"What?"
Seth heard as she felt her body begin to stabilize.
"What!?" A feminine voice demanded, shrill and angry. Large green eyes scanned her surroundings, it looked like nothing she's seen before, and she's been witness to a lot of things over the centuries she lived.
"What?" A man asked again, confusedly.
Seth sighed, maybe she choose a really poor time to hop dimensions now, didn't she?
"You can not know for sure if the device will be successful" Her dear friend Countess of Maldavia pleaded, eyes heavy with worry. But Seth was decided to try it… it being actually a safe-guard in case Cain got the best of her… The little clock strapped to her wrists was a lost device found in the Methuselah moon, the space ship where they were all born.
"It is perfectly safe, dear friend, I've seen to it myself" Seth assured, and she had, she still remembered her role in the colony, as an engineer and chief of scientific division. She may look to be no older than thirteen but she used to be a genius child and now, almost a thousand years later, she wasn't any stupider. "If I fall in the battle against Cain, this will scatter my body through time and space" The problem really lay with where her body will form… "I'll have no control over where I will land, though, but I promise to return, my children need me, Abel needs me"
Donna Noble wasn't a happy camper… no wait, wasn't a happy bride… she was walking down the aisle (finally), seeing her dear Lance at the other side beside his best man, all smiley and happy when suddenly BAM! She felt tingly all over, her eyes blinded by a light and then she wasn't in the church anymore. The first thing that passed through her head wasn't exactly something that should be going over a bride's head in the middle of her wedding.
"What?" She cried, confused, angry and hurt.It wasn't easy to snag a hubby these days and age, so who dared to rip her off of this? The answer came as she heard another dumb folded voice cry.
"What?" A skinny man in a brown pinstriped suit, brown hair and brown eyes, he was standing behind a round control center with buttons she wouldn't even pretend to know.
"What?" She repeated again, he seemed as confused as she was, but she wouldn't lay off him so easily, she was angry, raging mad.
Then, came a third voice, a girl's voice.
"I am sorry to interrupt, but would any of you be so kind and lend me clothes?" Both Donna and the skinny man's head swirled comically at the same time to stare wide eyed at the third person in this place – twilight zone – really. A tiny skinny girl, with short cropped hair and large expressive green eyes. She was also naked, save for a woman's coat protecting her modesty.
…
Seth sighed tiredly, her body still feeling a little disconnected after being transported atom after atom through time and space. She noticed a jacket sitting over a railing and grabbed it to cover herself with, yes, her body came, but couldn't her clothes come with it? And what was this place? The background humming noise was slightly comforting from her time in the colony. It signified the multiple electronics working in synchrony to sustain their lives. But it was also different, a song and not white noise at all.
The brown haired man was standing next to a control panel, under her feet, the cold biting metal that showed through a myriad of cables and machines and blinking lights. Taking another big breath, Seth steeled herself and smiled her friendly smile, the one they'd never associate with a millennium old Empress.
"I am sorry to interrupt, but would any of you be so kind and lend me clothes?" She could see the impact her words had on the two "adults". The man was baffled and a little scared, large brown eyes looking into her and she could see the intelligent light in those. The red haired woman looked boggled, thwarted and slightly angrier. A second passed without any of them saying anything and if Seth was still human, she'd be shivering.
The woman swirled onto the man with renewed vengeance. "So now you're kidnapping little girls too! You sick pervert!" She advanced on him the best she could in the mass of white lace.
"I-I-I didn't!" He was quick to side step the well aimed slap and put some distance between himself and the angry bride. "I have absolutely no idea how you both got here!" he stared at them, cogs turning in his brain. "It should have been impossible! We're still in flight!"
"Well, where are we?" The red head calmed a little, but not much, and proceeded to where Seth stood. "And who are you?" She was still glaring, though.
"We are in the TARDIS" He replied hesitantly. "And I am the-"
"The what?" The bride cut him off, the man sputtered, unbelieving.
"The TARDIS!" He repeated.
"I think the Tardis is the name of this ship" Seth spoke up before the red head could start another roll.
