DOCTOR WHO

STAY ON COURSE

WRITTEN BY ZARIUS

(Contains spoilers for "Twice Upon A Time")


"Oh brilliant" were uttered first from her lips.

Famous last words?

As she pressed a keyboard on the console, a tumultuous explosion threw her off balance. She clutched to the floor as the buffeting continued. Sparks lingering from the torching of the central column by the regenerative process caused several key malfunctions, throwing the doors open.

Forces of nature loomed over her, the rush of almighty air, the pull of gravity.

This was a ship meant for flight, but it's passenger was not bound to the same privilege.

The books, all once neatly arranged and indexed, flew from their shelves and descended from the TARDIS into the wilderness of the sky surrounding it.

The grip of the geo forces took hold, and wrenched her from her desperate grip on the console, sending her careering into the stratosphere. The central column ignited in a raging blaze, and the last she saw of the ship's interior was of it in flames. The outside of the ship hovered in sight for a few seconds more, than faded from view into the mystic veil of night.

As she plummeted to Earth, her thoughts turned to a story she heard long ago, a comforting epiphany on the subject of morality and learning to live in the face of the seconds approaching death...she recalled it happened to a whale. It's one of those reading experiences you don't tend to forget.

She had been a whale just recently, she was sure of it, grappling with finding peace in war torn lands, and acting on instinct to save a soldier almost lost to fate's cruel machinations. The whale had the strength to move the mighty oceans of time to preserve a man's legacy and lifetime in the land of the living.

And in doing so, the whale flew with love and peace settling both of his erratic, reluctant heartbeats. The landing would not be smooth, but the hope stayed on course.

The hope was all it had when it landed, it's life cut short.

Then it came back, reincarnated as something else. A potted plant, and it too fell from literal grace.

The plant even said something appropriate to her situation.

"Oh no, not again"

Here she was. In free fall, in danger, everything she had been falling away.

Same familiar stings.

Oh, but the hope stayed with her.

That's all she required to live even in the face of death's daunting seconds.

Have hope.

Stay on course.