The Urge to Jump
A Whofic by Heather Logan
(Disclaimer: This was written for fun, not profit. Doctor Who belongs to the BBC.)
Go on.
She called him, gently, persistently, whispering it into the back of his mind.
Go on.
She could feel his awareness, so far above her; could feel it flicker in response to her call; could feel it hesitate, cautious and just a little bit afraid.
Go on. Come down to me.
It had not been an easy place to come to, this world, not with the bare singularity twisting at the edges of her being. But the artifice of the gravity funnel had fascinated her, that and the ripples of causality coming out of this place, and she'd never been afraid of mere warped spacetime. She had needed to come here. To come here, and to bring her Time Lord.
Go on.
The human with him was eager, her primate brain ready to jump, ready to fall, ready to rationalize the urge. But still he hesitated.
Go on, go on, go on!
He was worried about her, she realized; about the other human, the more-than-human, the goddess who had looked into her heart and lived. Worried about leaving her alone.
Silly. The goddess could take care of herself.
Please, go on.
She'd never been afraid of mere warped spacetime. But there was something else in this place, something so old that it sent a chill through the core of her being. And that -- that frightened her.
She couldn't fight the demon from before time. For that, she needed her Time Lord.
Go on.
He was coming now at last, the worldlines beginning to gather, the loose strands of time starting to twine. She tensed, her spirit quickening.
And then he stopped. Out of rope.
He couldn't fly like she could; couldn't grab on to the fabric of the universe to pull himself out of a fall. He was small and fragile, and it could be miles down.
It could be thirty feet.
She whispered it into his mind like a siren on the rocks, knowing it was miles yet knowing nevertheless that he would survive. She could feel the threads of time, still uncertain yet coming rapidly together now, the sheer beauty of the pattern they were starting to weave thrilling through her being. It would work; she knew it would work; she could already see the outline of the solution and it was fantastic. It was always fantastic. There was nothing in the universe like this.
And yet still he hesitated, still he feared, not for himself so much as for his goddess. He wanted to see her again, to tell her...
She already knows.
No siren's deception, that. When the goddess had looked into her heart, she had looked back.
She felt him let go. And he flew.
Author's note: Just a bit of fluff. I wondered, if the human urge to jump comes from our primate childhood in the trees, then from where came that whisper in the back of the Doctor's head? And it was awfully convenient that the Tardis had ended up down there too... Makes you wonder how much of a hand in it the old girl has after all.
"It's that feeling you get, yeah? Right at the back of your head. That impulse. That strange little impulse. That mad little voice saying go on, go on, go on... go over, go on."
