planets.
The Doctor took a deep breath, wishing for a moment he hadn't chosen to return here; there were so many places in the universe that he could easily live out his remaining regenerations without ever repeating a single stop. He didn't have to revisit these sights, no reason to open old wounds or relive the memory of Rose racing through the trees, laughing as she did so, looking back over her shoulder at him. Her eyes had dared him to try and catch her, but there had also been the hint of a promise if he succeeded.
He closed his own eyes, bringing the scene sharper into focus -- her hair half-pulled back, strands escaping to float across her face as her head turned toward him. She'd worn hoop earrings that day, pink lip gloss and a touch too much mascara for his taste, though he never would have dared say anything about it. She'd been wearing a t-shirt under a jean jacket, the very kind a girl wore when she was young and confident enough of her charms that she didn't have to always wear a short skirt or revealing top because she knew her figure still attracted despite layers of denim and shoes that were chosen for practicality rather than looks.
She'd been young and he'd been oh-so-old. Old enough to know better; he'd always taken care with his human companions, made certain things didn't get too intense despite the closeness that came with the danger of life on the TARDIS, sending them home or gently encouraging them to take up some other dream when emotions started to get too sticky. The heart could love many times within a millennia, but heartbreak was something that quickly became difficult to endure.
He'd thought he'd known better. He'd seen battle and death and found himself surprised to still be among the living when so many he'd known -- and loved -- were dead. He'd spoken truth when he'd told Rose that living on while she aged was the curse of the Time Lords, but he hadn't said it all, that the true curse was living on when there were no others of your kind to share the burden. But even though he was scarred by battle, aching and wounded inside, she'd found the flicker of life and fanned it, making him consider all the things he thought long gone. His own fault that he'd left it for too little, too late.
Still, he watched the empty space, seeing ghosts of a trip that seemed many lifetimes ago, hearing the laughter and remembering how, for one brief moment, the universe had seemed sunny and happy in her company. He wanted to turn away, but that wasn't going to be easy because he wanted to see the scene again, remember that flicker of joy in what was the darkness of his life. In some ways it was a form of self-punishment for all his crimes, knowing he was once happy and loved and having it torn from his grasp.
"Oi! You going to stand there all day staring off into space? Do that long enough and folks will think you're a nutter."
Donna's voice was cheerful, and he turned to find her bustling up with her hands full of bags. "You know what I love about the TARDIS?" she offered, a grin on her face. "No running out of closet space because it's all bigger on the inside."
The Doctor shook his head. "I don't think any of my companions have every praised the TARDIS for her closet capacity. Of course, none of them came aboard with the amount of luggage you have."
"Maybe they didn't tell you, but any woman would have to be blind not to notice. If we were to market just that one little thing, expanding closets without losing space in the bedroom, we could rule the universe."
For a moment, it was on his lips to remind her that she couldn't go selling alien technology on Earth, just as she wasn't supposed to tell Agatha Christie what her future plotlines were, but then the sheer lunacy of it struck him. He remembered Martha's tiny flat with clothes on racks and storage bins shoved odd places because there simply wasn't room elsewhere and knew Donna spoke the truth. Oh, certainly someone would eventually figure out how to use the Transdimensional Physics to carry troops or keep prisoners, but the image of thousands of women happily installing closets that kept expanding started him laughing, something he hadn't done much of lately.
Donna didn't squawk, but simply waited until he stopped. "Better?"
Wiping tears from his eyes, the Doctor nodded. "Yes. I needed to remember there's humor in the universe. Sometimes I forget."
"What? You forget anything with the big spaceman brain of yours?" She snorted. "I don't believe it." Then her voice softened. "You came here with Rose, didn't you?"
"Yeah," he admitted, because he could admit it to Donna. "Long, long time ago. Don't know why I suggested it."
"Because it holds happy memories for you. Because you want to remember her, even if you won't talk about her." She paused. "Like Mum won't talk about Dad, but you know she can't forget him."
