It's an odd story, I think—not what I usually write, and I'm sure something like it has been done many times before. But I had to get it out…and it seems appropriate for the character. More of my personal philosophy involved, I'm sure; please try not to mind too much. J Anyway, I suppose I should say this once again—I don't own them; BBC does, and if I actually made any profit off this…well, I would have money then. What a nice idea…too bad it won't happen any time soon.
Just a Moment
I wanted to die.
Have you ever felt like that? It wasn't a violent, wrenching emotion, like when your uncle or dog dies and you want the world to end. It wasn't a long, severe, sinking depression that you just couldn't get yourself out of. It was just the occasional passing thought. Toying with a possibility. It was an option. Living—or dying.
Really quite simple. Hamlet knew what he was talking about.
And I never seriously thought about it. It wasn't a serious consideration. I could never go through with something that big. I'm too much a coward. Anyway, I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to go about it—pills? Car wreck? I'm just not that imaginative.
There were days when it was just too much. Another bad grade on a test, another pointless fight with my dad, another day spent avoiding people because they wouldn't want to talk to me anyway. Those were the times when I just seriously looked back at my life, considered my future, and realized—knew—it wouldn't matter at all if I disappeared off the face of the earth.
No one would care. Least of all me. But that was kinda the point of dying, I suppose.
I was having one of those days, when the thought of death didn't scare me but rather seemed like a good possibility, so I drove to the park and sat on a bench, staring at nothing. It was a cold winter day, much too cold to be outside, even in a sweater and coat and gloves. But I didn't feel like being warm, and indoor warmth wouldn't really warm me up. I didn't want to be near people at the moment. I needed to be alone.
It's the little things; everyone knows that. Someone made a remark, someone else a slight criticism that was probably even true. I'd accidentally ripped my shirt; I didn't get that solo. My mom wasn't feeling good; my brother needed cash again.
The little things. Same old same old.
I wanted to cry. Howl hysterically and bang my head against a wall. But it was too cold. So I just sat on the bench and stared into nothing.
Somebody sat down next to me. "It's a lovely day, isn't it?" His voice was quiet but infinitely happy.
I glanced over at him covertly, my heart beating faster at the dreaded thought that he might look back at me, catch my eye. He had a British accent, really beautiful voice. He wore a green velvet coat that shimmered in the lack of sunlight—even a watch chain!—and had long, curly golden-brown hair. I was surprised he wasn't shivering convulsively with the cold.
"Not really," I surprised myself by answering. Scratch that, more like shocked myself. I can barely force myself to speak to people I try to consider friends, let alone oddly dressed strangers.
"Oh?" He looked at me, in the eye, surprised. He had a long, pale face and sad blue eyes. I couldn't believe I was holding his gaze. "Why not?"
I looked away, around the park. "It's cold. It's dead," I said flatly.
"But isn't there a kind of beauty in that?" he persisted, also looking around with a much more rapturous gaze than mine. "It's so remote. Cold, yes, even dead, as you say. But it has its own kind of magic, don't you think? A wild, lonely magic. It knows it will come back to life soon."
I snorted. "Lucky for it." I hugged myself in my coat, freezing, but incapable of leaving the man alone on the bench.
He glanced at me curiously, too perceptively for my taste. I felt like he knew me, knew what I was thinking—I didn't like it. Who would? "Spring will come soon," he told me, rather inanely I thought. He seemed to be trying to hint at something deeper than the obvious statement of the words.
"I know," I answered.
The silence stretched between us for a while after that. He seemed perfectly happy to sit beside me and wait. For what, I don't know, but I knew he was waiting. For a fanciful moment, I thought maybe he was magical, and he could help me figure out why my life was so terrible. And for some reason I couldn't leave him alone on that bench.
So I sat beside him and thought about my life and considered dying.
"It's not fun," he said.
"What?" I jerked a look at him.
"Dying," he told me, turning to look at me with those wide blue eyes. "Been there, done that, didn't like it. Very unpleasant. Painful."
I stared into nothing. "Not if you do it the right way," I replied distantly. I wasn't even aware of saying the words aloud; I was more thinking to myself.
"Yes, I suppose if you actually planned it you could make it comfortable," he conceded, as if the idea had just occurred to him, as if we were debating something trivial and had been for some time. "But it's so final, don't you think?"
Yeah. I hadn't really given that particular part of the idea too much consideration. "And some days really are better than others, aren't they?" he pressed on, not looking at me, but gazing around him at the desolate landscape in quiet delight. "You don't always feel like dying."
I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. "But isn't the fact that I sometimes want to enough?" I asked, forgetting how impossible this conversation was supposed to be, that no one should be able to understand my problems.
"No," he answered firmly, looking me in the eye again. He seemed so certain of himself. I envied that. "Everyone struggles. Everyone occasionally wants to give up—even I do, sometimes. And sometimes I do give up. But I never choose to die."
The tears were falling down my face without ceremony, without any sound. I hardly noticed them at all, even though I could feel my face scrunching up against the pain. "I just want it all to go away," I told him in a tiny voice. I'd said the words many times before but never actually meant them until that moment. "I can't get along with my dad, my mom's always depressed, which just makes me feel guiltier, my brother's always in trouble, I feel like a fraud…I'm not smart enough. I can't keep everything together. I can't take care of them." I couldn't believe I was telling a complete stranger all this.
"You don't have to. You're only a child. Your father loves you; he worries about you—so does your mother; she cares for you deeply. And your brother has to find his own way. You can't control everything. You can't control their lives." He took my hand. "I promise it will get better. You'll always have days where death seems like an option.
"But you don't have to choose it."
The tears were falling faster. "It's not fair," I sobbed out uselessly.
"I know it's not." He sounded sad, so impossibly unhappy himself, that I cried even harder. "I've tried all my lives to make things more fair. But you can't. You just have to keep fighting. Just keep hoping."
He held my hand until I finished crying. And then he gave me a smile that crinkled around his eyes and made him look even sadder than he had before, while still looking happy. Still looking hopeful. "Crying's good for you, I'm told," he said to me brightly. "Do you feel better?"
I felt cold and hollow and numb. But I felt like I could keep living. "Yes."
He squeezed my hand and nodded, standing up. "There's always the future," he told me seriously. He gazed around himself again at the cold, dead landscape around us and smiled quietly. He looked back down at me. "Even I don't always know what will happen in the future. Remember that."
He walked away.
I stayed on the park bench a long time after that, staring at the dead trees and the cold white snowscape around me. It was beautiful. Magical. And then I drove home and hugged my parents.
I still have days when I want to give up. When I even toy with the idea of death. But I think of that man, in the green velvet coat with the blue eyes, and I think of the future. And I hope.
So I hope you read this, sir. I want to thank you for letting me cry.
For telling me it was all right.
* * *
The Doctor paused and turned back. He could still see her sitting on the bench, looking around her with a new interest in her dark eyes, the tears drying on her pale face.
He smiled slightly.
Sam quietly joined him, also looking at the girl. "Who was that?" she asked finally.
"I have no idea," the Doctor replied, and glanced down at his friend happily. "But she looked like she needed someone to tell her it was all right. So I did."
Sam nodded and smiled slightly. The Doctor turned again and headed for the TARDIS. Sam waited an instant, not following him, her gaze still on the other girl.
The Doctor sometimes really amazed Sam.
She turned and followed him away.