Title: . . . Who Burned Like Starfire
Author: Nemo the Everbeing
Rating: PG
Summary: On her birthday, Ace receives two gifts: one intentional, one not.
Author's Note: I've finally finished my first Who story. I want to get this out, get some reactions and see where I should go from there, so please, reviews are more than welcome.
To Pair, or Not to Pair: The lovely thing about the Seventh Doctor and Ace is that their relationship is whatever you want it to be. I've tried to write them as the series did (and yes, they are that tactile with one another. Go back, watch "The Curse of Fenric" and count all the scenes they're touching in some way. It's . . . impressive), and therefore their relationship is very ambiguous as to its exact nature. So, really, this is only Doctor/Ace if you want it to be.
Disclaimer: The BBC has Trademarks slapped on everything concerning this series, and I've never trademarked anything. So, I make no money off this, and all characters and TARDISes are owned by the BBC, Sylvester McCoy, and Sophie Aldred.
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Ace woke up early that morning, rolling out of her bed and letting her bare feet slap the floor of her room in the TARDIS and letting the warmth from that floor seep up into her toes. Like so many of the best things about the TARDIS, it wasn't that the ship defied all laws of known physics or that it went on for seemingly ever which captivated Ace, but the little things like warmed floors in the bedrooms, and strange rooms filled with amazing stuff the Doctor probably hadn't touched in years. Ace was sure she could go on exploring the TARDIS forever, and it would be easy. The TARDIS would make sure of that. Because, in the end, those little things about the TARDIS all added up to the big fact that, no matter what anyone told her, Ace was convinced that the TARDIS was alive, and reacted to her. And, if the TARDIS liked you, you inevitably found the strangest things if you set your mind to wandering.
Ace crawled out of bed, scratching at her mussed hair. She stumbled to the bathroom and showered, combed through her tangles and managed a messy ponytail, pulled on clothes (nothing fancy, she was just knocking about the TARDIS that day, and Lord knew that the only way the Doctor would notice her clothing would be if she wasn't wearing any), considered pulling on her boots, but decided against it and just put on a pair of tatty old socks. She glanced into the mirror, deemed herself as acceptable as she needed to be, and set out for the control room.
The Doctor was there, puttering around the console as he so often did, tapping at various buttons and the like. "Oi, Professor," Ace said, "I thought that we weren't going to go anywhere today."
The Doctor hummed a noncommittal response.
Ace rolled her eyes. "Professor," Ace tried again, letting an edge of impatience creep into her voice. "What's going on? Is some planet desperately in need of our assistance? Do we have to overthrow yet another evil regime?" Figured. Even when they were taking a bit of a holiday just drifting through the vortex, the Doctor had to find trouble. For once, Ace just wanted to relax.
And suddenly, the Doctor looked up and smiled. Not that knowing, cunning smile he often used in the heat of an adventure, when he saw all the pieces falling into place like no one else could and he was thrilled by that secret knowledge. No, this was a genuine, sweet smile meant just for her.
Interested and confused, Ace asked in a softer tone, "What's going on?"
"I was glancing through one of my Earth calendars, and I ran across a rather remarkable entry for today," he said, busying himself at the controls again with renewed gusto.
"I thought time didn't exist in the vortex."
"Well, technically, it doesn't, but your mind never notices that, so I set my calendar by your sleep cycle."
Ace gave a bemused grin. "Sweet of you," she said. She had to admit that she'd done no such thing. She just sort of let the days slip away when she was in the TARDIS, when the vortex stopped her ageing and where there was no sun to rise or set. She couldn't remember the last time she'd know the date. "So, what day is it?" she asked. "Some sort of Time Lord Christmas or something?"
"Oh, no," he said. "No, this is far more important."
"The day of the Big Bang?"
This made him chuckle. "No," he said, "but you're getting warmer."
He punched in a final command and the TARDIS made a strange noise, a sort of muffled version of its materialization. The Doctor looked at her and said, "Close your eyes."
She was definitely interested and confused now. Just what did he have up his sleeve? The Doctor would probably say he had an ace, but that was never the only thing up there. No, there were master plans and a pair of spoons and humor and wisdom and a tap on her nose all tucked up under the chocolate brown suiting.
For once, Ace decided not to press, not to push for answers but simply to allow the Doctor his mystery and go along with him. She did as she was told, closing her eyes and waiting. Something told her that good things really did come to those with a touch of fortitude.
She heard the door open, but there was no noise from outside, no indication of where the Doctor had landed them. There wasn't even the puff of air filled with alien or earth fragrances which might give her some clue, however indecipherable. She felt his hand touch and then take hers, pulling her along. Not really knowing where her patience was coming from, aside from complete trust in the Doctor, Ace followed, keeping her eyes tightly shut.
He took her elbow and helped her over the threshold, and Ace felt a smooth surface under her stocking feet. She slid her foot along it experimentally, and turned her head toward the floor even though she kept her eyes closed. Maybe it was a space station. Maybe the big event was the christening of the first Earth colony in space and he'd brought her to see. That would certainly be holiday, even if it meant they would probably have to save the unsuspecting crew from hordes of pillaging Daleks or the like.
The Doctor's voice was close to her ear, pitched soft and low. "Open your eyes."
She opened them, still looking at her feet. There they were, in her sad, mismatched socks, and they stood on nothing.
Nothing. A vast expanse of space and star field stretched out into eternity below her feet, below one orange sock and one turquoise. Below her big toe, which poked out of a hole in the orange sock. She gasped, her head jerking up.
She stared at a huge star filling her sight. Its light was filtered, no doubt by the translucent material she was standing on; however, the colors and the intensity was still there, simply pulled back to a level at which she could appreciate them.
