Title: "The Valiant Child"
Author: Wish Wielder
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing / Character Focus: Tenth Doctor, the Master (Simm) / Doctor x Rose
Challenge: 15 Minute Fic
Theme / Prompt: #40
Word Count: 544
Rating: K Plus / PG
Summary: Life is an ocean, and some days her memory makes him drown.
Notes: Set during the Year that Never Was in S3.
Disclaimer: "Doctor Who" and all respective properties are © the BBC. Megan D. (Wish Wielder) does not, has never, nor will ever own "Doctor Who".
"The Valiant Child"
Life, he decides, is an ocean.
There are different moments that comprise different pieces – the Gulf of Hope, the Sound of Joy, the Strait of Pain, the Bay of Indifference – but they're all joined in the Ocean of Life. He is a Time Lord, and as such he has learned how to navigate the waters fairly well. He's above baser needs and urges, and thus his ship can stay afloat when others would sink.
But, as with any ocean, there are waves. Some, like regeneration, barely rock the boat. A few changes, one or two buckets of water returned to the sea, and once again it's business as usual. Some waves are more pronounced, like the one that made him capsize when Gallifrey burned. Looking back, that was the wave that took him from the metaphorical ocean entirely. That was the wave that, eventually, washed him up on the Beach of Bad Wolf. The wave that carried him to Rose.
It seems ironic that it was the same wave that, in the end, took her away from him as well.
Now, stuck on the island that had once held his Rose, the waves are a different thing. Memories that wash over the shores and his mind, happy and sad but all her – though none with the promise of returning what was lost. Some days are easy, the ghosts of a gently, ebbing tide, safe enough to wade through without drowning and easy enough to push aside. Some days it's a crashing tsunami, devastating and stealing every bit of his life and breath. Most days find them somewhere in the middle.
But even on the easy days she's there, a shadow of a ghost holding his hearts and mind and refusing to let go. She follows him everywhere, even to the Master and his Lucy and the destruction they cause. He sits, aged and tired, in his wheelchair, and she stands behind and beside him, a hand on his shoulder raging with the fury of the Wolf.
The Master likes to talk to him, torture him. What use is physical brutality when words are so much worse? Then another wave, and he's left with thoughts of words and their power and little ones he couldn't say. But still he talks, about Gallifrey and Time Lords and past travels and the good and bad that accompanied it all. Those are the days he can get through – low tide and hardly a wave in sight.
But then there's today, and all the days like it. The days where he speaks of Rose and what he's lost and Rassilon, don't you miss her?
The question, he thinks, would be easier than what he now sees – now hears.
The ghostly weight is replaced, and its' the Master's hand on his shoulder. The Master's head by his own. The Master's sickly-sweet voice drifting in his ear.
"I thought it inappropriate there was nothing honoring your Rose, Doctor," he says, and suddenly his throat is dry and his body's shaking and his hand is fisting on his knee. Another wave, and he nearly drowns. "The Valiant – a valiant ship for the Valiant Child. Don't you just love it, Doctor?"
No, he thinks, though he says not a word. He loves her.
A.n.: I doubt they were really thinking that when they named the ship, but as it's Who I wouldn't put it past them. The Master just strikes me as someone who would aim that low. Word was "wave".