This has been in the works for months. I hope you enjoy! Please review.
To the Radiant Southern Sun
It is four days after the train crash when the blue box appears. No one notices it, least of all a grief-stricken young woman who pretends she isn't quite so sad. Of course, no one would blame her if she was sad, but the pain doesn't seem as real if she ignores it. After all, she spent so much time disowning her own family that it seems proper to ignore them in death, as wrong as it probably is.
The parties continue, and she knows that this happiness feels bitter in her heart. She shouldn't feel happy, not when her entire world has disappeared from her fingertips and she must keep dancing alone. Her friends didn't know that she even had a family, so they don't even realize that she should be upset. They do wonder why her laugh doesn't seem so bright, why the timbre of her voice has grown a bit cooler, why her light eyes seem a little icier.
But to them, she is still the life of the party, the most gorgeous girl in town, and the music goes on, modulating into the relative minor that is the angst of life.
The music is loud and joyful as the young men and women hop and glide around the dance floor, celebrating life and what it truly means. To that young woman who should be sad but isn't, this party seems a bit too loud, and not fun enough. She really isn't enjoying herself, and her date, a handsome man with a perfectly tailored suit and an icy glare to match her own, can tell.
"Let's dance," he suggests firmly, and the woman can't think of an excuse. Her only option is to accept the offer of his arm and be led onto the dance floor. After one swing and several false smiles, she pulls him off the floor with the simple lie of needing fresh air.
They walk out into the back alley, and the two pull out of a box of cigarettes, lighting them and embracing the cool silence. The young woman's head instantly feels a bit clearer, and she thinks that maybe she can have a good time tonight. This must just be hormones-always a good indicator that she is not, indeed, pregnant.
He makes simple conversation, but she does not respond. Even though he gets the hint, he ignores her silence and babbles on, occasionally stopping to smoke. Eventually, she gets tired of his gob and rolls her eyes, rising on her tiptoes to press her lips firmly to his.
The live jazz music can be heard even in the alley, and the crisp air brings an edge to the moment. The kiss can hardly be considered passionate since neither genuinely care about the other, but is thorough enough to get the point across and provide some entertainment. Once the alcohol in his system inspire his hands to get frisky and begin roaming, she pulls away and returns to her cigarette with a roll of her eyes.
"You could've just said something," he mutters. She doesn't even look at him, knowing that no matter how much she frustrates him, she'll still go home and to bed with him later this evening. "I'm going to get a drink."
She makes a noncommittal sound in response, and doesn't even look when he walks back through the heavy door. Usually the life of the party, she doesn't feel like doing anything tonight. Maybe she should just go home and have a nice glass of wine in the dark to drown away her sorrows. It seems that those deaths have finally caught up to her.
That's the last straw, and she begins walking, stumbling a bit from the obscene amount of alcohol she's consumed. Her feet carry her through the streets while her mind wanders back to a better time. She could care less if her family were alive, since they never got along anyway, but she just wishes she could be happy again. This misery is unbearable.
Before she realizes where she is, she has arrived at the plot of land with five graves and an empty space for her own. Hell will freeze over before she will be buried here with them. Perhaps she should just lay down and give in so that all of this shit can be done and over with. Everything would be easier that way.
And then the levees break and the floods rush in. She falls to her knees at her mother's grave and can't keep from crying. Not a single tear was shed at the funeral, nor since, but now they won't stop. The weeks of loneliness and fake smiles have had their toll on her and the breakdown has finally arrived.
She hates her family for leaving her behind. It was their belief in that stupid game from their childhood that banded them together, against her. Make believe was fine when aged twelve or younger, especially during a war, but this was absurd. It was a game, a dream. Reality was in front of them, and they weren't clever enough to see it.
"I hate you," she mumbles between sobs, and then strikes the ground with her fists. The shout, "I hate you all!" escapes with screams of rage and anguish. "Damn you!" She leans against her sister's headstone and tries to keep herself from hyperventilating. All alone at age twenty-one. What a thought.
Eventually, her riotous sobs becomes a gentle flow of tears, and she realizes that she's no longer alone. Half expecting her date to have followed her here, she is surprised to see a man behind her whom she has never seen before. He is tall, with a dark suit and long, brown coat. His hair is incredibly messy, and it is obvious that he has been weeping.
The look of him breaks her heart.
She wipes her nose unceremoniously and runs a hand through her imperfect hair. It shouldn't be expected of her to speak with a stranger, but she can't help but feel that he needs comforting. She looks up at him, and stands to approach. His eyes are red and full of tears, but carry so much weight. They look so old, and remind her of the look she would see in her siblings' eyes, and, if she were careful and vulnerable enough, occasionally her own. It confused her and made her want to run away.
Standing next to this man, she looks out at her family's graves and regrets hanging up on her mother the morning that she died. Before she even realizes what she is doing, she has blurted out, "My whole family gone in one day."
He takes in a shaky breath and replies, "Mine, too."
She hardly knows what to say, but he takes her hand in his, and somehow, it feels right. Sometimes, it is nice to have a kind hand to hold when one is at the breaking point. Maybe this will be enough to keep the wine in the bottle, the knife in the chopping block, and the gun in the drawer.
