AN: Because Classic Who is awesome, and because I've posted a fic every day for the last three days, and I figured I might as well make it four. This is more of a scrap than an actual fic, but I felt like posting it anyway seeing as I don't think I'll continue it further. It's not as super−special−awesome as I would have liked, but have fun anyway!
Disclaimers: I don't own Doctor Who. Also, this contains a fair amount of spoilers for the 'Planet of the Giants' arc, so if you haven't watched it yet, you're reading at your own risk.
It starts with a handkerchief. Crisp and clean, bright and gloriously white. It rests in sharp creases against the lining of Ian's pocket, and it lounges warm against his thigh. If Barbara concentrates, she can almost see its outline there underneath all the fabric of his clothing.
But she's not concentrating, not in the slightest bit. Ian's taking a walk round the table, and seeds pile in her peripheral vision, ginormous seeds that threaten to swallow her whole. They loom and they jeer at her, and under the weak lights of the shack, they shimmer at her too.
She can't help it, really. Because they're an anomaly and she's always loved anomalies. It's like solving an equation− she doesn't know the variables, but if she thinks on it the letters will come to her. Or she can make up her own letters. Because she's a traveler now, and everything she touches will turn to gold or bronze or blood−stained clay, and it'll all either stay pieced together or fall apart between her fingers.
She clutches one measly old seed in one measly old hand.
And then the truth falls into place like asphalt labyrinths, dead bodies, the pockets of empty matchboxes and paperclip−stuffed briefcases. It's only then that the truth snaps itself into place.
There is poison in the seed.
It falls from her fingers, but far too late.
Come into my layer says the spider to the fly, and both the fly and Barbara are drawn to the enchantment. It takes a matter of seconds, but now she's entangled in a web from which she's never leaving. Because now she's all alone, a million times too small in a world a million times too large. Because Ian is exploring while she's stuck here with poisoned palms and the body of a fast−killed insect staring her straight in the face.
There is poison in the seed, and now there is poison in her as well.
She stops breathing for a second, and in that single heartbeat of time, she can feel the influence pounding in her blood. The insecticide burns deep within her, and she's terrified that it's never going to leave.
Ian rushes back, of course. She can't help but scream at that stupid fly, and he's a hero just waiting to emerge from his chrysalis, if only he'll get the proper opportunity. When she asks for his handkerchief, he hands it over with every gentleman's air. She scrubs at her skin as hard as she can, hoping−
needing−
to find that maybe she'll feel better. But no, when she holds the fabric in her hands, she feels a million times worse.
He asks her what's wrong, because her brows are furrowed and her shoulders are tense. He has that look on his face like he wants to reach over and smooth it all away, but she flies back from his touch like a frightened child. There's nothing wrong, she tells him. She feels fine.
But she doesn't really. Because on the inside, her blood boils with toxins.
Her secrets are dark as dead flies and glisten with insecticides. Tiny, tiny secrets, but they have the power to alter the fabric of space and time. Her fabric, at the very least. In this section of her life, her hands are stained with invisible poison, and so too is the sacredness of Ian's handkerchief, clean surface smothered by her filthy sins.
It ends with a handkerchief, crumpled and dirty, dull and perilously, dangerously, deceivingly white.