She turned to the Doctor, who was standing there, grinning like a child at the grandeur spread out before them. "Professor, what . . ?"
He squeezed her hand, the hand he had never actually released, and said, "Happy birthday, Ace."
"You're giving me a star?" she asked, laughing in wonder at the sheer audacity of it all.
"No," he said. "I'm giving you a sight which few sentient life forms have ever survived. I'm giving you one of the greatest explosions in the universe. I'm giving you—" he checked his watch, nodded to himself and looked up, eyes shining in excitement "—a hypernova."
Ace turned back to the star just in time to see it contract. It pulled into itself, shrinking from view, and the roiling on its surface became more and more furious. It was like watching the ocean at the first hint of a storm, when the waves picked up and far out toward the horizon the whole surface began to shiver in worry. The worry became panic, and the surface of the star heaved against its tightening constrains, both desperate to escape the crush and completely unable to do so.
"You mean a supernova, don't you?" she asked, unable to tear her gaze from the sight. She was amazed she could maintain a thought, let alone the thread of a conversation.
"No, no. A supernova is a parlor trick, a mere trifle resulting in a cloud of supernova remnant. A hypernova, well, that's a whole different species of explosion. There's no remnant left after a hypernova, no cloud of dissipating, chaotic energy. In a hypernova, something is born as that star dies."
"And what's that?"
"Watch," he said.
The star shrunk smaller and smaller, the light of it growing brighter as the atoms within the star became more excited, as the core, full of extremely heavy elements, got denser and denser. Even the filter on their observation deck was strained and Ace had to squint and shield her eyes. She was shaking with the tension she could see in the star. "Oh, God," she said to herself.
Then, when it seemed the star couldn't become any more compact, it blew outwards, expanding with breathtaking speed. Ace saw the shockwave racing for the TARDIS and gasped, "Doctor!"
"Keep watching," he said, an odd, inhuman joy in his voice.
The blast hit the TARDIS, but instead of incinerating, instead of even reacting, the TARDIS remained firm, not even jittering as it was overcome. The front of the plasma passed by. Ace stared at the tendrils of star licking about the platform. They weren't fire, really. They were like something existing between gas and liquid, a roiling sea of phantasmal flame. She let go of the Doctor's hand and stepped toward the bits of dying sun, seeing ghostly shapes forming in them only to disappear again. Ace reached out and touched the wall of the platform, pressing her hand to its coolness and watching the patterns of plasma light up the thin places between her fingers.
"How . . ." she started, but found that her voice was stuck somewhere. She swallowed and tried again. "How aren't we dead, Professor?"
"Because we aren't all the way out of the temporal vortex. We're on the edge, in a modified time current so we can see events which normally take millions of years in a matter of minutes." His voice was so soft behind her that she had to turn. She had to see him. He stood in the center of the platform, looking for all the world as though he were standing in space with nothing holding him up. His body was alight in starfire which caught and shone in his dark hair and made his blue eyes burn. Ace was struck by the thought that the hypernova wasn't her only gift that day, although it might be the only intentional one.
That day, she finally got to see the Doctor as a Time Lord. He wasn't the absent-minded professor traveling the stars in his funny blue police box, nor the scheming genius dubbed the Great Manipulator by so many. He was blazing, too ancient to imagine and so very young at the same time, a paradox of wisdom and naiveté, experience and a wonder of all the things he didn't know, of such weariness and such energy, but above all, he was a nexus of power. Behind him, wreathing the exterior of the TARDIS, was a whirlpool of blue, the mouth of the temporal vortex. Before him was the eddying plasma of an exploded star. He was lit from both sides by powers of the universe, and of something alien to it. This was, she realized, how he lived. In time, but not a part of it, seeing the years turn in a blink of his eye. Seeing the universe grow old around him. Seeing companion after companion grow, love him, and eventually leave him. Because in the end, they all saw what Ace did in that moment: that the Doctor looked like them and acted like them, but he would never be them, and that was right. That was the way it should be.
He looked at her with those blazing eyes and asked, "Ace?"
They both knew, at that moment, that she had seen something more than a star dying. She'd seen the Doctor for what he was. It was a sight which had caused more than one companion to pack up and go, and Ace saw the Doctor's brow crease in the worry of what seemed an eternity.
Ace wasn't packing. Ace wasn't running. Where others may have seen this rare glimpse of a Time Lord and gone home feeling small and scared, Ace felt it catch in the back of her throat, felt herself buoyed by the wonder which only a moment ago had been reserved for the hypernova. Not believing herself, she felt tears running down her cheeks as she grinned wide. "Hello, Doctor," she said.
And his awe was directed at her. His strange, alien joy was focused on what she had done, the step she had taken. He offered his hand and she took it. He pulled her in and she went, turning to lean back against him as his arms slipped around her middle. She leaned her head back against his shoulder as the plasma was suddenly sucked back toward the remains of the star; changing so many beautiful colors at its edges as it collapsed inwards.
There was nothing left of what the star had been, but Ace saw a point of darkness at the center of the flowing plasma. The eddies of energy and fire fell into that darkness and vanished as completely as if they had never been there at all.
Then, when it seemed that the blackness would be all that was left, two beams of light began to shine, stabbing straight up and down from the heart of that darkness, which had now consumed the star in its entirety. The newly-formed black hole was the spoke of a two-pronged wheel of light so pure that it made Ace ache inside. She didn't understand the mechanics of what had happened, didn't understand the two columns which chased back even the blackness of space. What Ace did understand was that she was crying, her hands were wrapped around herself and interlaced with the Doctor's, and that something inside her had either come loose or finally fit into place.
"Thank you, Doctor," she said, and he held her as they watched the black hole blossom in light.