Cord of Life
AUTHORS NOTES: This was written because I despise the way they got rid of Sarah at the end of 'Hand of Fear'. It seemed callous and OOC for the Doctor to me. So here we are. DW copyright BBC, All lyrics Copyright Yes and Atlantic Records.
Changed only for a sight of sound, the space agreed.
Between the picture of time behind the face of need
Sarah wrapped herself miserably in the Doctors coat. Trying
desperately to get some warmth back into her chilled bones. She
shivered violently as she almost ran back into the relative
warmth of the TARDIS console room.
"I'll never be warm again," She complained, rubbing her
hands together, "Never, ever, ever."
"No, we're well out of that." He said, manipulating the
controls to send them back into hyperspace, glancing with some
relief at the monitor as Kastria disappeared from view.
"Goodbye Kastria." He murmured.
Sarah bunched her fists into her armpits, beginning to feel some
warmth come back into her body.
"Do...do you think he really is dead?" Sarah asked with
some concern. She had developed certain instincts in the time she
had travelled with the Doctor...and she thus disliked the idea of
leaving an enemy behind her.
"Hmm? Oh, I doubt it. Very difficult to kill."
Sarah shook her head and attempted to bring a little levity to
the situation.
"Well, I sort of liked her...but I couldn't stand him."
But before the Doctor could form a reply, the TARDIS rocked
unsteadily.
"Easy old girl." The Doctor said soothingly to the
machine. Sarah almost smiled. I amused her how the Doctor would
sometimes speak to his ship as though it were a living thing with
a personality all of it's own.
"Hm...the temperature must have affected her thermal
couplings."
"Yes, I know how she feels." Sarah said tartly. "I
think Kastria must be the coldest planet in the galaxy.."
"Oh, rubbish! The Doctor retorted, removing some of the
console panels to get a better look, "I've been to much
colder places."
"Big deal," Sarah said, beginning to become annoyed,
"It's all right for you. But I'm human. We're not so
thick-skinned."
But she could already tell he was no longer listening to her, he
was too wrapped up in his repair work. Sarah gritted her teeth,
continuing her rant despite the fact he wasn't paying
attention...the only words he said to her were requests for
tools.
She kept thrusting the tools at him angrily.
She wasn't sure why she felt so frustrated and angry. She had
been in much more uncomfortable and dangerous situations with him
before. It hadn't affected her this way before...and she knew
that the Doctor was a strange, eccentric individual. He quite
often got so wrapped up in his work that he would pay little or
no attention to the human part of the equation...sometimes she
speculated that was why he kept her around, to remind him that
there was more to life that mathematics and machinery.
But there was still this furious, insistent voice in the back of
her head that seemed to want to rant and rave...told her that the
Doctor - her best friend - was being deliberately insensitive and
distant...but he wasn't...was he?
Sarah pressed her still cold hands to her head, feeling the
beginnings of a headache as conflicting thoughts crashed around
in her head. She stood up abruptly.
"I'm going to take a bath, then I'm going to have a lie
down." She said shortly as she began leaving the room. She
looked back and wasn't particularly surprised to see that he
didn't even remove his head from under the console. She made a
small noise of frustration and walked out.
The Doctor raised his head after the third time asking Sarah for a tool...not having realised she'd left. He'd gotten used to hearing her voice as a sort of low undercurrent when he was working. It was sort of soothing, actually. In this case the repair had required almost all of his attention. But he was still surprised to see she wasn't in the console room. He frowned and did a quick recap of his memory, realised that she had left because he wasn't acknowledging her. He also realised that she hadn't sounded quite like herself. He levered himself out from under the console and went looking for her.
Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid,
Emotion revealed as the ocean made.
Sarah climbed out of her bath, feeling weak. The bath had
warmed her up and eased her aching muscles...but it had done
nothing for the slowly growing headache, which pounded steadily
in her head like a snare drum.
