Written right after finishing the first episode of Series 7. It was great. ...And of course, I had to write a fanfiction about the poor gal that dies in this episode, because sarcasmI'm an impeccable writer and such a divine episode deserves to be touched by my gracesarcasm/.
(any errors in point of view are because I've sort of been locked into second-person view for a while and I'm also running low on sleep but this idea was just too good to put down)
She stares at the soufflé mold, examining the residue of past failures, running her fingers over its curves. It felt real before, so very real. She closes her eyes for a moment and tries to remember how it felt before he came to rescue her.
A bit of butter sits nearby, which she greases the mold with. She's done this a hundred times before, never really questioning how bottomless the ship's stockpile of it was, never really asking where she got it. She adds some Parmesan, coats the sides, and sticks it in the freezer.
For a moment, she stands in front of the freezer, just examining the texture of the door. It looks a lot like the texture on the one she had back at home, the one in the home that isn't home anymore but she still likes to think that it is. It probably is that texture, anyways. She switches on the oven and preheats it to…something around 400 degrees Fahrenheit. It doesn't really matter, anyways. Not anymore. But she pretend that it still does, sort of.
In a little saucepan, she heats up some more butter, adding in flour and whisking it until it foams. She takes it off the stove and reaches for the milk before remembering she didn't warm it yet. Every step is important, every little tidbit. Every memory.
She made soufflés like this back at home. A lot of times she'd mess them up, sometimes even filling the house with smoke. She loved them, though, and her friends and family all saw that. They gave her tips, told her how to make them, stared in exasperation at her when she failed yet again at some little step that shouldn't have been so hard for a genius like her. A genius that even monsters wouldn't dare to kill, so brilliant was she.
Those little tricks her mom had shown her, like how to hold the whisk and how to best stir in the milk, and the special ingredients her best friend had suggested to her, all of them were mixed in with love. And that was why she had survived on them for a year. Why she'd decided to eat soufflés for a year.
She never asked where everything came from, how she'd been making soufflés for a year and dumping half of them into the trash and never running out of milk. Where she got the eggs.
Eggs.
…Eggs.
…Ext…
…No. Not that. Not ever. Human. She will always be human. It doesn't matter what they did to her, what they tried to turn her into, she'll never be one of them, she'll always be her, always…
And suddenly she's pouring the mixture into the mold. She panics for a second, knowing that she hadn't gotten to this part yet, that she'd skipped so many important steps, wanting to back up and go through every step one by one, wanting to hold onto her memories of home, of being human, wanting to hold on. Still, she pours the rest of it in, scrapes out the remaining mixture stuck to the side of the bowl, and after reviewing what she should have done beforehand, puts it into the oven.
The Asylum will be destroyed shortly, she knows, and so too shall she. She still wants to think that she knows all this stuff because she's a genius and an awesome hacker. It's not, but she's still going to try to believe. Try to believe that she can still be saved.
She came out here to see the stars. She came out here because she wanted a taste of adventure, a glimpse at something more. Well, she got an adventure, but it wasn't what she wanted. She wanted an adventure where she could come back home and tell everyone about all the wonderful things she'd seen, all the fun things she'd done. She'd kissed her mummy goodbye, hitched a ride with her friends to the docking bay, and told them that she'd bring them souvenirs before she boarded. Then they somehow managed to crash into a planet, which wouldn't have been so bad if it were some other ordinary planet with medical staff and other people and stuff. She might have died still, but it wouldn't be this planet, this planet that might have been one of the worst places to ever crash on, if not the worst.
And she sees the stars now, the stars, twinkling just beyond her reach, or farther probably. She sees the stars he went back to, after he told her that she was never going to leave. She's jealous, more than jealous, she hates him for breaking her world into pieces, for dragging her back into reality, for going back to those stars and leaving her behind. But still, she loves him for coming to rescue her, for telling her the truth, for the kindness he showed even after he saw who she'd become. And she thanks him. For reminding her of something that she once took for granted.
The oven dings, and after slipping on some mitts, she opens the door and takes the finished soufflé out. She heads over back to her cozy little base, with the (not really that) comfy chair in the middle and the techy stuff all around, plops down on the chair, and switches on the screen to the stars.
As everything starts turning to white, she smiles, and looks down at her perfect soufflé.
It tastes delicious.