[DW] BigBang: Dancing Star XII
Dancing Star
~ELEVEN~
..............~oOo~..............
~TWELVE~
“Hello, old girl”, cooed the Doctor, stroking the blue wood of his TARDIS gently. “How are you?” The ship hummed under his palm, and he smiled, before whirling around to face Jack. “You, Captain Sparrow, are the most amazing human I've met in a long time! Well done!”
Jack, if he had heard him at all, shrugged the compliment off with a slight twitch of his shoulders. He was staring at his forearm, bare now, where the Dancing Star had grasped him.
“Wasn't he brilliant?!” the Doctor beamed, nudging Donna. “Give the man a hug, Donna! He just saved us all!”
Donna wasn't particularly fond of hugging a bad smelling pirate, and she hadn't quite grasped what exactly had happened, but she gave the stunned Jack a tentative pat on the back. “Oi, what's your problem, pirate? I'm hugging you!”
Jack hadn't moved. “'pologies, Miss Noble. This is quite extraordinary.”
He presented her his forearm. The black lines of his tattoo - a sparrow in flight - was clearly visible against his skin and the even lighter brand mark of the pirate 'P'. It was beautifully placed just above the wrist on the soft web of veins only just visible through tanned skin.
“Well, what is it? It's just your tattoo.”
The Doctor came ambling over. “What is it?”
“I have never decided to allow anyone t' tattoo me, on such a spot! D'ye think I want 'im cutting my wrist for me money?”
“Hmm.” The Doctor ran his index finger over the black lines, but Jack wrenched his wrist back. “I s'ppose Pearl left a mark. It's nothing to worry about, Captain. In fact, it rather suits you, don't you think?” The Doctor grinned up at the pirate, and Jack just grunted and pulled his shirt back over his forearm.
“But in the films-”, Donna began to protest, then shut her mouth again. It was probably not very wise to talk of yet more future technology with pirates who'd already seen the TARDIS.
The Doctor took her by the elbow and let her a few steps away. “It's possible they got the chronology messed up. After all, it's all sort of timey-wimey-just-by-chance-chance, anyway.”
Donna raised an eyebrow. “That a technical term?”
The Doctor beamed. “Course it is. Oh, look at the that!”
The ocean just off the shore where they were standing was suddenly illuminated by hundreds of bright specks of light, little globes breaking through the surface and whirling skywards all around them, flickering through the palm trees, over the TARDIS and around the Pearl's masts.
“Ooooh”, the Doctor exclaimed, as if he were watching fireworks. “That is beautiful. Isn't that beautiful, Donna?”
“Are those her children?”
“Yes, they are. And aren't they just the most brilliant little stars?”
For a while, they just stood there on the Caribbean beach, a salty smelling breeze swirling around them, and on the breeze were the children of the Dancing Star, outshining even the stars in the sky.
After what seemed to Donna like a couple of minutes, but was probably over an hour, the Doctor slipped away from her side and the TARDIS took off. She never saw the spaceship in the night, but one by one, the little Dancing Stars disappeared, were gathered up by the Doctor and brought to safety. There were still a couple of them left when the TARDIS's engine roared again at their side and the Doctor stepped out, smiling.
“Thought I'd better drop you two off on the Pearl,” he said to the two pirates, who had sat watching the spectacle on the beach, a flask of something alcoholic passing between them. Of course, Jack was eager to get back to his ship, and Gibbs did, after some hesitation, follow him again into the strange ship that was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.
“You're coming, Donna?”
“Yeah.” Donna slowly walked towards the TARDIS. “All refuelled?”
“Yes, we're ready to go!”
“What about them?” She pointed at the remaining dots of light, which seemed to concentrate themselves around the Black Pearl.
“Oh, I just thought you might enjoy a bit of show... I'll pick them up when we've dropped Jack and Gibbs off, if you don't mind staying on the Pearl for a bit.”
“Can't I come?”
“Nah, it's nothing interesting. Just a planet with lots of water, where they can't cause any mischief. Besides, I've created a temporal pocket to allow them to grow up undisturbed, and it's a bumpy ride, crossing lots of timestreams - I'll better do it on my own.”
“If you think so.” Donna would have been slightly disappointed, but she suspected that the Doctor was looking for some time alone with his TARDIS, and she wouldn't be the one to hinder him. She wondered if there was some sort of female figurehead hidden in the time machine, just as in Jack's ship, but she supposed she'd never know. With a last glance at the island-alien, she stepped over the threshold and pulled the door shut.
~THIRTEEN~