There's a ghost in the Tardis.
Her footprints trace the corridors. Her laugh echoes hollow in the library. She isn't seen, but for flashes, a flip of blonde hair, a jacket sleeve, and no way to tell if she had really been there a moment ago.
She sits in the console room, where she can almost be seen out of the corner of the eye if you're not paying attention. She carries on half remembered conversations that have long since past as tickles of 'run' and 'forever' and 'we had chips' wisp by their ears, unheard but not unnoticed.
She runs and wind gusts through the corridors behind her, chasing at her heels. She runs and runs until she can't remember how to stop and a bit after that.
Sometimes she asks. Asks why it doesn't feel right, what is she searching for, what's missing? During these times they all feel a little more alone, a little more sad and they reach for each other.
But her questions go unanswered. Her fingers curl around an empty palm. A smile plays across her lips, soft and sad, though she can't quite remember why.
He says that the wind, Her wind, is just a faulty cooling unit. No one really believes it, least of all Him.
She's there, just there, on the far side of perceptible, looking over shoulders, making jam and toast without using up ingredients.
Existing. Not knowing. Not understanding. Trapped on the outside edge of living. Always searching for something she doesn't understand, finding it again and again, never knowing that she has. Not discovered because no one knows to look.
There's a ghost in the Tardis. She's been there a moment or an infinity. Don't search for her, she can't be found. She doesn't even know what it is to not be lost. Not anymore.
Fin