She walked slowly over to her room, and fiddled with the tiny
music centre controls, trying to get it to play some soft music
from her own era on Earth, hoping that would help her sleep. She
thought she had succeeded when she heard a high, clear, male
voice begin to filter through the speakers, singing a song she
though she vaguely recognised from her college days.
Sarah collapsed inelegantly onto her bed, trying to find a
position that actually felt comfortable. She closed her eyes,
attempting to ignore her headache and relax....
Images and faces flashed across her mind...a bright sparkling pendulum swinging before her eyes as a low, insistent voice ordered her to kill the Doctor...another voice this simply repeating her one overriding purpose...Eldrad Must Live. Eldrad Must Live...Eldrad...
She awoke quite suddenly when she felt a cool touch on her
arm. She opened her heavy eyelids to find the Doctor looking at
her with deep concern written in his expressive blue eyes.
"Sarah, are you all right?" He asked. She caught her
breath, feeling the alien coolness on her forearm...a light touch
that somehow felt too close...too intimate. The confused
cacophony of voices in her head told her to pull away from that
strangely inviting touch...but she found she didn't have the
strength.
"Sarah," He repeated, "Are you all right?"
"I..." She hesitated. Physically, she felt fine apart
from the headache...but her mind... "I don't know." She
confessed quietly. His cool fingers squeezed her hand
reassuringly.
"It will be all right, Sarah..." But her mind had
already lost focus on what he was trying to say...she found
herself falling...falling as voices swirled about her, shouting
conflicting commands and...and...memories...so many memories of
herself and the Doctor. The memories before that seemed pale,
bleached of all colour...as though her life had only started when
she met the Doctor...her Doctor with the Cheshire cat smile and
those bright blue eyes that could be as piecing as a sword point,
or as gentle and inviting as a shaded pool.
The Doctor watched with growing alarm as he saw her
conciousness fade. Something was terribly wrong. He frowned,
stuffing his hands deep in his pockets, trying to think. One
possibility occurred to him, and he moved quickly to one of the
other TARDIS rooms, collecting a couple of small devices before
returning to her bedside. He scanned her quickly, hoping he was
wrong...
But he wasn't.
The recent attacks on her mind had done far more damage than he
realised. He cursed himself for his inattention, briefly wishing
he could go back and put Eldrad and Hieronymous into a De-Mat
chamber so he could laugh at their atoms.
The damage they had done had weakened the connection between her
mind and her body. If it wasn't fixed, and soon, then it would
continue to grow worse until eventually her mind simply shut
itself down -permanently.
He knew of several specialists in such things...and the TARDIS
could take them right to their front doors...but even then there
might not be enough time. They would have to get in to see them
explain what was wrong. Persuade them to treat her...no, that
would take entirely too long and he wasn't sure Sarah had that
much time left before she suffered total mental collapse...
That left only one option.
I listened hard but could not see
Life tempo change out and inside me.
He walked quickly to her room and sat on the edge of her bed,
reaching around to cradle her head in his hand.
"Sarah," He said, softly, forcefully, "Sarah I
need you to listen to me. It's very important."
Her eyelids flickered, "Doctor?" She asked in a bleary
voice.
"Yes. Now I need you to tell me if you trust me,
Sarah."
A shadow of a smile touched her lips.
"Of course I trust you..."
"Good," he said, gently stroking her face. "You're
very ill Sarah, and I can help you. But you need to relax and
trust me, can you do that for me Sarah."
"What...what re you going to do?"
"Your mind has been damaged, so I need to go into your
thoughts and repair it before it does you serious harm."
"My mind?" Her eyes flicked open, "NO!" She
said, suddenly and forcefully, trying to sit up. He held her
down, using the least amount of pressure he could.
"Shhh, Sarah. You said you trusted me. You know I wouldn't
hurt you, and I'd never go where you don't want me to."