They stand in silence for a long while, and eventually the man says, "I'm the Doctor."
"Susan Pevensie."
She doesn't know what to say to this man who seems the only person in the world who understands her at this moment in time. The silence seems to work, because he says nothing as well, and the tears fade as the night wears on. He offers her his large coat, and she mumbles her thanks.
Staring at the graves, Susan knows that she wishes she were in the ground with them. How frivolous and silly her life seems to her now. The dancing and parties will only fill the void in her heart for so long. At least death would silence it forever.
A brief glimpse of a sunny beach flashes before her eyes, but it is gone just as soon as it came, and Susan is back in hell.
"Would you like to get away from here for a while?" asks the Doctor, breaking the silence with his soft voice.
"Yeah," Susan whispers. He doesn't drop her hand, but leads her away from the graves and out of the cemetery. Across the street from the wrought iron gates stands a blue box labeled Police Public Call Box. Susan has never seen such a thing before. He pulls out a key and unlocks the door. It hardly seems big enough for two people, but then again, so did a wardrobe so many years ago. She has learned to stop asking questions.
She is the tiniest bit surprised when the inside is bigger than the outside, and tells him as much in a broken voice. But watching him stare at the large column in the center of the room makes Susan realize that she is practically whole compared to him. The man with the aged eyes must be the most truly broken person she has ever met.
A woman's jacket rests on one of the railings, and, judging by the longing in his eyes as he runs his fingers over the fabric, Susan wonders if he lost his wife. She should be more impressed by this entire room, but somehow the concept of futuristic wizard doesn't surprise her.
Her complete acceptance of the box doesn't surprise the Doctor either. When she asks what the box is, he simply answers, "TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. She's a space and time ship. I'm a time traveler."
"You're not from here, are you?"
"No."
The Doctor wonders if he imagined her replying, "Me neither." He messes around with some of the controls and places them in the Vortex, needing to get away from the city where she lived her entire life, even if it was forty years before she was born.
"Where are we going?" asks Susan, sitting in the chair behind him.
He doesn't look at her as he responds, "Anywhere you like."
She is silent, but eventually says, "Somewhere peaceful. As far away as we can get."
The Doctor nods assent and sends them to Fleuretbleu, a peaceful planet of gardens and ponds. He opens the TARDIS doors, and steps out. Susan follows, and takes in a deep breath of fresh air. It is nice to get away from London. She should be concerned about being away from home, but then remembers that no one is left who would care where she was.
Even the cat wouldn't need her.
They sit on a bench and stare at a small pond with several big, pink fish. She takes his hand because it feels nice to have the touch of someone else there, and she is tired of being alone. Something tells her that he is, too.
For the briefest of instants, she feels a bit lightheaded, like she suddenly had something try and invade her mind, but then it was gone, and she was alone once more.
No words need to be spoken between these broken souls.
Susan is making a cup of tea for herself and the Doctor when he finally tells her something about himself. They've been traveling the universe together for a week now, and they've hardly spoken to each other. She hasn't revealed anything about herself, and she doesn't know anything about him. Susan feels the most at peace now than she has in years. There is something comforting about being away from the world with a man who understands how she feels.
"I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor says, running his fingers through his hair. "I'm almost nine hundred and fifty years old. I killed my entire planet, my entire family."
That wasn't the whole story, Susan knew, but she wouldn't beg for details when she wasn't ready to give her own. However, she could give him this: "I turned my back on my family because I disagreed with them about something stupid and now they're gone."
Another two weeks pass, and they are drinking tea together again. They drink in silence for several moments before Susan is brave enough to ask, "What was her name? The one who was lost." He looks confused as to how she found out, but before he can ask, Susan explains, "I saw a jacket on my first night here, and you looked at it so sadly, I figured you must've lost someone important. And sometimes, you look around as if you're going to say something but then you find that it's only me."
The Doctor sighs, but says nothing. He drinks his tea and gives a bitter sort of laugh. "A cup of tea saved my life once, and saved the earth."
It wasn't the answer Susan was expecting, but it will do for now. She isn't ready to talk about some things, and she can sense that this is the source of the Doctor's pain. It wasn't her place to ask.
Just before the Doctor leaves the room, he looks back at her and then forward again, pausing in the doorway as he says, "Rose. Her name was Rose."
She's been here for two months or so now, and only recently discovered the shooting range. Susan isn't ready to admit that the stories were true, but she does have a gift for archery, no matter what she is willing to believe or not. Today is a particularly frustrating day because they visited a plague-ridden planet but were unable to save a single person, having to put the poor people out of their misery so they wouldn't have to suffer. She shoots to relieve herself of her guilt and sadness.
Three arrows fly into the center of the target in rapid succession, and, breathing heavily, Susan sinks to her knees. She wipes a tear from her left eye, and places her palms on the warm, artificial grass. When she is ready, she stands and leaves for the wardrobe room ("the city of War Drobe, in the land of Spare Oom," a ghost whispers in her mind), determined to change out of these sweaty clothes.
