A/N- Written for Arien for Public Call: Doctor Who Fic Exchange on LiveJournal. I liked most of the suggested relationships, so decided to spend a bit of time exploring those, then spent the other part on... well... you'll see. Title from Dylan Thomas.
Please Review.
The Doctor awoke with a gasp on the ground.
"Martha!" he called, standing up and searching for her.
"I'm here," she answered.
"What d'you want to be all the way over there for?" he asked.
"I... don't know," she replied with a confused look on her face.
"Well come over here and help me look for the... TARDIS..." he trailed off, his face crinkling in confusion as he blinked, looking around. He noted the force-field enclosed landscape encircling them.
"Doctor," Martha enquired tentatively, "where are we?"
"It's," he began, "I'm not sure..." his voice was hesitant; then his cheeky smile appeared and he grabbed Martha's hand, "but isn't that just-"
"Fantastic," she finished for him with a smile playing at her lips and a shake of her head, following him down a small hill. "But how'd we get here? Where's the TARDIS?"
"Look, if you're going to keep asking questions to which I don't have the answer, you can just shut it," he commanded with a tone of finality.
"Or, you could just make up the answer, it's what you usually do," she muttered as she ran behind him.
"Oi! I 'eard that," he shouted back, indignant.
She ignored his pouting, coming up beside him as she looked over the confined landscape with him again.
"So if you don't know, what are we doing now, then?" she queried carefully as he began poking around at the extremely large force field.
"Well, whatever brought us here wanted us for a reason. Or, more specifically, wanted me for a reason. So they must have left clues somewhere as to why. We'll find the TARDIS and she'll have some answers for us."
"Don't think too much of yourself do you?" she ribbed.
"I'm just saying what we were both thinking," he replied nonchalantly, not facing her as she found her own border to explore.
"Oh yeah, well what if I said I wasn't half as impressed with you as you wanted me to be, what then?"
The Doctor paused, standing up and walking back slowly toward where Martha was before he stood in front of her, catching and maintaining her gaze. He stared into her eyes, searching for a long moment before leaning forward slowly. Her breath hitched as he breathed out near her cheek, "I'd say that you're blushing and that I can hear your heart speeding up, Martha Jones," then he stepped back with that infuriating grin and turned around again.
She stood frozen for just a moment, then let out a breath she'd not realised she'd been holding and looked down, composing herself before resuming her search of the surrounding area.
"It would never work between us, you know," she weakly replied at last, keeping her voice as casual as she could, crouching as she literally looked under a rock near the edge.
"What wouldn't?" asked the Doctor, adjusting his leather jacket before sonicking at who knows what by a part of the "wall" not far off.
"You and me," she elaborated. "I mean- you're who knows how old, alien, and an adrenaline junkie. I'm just a normal human being who's training to be a doctor. Not to mention what my family would say."
The Doctor poked his head up from his screwdriver, looking subtly back at her.
"You know what your problem is, Martha?" he asked at last.
"Other than being stuck on an unknown planet in an unknown time in an alien prison with a smug alien prisoner?" she answered with a dry, small smile.
"Confidence," he explained firmly, ignoring her comment.
"What?" she stood up and fixed him with a sceptical look.
"Confidence," he repeated, sonicking the path in front of him now.
"Doctor," she said, crossing her arms as she glared at him. "I really don't think I need any more-"
He continued as though she hadn't interrupted as he approached the cliff edge. "You let your family walk all over you– solving their problems for them, and then you run away with a strange alien bloke knowing you may have feelings for me– and don't deny it, we've just established that you do– all the while comparing your measly human capabilities with my superior Time Lord ones, when really, if you just stopped doing that you'd see you're quite all right on your own. Your family turn to you because they can and you're not second best to anyone. Not even me. You're brilliant, Martha Jones." He was still just on the cliff edge, sonicking into the deep ravine and frowning at his findings.
She gave him a conflicted look before her face suddenly turned down into a very decisive frown.
"Hang on, what do you mean 'second best'?"
"Oh, you would focus on that out of everything I just said," he moaned with a roll of his eyes, "I mean you're always comparing yourself."