That seemed to reassure her as she let out a deep sigh and seemed
to go a little bit more limp, though her fever-clouded eyes were
uneasy. He swallowed hard and carefully positioned his fingers
against her neck, face and temple, reaching out with his thoughts
to touch her essence...
It was dark, and hot - too hot. A storm flashed in the empty
sky. Lightning peppered the non-existent ground he stood upon,
but did not touch him. He waited; all this was familiar to him.
Then it came, rising, towering before him, a solid wall of stone
and mortar. The barriers of her mind.
'You shouldn't be here.' Sarah's voice spoke from behind he wall.
"I have to be here." He Doctor said simply, "I
have to help you. Let me in, Sarah. You said you trusted
me."
There was a sigh from beyond the wall, a sigh of resignation.
He laid his fingertips against the wall, and it crumbled into
dust. So, he walked in, entering her mind. He moved gently, and
with infinite care, loathe to damage her psyche any more than it
already was.
He saw shadows of pain and failure hanging overcast across
desolate fields, felt ripples of joy bubbling over and through
him like fizzy water. Ghosts of faces, places, some hazy,
half-forgotten, some remembered as sharply and clearly as a
photograph.
But then he realized there was something...wrong. There was a
boundary, a line through the fields of her mind, and as he
stepped across, all he had seen before suddenly seemed faded,
washed-out like images in greyscale compared to the brightness
and colour of what he was here.
These memories were all sharp and clear. Not all of them were
good memories, there were overtones of terror and anger in many
of them, but they sparkled and shone in brilliant intensity like
jewels in the corridors of her mind.
They were all memories of him.
The first time they met, their first adventure together, simple
talks they had had together in the TARDIS, that incredible,
unforgettable image of him regenerating, his voice as he gently
explained something to her...Good Grief, he had never realized
how much it meant to her...never seen that she watched him all
the time, recording his every movement, taking in every tone and
nuance of his voice...
Then he felt something click, and the images disappeared, leaving
only the sickly yellow taint of embarrassment in their wake. The
Doctor frowned, wondering why Sarah had suddenly decided to hide
those thoughts and memories from him...she had no secrets from
him...did she? What was she going to so much trouble to hide?
But, he had promised not to intrude where she did not wish him
to, so he carried on his journey.
And there it was. Stretched out, spiralling complex patterns
that told the story of her existence. The golden thread of her
mind that connected her to body and soul. The cord of life.
He reached out to touch it gently, feeling its warm hum of
life...but he could see and feel the damage along its length.
Frayed and scarred, even burned in some places. Hurt by those who
had used her, violated her mind and will.
It was a terrible, burning shame to ever think he had been one of
them...but he had always been gentle, and it could be fixed.
Sarah was strong, and he could help her.
He reached up, extending his thoughts to touch this pure golden
essence...
Then where only their had been darkness and the soft glow of the
golden thread, there was a pure, white light. The light was both
joy and pain, frustration and happiness and so many other things.
The light enveloped him with a soft warmth like nothing he had
ever known...
'All for you...' Sarah's voice seemed to whisper, echoing.
Finally, he understood. The thing to which Sarah clung, the
reason why she stayed strong and defiant against all they
faced...it was for him.
The sound of crying echoed through the mindscape. Sarah's tears.
She was there with him now, sat on the floor, sobbing.
'I never wanted you to know...you could never feel the same, I
didn't want to feel this foolish. I never wanted you to have to
say it...didn't want you to send me away'
The Doctor moved without thinking, enfolding her in his arms.
"Sarah. My dear Sarah. I would never send you away. You mean
far too much to me for that...you're my best friend, after
all." He spoke soothingly, stroking her hair.
She looked up at him devastation in her eyes.
"But you could never feel that way for me..."
"And why do you say that?" He said, trying to keep the
amusement out of his voice.
"Because I'm just human...i'm not superior like you Time
Lords..."
The Doctor sighed deeply. "Sarah, have you ever though why I
travel with humans? It's your vibrancy, your life. As a species
you do have some way to go yet in many ways...but at least you
enjoy life for what it is...unlike the withered old fossils I
used to know on Gallifrey."
