Doctor Who Ficlet: Long Journey’s End
Title: Long Journey’s End
Fandom: Doctor Who
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: The Face of Boe, Tenth Doctor
Rating: G
Spoilers: Gridlock.
Summary: He’s lived longer than any other being, but all things have their ending.
Word Count: 431
Written For: juliet316’s prompt ‘Doctor Who, the Face of Boe, a final death,’ at
fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Doctor Who, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
He's lived for millennia beyond number, his beginning a memory so distant and faint he's not even sure if it really happened or is just a story made up over time to fill in the void of his past. He has, perhaps, lived longer than any other being that has ever drawn breath in this universe.
Nothing lasts forever though, and the Face of Boe knows that his life is nearing its end. He’s used up almost all his remaining life force preserving the people of this world, keeping them alive until it was safe for them to return to the surface; he has just enough left for one final, vitally important act and then he can rest for eternity. That’s how it should be; he’s ready, he’s made his peace with himself and with all that has gone before. He has no regrets, and leaves nothing unfinished that matters.
He thinks it’s been a good life, for the most part, even though he can’t really remember all of it anymore. His head would have had to grow to the size of a small planet to hold all the memories of his extraordinary lifetime, and that just wouldn’t have been practical. But he remembers enough, the important things, like the message he has to pass on to the man who stands before him now.
There are few people Boe can honestly call friends; most people slip through his life so fast it’s as if they are gone before he gets the chance to know them at all. Their lives pass in just a blink of his eyes. The Doctor is one of the few exceptions, not just because of his longer than usual lifespan, but because of his ability to skip backwards and forwards in time. They’ve met countless times, in all of the Doctor’s many incarnations, but the message he has is for this one only, the tenth.
“You are not alone.”
It is done at last, the final secret passed on. It’s cryptic, granted, but the Time Lord will understand when the time is right. Now there is nothing to hold him here, it’s as though a tremendous weight has been lifted from him. He feels lighter than air and almost young again; soon he’ll be free, the jar he has resided in for so long no longer necessary to sustain him. With a final enigmatic smile, Boe breathes his last, closes his eyes, and is gone.
His long journey has finally ended; who knows what the future might hold for him as he wakes on the other side?
The End