Life's Complexities ("Weather" entry)
Title: Life’s Complexities
Characters: Tallulah, Laszlo, Martha and the Doctor (mentioned)
Spoliers: “Daleks in Manhattan” and “Evolution of the Daleks”
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG
Setting: During Season 3 episodes 4 and 5
Summary: Some of the events of “Daleks in Manhattan” and “Evolution of the Daleks” from Tallulahs perspective.
Showbiz is hard. Tallulah had always known that. One day you’re all everyone can talk about, and the next you’re yesterdays trash. But she was born for the spotlight, and hard days wouldn’t stop her from achieving her dream.
Now, she slumped in her chair clinging to her one white rose she felt as if all her dreams had faded away.
She had been in love before, but it was nothing compared to what she had with Laszlo, or more like what she didn’t have now.
He had disappeared without a trace, with no goodbye, no nothing.
But everyday there was a rose on her dressing room table, just like the ones he used to give her.
All the pain she felt was hidden under a facade each night, each show. She smiled, she danced, but inside she was slowly fading away day by day. She stroked the flower petal allowing herself a moment of weakness before her next show.
*****
The darkened tunnel smelled more awful then she had imagined, but Martha and this Doctor fellow seemed to believe it was important. There was a movement in the shadows, a figure tried to move out of the way.
“Who’s there?” Her timid voice was swallowed up by the drowning noise of her own heartbeat.
“...Laszlo? Is that you?” Tallulah asked, even though she already knew the answer.
He stepped out of the shadow revealing his face. It was mutated, much different then before, almost pig like. He tried to push her away, convince her to leave him behind, but she didn’t care what Laszlo looked like, only that they were together.
As they embraced in a hug, she never wanted to let him out of her sight again.
*****
Rain slammed against the windows as the weather worsened, but the weather was the furthest thing from Tallulah’s mind.
She held Laszlo’s weak body close in her arms, refusing to let him go. Due to the experiments done to him, it had shortened his lifespan, he was dying.
Her Laszlo was dying.
She held him in her arms desperate to keep him safe.
As she rocked him back and forth all she wished was for time to still, and for them to be locked in place like this together forever.
*****
The Doctor and Martha had not only saved the world, but they had saved her world. They had saved Laszlo.
She smiled up at him, not even trying to hide the joy that was beaming off of her at seeing him standing there, healthy. He would try to hide his deformed face from her and world, butTallulah loved it.
She loved it because that was him now. He hadn’t changed, just his face, and she knew all about hiding behind a face. And one day she hoped she could get him to see himself the way she does.
If there was one thing that Tallulah had learned from the whole ideal was that Showbiz is hard. Relationships are hard. Life is hard...but it is worth it.