TITLE: I Write My Song for You
RATING: PG-13, or T, I guess, for swearing, implied het, and mild slash
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, except for a few EDA's, but that's it. The song belongs to Coldplay.
PAIRING: 8/Fitz and implied 8/Sam, but you have to squint
NOTES: This is my first attempt at outright slash. Well, it's actually kind-of-slash, but the point is, it's slashy. I'm on a Fitz streak, he's so perfect for written stuff.
Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you, and everything you do,
Yeah they were all yellow,
I came along, and wrote a song about you, and all the things that you do.
The first day Fitz came on board the TARDIS, he started playing a song in his room. Sam didn't like this, because her room was nearby, and she could hear him. Originally, she had thought he would play some half-assed, out of tune rendition of some obscure song from his time period. And at first he did, but even Sam knew he was just trying out his new surroundings. She didn't hear anything for a while, except for the occasional sound of him kicking his wall in concentration, or in idiocy. Sam expected the latter. And then she heard it. A simple, innocent sound, it floated away through the corridors, and he stopped dead. She blinked in confusion as she heard him swear angrily as he put the guitar away.
After a particularly nasty adventure, Sam saw Fitz retreat into the inner sanctums of the TARDIS, and from her room, she heard the faint sound of his guitar. Sam wondered why he wasn't in his room. She found him later, asleep in the ballroom. There was a cigarette butt on the ground near him, and his guitar was faithfully by his side. She rolled her eyes and picked up the cigarette, throwing it into a nearby trashcan. She left him in the ballroom.
On his first night in the TARDIS, Fitz thought about his mum. He thought about his mum a lot, but now she was consuming his poor mind, driving him insane. He glared at his own word choice. He leaned back against the wall, his head bumping it lightly as he thought. Then, as if by a blessing, the Doctor came into his room with tea.
'Hello. Sam said you were playing earlier.'
'Oh, yeah. It wasn't much,' he looked at the tea and thought about tea. He certainly was doing a lot of thinking lately, wasn't he? He needed to stop that, it wasn't good for his lifestyle. The Doctor began to have a normal conversation over tea in Fitz's room. Fitz found this amusing inwardly.
'I'm sorry Fitz. I'm sorry about—'
'It's okay, Doctor. I'll be fine. Don't worry about things, it's bad for your health.'
'You're the one to talk,' the Doctor said, pointing to Fitz's cigarette.
'That's different, probably.'
'Are you sure you'll be fine? I don't want to leave you troubled.'
'Jesus, you worry about people. I'll be alright, I swear.' The Doctor sighed in defeat as he closed the door softly behind him. Fitz stared at the door for a while, before he decided that he needed a new place to play his guitar.
Well, that didn't end well for Fitz. He solemnly swore to himself that he wouldn't ever ask about what space stations looked like again. They seemed like a bad place to be if you're the Doctor. He thought about the Doctor, and decided to play his guitar.
On her third day in the TARDIS, Anji heard Fitz playing in the ballroom. It was an open song, and it reminded her of space. Anji sat down near the ballroom, listening to Fitz play his song, and listened to it stretch and bend to the corners of the universe and back, pretty and solid and kind. She sighed and opened her eyes, realizing that the Doctor was staring at her.
'Anji, why are you in the middle of the hallway? There are some nice chairs in the library, you could sit there.'
'Oh, I was listening to Fitz…'
'He's very good, isn't he? He was a favorite of Sam.' The Doctor thought about Sam a lot lately. Sam was one of his closest companions in a while. He remembered sunny days in warm meadows, lying with her on the grass.
'Oh, yes… what song is he playing?'
'He's been writing that one for a very long time. I sometimes think it won't ever be finished, but you never know. It's very defined, isn't it? I'll see if he wants tea.' Anji stayed in the hallway until she fell asleep around the same time as Fitz. They both had terrible backaches in the morning, but Fitz was used to it.
Fitz liked it when the Doctor brought him tea in the ballroom. It was comfortable, and they always had a little chat.
'You have another fan, Fitz.' The Doctor said, bringing Fitz the routine tea. It was always just like he liked it, with lots of cream.
'Anji?'
'Yes, she likes the one you're still working on.'
'That one's important. What do you think of it, Doctor?'
'I think it's familiar…why did you start writing it?'
'I started right after my first space station. You talked about all the planets you'd been to, and pointed them out to me in the sky. I had always thought those were stars.'
'Humans don't know enough about space to make assumptions like that, especially humans from your time.'
'You're changing the subject again, Doctor. I heard you talk about all those planets, and how each one had some mini-crisis you'd fixed. It made me think of a song.'
'I want to hear it when you're done.'
'You'll be the first one, I promise, Doctor. It's your song.' The Doctor smiled at Fitz. Fitz smiled back, and wondered why. They both stood as the Doctor took the teacups. Fitz gave him a nervous hug and smiled again. The Doctor smiled back.
The Doctor felt Fitz's singular heartbeat as he hugged him. He liked hugs. Hugs were nice, and warm. The Doctor definitely liked warm things. He smiled at Fitz and smiled at Anji, as he saw her on the way out. She smiled back, nose in a book.
By the end of her first week in the TARDIS, Anji had moved into Sam's old room, because it was closer to the ballroom. Fitz continued to play, and tonight his song was an intricate, unnamed, mixture. It didn't puzzle Anji, but it did make her wonder. The song seemed right, like everything was right, and it was snaking around her mind, and around the TARDIS. She heard the Doctor bring Fitz tea, and as always, there was a pause in the playing while the player enjoyed some good company.
Fitz laughed as the Doctor talked about an old companion. He leaned against the wall and thought about the Doctor. A few minutes later, they had finished the tea, and the conversation was complete, and so the Doctor began to leave.
'Wait, Doctor.' The Doctor turned around and Fitz gave him a hug, similar to the one he'd received earlier that week, and a quick, chaste kiss.
'Erm…thanks,' Fitz said, looking down. The Doctor was positively beaming at Fitz as he pushed him out of the doorway.
'Now will you sod off, I'm trying to work.' Fitz shooed the Doctor away. From Anji's position, she could barely see the interaction between the two, but she saw enough to send the Doctor a cheeky grin he returned equally. Fitz merely turned a shade of barely noticeable pink.
One day, while Anji and the Doctor were playing chess, Fitz finished his song. He wrote it down and thought of the Doctor.
'Doctor, I'm finished.' Fitz had finally declared over tea. The Doctor smiled for him, and Fitz watched his blue eyes get that glittering appearance that signaled a sense of burning curiosity. Fitz removed his guitar from it's case and started playing. The Doctor heard him play about stars, and power, and change, and so much more. Fitz occasionally looked at his muse while he played, and Anji watched with a warm feeling as they looked into each other's eyes. She listened to Fitz play, and realized that Fitz was playing for the Doctor.
'Fitz…' Fitz smiled coyly as the Doctor took his hands and smiled.
'Does it work?'
'It's perfect. It's just...perfect.'
Another Time War later, the Doctor felt his leather jacket with a sense of nostalgia as he hummed a tune as he fiddled with the console.
'What's that?' His new companion called to him.
'It's a song someone wrote for me,' he mused to her.
'Let me guess, was it some famous musician?' She looked at him, eyebrows raised.
'No, he was so much better than that, so much better, Rose.' He smiled at her, his eyes sparkling with memory.