And There I Saw Her, Falling from a Bridge
words: Hey guys! words here. And There I Saw Her. . . is actually a collab between me and my good friend Extended Experience, and we're both super pumped about this fic! It's mostly just this first chapter that's feels-y and the mood will pick up pretty quickly once we get through the main backstory. Also, notice that the title is actually supposed to be, "And There I Saw Her...," with an ellipsis at the end, just like the chapter title is supposed to have a ellipsis at the beginning! So yeah! Kick back and join us for the ride! :)
Ex: Duuude! You forgot the disclaimer!
words: Ugh, fine.
Disclaimer: We don't own Doctor Who... Or the cover image... Hehehe...
An old, worn bridge, one simple wish. An old, worn bridge, one lonely soul. An old, worn bridge, one moment in time.
"Once upon a time," the small figure murmured, breath creating frosty puffs of steam in the winter air, "there was a girl. She believed she could be anything." The figure, a girl, had tears running freely down her face. "But then, she opened her eyes, and found this nightmare of a reality." A sob tore its way up her throat, a strangled cry of anguish, before she continued, "That girl was me."
She looked down at the churning waters below her; one step off of this bridge, just one step into the depths of the river, and all of the pain would be over. She gripped the railing, lifting a leg to climb over the safety fence, and continued telling the tale, "She decided she wanted to die," a hiccupping laugh echoed from her mouth, "and now, here we are."
The girl looked back at her fists, still clenched around the metal, and shifted her gaze to her clothed wrists. Even with the long-sleeved tee, sweater, trench coat and gloves, she could feel them; the scars that covered her skin.
I wonder, if anyone kissed them, would they feel loved?
"Time to go," she whispered,
and
she
let go
and
she
let
herself
f
a
l
l
She wasn't always this way, although the depression began very early in her life; it was never treated. A playground is where it all began.
An innocent, "happy" playground is when she was first outcast. There will always be childhood bullies, but these antagonizers were ruthless. They were hateful, vile, and always had a poker face when it came to the adults.
All she wanted was to play with the "popular kids."
What she got was a torn jumper, pulled hair, a bloody nose, bruises. This was only the beginning. The bullies made sure to tell all of the other children to stay away from her, kept her from making even a single friend.
She learned far too soon how cruel the world could be. Her primary school nightmare followed her into junior high and high school, where she again had no one to turn to. The bullying only got worse.
Shoved into lockers, confronted in bathrooms, even attacked in alleys as she walked home. They still wouldn't give up on making her already-hellish life Hell on Earth. Most days, she would return home to an absent mother (likely getting wasted in some rucksack bar) and a dead father, and wonder what she did to deserve this.
It was such a day when she made the first laceration upon her wrist.
In the shabby apartment's kitchen, there was a razor sharp knife. She wasn't sure why they even owned the thing; her mother never cooked, or diced or chopped. She was delighted to find that it was still in acceptable condition when she fished it out of a drawer.
She would always remember the mind-clearing pain. The sudden welling of blood had brought tears to her eyes, a whimper to her lips. Yet she didn't stop after just one cut. Over and over, she dragged that damn knife across her forearms, until they nearly reached her elbows.
"Emo." "She just wants attention." "Why doesn't she save us the trouble and kill herself?" She didn't care what they would say to her now.
She enjoyed the way the knife made her feel. She enjoyed knowing that there was still an emotion to be felt.
She just didn't care.
All the Doctor had wanted was a cruise around London in his beloved TARDIS, just a bit of time to think about his one and only Rose. He was most definitely not prepared for what he received instead.
Lost in his thoughts, he barely noticed when his little, for lack of a better name, TARDIS TV lit up. Confused, he wandered a bit closer. Normally, his beloved didn't malfunction unless something powerful was interfering, but there couldn't be! It was 2011! He'd been here a thousand times, and there had never had anything too drastic happening! Well, nothing extraterrestrial, at least… Nothing big enough to interfere with his ol' girl should happen for another… Well, exactly another year! What was going to be happening in December of 2012 is so big that even the humans had known about it for centuries. Of course, they would be disappointed; he saved them, of course, but the Mayans had no way of knowing. Ah, the Mayans. That reminded him of the time he, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric had met the Urbankans and… But he couldn't think about that. He wouldn't think about how it was all his fault that Adric died, and that he couldn't save him, and-
A frantic beeping sounding from his TARDIS TV brought him out of his frantic and distressing thoughts of self-blame. That was right, he was investigating the malfunction… unless it wasn't a malfunction. Maybe she just wanted to show him something. Another spout of urgent beeping brought him closer to the screen where he saw a girl. Nothing odd, so why-
No!