"I'm not either," she maintained, twisting in front of him to stare him straight in the eye. "Doctor-"
Suddenly, a light, brighter than the meagre sunlight around them, flashed long and relentless from below the cliff's edge. The Doctor grabbed Martha, cradling her in a protective embrace as he turned his back to the cliff, shielding both of their faces. It was too bright to look down, but he thought he heard very low, ethereal voices coming from the light. "Do this... Please... Run... Let me... Dying... Please... Loved... No one... Proud... Another way." Something about the voices gave him pause, and he blinked again, grip tightening briefly on Martha as a non-memory flitted through his mind, making him step even closer to the edge.
"Doctor!" shouted Martha, using their embrace to pull him back toward her, away from the sirens' call of the light.
"Got it!" yelled the Doctor, turning away from the cliff and back toward Martha, looking as though he hadn't been about to jump as he grabbed her hand and began walking away from the cliff. "That's it; come one, Martha, no point standing round here uselessly. Let's see what our friendly captors want."
"Doctor, what did you mean second best?"
"Do we really have to discuss this now? We're in the middle of some very mysterious imprisonment here, can we talk about this later?" he asked, looking up and suddenly thinking that off in the distance he vaguely saw someone dressed nearly identical to him– their long, dark hair held up in a ponytail. Then he shook his head, shoving the nebulous image to the back of his mind to nitpick later.
"Sure, seeing as you're the one who brought it up. Always comparing me to others."
"Oh there you go again with all those human emotions. I really am getting sick of them. Always willing to take your eyes off the big picture to have a domestic. Well, this is me, not having it. I'm going to figure out what's going on, get us out of here, and we can go off again. Find you a nice little shop and we'll buy a great big box for all your insecurities."
They walked around a bit until they found themselves coming up on the edge of the cliff once more, and he shook his head as he looked about them.
"Something's wrong," he said, suddenly losing all playful teasing in his voice.
"What is?" asked Martha.
"This- this whole place. You- something's definitely off about it. I can't believe I didn't see it before."
"Oh, so now I'm the problem?"
"More like a symptom. We don't fight like this, you and me. We don't even talk like this. You always focus on the bigger problem. Wait, how do I know that? I... you and me, we're wrong. Something's going on." Martha made to protest, but he cut her off, continuing, "And this cliff, why do we keep coming back to it?" he asked, watching the bright light go off again, the voices still coming from it, "All of that... Too much... I'm sorry... You and me... No warning... Everybody knows...All yours... Please...Tell her... I'm late."
He waited, searching hopefully into the light before it flashed again, so bright it blocked out everything else. Again, confusion passed the Doctor's face, as he mentally grasped for something just out of reach.
"We should go," he said at last, face dark and voice final, but he made no move to pull away this time, expression agonised as he closed his eyes, letting the intense intimacy of the voices lure him closer back to the edge.
"You know what's wrong, Doctor? You've never been able to see anyone else but yourself," he vaguely heard Martha accuse, but that's wrong he thought, Martha doesn't say that, and he dully observed that Martha didn't move to save him this time. Then he stepped back completely, suddenly plunging over the cliff and reaching desperately for those somehow comforting, far-away voices and for that all-encompassing, all-too familiar light.
"Hush now..." was all he heard around him as he fell.
The Doctor looked around him, tongue out slightly as he sonicked a giant tree-structure.
"And what is the point of this, then?"
"I told you, didn't I already tell you, Amelia Pond, yes, something's gone wrong around us. I'm simply trying to figure out what it is."
"By sonicking a tree? I thought it didn't do wood." She crossed her arms, raising one eyebrow pointedly at his screwdriver.
"Oi, it... can do," he argued defeatedly, slapping the sonic on his hand a few times, "And I'll have you know trees are the go-to building blocks of most civilisations in the universe. I knew a tree once. Fancied me," he said, smiling in remembrance.
"Did you fancy it back?"
"That's," he cleared his throat, "that's not the point. Besides, she was both insightful and understanding."
"Ooh, so it was that sort of tree?" she teased, poking her face between him and his sonic.
"Too bad I'm not that sort of man," he claimed as he raised his eyebrows in warning.
"And what sort of man are you, Doctor?" she asked, quickly pinning him against the large trunk/ support beam after he'd gotten up.
