Things Best Forgotten (Anji Kapoor, Fitz Kreiner, Eight)
Title: Things Best Forgotten
Author: glinda_penguin
Recipient: ionlylurkhere
Rating: 12
Character(s): Anji, Fitz, Eight
Warnings (if any): Spoilers for Earthworld only
Summary: Even things that never were leave their scar.
Notes: Written for ionlylurkhere challenge. Many thanks to livii for the much needed beta-ing.
The TARDIS is under attack. The light in its corridors swings from green to red without warning, though whether in tune with the Doctor’s moods or with the waves of attack is unclear. The order of events keeps changing, as though her memories are being shuffled like a pack of cards. It feels like some kind of strange dream, except that no matter how many times Anji goes to sleep, she still makes up within the dream. It feels like a nightmare; even worse, it feels like reality.
Sometimes, before, she would lie on her bed in the artificial night, desperately trying to let the hum of the engine soothe her sleep. The more she wanted or needed to sleep the less easily it seemed to come. Just on the cusp of sleep she would hear it, the faintest echo of a lullaby from her childhood. Whether the accompanying memory of her grandmother brought her a smile or a frown it always kept the rough edge of grief from dragging her back into wakefulness. In the quiet between attacks, she misses the small comfort as she searches in vain for sleep.
She catches Fitz in the library, talking to the ship, his voice low and rough, fears and stress burned away to leave a calm desperation in his words. Lying on the floor, with a copy of The Tale of Peter Rabbit inexplicably clutched to his chest. He looks up at her without a hint of embarrassment.
"It was easier to tell when Compassion was listening," he comments, obscurely, "what with the whole talking back thing."
She’s not sure what to say to that so she does the first thing that comes to mind: she sits down beside him. "Tell me all you know about Laura," she demands.
He stares at her for a long moment and she wonders if he’s going to ask where she got that name from; because honestly, she’d like to know too. He doesn’t though, just nods sharply and tells her about the girl who became a TARDIS. She doesn’t ask how it’s possible to miss someone you’ve never met; some things she doesn’t want answers to.
She seems to be living the same events over and again in dozens of different ways, until they all begin to blur together. She can’t bring herself to mind though, as they keep losing yet get to start over again. The Doctor appears to have no idea what she’s talking about and Fitz denies all knowledge in a decidedly shifty manner. He backs up the Doctor’s theory that she’s dreaming alternate realities as the TARDIS tries to negotiate their way out of this strange battle and into a stable reality. She’s fairly sure they’re right about the ship getting into their heads, and equally sure that Fitz is lying through his teeth.
She doesn’t call him on it until after the day that all she can recall about it is gold and fire. The fear comes off him in waves as she shouts at him, his denials pleading and desperate. She cannot let him off so easily, there is knowledge in her head that doesn’t belong there, and it is these stolen truths that finally bring his denials to an end. In the silence after she demands to know what the creatures are, and, stumbling, he tells her what he knows. It makes no sense, but little since she met the pair of them has. The idea that creatures could feed on other species’ sense of identity, gorge on their insecurities and grow fat on their spiral into crisis and madness, repels and baffles her. She focuses on what she can understand or at least rationalise. Neither of her two travelling companions - three if she counts the TARDIS, and it appears that she must - have much certainty about who they are, relying on each other to establish their own identities. She feels a distinct swell of a dark protective love for the Doctor and Fitz that is entirely alien to herself - and if she looks closer she can feel where it is beginning to be turned upon herself - and for a moment she shares the certainty that binds Fitz and the TARDIS together: the Doctor must not know. The TARDIS has been using Anji’s certainty of who she is as an anchor, allowing it to reset reality to keep trying different options to defeat the creatures. All have failed; just one last option remains.
The creatures tear into the TARDIS and it doesn’t fight them; it leaves them to Anji, trusting her with their safety. She stands alone in the console room, the heart of the TARDIS a reassuring presence a few feet behind her. The lead creature approaches and she barely flinches as it touches her cheek and climbs inside her head. She allows herself the briefest of smiles as she feels it run up against her certainty, her self-knowledge. The smile widens as it picks through all her doubts, fears and weaknesses, showing them to her as though she weren’t already intimately familiar with them. Whispering their soft lies and bitter truths about Dave’s death, only serving to strengthen her resolve, to reinforce her contempt for them. Is this, she wonders, the best they can do, with all their power? Haven’t they ever faced someone who knew in their heart who and what they truly were? Aloud she calls them cowards, challenges them to pick on someone their own size, and they do. The smile turns triumphant as she turns to the console, feeling the panels shift as she lays her hands upon them. There is gold and fire and victory in her heart; then darkness falls.
Anji wakes in her own bed, tired but oddly content. She catches herself humming a lullaby as she brushes her teeth and smiles at the memory of her grandmother singing out of tune in her mother’s kitchen. She wanders into the console room to find the Doctor and Fitz puzzling over some readings from the controls. She listens to the Doctor murmur on about them being under attack but the attack having been repelled only to never have happened. Watching for the moment when Fitz realises he’s been caught looking worried at the Doctor’s words and hides a smile at his attempts to hide it when he does. She’s suddenly quite sure she knew what Fitz is protecting the Doctor from, but the knowledge is gone as surely as their attackers, leaving only the certainty that he is right to do so.
“Even things that never were leave their scar,” she tells them.