For a moment, they were silent, the pain of absent loved ones hanging heavily. Then Donna shrugged her shoulders slightly, as if physically casting the heaviness away. "Come on; I've got more shopping to do, so you can come help carry things and tell me more about the trouble you got into last time you were here."
He felt himself grin, unaccountably pleased to be invited to tell the story without the hushed tones that all too often accompanied the few mentions of Rose he was willing to offer. "We didn't get into trouble. Welllll, not much trouble and it really was just a misunderstanding because there were certain local customs..."
As they strolled away, he allowed himself one final glance back. For just a moment, he could swear he saw Rose racing down those steps once more, Jack in hot pursuit in more ways than one, but it was him she glanced back toward, him she wanted to follow and catch her, her intent and invitation clear. And he saw himself looking so different, another face and life, but grinning with an enthusiasm he'd thought he'd never feel again as he started after her, his first steps a little tentative, but growing stronger and surer as he moved. The heart could love many times within a millennia and heartbreak something that quickly became difficult to endure, but there was always someone who was worth it all.
Title: 3. To Everything There is a Season
Doctor: TenII, Rose
Warnings: Teen-ish content.
Spoilers: Vague spoilers for Journey’s End
Rating: Teen
She tells him once, as they lay together with moonlight filtering over naked skin, that her body is like the passage of a year, because she has all of the seasons from her chest to her toes. He doesn’t have to ask what she means. Her body - the body that used to be soft and flawless and smooth - is painted with bruises, a dubious storyboard of her recent life which he hates so fiercely it’s difficult to touch her.
“I’m broken,” she whispered to him earlier that night, those bitter little words taunting him, goading him, begging him to take the lead, to kiss her first because she didn’t have the strength. And he did, he succumbed, he leaned forward and he kissed her with a passion that was hard and unforgiving and never tender, and they made love harshly with the curtains open so that he could see the stars.
As they move together in a restless rhythm, he wonders why their love isn’t the one from fairytales. He wonders why they never got the happy ending, why she never saw him as the handsome prince who rescued her from the gloom of her misery. Because he’s not Prince Charming, and she’s not Cinderella. She could have been, once upon a time, when she was young and vibrant and gorgeous, but now her beauty is harder, colder, and when she kisses him it feels like a punishment, because he’s not the man she wanted and he never will be.
Now, in the pale light of the moon, he trails his fingers over her body with the most delicate of touches, a touch which should have felt intimate, caressing, but which is detached, reserved. He can’t bear to see the marks where someone else has hurt her, the bruises which will fade even when the memory remains. There’s a part of her missing - her awe, her delight - and he aches with the loss, aches with the helplessness that says he doesn’t know how to make her better.
“Can you see it?” Her voice is low again, rough like the scrape of a jagged nail on a woollen jumper, and he doesn’t know if he loves her or hates her or whether it’s something in between but he’s sure that she’s not the same. Her fingers skate the tops of her arms, the protuberances of her ribs. They’re stained with a patchwork of dark blue and she hisses when his hands mirror hers, gliding over her chest with a touch that presses just a little too hard.
“Winter,” he murmurs, and there’s a smile on her face. “Ice and snow and dark mornings and defrosting the windscreen.” He looks at her and she’s watching him, and there’s a morbid curiosity in her wide amber eyes.
“Spring,” she continues, guiding his hands to the brown bruises scattered like heaps of earth on her belly. “Digging and planting and watching the first blooms of daffodils.” Her voice entrances him and he hates himself for it, can’t help his nausea at the bitter twist of her words. How can she compare something so ugly to something so miraculous?
“Summer,” he says finally, because she needs him to carry on and if there’s one thing he’s realised, it’s that he can’t deny her anything anymore. His fingers move to her thighs, where the bruises are greener, older. “Like foliage,” he whispers, and he has to choke the words out because they feel like blades in his throat. “Like freshly cut grass and bright green stems and picnics in the garden.” He swallows and he suddenly wants to cry though he’s not sure why. She’s still watching him as though he’s a curiosity in a shop window, and another part of him wants to scream.