It couldn't be!
It looked like she was going to… to jump?!
He cringed, unable to stop his imagination from conjuring up the sickening images and sounds of her body hitting the water below at such a velocity that her bones all but shattered.
Not if I can help it, you poor idiot. . .
Nearing the falling girl's location, the TARDIS providing some help with navigating, he set the TARDIS into autopilot before flinging the police box doors wide, throwing out an arm to grab onto the girl just a few feet below the bridge from where she had jumped.
He managed to snatch her arms at the last possible second, the momentum very nearly pulling him out of his Time Box.
"What are you doing?!" the Doctor shouted, unheard over the rushing whispers of the air. Regaining his balance and using his legs to keep himself grounded, he pulled the girl into the TARDIS, and quickly rushed to set her down on a bed in one of the TARDIS' many bedrooms.
The small thing had collapsed from fear or shock-he couldn't be sure which-and had blacked out.
Time to land. The Doctor got the ship under control just before it was about to crash into one of the city's skyscrapers, barely avoiding collision. After that, landing somewhere relatively safe was a cinch. He let the TARDIS choose an area (usually her judgement wasn't too terrible), and the now-duo ended up in the middle of the lifeless Aurora Sector, trillions upon trillions of lightyears from Earth..
The Doctor surveyed at the tiny girl in front of him, observing as her chest rose, though it was hard to see beneath what appeared to be many layers of clothing. Casting his eyes down her figure, he took in her dark brown hair, and noted that she was very small, in both size and height. He also noticed a slight displacement of her shoulder. Frowning, he removed the left sleeve of her somewhat-dirty trench coat to get a better view of the possible injury. Closer inspection confirmed what he had expected.
A dislocated shoulder, probably from being snatched right out of the air. It was really no problem for him to fix, and since she was asleep, it'd be even better! Of course, she'd be a bit sore in the morning, but hey! What're you going to do? And on that note, a loud "POP" echoed through his TARDIS, accompanied by a sudden scream.
The girl woke up to a wrenching pain filling her shoulder. A scream of surprise - and pain, but mostly surprise - tore it's way up through her throat.
"Huh," she heard. "That wasn't supposed to happen." Slowly blinking, eyes adjusting to the light around her, the girl looked at the man above her. Vision clearing, she noticed that her coat had been slightly taken off, and that the man's hands were resting on her shoulder, dangerously close to her "no-no square." Leaping up, and wincing as she jostled her arm, the woman snarled at the man.
"Who do you think you are, undressing me, trying to take a pass at me? I'll call the police, and have you detained!" The man shook his head at her yelling.
"Relax, I was only trying to fix your shoulder, which got dislocated when I…" He trailed off. "When I grabbed your arm and saved you."
She gave him a look. "When you what?!"
Stronger this time, he repeated: "When I grabbed your arm to save you."
"What if I didn't want to be saved?! What then?!"
"Of course you wanted to be saved! Maybe not at the moment, but no one really ever wants to die!" Trust me… I would know, he continued inside his mind.
"What do you know?! Maybe I did!"
He snapped, and started to glare, voice raising. "Even if you did want that, how could you just throw your life away! Some people don't even get the chance to begin their lives, yet you want to throw it away in one fell swoop! I have known so many people… So many people who I couldn't save, but I save you, and suddenly that's wrong?! How stupid can you get, just trying to throw yourself off a bridge! I bet you haven't even known half of the hardships I have, yet here I stand, trucking onwards. How can you be such a complete and utter idiot?!"
Her lip quivered, but then she straightened. "Half of the hardships?! You're hardly old than me! How old are you, anyways?"
"Nine-hundred and six." The girl laughed, a cold, hard laugh.
"Yeah, 'coz I'm supposed to believe that." Without another word, the tall male led her out of the room, and into what seemed to be a control center.
"Believe it or not, that is the truth. Now, before I tell you anything more, I believe you owe me, at the very least, your name."
