To the Clouds
Rating: PG
Prompt: #052 - Fire
Claim: The Time War
Table: Here
Spoilers: None
Characters/Pairing: Romana/Doctor (9)
Summary: He is holding her when the end comes.
He is holding her when the end comes.
She is lying on the ground, on the cold, hard earth, and her head is cradled in his lap, and she’s reaching up to touch his face - his new, unfamiliar face. What remains of her fingers is running over his cheek, smearing blood all over his skin. The pattern is fascinating. Her eyes linger.
Under the burning sky she’s thinking thoughts she shouldn’t think at a moment like this and knows it’s death that’s clouding her mind. It won’t take long now. Her body is destroyed, torn to pieces, and she can feel herself getting weaker with every second, every listless movement. It is too late to regenerate. She could have done it but chose not to - this is the end and she doesn’t want to miss it in the confusion of becoming something new, doesn’t want to feel strong again and maybe suffer a brief moment of foolish hope.
He has regenerated, has left her with one face and returned with another. Gazing into his eyes, already suffering from so much age, she smiles and thinks of all the times she has hated him a little more than she loved him. It seems silly now, childish. Lying broken on the ground of her burning planet it is so easy to forgive.
He says nothing, and that’s good. She doesn’t want him to apologize.
His clothes are torn but all the blood on him is hers. She doesn’t know how he died and realises that she doesn’t care. All that matters is that he’s still here. That he’s with her, now, while she’s bleeding into the soil of her dying world. Her strength fades quickly and her hand sinks down, away from his face. Comes to rest on her chest.
“Kiss me!” she demands and he does, his lips touching hers gently, for the time it takes her to blink twice. The kiss is upside down, his nose almost touching her chin, her nose almost touching his. There is no comfort in it but neither does it hurt. She wants it to last, wants to do it again but doesn’t ask. It’s just one more thing she has to let go of.
If he was crying she would hate him, she thinks as he leans back, but he isn’t.
“A kiss before dying,” she says, and giggles a little, feeling like a child.
It’s raining ash.
Breathing is getting harder but she isn’t yet ready to go.
“Will you tell me your name?” she asks, simply to see him shake his head and hear him say:
“It must never be spoken.” She doesn’t know why it makes her smile.
“You have to go,” she tells him and this time his reaction is not wanted, if expected.
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“You have to. Don’t take me with you. I’m dying and even if I wasn’t I’d be gone once my world is dead. Let my die with it.”
“It’s my world as well.”
She is aware of that.
“You have to live.” There is a quiet anger in his eyes when she says it and she knows he doesn’t see the point. “You’re the only one who can.”
“What for?” he wants to know. “In one hour we will be extinct and my existence wouldn’t change anything. I can postpone the end. I can’t prevent it.”
“Then postpone it,” she tells him. “Keep us alive as long as you can. Keep us from being forgotten.”
The pain in his eyes tells her she’s won this last battle and she wonders what it matters when they both have so ultimately lost the war. Still the knowledge that he will remain after everything is gone gives her the consolation the kiss didn’t. It lessens the impression of finality and the lingering feeling that everything has been in vain.
The ground is shaking now. Not much longer and the planet will be torn apart from the inside and maybe the last thing she sees will be fire. She hopes she can last long enough to witness the end.
Already she can hear the thunder.
His touch is gentle when he lowers her head to the ground but she hardly feels it. Neither of them says goodbye.
His TARDIS is close but the way she is lying she cannot watch him go without turning her head. So she stares up at the burning clouds instead, until the ash she can’t move to wipe from her eyes leaves her blind and the darkness consumes her.
April 25, 2008
Prompt: #052 - Fire
Claim: The Time War
Table: Here
Spoilers: None
Characters/Pairing: Romana/Doctor (9)
Summary: He is holding her when the end comes.
He is holding her when the end comes.
She is lying on the ground, on the cold, hard earth, and her head is cradled in his lap, and she’s reaching up to touch his face - his new, unfamiliar face. What remains of her fingers is running over his cheek, smearing blood all over his skin. The pattern is fascinating. Her eyes linger.
Under the burning sky she’s thinking thoughts she shouldn’t think at a moment like this and knows it’s death that’s clouding her mind. It won’t take long now. Her body is destroyed, torn to pieces, and she can feel herself getting weaker with every second, every listless movement. It is too late to regenerate. She could have done it but chose not to - this is the end and she doesn’t want to miss it in the confusion of becoming something new, doesn’t want to feel strong again and maybe suffer a brief moment of foolish hope.
He has regenerated, has left her with one face and returned with another. Gazing into his eyes, already suffering from so much age, she smiles and thinks of all the times she has hated him a little more than she loved him. It seems silly now, childish. Lying broken on the ground of her burning planet it is so easy to forgive.
He says nothing, and that’s good. She doesn’t want him to apologize.
His clothes are torn but all the blood on him is hers. She doesn’t know how he died and realises that she doesn’t care. All that matters is that he’s still here. That he’s with her, now, while she’s bleeding into the soil of her dying world. Her strength fades quickly and her hand sinks down, away from his face. Comes to rest on her chest.
“Kiss me!” she demands and he does, his lips touching hers gently, for the time it takes her to blink twice. The kiss is upside down, his nose almost touching her chin, her nose almost touching his. There is no comfort in it but neither does it hurt. She wants it to last, wants to do it again but doesn’t ask. It’s just one more thing she has to let go of.
If he was crying she would hate him, she thinks as he leans back, but he isn’t.
“A kiss before dying,” she says, and giggles a little, feeling like a child.
It’s raining ash.
Breathing is getting harder but she isn’t yet ready to go.
“Will you tell me your name?” she asks, simply to see him shake his head and hear him say:
“It must never be spoken.” She doesn’t know why it makes her smile.
“You have to go,” she tells him and this time his reaction is not wanted, if expected.
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“You have to. Don’t take me with you. I’m dying and even if I wasn’t I’d be gone once my world is dead. Let my die with it.”
“It’s my world as well.”
She is aware of that.
“You have to live.” There is a quiet anger in his eyes when she says it and she knows he doesn’t see the point. “You’re the only one who can.”
“What for?” he wants to know. “In one hour we will be extinct and my existence wouldn’t change anything. I can postpone the end. I can’t prevent it.”
“Then postpone it,” she tells him. “Keep us alive as long as you can. Keep us from being forgotten.”
The pain in his eyes tells her she’s won this last battle and she wonders what it matters when they both have so ultimately lost the war. Still the knowledge that he will remain after everything is gone gives her the consolation the kiss didn’t. It lessens the impression of finality and the lingering feeling that everything has been in vain.
The ground is shaking now. Not much longer and the planet will be torn apart from the inside and maybe the last thing she sees will be fire. She hopes she can last long enough to witness the end.
Already she can hear the thunder.
His touch is gentle when he lowers her head to the ground but she hardly feels it. Neither of them says goodbye.
His TARDIS is close but the way she is lying she cannot watch him go without turning her head. So she stares up at the burning clouds instead, until the ash she can’t move to wipe from her eyes leaves her blind and the darkness consumes her.
April 25, 2008