The Doctor stares at her for a long moment before nodding and setting the TARDIS back into flight.
Author: glinda_penguin
Recipient: ionlylurkhere
Rating: 12
Character(s): Anji, Fitz, Eight
Warnings (if any): Spoilers for Earthworld only
Summary: Even things that never were leave their scar.
Notes: Written for ionlylurkhere challenge. Many thanks to livii for the much needed beta-ing.
The TARDIS is under attack. The light in its corridors swings from green to red without warning, though whether in tune with the Doctor’s moods or with the waves of attack is unclear. The order of events keeps changing, as though her memories are being shuffled like a pack of cards. It feels like some kind of strange dream, except that no matter how many times Anji goes to sleep, she still makes up within the dream. It feels like a nightmare; even worse, it feels like reality.
Sometimes, before, she would lie on her bed in the artificial night, desperately trying to let the hum of the engine soothe her sleep. The more she wanted or needed to sleep the less easily it seemed to come. Just on the cusp of sleep she would hear it, the faintest echo of a lullaby from her childhood. Whether the accompanying memory of her grandmother brought her a smile or a frown it always kept the rough edge of grief from dragging her back into wakefulness. In the quiet between attacks, she misses the small comfort as she searches in vain for sleep.
She catches Fitz in the library, talking to the ship, his voice low and rough, fears and stress burned away to leave a calm desperation in his words. Lying on the floor, with a copy of The Tale of Peter Rabbit inexplicably clutched to his chest. He looks up at her without a hint of embarrassment.
"It was easier to tell when Compassion was listening," he comments, obscurely, "what with the whole talking back thing."
She’s not sure what to say to that so she does the first thing that comes to mind: she sits down beside him. "Tell me all you know about Laura," she demands.
He stares at her for a long moment and she wonders if he’s going to ask where she got that name from; because honestly, she’d like to know too. He doesn’t though, just nods sharply and tells her about the girl who became a TARDIS. She doesn’t ask how it’s possible to miss someone you’ve never met; some things she doesn’t want answers to.
She seems to be living the same events over and again in dozens of different ways, until they all begin to blur together. She can’t bring herself to mind though, as they keep losing yet get to start over again. The Doctor appears to have no idea what she’s talking about and Fitz denies all knowledge in a decidedly shifty manner. He backs up the Doctor’s theory that she’s dreaming alternate realities as the TARDIS tries to negotiate their way out of this strange battle and into a stable reality. She’s fairly sure they’re right about the ship getting into their heads, and equally sure that Fitz is lying through his teeth.
She doesn’t call him on it until after the day that all she can recall about it is gold and fire. The fear comes off him in waves as she shouts at him, his denials pleading and desperate. She cannot let him off so easily, there is knowledge in her head that doesn’t belong there, and it is these stolen truths that finally bring his denials to an end. In the silence after she demands to know what the creatures are, and, stumbling, he tells her what he knows. It makes no sense, but little since she met the pair of them has. The idea that creatures could feed on other species’ sense of identity, gorge on their insecurities and grow fat on their spiral into crisis and madness, repels and baffles her. She focuses on what she can understand or at least rationalise. Neither of her two travelling companions - three if she counts the TARDIS, and it appears that she must - have much certainty about who they are, relying on each other to establish their own identities. She feels a distinct swell of a dark protective love for the Doctor and Fitz that is entirely alien to herself - and if she looks closer she can feel where it is beginning to be turned upon herself - and for a moment she shares the certainty that binds Fitz and the TARDIS together: the Doctor must not know. The TARDIS has been using Anji’s certainty of who she is as an anchor, allowing it to reset reality to keep trying different options to defeat the creatures. All have failed; just one last option remains.
The creatures tear into the TARDIS and it doesn’t fight them; it leaves them to Anji, trusting her with their safety. She stands alone in the console room, the heart of the TARDIS a reassuring presence a few feet behind her. The lead creature approaches and she barely flinches as it touches her cheek and climbs inside her head. She allows herself the briefest of smiles as she feels it run up against her certainty, her self-knowledge. The smile widens as it picks through all her doubts, fears and weaknesses, showing them to her as though she weren’t already intimately familiar with them. Whispering their soft lies and bitter truths about Dave’s death, only serving to strengthen her resolve, to reinforce her contempt for them. Is this, she wonders, the best they can do, with all their power? Haven’t they ever faced someone who knew in their heart who and what they truly were? Aloud she calls them cowards, challenges them to pick on someone their own size, and they do. The smile turns triumphant as she turns to the console, feeling the panels shift as she lays her hands upon them. There is gold and fire and victory in her heart; then darkness falls.
Anji wakes in her own bed, tired but oddly content. She catches herself humming a lullaby as she brushes her teeth and smiles at the memory of her grandmother singing out of tune in her mother’s kitchen. She wanders into the console room to find the Doctor and Fitz puzzling over some readings from the controls. She listens to the Doctor murmur on about them being under attack but the attack having been repelled only to never have happened. Watching for the moment when Fitz realises he’s been caught looking worried at the Doctor’s words and hides a smile at his attempts to hide it when he does. She’s suddenly quite sure she knew what Fitz is protecting the Doctor from, but the knowledge is gone as surely as their attackers, leaving only the certainty that he is right to do so.
“Even things that never were leave their scar,” she tells them.
The Doctor stares at her for a long moment before nodding and setting the TARDIS back into flight.