"TARDIS" He corrected absently "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space" Then he seemed to come back to himself, and checking the red head to make sure she was sufficiently quiet he continued. "And I am the Doctor, now, who are you and how did you get here?" His confidence was rising, and Seth winced as he started to blab in scientific Jargon on the woman's face and got slapped as a result. He kind of deserved that. She smiled.
"I'm Seth, don't know about the Lady, but I used an atomic implosion induced defragmentation through a temporal anomaly" Again, she received bug eyed stares from the two other people in the room. But while the woman was as confused as a gnat, the man's face brightened.
"Ah, a temporal teleportation device!" He concluded, Seth nodded and he went on. "I am betting you had no set location to materialize back on, so your molecules obviously were attracted to something similar to the device you used to transport in the first place" He grinned. "That's why you're starkers! Only your molecules got through!" Seth was thinking his words over, what the TARDIS stood for, it made sense that she'd be brought over to this time ship, if she understood correctly.
"Don't stand there! Give the poor girl something to wear!" The red head turned to Seth and said in a kindly way, ignoring the indignant looks she got from the Doctor, even after he took off his brown coat and gave Seth. "I'm Donna" And proceeded to glare at the Doctor. "I have a wedding to attend, MY WEDDING!" Donna took Seth's hands after she finished bottoming up the coat and marched down to a wooden door.
"No, don't do that!" The Doctor raced after them, but Donna already had the door open and was staring, mouth agape, at the super-nova he's been orbiting for the past days. Seth allowed the wonder to consume her, she dearly missed the years she spent in the space station, and then, the open universe at the bare tips of her fingers when they first went to Mars. Revolving stars, bright galaxies so close yet millions light-years away… But how was it possible? To her knowledge, no human has the technology to reach this far into Space… oh… silly, she smiled as it dawned on her. TARDIS indeed.
"How are we still breathing?" Donna gasped, frozen beyond the beauty of the dying star.
"The TARDIS is protecting us" The Doctor explained quietly, for a second, his eyes darkened with a lost expression as he gazed at the star, Seth caught it though, and wondered who he lost… it was the same shadow that lived inside Abel's eyes.
They heard Donna whimper. "It's getting cold, close the door" She ordered the Doctor, dragging Seth back into the Control room. The Doctor paused, seemed to think a bit, then turned to Donna closing the door behind him.
"Human right?" He asked, bewildered. Donna frowned down at him, clearly offended.
"Of course! Is that optional?" the Doctor blinked up, meeting Donna's eyes.
"Well yeah! It is with me" Now he sounded offended, Seth smiled indulgently, remembering of her children, she decided to play with them a little bit. Her smile turned devious for a second before she managed to control herself.
"With me as well" She quipped, giggling when the Doctor stumbled and Donna froze. Though the Doctor didn't seem really surprised at her not quite admission at not being human. "I am older than I look, possibly older than you"
"Nah, not likely"
"And you? Are you all aliens?" the red head turned to the Doctor, pointing accusingly at him. "Great! Been abducted by an alien pervert from Mars!" she cried at the Doctor's face, he frowned unhappily.
"I'm not from Mars!"
Seth sighed, it would be a long day. Even if now that she allowed her senses to reach the Doctor, the double heart-beat and strange breathing patterns and lower body temperature marked him clearly as a non-human.
"Whatever, just take me back to my Wedding!"
…
"And you, would you like to come?" He turned his brown eyes down to Seth, his face blank of emotions, but she could see clearly in his eyes the fear of being alone. She grinned and nodded, taking his proffered hand into her smaller one and letting him pull her into his TARDIS.
"Bye Lady!" Seth called over her shoulder to Donna's form, who still stood in front of the porch, waving good bye to the strange aliens.
She waved until the Doctor closed the doors and ran up to the console, tweaking this and that, his smile was broad as the ship shuddered around them and rocketed to outer space. "Brilliant!" He cheered, then stopped and stared at Seth pensively. "You have a few things to explain" He declared boldly.