"The sort of man who says we don't have time for this, we need to figure out what's happening." And with that, he grabbed her shoulders, extending his elbows so she stood back away from him.
"Oh, just like a man. Unable to multi-task." She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in a pout.
"I'll have you know I'm a fabulous multi-tasker. Excellent multi-tasker, that's me. It's just there are tasks, and there are tasks."
"So is that what I am then? A task?"
"You are a distraction, Amelia Pond, and not saying that you're not a lovely distraction, but I really have to get this done."
"Doctor," she replied, looking off into the distance.
"Not now," he said, rooting around on the ground.
"No, but seriously, Doctor- who's that?" she pointed to a vague figure far away from them, familiar and strange all at the same time, his body and mind drawn even as a small, instinctual voice inside of him said you can't.
"I don't... someone I knew once... will know... or perhaps never knew at all," he said absently, still staring at the figure, his eyes distant and sad.
"What?" she asked, turning to him for clarification.
"Nothing," he inhaled, turning back to his task. "Welll, probably nothing- wellll, something, but not something we have time for right now. Got to figure out what's wrong with this place first. Should probably find the TARDIS or something," he muttered to himself.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we're in a multi-level city complex made out of trees and full of everyday supplies and transportation and everything else a thriving metropolis would use day to day."
"Yeah, so?"
"So- why isn't anyone else here?" he asked, raising his eyebrows, mouth widening into a smug smile as he watched her make the realisation.
"That's- well, that's just- hang on, isn't that someone there?" Amy asked, pointing to a semi-transparent figure in the distance. "Are they wearing a- is that a cape?" she asked, incredulous.
"Oh, don't be so narrow-minded, Amy. I myself wore a cloak like that once. Different face, but still." He sniffed, trying to get a better look at the far-off figure.
"It looks like they know each other," Amy pointed out, noting that the vague figure from before seemed to be... gesturing to the cloaked figure.
"Yes... And it would be rude not to introduce ourselves," he said, getting up and beginning to run over to them.
"Since when do you care about being rude?" asked Amy, starting after him.
"Allons-y Amelia!" he said, taking off at a run. Then he paused, eyes wide in confusion. "Never said that before. Wait, oh! Ooooh! I'm thick! Why have I never said that to you before?" he asked, turning fully toward Amy, his coat billowing behind him.
"Doctor-" she started, eyes bemused as she opened her mouth to continue. He put a finger clumsily to her lips. "Shut up, hang on, no, wait-" he turned around, looking for the figures again, only to realise the second one was gone. "wait. It's not you, Amelia. It's never been you. Welll, not like this." He gestured between them vaguely. "Not with us. No! Yes. Us, but not us. No, I don't... not with you, it's always been-" then his eyes widened in recognition, infinitely bright yet wistful, seeking out the second figure again. "Wait!" he called, turning away from Amy as he ran as fast as he could toward what seemed to be a very bright light.
Suddenly, the figure turned towards him, eyes sad and heartbroken as one corner of the very familiar mouth lifted in a regretful smile. It reached out a hand toward him, and the Doctor reached back instinctively.
"No, no, no!" he said, running harder still, hands grasping helplessly for the figure, not noticing the end of the large branch-street they'd been on, and he stepped off, falling powerlessly into the blinding bright light, arms still outstretched toward the figure.
"Doctor!"
"Keep going, Pond, keep going away from the stabby-impaley thingies."
"I told you not to make them angry, Doctor!"
"Yes, yes, you may have been right about that, dear, no need to point it out," he said, holding River's hand tightly as he reached back for Amy. "Now come on- no telling how long it'll take for deadly pointy light beams to find us-"
"Whoaaaa!" they shouted, as suddenly the mountaintop they'd been on gave way to a steep slide, hurling them down the mountainside.
"Oomph!" they landed with a huff, River on top of the Doctor.
"Hello, Sweetie," she purred, smiling down at him. He flailed, hands on her hips as he tried unsuccessfully to get her off him. "Where's Amy?" she asked, looking around.
"Down. Here!" shouted a very angry Scot.
"Oh!" said River, clasping her arms and legs tightly around the Doctor, rolling him off of Amy.
Amy coughed, indignant.
"Can't you two find somewhere more private for these moments?"