“And autumn,” she finishes, fingers dancing over the few bruises which have turned yellow, the ones which are fading, which might even be gone tomorrow. “Conkers and falling leaves and the sense that we’re beginning the cycle again and we’ll never escape.” She turns her head away, and her voice breaks unexpectedly on the last syllable. He has the fiercest desire to prove her wrong, to make her see, to give her back some of the magic that this horrific life has taken from her.
“No.” He shakes his head, gets abruptly out of bed, starts to dress in the silvery light. She watches him with a lost expression, the most naked he has seen since he arrived here, and it’s not good and it’s not healthy but it feels like coming home, because in that moment she looks real again. “Get dressed, Rose.” He’s already stepping into his trousers and he finally has a purpose, and it makes him feel so much better, as though he isn’t just a spare part, an unwanted copy. He tosses her jeans at her and gestures. “Hurry up.”
For once, she obeys. She doesn’t try to torture him, doesn’t try to press his buttons with words of pain that she knows twist like wire deep into his soul. She senses his urgency and she responds - perhaps with a reflex from years working at Torchwood - and he feels a thrill shiver through him, because they are going on an adventure and they’re doing it together.
He drives, and she sits beside him. They don’t listen to music because the CD player is faulty so instead they drive in silence, winding through sleeping streets as the sun rises and a new day begins. She doesn’t ask where they’re going, nor does he tell her. He’s going to taunt her for a change, he’s going to make her guess and wonder and frown.
When they arrive, it’s nine o’clock in the morning and the sun is bright in an azure sky. He helps her out of the car, pays their entry, leads her through the park until they’re standing at the bottom of a flight of stone steps. A huge tree looms above them, its leaves burning red like pure, flickering flames, and it casts them in a ruby light which makes Rose’s eyes glow gold. She’s still for a very long time. And then she turns, moves in a slow circle, gazing at the greenery in the distance, the golden yew, the earth that’s only recently been turned for a new planting.
“You’re not the seasons, Rose,” he whispers, stepping up close behind her and resting his hands lightly, tentatively on her hips. “These are the seasons. They’re alive and they’re beautiful and they’re majestic, not ugly, painful bruises.” He closes his eyes and inhales. There’s a dizzying scent in the air and he’s not sure if it’s the flowers or if it’s Rose, but he likes to think it’s the latter. “I hate it when they hurt you.”
She turns in his arms, looks up at him with a face that is dappled with sunshine and shade. She is bewitching and he knows, in that moment, that she’s his. She stands on her tiptoes and moves her mouth to his ear, drags her bottom lip lightly over the lobe before biting down just once.
“Then protect me.”
He draws his head back and looks at her, really looks, and for the first time he can see through the resistance and the coldness and the impassivity. She is scared and she is hurting but she needs him now more than she’s ever needed him before. And what’s more, she’s accepted it.
He doesn’t know how he can protect her, and he doesn’t know what she wants him to say. But he knows he will do whatever is in his power to make her love him again.
“I will,” he replies softly, and he lets his lips hover against her cheek. “I’ll protect you.”
And so they stand, two humans dwarfed by the splendour of Mother Nature and the relentless patter of time, and they make silent promises to try harder, to slow down, to make things right. They vow to love each other, to stop hurting, to try and heal. They will hold hands and make macaroni cheese and buy shoes.
And slowly, gradually, the bruises fade altogether.
And lost in the smiles and the holding hands and the quiet new hope, neither of them notices.
Title: 4. The Floating Bridge of Dreams
Doctor: Ten
Warnings: Extremely dodgy history
Spoilers: None
Rating: All ages
The dark was nearly impenetrable, with the moon just a tiny, pale sliver. The Doctor's voice jarred Rose out of a troubled sleep, and she rolled over and off of her futon, on to the floor.
"What are you doing here?" Rose whispered through a tiny opening in the rice-paper screen that separated her sleeping quarters from the porch and the gardens beyond. "Men aren't allowed on this side."