"So have you" Seth replied lightly, moving her hands up and down a coral strut and looking every inch an imp as she could. "I can hear them, your hearts" And to her sadistic satisfaction, that seemed to shock the Doctor.
"Right, um… what are you?" He asked carefully, prompting Seth to smile more openly. She wasn't ashamed of what she became, even if her origins were less of ordinary.
"It's a long story"
"We have a time machine"
"I've been genetically engineered to be perfect" She started, somberly, sitting down on the grating floor and getting comfortable in his large coat. "A perfect child, smart, strong, a culmination of all the best humanity had to offer at the time" This startled him somewhat, his eyes got a little wide and she found herself wondering how come she was trusting him this much.
Then, her mind played back on how he risked his life to save all others, selfless, without demanding anything in return but the company of a stranded bride and an alien child. Just like Abel, eyes as old and as dark, smile as strained, posture as stiff.
"That's not possible, humanity won't be able to control genetics to that level for another hundreds of years" Seth eyed him ruefully, as if indulging on his denial of facts she lived through. At least until it downed on him. "You traveled through time as well!" He accused with no bite and full of enthusiasm.
Seth continued, as if he hasn't interrupted. "But the project didn't go very far, the Laboratory broke and we were sold to the Air Force… There was this space program to send a colony to Mars, and the U.S. government thought it would be a good idea to send us four out into space, leading the Mars project. We were trained in various subjects, physics, science, mathematics, languages… war… Our only outlook to humanity was through a porthole, we never experienced Earth as it was, we were sent to Mars with no perspective of how to act around humans" She paused, a deep ache inside her chest made her breath deeply. "While on Mars, the sensors detected an unidentified energy source. We were sent to investigate, and found a giant space ship, as large as a city, buried under red sand"
The Doctor hmm-ed and aahhh-ed , but when Seth got to the space ship on Mars part, he seemed perplexed, so she allowed him to comment. "A what on Mars?" He winced at the look Seth sent him. "But… history says there were no alien life forms living on Mars by the time humans got there! Mars was too unattractive! Too cold and too sandy!"
"I'm not finished yet" Seth reminded him sternly while thinking about what he said… "And you have a time machine, we can go there later and check if you are correct" His mouth contorted, as if he couldn't decide between a grin and a frown, he settled for a nod and she moved on. "We were ordered to scavenge the ship, and we found a lot of useful technologies to improve our lives in the Colony, but above all else, we found a life form… a bacteria, a bacillus…"
"You inoculated yourselves with it" The Doctor concluded on his own, Seth could see that he understood the curiosity even if he disapproved of it immensely. "What happened?"
"We did it with a few volunteers, those compatible with the bacillus… changed… they began a symbiotic relationship that improved the host's body, augmented strength, speed and a stretched life span, we started to call them playfully by Methuselah, after the biblical figure… it didn't take long for the whole colony to become infected after that, we lived quietly for a while, until it happened…" She took a breath "We found another thing in the ship, these nano-machines… we first thought they were there for medical reasons…" She took another breath "My brother, Abel… he used to be a rebel, harsh and uncaring… while his twin, Cain, was charismatic. Cain suffered an accident, a fatal wound that would have killed him… we were so desperate to save him, Abel, Lilith and I… we were siblings in all but blood, children born out of test tubes and isolated from the world"
This time, the Doctor kept his mouth shut, letting Seth ride out of her silence on her own, she needed to face that, he realized, so he let her.
