Cora's Last Farewell
By: Miss Phyllis Baxter (knockedoveralamp)
Fandom: Downton Abbey/Doctor Who
Ships: Robert x Cora; Mary x The Doctor
Word Count: 982
Summary: A Doctor Who crossover fic, where Robert and Cora travel with the Doctor in the place of Amy and Rory; The Doctor married to Mary rather than River. Based on "Amelia's Last Farewell" in The Angels Take Manhattan; Cora is Amelia, Robert is Rory and River is Mary.
Author's Note: Please review if you have the time. This is only the second crossover fic I will have published on here. Also, I don't own any of the dialogue I've borrowed from Doctor Who. I don't own Doctor Who or Downton Abbey, and if I did, my next order of business would be to marry a peer. Also, I spent a small bit of time trying to explore how Cora (or in DW canon, Amy) felt after losing the love of her life. There's not too much, but there's some.
"I won't let them take him, that's what we've got."
...
"Will Cora be there?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"Because he was so happy to see you again, that's how."
...
"To save you, I could do anything."
...
"Together, or not at all."
...
"Cora, come see this," Robert called out to her, regarding the gravestone in front of him.
"What?" she asked, stepping out of the TARDIS, starting to walk back to her husband.
"The gravestone with the same name as me," he replied as she got closer, pointing at it.
"What?" Cora asked when she was right in front of him. Suddenly, he vanished and in his place stood an angel with an outstretched hand. "Doctor!"
She heard the TARDIS door open and Mary and the Doctor stepped out. "Ah!" the Doctor exclaimed when he saw the angel.
"Where the hell did that come from?" Maryasked in a panic.
"It's a survivor, very weak; but keep your eyes on it," the Doctor explained.
"Where's Robert?" Cora asked, not caring about anything else. She felt fear and not for the first time since she had arrived here with the Doctor and Robert. This was the place she had grown up in, but it had changed so much since she had last been there; and the sheer fact that she essentially was a tourist in the place that she had been raised was fearful.
The Doctor approached the angel, breathing heavily. "I'm sorry," he finally said, after taking in the gravestone. He looked back up at Cora and uttered her name before repeating what he had just said.
Cora felt her heart shatter as she repeated the word 'no' over and over again. "We can just go and get him in the TARDIS. One more paradox."
"We'd rip New York apart," the Doctor said. "It would kill the rest of you family. Your mother and your brother would be killed if we did that."
"But that's not true, I don't believe you," Cora sadly remarked. "I can't just leave him, he's everything to me. No."
"Mama, it's true," Mary said sadly. Cora approached the angel slowly, only half hearing what Mary had just said. She had to find a way back to Robert, or else she'd feel empty for the rest of her life.
"Cora, what are you doing?" the Doctor asked cautiously.
"That gravestone. Robert's. There's room for one more name, isn't there?" she asked, continuing to move towards the angel.
"What are you talking about?" the Doctor asked, walking towards her as she kept her eyes on the angel. "Back away from the angel, come back to the TARDIS." He reached out to take her hand to lead her away, but she pulled her hand back, her mind already made up. "We'll figure something out."
"The angel, would it send me back to the same time, to him?" Cora asked, wanting nothing more than to be with her beloved husband once again.
"I don't know, nobody knows," the Doctor said with the panic he was feeling creeping into his voice. "And Robert wouldn't want you to do this. He'd want yo to go on without him. It'll be difficult in the beginning, but you'll be able to cope eventually."
"But it's my beat shot yeah?" Cora asked in reply, ignoring the doctor's last remarks as her tears reflecting in the way she spoke. Robert, she thought. I will be with you again, my everything. Because after being with you for so long, I won't be able to survive.
"No!" the Doctor shouted, reaching out to her though her back was to him.
"Doctor, shut up," Mary called out. "Yes, yes it is."
"Cora," the Doctor said, trying to reason with her.
"Well then," she said, more composed than before. "I just have to blink right?" Behind her, the Doctor kept screaming 'no', but she ignored him and only thought of the times that she and Robert had shared together, wanting to feel that way again. "It'll be fine. I know it will. I'll- I'll be with him, like I should be. Me and Robert, together. Mary." She reached her and back and Mary approached her mother. "You look after him. You be a good girl and you look after him. Tell your grandmother, your Aunt Rosamund, your sister, Tom, and Sybbie and George that your father and I loved them all very much, but I couldn't go on without him."
"You are creating a fixed time, I will never be able to see you again," the Doctor said, playing his final card. He and Cora had been friends since she was a child when he had crashed in the Levinson gardens at their old home in Cincinnati.
"I'll be fine, I'll be with him," Cora repeated, the tears falling down her face.
"Cora. Please, just come back into the TARDIS. Come along Levinson," the Doctor said to her, the two of them crying openly.
"My old friend. Goodbye," Cora said as she turned around. The Doctor turned to the gravestone which now read the words:
In Loving Memory
Robert Patrick Crawley
Aged 78
And his loving wife
Cora Crawley
Aged 80
When Cora opened her eyes, Robert stood before her. "Why did you do that?" he asked her as he wrapped his arms around her, pressing kisses to her lips.
"I did it to be with you, the one place I can truly call home," she whispered with a smile. "Together, or not at all my love. Isn't that what I said?"
"That is how we will always be, my love. Together or not at all," he replied, pressing his lips to her's again. But while they were happy to be together, they would always mourn their loss of their family. Their daughters, grandchildren, their mama and cousin Isobel; wondering briefly what would become of them now.