"They are if they're wooing," the Doctor replied, and she could nearly hear him winking.
"Wooing?"
"It's serious business, wooing. I'm going to recite some poetry, which will make me seem very deep and sensitive." He paused and slid the screen open just a fraction of an inch further. "And then you're going to let me see just the hem of your sleeve. This will drive me mad with desire, at which point I will beg you to-"
He was cut off by the blood-curdling shriek, from quite nearby: "No! Get away! Help!"
Rose flung the screen all the way to the side and joined the Doctor in running bare-footed down the wooden walkway and towards the sounds of several screaming women. Lanterns were being lit all around the courtyard, and servants scrambled this way and that.
"It's a demon! Get the priests!" came a call, as a young serving girl, her face pale and her eyes filled with terror, flung another screen open.
"That's me, here I am," said the Doctor. "One priest, coming right up!"
Rose stood behind him and grinned. "And priest... ess?" she added.
"But-" the girl stammered.
"Do you know the one hundred and forty-three schools of demon-exorcising priests?" the Doctor asked placing one hand on each of the girl's shoulders and moving her to the side.
The girl shook her head mutely.
"Well, then, I'd say you were hardly the expert on what a priest looks like, are you?"
Rose entered the pavilion as well and took the girl's hand. "Now, why don't you tell us what's happened. Can you do that?"
"I... I was sleeping, but I was having bad dreams. I meant to just open the screen, see if it was morning, but that's...." The girl lowered her voice to a whisper. "That's when I saw it!"
"A demon," the Doctor said, with a bit of a patronising tone in his voice, which Rose really found quite uncalled-for when speaking to such a young girl.
The girl nodded. "It's possessing Lady Murasaki!"
"Oh? And where is she now?"
The girl pointed to a set of curtains and screens in the centre of the room, but refused to say anything else. Rose smoothed the girl's hair and cooed soothingly.
"Brilliant!" the Doctor enthused, jamming his hands in his pockets.
"Doctor, I hardly think this is the time for-"
"Rose Tyler, you're about to meet one of the most remarkable women in human history, so I think it is precisely the right time for saying how brilliant that is." He reached a hand down to help her to standing, though she stepped on the hem of her kimono and nearly tripped. "Lady Murasaki Shikibu wrote the first novel ever," he looked at his wrist as though to check his watch, "though not quite yet."
"I thought that was... what, Robinson Crusoe?"
"Humans! So tribal. Lady Murasaki has your lot beat by quite a bit, I'm afraid. Or will."
They approached the curtains and the Doctor reached out to pull one aside, still muttering about Daniel Dafoe.
"Well, that's not something you see every day."
Rose looked over his shoulder to see a young woman (about her own age, if she had to guess), in simple sleeping garments, levitating above her futon.
"Not so much," Rose muttered, giving the situation a good long look to make sure they weren't missing something obvious-if there was anything obvious that could cause spontaneous levitation. "What's wrong with her?"
The Doctor peered around the room, and even made a show of looking under his own feet.
"Dunno," the Doctor pronounced. "But I'm willing to bet it's got something to do with the novomorphic somnigressial parasite."
Rose waited for a moment to see if the other penny would drop without her prompting, but it seemed that the Doctor was quite eagerly looking forward to her next question. The word parasite didn’t make her in too much of a hurry to find out what they were dealing with, which was probably worm-like and gross.
"The what?" she asked dutifully.
"Novomorphic somnigressial parasite. A stealer of dreams. It feeds off the delta waves produced by dream states. And Lady Mursaki is a dreamer," he said wistfully, looking with great admiration towards the woman hanging limply in the air before them. "Four hundred characters, all living and loving and dying, in her head. Such beautiful dreams.... That parasite could live off of the energy for centuries." He turned abruptly and faced the serving girl, who now seemed to be making her way towards the door. "Couldn't you?" he said sternly.
"Me?" The girl pointed to her own chest.
"Her?" Rose asked.