The Doctor hastily got off of River, tugging his bowtie and clearing his throat, even as she stayed smirking on the floor.
"Moments! There was no moment there, Pond, we don't have moments."
She rolled her eyes at him, and crossed her arms, turning back to River.
"Never mind. Obviously you have to take what you can get," she commented dryly.
"Don't be so quick to dismiss him, dear," said River fondly, accepting Amy's helping hand up even as the Doctor continued dusting himself off, back to both women. "We've had more than a few... moments in my time."
"Yes, yes, can't all this gossip wait until we're not in the middle of a dangerous, deadly mystery?"
"If we waited for that, we'd never have a chance to gossip at all, Doctor," River pointed out as she and Amy exchanged matching grins.
Suddenly the Doctor stood up, his eyes wide as he turned his head side to side, sticking a finger in his mouth before pointing it upright. Then he started sniffing around, before walking off in a seemingly random direction.
"Where are you going?" Amy asked, as she and River followed behind him.
"Off," he responded absentmindedly.
"What's off?" asked River, still trying to keep up with him.
"Everything," he replied, stalking away without a glance back. Then he grabbed River's hand and held it fiercely in his, pulling her along as Amy hurried just behind them.
"What- what do you mean, Doctor?"
He ignored her, instead saying, "You two, you're too chummy. I don't like it." He pouted, still looking around as though trying to spot... something.
"Jealous, my love?" River teased, one corner of her mouth lifting into a delighted smirk, even as she and Amy shared a look.
"Well, I'm about to be impressive and you two are over there concentrating on... moments," he said, blushing slightly, turning his head back and forth before abruptly changing direction again.
"Sorry, Sweetie. We'll make sure every ounce of our concentration is focused on you. Would that make you happy?" She pulled, stopping him briefly in his tracks, forcing him to look down at her. He stared into her eyes, hearts clenching for reasons he couldn't understand, pulling back as she began reaching out to cup his cheek.
"Yes, yes it would," he agreed, making sure Amy was paying attention to his potential brilliance as well, again tugging River along as they walked through the trees.
"It's not... here," he said, face a mixture of pure relief and confusion.
"What's not, Doctor?"
"What were we looking for?" Amy asked, his expression making her nervous as she glanced around.
"I don't... know," he replied absently, staring out into the distance, searching for something. "But it's always around, it always finds me, no matter where I go or who I'm with. And it's gone."
"What is?"
"It's there, just beyond the light, Pond. Always just beyond..." he continued, and neither woman was sure he knew what he was saying.
"Well, it's not here," declared Amy with finality, breaking up whatever trance the Doctor was in, "so we don't have to worry about it." The Doctor blinked owlishly, staring at River and Amy's worried faces before nodding reluctantly, his expression clearing as he gave them a small grin, his grip tightening even more in River's as he brought her hand to his lips for a brief kiss before he dropped it, heading off confidently in the direction Amy was now leading. "We just have to find the TARDIS, and then we can leav-"
They came to an abrupt stop as the Doctor halted in his tracks, eyes closing and expression of such pain crossing his face that it gave them all pause.
"Doctor?" River ventured, laying a hand on his shoulder.
"There it is, there it always is. The TARDIS is always missing, we never find her, no matter how hard we look, she's always just out of reach. And I'm always too late- it's always too late to save us bo-" then he looked up, face a relieved, heartbroken, teary smirk as he watched River frantically and instinctually push Amy toward him while her own body was quickly encompassed in light, and he was unsurprised to see a shadow of what might have been his TARDIS fading in and out of his memory, nothing more than a dream.
River's face twisted as she was caught off-guard, her eyes never leaving his as the light wrapped around her like unforgiving arms, pulling her away from him, even as she reached out desperately, fighting to take his hand once more.
He shook his head sadly, cupping her face, eyes closing in resignation.
"No, don't, my River. You don't belong here anymore," he said softly, and she screamed in frustration at him, fighting the pull even harder. He leaned toward her, ignoring the light and her struggle and gently took her face between his hands, placing a kiss on the corner of her mouth, before repeating the words of long-ago. "Wife, I have a request..."
"Sweetie, please-" she shook her head frantically, tears running down her face.