"We thought the nano-machines would help, so we doused Cain with them… it helped him, in a few days the fatal wound that would have killed him was gone… but we used too much… they stayed in his blood changing him… when we least realized, Abel and I were filled with them as well, lastly, it was Lilith… Cain referred to us as Krusnick Machines, I was number III" She smiled bitterly. "Cain lost his mind to our new found power, we were so much more than the Methuselah, more than the humans… As long as we remained in our confine, our home in Mars, all was well… but Earth control called us back, war broke out and Earth was leveled with atomic bombs, most of it became waste-lands, we came back yes, but we were too different from the people there, humans called us vampires and another war began, humans against the invading force of the Methuselah empire led by Cain and Abel. We were fighting for our right to exist, to be on our planet… Cain was fighting to destroy humanity… Lilith was against us, she was the eldest amongst us and had the chance to know the good side of Earth, she disarmed out ship's weapon system and fled to the Vatican, helping them fight against us and becoming the Dark Saint for the humans… Abel and Lilith have always been close, so when she was gone, Abel's faith in Cain started to waver and Cain didn't like it, so he set up trap after trap, until one day on board of our ship, Lilith fell by Cain's hand… I saw it all happen, hidden away and too cowardly to help her… I watched as Abel found Lilith's remains and it broke him, that moved me, I opened the ship's air lock and Cain fell to his death... but dispute wasn't over, I couldn't take it any longer and gathered a few of the Methuselah who were against the war as well and ran away to a deserted land in the Mediterranean, we cleaned the land and created our home…"
"I took care of my Empire for nine hundred years, they became my children… but we couldn't keep going as we were… humans and Methuselah, they weren't able to share the same Earth, it would take something extraordinary to change that… and it happened… Cain wasn't as dead as we thought, his body was destroyed, but he spent the last centuries healing and biding his time to strike… he organized a terrorist faction and through it he instigated hate between us. Abel was the front line of defense against Cain, the only one powerful enough to face him and survive, I know I didn't" This, she pointed to the clock still on her wrists. "Cain was finally ready to attack, he set up a trap and I fell into it, I only survived because of this" The Doctor, while silent during her tale, took the time to peek at the strange clock, blinking in surprise seemingly recognizing what it was. He looked deeply at her, a sort of understanding rippling between them at that moment. He nodded than glanced down at the device in his hands.
"It is a ripper!" He looked uncertain at Seth's direction, mind still reeling from what she told him… he knew human history personally, seen to it sometimes, so when he said he didn't know what she was talking about, he meant it. But this device, this little thing! "It is Time-Lord technology!" Seth imagined it would be quite like cat-nip to a cat, she removed the thing from her arm and handed to the Doctor, almost hearing the purr. "It must have been lost to time and space for a long time until you found it… it has traces of the vortex all over it! Seth! Do you know what it means?!"
"That I managed to survive a mortal wound by converting my body structure into fundamental particles and sending them across time and space?"
"And Dimensions!" He added, then blinked, looking down at her as if remembering something. "How old are you?"
"It is impolite of you to ask that" Seth grinned mysteriously, letting him do the math she knew he was already doing, she'd leave clues of her age during her story. "What do you mean, dimensions?" Instead of an answer, he pulled from one of his pockets 3D plastic glasses, fixed on top of his nose and stared down at her.
"Yep, void stuff!" He grinned maniacally, shoving the glasses at her face and pushing up one of her hands. Seth let him man handle her since he wasn't really hurting her, but made a point not to let him do it often. With a sigh, she looked at her hands and blinked, around her hand was a cloud of dark spots. Void Stuff, he said. "They cling to everything that travels through the void… the void is the nothingness that exists between dimensions, it is literally nothing… no light, no noise, no gravity, no time, no matter… it's a terrible place to live"
"There is "Void Stuff" in the Void" Seth giggled at the baffled expression on the Doctor's face. She needed that, she realized. Teasing him was fun. She sobered in a second though, as a thought struck her. "How do I go back home?"
…
The Doctor's head spun. So many thoughts crossing his massive mind at once was bound to make even him a little dizzy, but it was nothing he wasn't used to… various strands of thought teased his attention, the ones he held on to were something like this…
A Time-Lord who ran out of time… I am glad I really didn't have the chance to say good bye, it implies we will meet again but that's impossible.
Seth' story can't be true, can't be true because it didn't happen, I'd know, unless it happened but not on this Earth. She's shown me the Ripper, I can connect it to the TARDIS and use it to cement a safe path back to Pete's world, but then, it can only be used once, what about Seth, this is hers I can't be selfish, have to help her go back home.