"Not just a dream-eater, are you? A shape-shifter as well." He aimed his sonic screwdriver at the doors and they slid silently shut. "Isn't that right, you clever creature?"
The girl dropped her innocent, frightened mien like a discarded mask and now wore a very perturbed look indeed.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to escort you off the premises, cosmically speaking," the Doctor said, shutting the curtains as Lady Murasaki, without waking, landed gently again on the futon, her masses of hair spread out around her like dark water.
Rose snuck another look in at the sleeping woman, as the Doctor forced the parasite to revert to its original form (not so worm-like, but still kind of gross). A lap desk sat nearby on the floor, but the pages laid across it were all blank.
***
"It feels nice to be in a chair again." Rose settled in to an overstuffed sofa in the TARDIS library and pulled her favourite afghan around her shoulders. "Sitting on the floor makes my feet fall asleep."
The Doctor just gave a little snort from over top of the large volume he was leafing through.
"Is that her book?"
He nodded. "The Tale of Genji. You'd like it. Not only was it the first novel, but it's a romance, to boot. You like those, right?"
"Well, I wouldn't say like. It's just a habit I got into from Mum." She went quiet and hugged the blanket closer to her, turning the question she'd wanted to ask him so many times over in her head. "Doctor, why me?"
"Why you what?" He looked up again, his glasses sliding down his nose and making him look more annoyed than he probably actually was.
She hated that she had to explain herself, as if clarifying her question made her failings all the more apparent.
"When I first met you I guess I didn't really think about why you'd invite someone like me along, but now... I'll never write a novel. I'll never be a poet or a brilliant scientist or anything like that. I'm not like Lady Murasaki."
He gave her a sad look, which was not the response she was expecting at all. "If I tell you that you're more alike than you think, would you believe me?"
"You can, but the fact is, you're sitting there sighing over her book. I’ll never do anything like that."
"But the same thing that led Lady Murasaki to write this book, it's what you've got, too. In spades, if I may say so."
Rose blinked and pursed her lips. It was what she had wanted to hear from him, on the surface, but she still didn't understand what he meant. Maybe she didn't want to understand, and it was easier with his feelings being a mystery.
"What's that?" she said finally, her voice cracking a little.
"The courage to escape." He set the book down on a table and moved over to join her on the sofa. She scooted down to make room, but he sat on her feet anyway.
"Running away isn't courage. In fact, I think that's pretty much the definition of 'not courage.'"
"Rose Tyler, I am surprised at you!" he said, laughing. "With all the running we do, I'd have thought you'd know by now that a well-timed escape is often the better part of valour. Is that how the saying goes? It doesn't sound right. Never mind, though, because it's true."
"Yeah... I actually have no idea what you're talking about." This was not going at all as she had planned, and she chided herself for not knowing better that he'd find some way to talk deftly around the issues. "It's not important anyway."
"Now, there you are correct." He leaned over to unlace his shoes, flinging them off so they landed in opposite corners of the room. "It's not important. What is important is that your toes are freezing and they're making my bum cold. So, I’ll light a fire, and then I'm going to recite some poetry, which will make me seem very deep and sensitive."
Rose looked at her sleeves, which were of the normal t-shirt variety, but she arranged the afghan so that just the hem of one was showing.
Title: Last Autumn
Doctor: Tenth
Rating: All Ages
Spoilers: None
The steps were too numerous for me that day. Up and up and up they climbed to the temple at the top, and Ma would climb them everyday without fail, for she was as loyal to the temple as the some of the monks there.
I had never been a strong child, and so on days when the wind blew cold and the moisture in the air made my lungs hurt, I would sit at the bottom with a stick and rock and wait for her. It used to be that she would carry me up those stairs on her hip, but gradually, I had grown too old for such indignities and would rather amuse myself.
The autumn wind grew stronger that day and tossed up a patch of leaves from one side of the stairs to the other and I watched in fascination as they danced under the breeze's pull and came to rest, almost reluctantly, twitching and fluttering on the ground. Watching their choreography made me somehow lonelier than I had been before so I picked up my stick and drew a character in the ground.
