#round of the shipbracket starts I fear) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

capybaraonabicycle · 1 year

Text

@thebadtimewolf: Thank you so much for voting Doctor/TARDIS in @drwho-shipbracket 's tournament!! You didn't send me a preferred Doctor, but you wrote 🖋 in the tags. So I figured you would appreciate a short story nevertheless. I decided to write you something for my second favourite Doctor and her TARDIS. I hope you like it :) (It's a quite angsty and it's about grief, so be mindful about that and stay safe ❤)

Everyone, go vote for Doctor/TARDIS again in the current round!!

The moment her other self has left the TARDIS, the door softly clicking behind her, it all starts to sink in. Lee is dead. Gat is dead. She doesn’t know where Karvanista is, he might as well be dead. The Division is still on her trail and they won’t give up soon. She’s a fugitive, hunted. And she won’t remember her past later on. It is likely that that's because, at a certain point, the Division will succeed in bringing her back.

There is a little hope in the fact that her older self didn’t seem to be working for them anymore. But it is a small comfort when she realises, she will forget them anyway. Lee, Gat, Karvanista. It seems impossible now with the memories clear and bright, returned to her mind. But she knows, with Division, nothing is impossible. She wouldn't put it past them to just make her forget everything when they catch her. One thing is sure: Timelord technology and physiology are both easily capable of deleting memories. Everything in her revolts at the notion. They were her friends, her best friends! She can’t, she mustn’t forget them!

The TARDIS gives a concerned beep at her growing agitated or maybe she’s just warning her that they need to leave, lest they be caught by the Judoon after all. At this point in her timeline, the Doctor isn’t that in tune with her, struggles to understand the sentiments the ship is trying to communicate.

“I know, old girl” she grits out through her teeth, starting the engine. It is more difficult without Lee assisting, even more difficult without Gat on the other side, shouting corrections back and forth and arguing about how this particular ship is to be flown. She misses them.

A leaver moves of its own accord - the one Karvanista always used to pull a little too early. The Doctor’s mouth twitches fondly: the TARDIS is helping her.

They park under a beautiful red and purple nebula. The Doctor searches through the TARDIS rooms until she has found everything: An old shirt of Lee’s, Karvanista’s favourite tea cup and lighter fluid from the Kasaavin-realm, which can burn virtually anything. Together with Gat’s gun, her and the TARDIS have themselves a ceremony.

Sitting on the TARDIS threshold and watching the ashes of their possessions gently float through space, the Doctor mourns her lost companions. She is not one for goodbyes, usually, but the fear that she won’t have another chance drives her to honour them now. The idea that she will forget them, their names, their faces, what they meant to her, that she will even forget she forgot them, hurts so much she can barely cry. She still does, quietly, ignoring the tears running down her cheeks. The TARDIS hums out her mourning, long and low and the Doctor places a hand against the open door, providing comfort as much as searching for it.

“Maybe I am jealous of her” she dares to admit because the TARDIS is the only one hearing her and the TARDIS knows anyway.

How must it be for her, this older Doctor? Who is free, who doesn’t even know the horrors of the Division? Who is surrounded by her new friends? Does she know loss too? Does she know what it is like to feel imprisoned wherever you are? Or is her life just one endless tourist trip, showing off to humans by giving them the Universe?

You are her the TARDIS whispers in her mind or maybe she is just striking the chords of what the Doctor already knows. But is she? Can she ever be this other Doctor when she won’t remember? Won’t remember the Division, won’t remember her friends, won’t remember her life? What will be left of her when she reaches that point?

I will be there the TARDIS promises. And that is the biggest - her only - comfort right now. Because that other Doctor, she had recognised the TARDIS. She must at least remember her, even if they aren’t together anymore. So, there is some part of her that won’t be forgotten. Some part that is stored in her beautiful, magical blue box.

And even now, when everything else is falling apart and she has lost everyone she loves, the TARDIS is still there. They’re still together for the time being and they will fight tooth and claw not to let the Division rip them apart. The Doctor can only hope they’ll succeed.

The TARDIS can’t know the future, not really. It is too much in flux, too iridescent to grasp. But she knows her and the Doctor will find each other, again and again. Their timelines are interwoven too firmly for them to be separated.

And she knows this Doctor is not attuned to her enough yet, to fully understand her and she is too warped up in her grief anyway. But she still tries, as hard as she can, to make her see:

We will always be together. You and I, we’re for eternity.

#fugitive doctor #tardis #doctor x tardis #the tardis #division #fugitive doctor x tardis #doctor who

9 notes · View notes