She doesn't know what she's comfortable wearing. At first, Susan continued wearing the style of her own time, but then found it easier to travel with the Doctor in form-fitting trousers and shirt, with boots on her feet. Now, she isn't so sure. She feels like a young girl playing dress-up in her mother's clothes.
Susan is reminded of playing games with her sister in a large room of marble columns and sunlight. She brushes it away.
The wardrobe room is full of clothing from every era on every planet in every dimension. She sifts through the layers of clothing that hangs on racks with no organization. It's entirely possible that, while the ship does move stuff around occasionally for convenience, the clothes closest to the door were worn most recently, or are perhaps the ship's idea of what would be good for her. To Susan, the latter doesn't make much sense.
Casually passing over a leather jacket and a t-shirt with a Union Flag on it, Susan finds a dress and almost tingles with anticipation. She takes it off the hanger and holds it up. The dress looks to be her size. Stripping quickly, Susan slips the dress over her head and adjusts it before looking in the large mirror.
She gasps upon seeing her image. Brushing the floor, the crimson dress fits tight around her wrists and feels so very familiar. It feels right.
She can almost see herself standing on a grassy plain, laughing with her brothers and sister. A glint of light catches her eye and she lifts her gaze. It is the reflection of light hitting something above her head, but with a little imagination, Susan can almost feel the weight and shine of her golden crown resting on her dark hair.
Maybe Lucy had a point.
The first time Susan and the Doctor kiss, it is a distraction so that a soldier can poison the king's drink (a tyrannical ruler, otherwise Susan would never allow a monarch to fall-the idea hits too close to home). They are dancing at a ball, the Doctor telling Susan a story about him dancing with Madame de Pompadour (he falters at some details and Susan knows he is thinking of Rose). When the Doctor gets a signal from the soldier who holds the chemicals, he thinks on his feet of a good enough distraction.
The king has fancied Susan all night, and the Doctor knows that a proposal will happen before the night is out. Jealousy is the best way to steal a person's attention. The Doctor looks into Susan's crystal blue eyes, lifts his hand to her cheek, and lowers his lips to hers. Her breath catches, then she relaxes. It is over too quickly, and Susan knows it meant nothing.
She doesn't know who Rose is, or what she meant to the Doctor, but Susan knows that she never stood a chance for a place in this man's hearts.
The second time they kiss, they are sitting in the library. They have finally opened up to each other, and the Doctor is telling her of his life and of his Rose. She cries and knows he would were he alone. Susan doesn't think she could ever stand on a beach again.
There is a long pause, and then Susan knows it is her turn to share. "I think I must be going mad," she says softly. "My older brother and my younger brother and sister all believed that we were kings and queens of this other world, but it doesn't make sense and it doesn't feel like it could be true. It's impossible."
"So is this," the Doctor says. His words are poignant and earth-shattering.
Susan sighs and looks at her hands folded in her lap. "I just wish I could know for sure." She looks up at the Doctor, and he looks to be debating something in his mind. A moment passes, and a tear slips from her eye.
"I can help you," the Doctor says. Without knowing how he will, Susan nods once. He moves closer to her and lifts his fingers to her temples. "Close your eyes," he whispers, and she obeys.
There is slight hesitation, but then she feels him in her mind. It is uncomfortable at first, but he is gentle and slow. She tries not to think of how she's falling in love with him, because he is moving around now, and she doesn't want to be a distraction. He strikes a particular chord within her, and she thinks of her family, of a faun, of a Lion.
She gasps and the Doctor pulls out.
He is so close to her. When Susan opens her eyes, she meets his and knows there's no turning back. Susan places a hand on the back of his head and presses her lips to his. The Doctor gingerly places a hand on her hip, and his touch is electrifying. She moves her lips and he reacts, and then he is pulling her lower lip between his.
But then it is over. The Doctor pulls away and Susan can see the horror in his eyes. He moves back to where he was sitting before. Susan turns away, closing her eyes so that the tears can't escape.
When he rises, Susan looks at him and asks, "Did you love her?"
He looks at her and she has never seen him more sad. The Doctor chokes on his words (he never could say it) and simply nods before walking from the room.
Fire burns through Susan's veins, pain stabbing at her abdomen. She cries out, and then the Doctor is with her, holding her hand. He is speaking to her, but she does not hear. Susan has been injured before, has seen grave injuries before. She knows that she will die from this. There is no time to get back to the TARDIS, no time to heal her.
It is ironic; the day after she believes fully in Narnia and in Aslan, she dies.
At least she will be reunited with her family and friends.
The binary stars seem to shine brighter. In the south, the smaller sun winks at her, and Susan knows her time is coming. The Doctor tries to keep her with him, but Susan smiles. "I'm going home," she breathes. Susan looks from his eyes to the smaller sun, and then she is gone.
The Doctor brushes his fingertips over her blue eyes to close them forever. He knows she has found peace, knows she has found her kingdom.
Back on the TARDIS, the Doctor sets the coordinates for London. It will break his hearts to go where Rose once stood, but it is time. He needs to look into those plasma coils around the hospital.
So he moves on.