Fic: Seedbed
Title: Seedbed
Prompt: #27 - Children
Rating: U / G
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: None
Notes: This happened as I was idly wondering, Hey, how did the Doctor and the TARDIS actually, you know, meet? Though I did try to stick with canon there are obviously embellishments, and despite my stern fact-checking it's bound to conflict with something somewhere (likely in the novels); and if so, well, apologies.
• Thanks to Kimchi the betagoddess (even though she's no damn help with titles).
• Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (Prompts are here.) and x-posted to dwfiction.
"It's trustworthy and watertight and she's my oldest friend in the world." - 8th Doctor, 'The Stones of Venice'
Seedbed
He has been dreaming lately: of silver-bright trees and a burnt-orange sky, of sighing red grasses and a copper moon shining over mountains of snow. Asleep and awake he travels the roads from the Citadel, sees endless in the distance the Continent of Wild Endeavour; and quietly he mourns.
You know, she tells him one day - gently: she has considered these words for so long - I didn't like it all that much.
He is roused from a recollection of spires of golden stone. He blinks. "What?"
Oh it was beautiful, of course, but - he feels her shrug gently, a soft pull in his mind - I never really liked it there.
"Are you - what, you're happy it's gone?" His sudden anger is like electricity; it warms them both and she cradles it carefully.
No. Never. She sees the silver trees as he does then, a forest of fire in the morning light. Says softly, yes ...
but.
"But?"
Shrugs again, shows him cold glass and still water. The nurseries were dark. I was lonely.
"It's your home."
It's not.
"It was."
It was never my home.
"You were born there!"
That can't be helped.
He stalks and paces, his anger prickling at her. Unbidden, it rises too in her, to meet him: anger, then sorrow and finally fear. Everything that he's lost, she could lose still and she wonders if he realises. It's a thing she's never looked for and even now thinks she doesn't want to know.
Doctor.
He is deliberately mute, shut to her. She waits. He paces. She calls him by an old, old name. He stills. Then:
"Explain it to me."
What?
"Tell me. Show me. I don't ... I don't understand."
Beneath the anger he is dark and tired and he reaches for her. She tells him, Remember when we met. It is not a question but a request. He nods, slips from his bed in the Academy and creeps to the great silent building on the edge of the Citadel:
He could feel them in there - had been told, taught, shown what they were going to be but wanted to know what is in there now, what they are now. It was hardly difficult for the boy to slip inside, to stand quiet and wondering at the great masses of them silent like waiting, like sleeping, growing in separate caverns of cold glass and still water. As far as he could tell they were nothing, yet, and he was disappointed to find them so quiet and closed. The boy turned to go.
And he heard, felt someone-something, small and awake among the great sleeping masses, ask him: Wait.
"Where are you?"
Here.
"Who are you?"
Who are you?
("Why were you awake?" So many years later it occurs to him to ask. Again she shrugs, a gentle pull. I was always awake.)
He went back. Again and again the boy went back and they sat and waited together, awake, as they learned slowly enough how they would speak to each other. He showed her the burning skies and the silver-bright trees. He showed her what they had shown him, had made him see - what she had been made in order to see. It pushed at them, and it pulled against them both.
The boy grew.
She grew.
Until the pull and the push and the boy came to her now a young man, a young Time Lord with a new name; and when she asked he answered: "Yes, it's time to go." And they ran.
"You were waiting for me." She nods, the barest pressure against him. He considers this. "Why?"
Could it have been different? She sighs. Doctor: tell me about Gallifrey. It comes to her at once so fast and only by ten lifetimes of this can she understand it:
thought heart light terrible family hurt love duty home life
Now shall I tell you? He nods.
quiet empty wait
He feels then also Thought. Heart. Light. terrible and is about to say it, "Aha, you see - " family hurt love duty "But -" home life
doctor
The two are silent then, breathing in space, together. A warm breeze plays across the red-grass plains and falls still. He says, so quietly: "Yes."
Yes?