She looked down at her feet, contemplating. She hated her name, but she supposed it really didn't matter now. She did so hope that he didn't laugh though. Reaching a decision, she took a deep breath.
"...Adrastia." She waited for him to laugh, or ask her the same questions as all the old bullies she was trying to escape: "Adrastia?! What kind of dumbass name is that?!" But instead...
Instead, she was met with silence. After what seemed like hours, she dared a glance up at him. Instead of the judgmental look she'd come to expect, she was met with a thoughtful, albeit amused, expression.
"Adrastia... A Latin name meaning 'not running away...' Rich coming from you, of all people." At this she bristled. She'd dealt with shit like this her whole life, and when she'd finally worked up the courage - or cowardice, as some might say- to end it all, this man before her had robbed her of her chance, and yelled at her! And now he too was insulting her name?!
Hell. No.
"So, is this how you get off..."
"Doctor." He supplied.
"Yes, whatever," she waived. "Do you get your kicks from interfering with people's lives, and yelling at them for something that's purely their decision?! What say do you have in what I do? It was people like you that made me do what I'm trying to do! Antagonizing me, butting in on my life, making fun of me! Well, I've had it! I'm done! And there's nothing you can do!" With this, she stormed towards the door of the TARDIS (though she didn't know it's name yet), and before the Doctor could stop her, she threw the doors open, fully prepared to finish what she had started.
Only to find herself an eye-full of nothing like she'd ever seen.
Galaxies blinking in the far distance, framing asteroids as they passed. Trillions of stars blaring white hot light into everything. Entire rainbows of dust, specks of all kinds drifting painstakingly slowly across the vacuum of space. Nebulas and star nurseries filled wit colors she'd never even dreamed of.
In short, she was in awe. Not taking her eyes away from the almost painful beauty before her, she let out a hoarse whisper:
"Is this... Are we really..."
"Yes," The Doctor interrupted with a triumphant smile, always glad to impress someone new. Well, that, and he'd just avoided Adrastia's untimely demise.
Or so he thought. With a final look around, Adrastia decided that there really was no better way to go than floating amongst the stars, even if only for a few seconds. And with that: she jumped.
(Doctor's POV)
I thought that I'd won her over, when suddenly, she jumped. For a second, she was floating, much like a reverse position of how I first found her, before my reflexes kicked in and I snatched her wrist. For a moment, we stayed there, her floating above me, tethered only by my grip, and then... All hell broke loose.
(Normal POV)
She clawed, screamed, called him names, cursed and threatened him; anything she could to get him to let go, but it wasn't going to work on him.
He wasn't going to lose another one.
He held on tight with a vice like grip, letting her wear herself out. Finally, after several violent minutes, the woman floating above him had reduced herself to undignified, if a little cute - here he blushed a bit- flushing and panting. Still calm, he addressed her.
"It seems you would like to be let released." Here she glared at him, furious. "However, I simply cannot let you do that, as that would mean you dieing." She opened her mouth to interrupt, but he held up his free hand to silence her. "I understand that that's what you think you want, but I'm willing to strike you a deal. I will show you around, and attempt to convince you that life is worth living. I will show you the wonders of all space and time, and if you still to do this, I will let you go through with it. That or..." He tried to think of an alternative." "...or I'll place you under the care of New New York, the tightest medical center I know of. And trust me, you won't be doing anyone good by sitting in a psych ward or the rest of your life." Mentally patting himself on the back, he awaited her answer.
words: And that's the first bit of our fic! We hope you've enjoyed. We've got no idea when the next chappie will be done, but we'll try to be semi-fast with our updates. Peace!
Ex: Also, sorry for any inaccuracies! Such as the dislocated arm, the fact that there's probably not even a bridge like that in London (just pretend that the cover art is there, 'kay? It was our closest option), height measurements, the lingo, or the laws of gravity and/or time, and maybe even Doctor Who itself, or-
words: Stahp! Ex, you're rambling. Cut it out.
Ex: -whimpers- Well… Bye, then!
words: Have a fabulous/swagalicious day!
Ex: No. Don't say swag. I'll cut your dick off. Even though you don't actually have one...
words: D: You assbutt. Anyhow, bye, for real this time!
Ex: À bientot!