"We ran, River. You and me. Time and space. I watched us run," then he grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her back, closing his eyes as the light engulfed River, already knowing it would take her and that he would always be on the wrong side.
"Doctor, what's happening?!" asked Amy behind him, shouting as she tried to move toward River, arms grasping for her, but the Doctor kept her back.
The light grew brighter and brighter, encompassing River, who was still desperately grabbing for the Doctor's hand. The Doctor spoke lovingly into the light, his voice slowly changing from the young, familiar voice of this body into a gruffer, more Scottish voice, "You are always here to me, River. And I always listen. And see, River. I learned how to say it..."
She gave her Doctor one final, heartbroken smile, still reaching for him, before she was swallowed up at last, a bright light surrounding a familiar condemning chair and disembodied whispers full of memories all she left in her wake, the world around the Doctor disappearing as well.
"See, River, I told you I'd do it," said the Doctor in a determined voice, eyes closed firmly as he made his case again. "I said I don't care what I had to do or how long it took to do it," he argued in his halting, Scottish cadence– expression smug as he made his point.
A hand reached up, gently caressing the Doctor's face and wiping the tears that may or may not have fallen.
"So, is he stuck in a Library, or is he here?" asked Osgood again, staring at the Doctor's older visage as she came up next to River.
River gave her a sad smile, still lovingly stroking the Doctor's cheek.
"He came for me, just like he always does, determined to rewrite time. He went back, my beautiful madman, wired himself into the same chair with the help of the TARDIS and started the download, trying to save me. But the transfer went wrong. He got me out, traded his life for mine– but it was too much, rewriting a body that no longer existed at all. He went in, like he'd planned, but he couldn't get back out again."
"But- did he know that could happen?" Osgood asked, adjusting her (some might call it hideous) multi-coloured coat around her as she analysed the data once more. "I mean, won't he realise he's in there and find a way out again?"
River shrugged wearily, still staring with a sad, yearning expression at the half-living statue before her, a piece that once belonged in the 51st Century and now all she had left of that fateful Library where she once died, and lived.
"Too much damage to the hard drive. There might have been a way if he were still whole, but he was too much for CAL to handle- all those bodies and lives and years. Even with the TARDIS' help, taking me out with him still inside was too much– it overloaded the system, and destroyed the Library... and the beautiful young girl who once embodied it." Her eyes filled with regret as she took a deep breath and continued.
"The TARDIS saved me and part of the Doctor, but she- she couldn't complete the transfer before Charlotte... Part of the Doctor is alive, but now all he has are disjointed memories, moments that never happened with people he may or may not have met. I think he sees us, sometimes, but it's never- it's not the same. We're like mirages, ghosts to him- he doesn't see this world anymore, but he's always searching, and sometimes he sees... shadows of it." She let out a humourless laugh at the irony. "I uploaded UNIT's information on certain companions into what was left of the core, and I also linked our diary, so he'll always have whispers of the two of us; always a mystery to solve. It was all I was able to give him. Echoes, so he wouldn't be alone." Her voice was pained, and her dry eyes too full of grief to cry as she comforted a face that couldn't see her. "My Doctor. Running with absolutely nowhere to go."
"So why bring him here? Why not just leave him in TARDIS or something?"
"She was too damaged from the connection, it was hard enough getting us here." She turned to stroke a loving hand down the now-lifeless box behind her. "For millennia they'd always had each other– always a constant even when one was broken. She refused to run without her thief. And Earth was his second home. The place he always ended up, eventually. If I can't change what happened, I can give him this. He promised he wouldn't change one line. He didn't warn me not changing them could be worse."
"What do you mean?" asked Osgood tentatively, optimistically trying to catch the "Doctor's" gaze as she looked hopefully into now-unseeing eyes, despite knowing he'd gone farther than anyone could ever hope to reach him.
"He made sure I got his regeneration energy during the transfer. I will live forever, and so will he. But we will never be together again," River continued, grief-stricken, as she stood up on her tiptoes, pressing a tragic kiss to the corner of the Doctor's mouth.
At the pain in River's voice, Osgood turned and walked out of the room, allowing the near-immortal to mourn the times that would never come, guarding her broken Doctor– bound for all time in a prison of damaged reality and shattered dreams, never to escape. An eternity of heartbreak to come for each.