“Mountain is green, water is blue, the high mountains and the flowing water are playing musical sounds,” I sang, circling the character and dancing a little - not too much or too fast for Ma would kill me if she found me weak, panting and white-faced when she'd meant to spare me such exertion by asking me not to climb the stairs.
The sound of footsteps alerted me to another presence and immediately I stopped, stiffening. Not many people walked up and down these stairs just before nightfall. The heavy traffic was during the day, so I was not expecting to be interrupted.
“China!” A man was saying. “The year of your Lord 19... oh, I'd say 25 or thereabouts.” He drew in a deep breath and sighed. “Autumn, too. Nothing like autumn in China.”
“It's beautiful,” a woman said as they came into view. Her hair was startlingly white - she must be a European, and he was tall and gangly. Hands clasped together, they talked with their heads bent towards the other, their bodies swaying in a somehow disjointed but yet understood rhythm. They were beautiful together.
Ma always said it's because of having to be still all the time, but my imagination ran wild as it usually does. I imagined all the things they could be, all the things they might think... but mostly I imagined I could walk like that - long strides, quick as you please, nearly brushing past me when...
The woman stopped. “Hullo!” she said brightly. “I'm Rose Tyler, and this is the Doctor.”
“Hullo!” The Doctor said.
“Hi,” I managed, looking down at the ground. They were both extremely tall, and their voices were so loud when the only sound I'd heard in hours was the wind singing in the mountains.
Without ceremony, Rose plopped down next to me and picked up a stick. “What are you sitting down here for? Bet it's more fun up at the top, yeah?”
“Not allowed today,” I said. “I haven't been allowed in a while.”
The Doctor was staring at me, something of perception lighting in his eyes, but he let his companion continue.
“Why's that? They got silly rules about girls not being allowed places or something?”
“No,” I said. “I am not... well.”
“Consumption,” the Doctor said, raising his eyebrows at Rose. “The later stages of it, unless I miss my guess. The exercise would aggravate her lungs.”
Although the words made no sense to me, they obviously meant something to Rose, for she grabbed my hand and squeezed. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to rub it in.”
“Your apology is most welcome,” I said, and picked up my stick again, drawing another character in the sand.
The Doctor stood, his arms crossed over his chest, while Rose sat in silence for a few minutes. “I don't suppose you can...” she started.
“Not this time, I'm sorry,” the Doctor said, shaking his head. “I really am sorry.”
The sorrow of the two of them for me felt painfully like the looks my mother gave me in the middle of the night when I soaked my pillow with blood and prayed for the light to go out.
“No need to apologize to a stranger for their own misfortunes,” I said stiffly, and wished I had the energy to walk away from this strange man and his companion. “Please, enjoy the beauty at the top of the mountain. It is breathtaking.”
Rose narrowed her eyes at me, but nodded. “I think we will.” She squeezed my hand, and got to her feet again.
They walked up the stairs, their voices eventually disappearing until I could hear them no longer, and I started my song again, singing it over and over until Ma came down the stairs and took my hand and we began the slow and difficult walk home.
We had almost reached our land when I heard them again. I turned too quickly and got a little dizzy, but Ma steadied me with a hand on my shoulder.
“This is for you,” the woman named Rose said, handing me a piece of paper. “It's called a photograph, and it's a picture I took today, from the top of the mountain. So you can remember.”
My eyes filled with tears and clutched it, marveling at the beauty and the vivacity of the colors. “You have a true gift. I thank you,” I said, hugging it to my chest. “Thank you very, very much. I will remember this always.”
“You're welcome,” she said, and turned to her Doctor, who had stopped several paces away and stuck his hands in his large brown coat. “We're leaving now, I think.”
“Good journey to you,” I said, and bowed.
“Good journey to you,” the Doctor called, and bowed as well, and I could sense a great sadness in him, almost a longing, and I knew then with certainty what I had known for a long time.
This would be my last autumn.