But he knew from the look in her eyes that she didn't believe
him, so he elected to show her, projecting an image of his
homeworld.
She saw towering spires, crafted with a perfect symmetrical
beauty reaching up towards a burnt-orange sky. Completely
geometrical corridors and houses were all arranged in the most
logical and efficient fashion. The entire city seemed populated
by a quiet, discrete people who all seemed to move at the same
slow, stately pace. No one seemed to hurry, nor did they laugh,
or cry, or show any sort of deep emotion. They displayed nothing
but kind of stoic dignity.
There was an air of...age about the place. A cold, clinical aura
around everything and everyone. Antiquity, custom and silent
respect seemed to be the rule here. Even the younger ones had to
look of age about them, as though they were deliberately trying
to appear older. This was the place that the Doctor had been born
and raised.
Sarah shuddered violently.
"Those people...they all seemed so...old!" She said.
The Doctor nodded. "Now, what do you think living in that
sort of place would be like for me?"
Sarah frowned, trying to picture her wild, irreverent, Bohemian
Doctor in that cold, sterile environment. She almost laughed at
the absurdity of it.
"Those people I saw...they'd either crush you or...or force
you out."
"There, now do you see? I may be a Time Lord, but I do have
feelings. I just don't show them quite the same way humans do.
I'm nothing like those dried-up old sticks you saw."
Sarah nodded, understanding. The last of her tears gone.
"Now then," He said, "I'm here because you were
ill, and I'm trying to make you better. So, lets get on with it,
shall we?"
Sarah looked up into his deep blue eyes and knew what he wanted
from her. She poured out all her love and trust, feeling him take
those emotions, adding to them with his own affection and faith
he began to repair her torn Life Cord. Healing her mind as he had
just healed her soul.
In the end, we'll agree, we'll accept, we'll immortalize
That the truth of the man maturing in his eyes.
When she opened her eyes, she was still in his arms.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Miss Smith."
His deep voice rumbled near her ear. He turned his face to her,
flashing that MegaWatt smile. She laughed softly as he gently
released her, then blinked in surprise as she realised that her
music was still playing, that same male voice she thought she
recognised. A glance at the Doctor revealed that he, too, was
listening.
"Hmm yes, Jon Anderson. Nice chap, but a little
eccentric." He identified the singer. Sarah snorted with
amusement.
"You're one to talk about being eccentric."
The Doctor just grinned at her, "Well, at least I know you
must be feeling better if you can insult me."
There was a pause, then Sarah turned to the Doctor, her eyes now
deadly serious.
"Doctor...before I got sick I...I was going to ask you to
take me home."
The Doctor sighed and his shoulders seemed to droop slightly.
"I know." He said, softly, almost as if steeling
himself.
"I think I've changed my mind." She smiled. Delight
flashed back onto his features. He took hold of her shoulders.
"Sarah, I don't know if I ever can return what you feel for
me. We Time Lords take an awfully long time to form those kind of
attachments, but if you'll be patient with me..."
She smiled deeply, her eyes sparkling, "Doctor, I've been
patent all this time, why do you think that would stop now?"
He flashed her that smile again, "I have a feeling that my
feelings for you could become very deep indeed."
"Sounds good to me," She laughed, and kissed him
lightly on the nose.
The Doctor rubbed his nose where she had kissed it thoughtfully.
"Now, correct me if I'm wrong...but shouldn't a kiss be on
the lips?"
Sarah laughed delightedly, "Doctor, I think we've got a lot
to teach each other."
They sat together in warm companionship, listening to the song
that still filtered through the speakers. Both agreeing with the
sentiment absolutely.
And you and I climb, crossing the shapes of the morning.
And you and I reach over the sun for the river.
And you and I climb, clearer, towards the movement.
And you and I called over valleys of endless seas.
The End
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