"Yes. It's time to go."
Prompt: #27 - Children
Rating: U / G
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: None
Notes: This happened as I was idly wondering, Hey, how did the Doctor and the TARDIS actually, you know, meet? Though I did try to stick with canon there are obviously embellishments, and despite my stern fact-checking it's bound to conflict with something somewhere (likely in the novels); and if so, well, apologies.
• Thanks to Kimchi the betagoddess (even though she's no damn help with titles).
• Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (Prompts are here.) and x-posted to dwfiction.
"It's trustworthy and watertight and she's my oldest friend in the world." - 8th Doctor, 'The Stones of Venice'
Seedbed
He has been dreaming lately: of silver-bright trees and a burnt-orange sky, of sighing red grasses and a copper moon shining over mountains of snow. Asleep and awake he travels the roads from the Citadel, sees endless in the distance the Continent of Wild Endeavour; and quietly he mourns.
You know, she tells him one day - gently: she has considered these words for so long - I didn't like it all that much.
He is roused from a recollection of spires of golden stone. He blinks. "What?"
Oh it was beautiful, of course, but - he feels her shrug gently, a soft pull in his mind - I never really liked it there.
"Are you - what, you're happy it's gone?" His sudden anger is like electricity; it warms them both and she cradles it carefully.
No. Never. She sees the silver trees as he does then, a forest of fire in the morning light. Says softly, yes ...
but.
"But?"
Shrugs again, shows him cold glass and still water. The nurseries were dark. I was lonely.
"It's your home."
It's not.
"It was."
It was never my home.
"You were born there!"
That can't be helped.
He stalks and paces, his anger prickling at her. Unbidden, it rises too in her, to meet him: anger, then sorrow and finally fear. Everything that he's lost, she could lose still and she wonders if he realises. It's a thing she's never looked for and even now thinks she doesn't want to know.
Doctor.
He is deliberately mute, shut to her. She waits. He paces. She calls him by an old, old name. He stills. Then:
"Explain it to me."
What?
"Tell me. Show me. I don't ... I don't understand."
Beneath the anger he is dark and tired and he reaches for her. She tells him, Remember when we met. It is not a question but a request. He nods, slips from his bed in the Academy and creeps to the great silent building on the edge of the Citadel:
He could feel them in there - had been told, taught, shown what they were going to be but wanted to know what is in there now, what they are now. It was hardly difficult for the boy to slip inside, to stand quiet and wondering at the great masses of them silent like waiting, like sleeping, growing in separate caverns of cold glass and still water. As far as he could tell they were nothing, yet, and he was disappointed to find them so quiet and closed. The boy turned to go.
And he heard, felt someone-something, small and awake among the great sleeping masses, ask him: Wait.
"Where are you?"
Here.
"Who are you?"
Who are you?
("Why were you awake?" So many years later it occurs to him to ask. Again she shrugs, a gentle pull. I was always awake.)
He went back. Again and again the boy went back and they sat and waited together, awake, as they learned slowly enough how they would speak to each other. He showed her the burning skies and the silver-bright trees. He showed her what they had shown him, had made him see - what she had been made in order to see. It pushed at them, and it pulled against them both.
The boy grew.
She grew.
Until the pull and the push and the boy came to her now a young man, a young Time Lord with a new name; and when she asked he answered: "Yes, it's time to go." And they ran.
"You were waiting for me." She nods, the barest pressure against him. He considers this. "Why?"
Could it have been different? She sighs. Doctor: tell me about Gallifrey. It comes to her at once so fast and only by ten lifetimes of this can she understand it:
thought heart light terrible family hurt love duty home life
Now shall I tell you? He nods.
quiet empty wait
He feels then also Thought. Heart. Light. terrible and is about to say it, "Aha, you see - " family hurt love duty "But -" home life
doctor
The two are silent then, breathing in space, together. A warm breeze plays across the red-grass plains and falls still. He says, so quietly: "Yes."
Yes?
"Yes. It's time to go."