She said she is not human, she's a what? Krusnick III, what is a Krusnick, nano-machines with medical purposes but is that all? Have to study them if she allows, would she want to get rid of them if she has the chance? And how old is she? I'd calculate at least a thousand years, give or take, almost as old as I am…
Can't believe I lied about my age… Sarah-Jane would have had a laugh about it with Rose if they knew about it… my younger selves would just… wish not to regenerate… hah! Old man indeed… too old…
Rose would have liked this… Donna in the TARDIS brought by Huon Particles, the same ones that doused Rose and almost burnt her inside out… but she said it was painful, did BAD WOLF see this happening? Did she see herself being taken away from me? What did she see? How could she allow? Unless there is something more to it.
Really need to stop by a market and pick up that Retrograde Propulsion Rotor, something Explosive, maybe something Ace would have come up with… nononono, don't think about the past, leave it behind… nooooo, think about it and remember to pass by a market!
And so they went… He risked a peek at Seth, who was still patiently waiting for an answer… he has a feeling that she will become impossibly petulant if he lets her think she is the older life-form, so he grins and shrugs, time to show off his incredible knowledge of time and space.
"Ohh, that's easy" He paused, contemplated something, "If" He stretched the I as much as he could. "You are a genius and have a perfectly capable time-machine, which I have and wait… I'm a genius as well! Isn't that great? So I'd say, getting you home, easy" Seth nodded, hope bubbled in her eyes, forest green eyes as ancient as he felt sometimes. Older than she looks, she looks at the world as something older. "But…" He stretched the but as well. "It will take a while to get to it… need to fix the Ripper into the TARDIS and loop it with an Energy converter as to not drain too much, have to procure a few items as well" He breathed, watching as Seth deflated before cheering up again.
"In the mean while, what do you say I take you up on that promise and have you show me this side of the universe?" She proposed, as if guessing what would cheer him up. She was a delightful child, he thought at that moment observing her mischief filled eyes, acting all motherly over him already the little minx.
"What an excellent idea" He twirled about the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers, typing the coordinates to Earth, thirtieth century to prove his point to Seth that no, there were no aliens living on Mars when humans claimed it. Seth moved to stand near him, eyeing his dance around the central control with trepidation.
"Do you need help?" She asked hesitantly, eyeing a suspicious looking knob that was flashing with a blue color. He pressed it in a hurry and sighed in relief when nothing exploded. His eyes strayed to the girl standing near and he shook his head.
"Nah, years piloting my TARDIS, I think I know what I'm doing" His voice was full of faux offence.
"But do you want help?" She asked again, persistent little twerp, he grinned fondly, liking her more already.
"Yep!" He cheered, pointing at a pair of levers that were constantly in need of being aligned "Just twist them according to the colors, blue flash this goes up, yellow that goes down, green, both up, red both down, purple that goes up and white this goes down, got it?" She did, he saw the way her green eyes flashed calculatingly.
"Yes, piece of cake" Whoever says piece of cake these days? He laughed and kept on trying to balance the job of five other pilots while Seth took care of one.
…
"It puts things under perspective" Seth hmmed, smoothing down the hospital bed sheets under which the Doctor laid. "I never thought I would meet someone older than I am" she nudged his form, grinning when she noticed his scowling face. "Oh I know, I've been through that faze too, lying about one's age is completely natural"
He grumbled. "When you're middle aged" Seth giggled again. "Now shut it, I don't want to talk about it anymore" And he wasn't pouting, Time-Lords didn't pout, they are mighty and powerful and not pouty.
"Don't worry dad, I won't burst your bubble with the young nurses here" Seth pinned him under her laughing green eyes and he resisted the urge to smile back.
"Yes yes, you're supposed to be the good and supportive daughter who comes with her father to the hospital when he is in so much pain" He grumbled again, absolutely not pouting. Even if the fact that they were now hanging inside a hospital was kind of his own fault. He just had to see what a cluster of Plasma Coils was doing surrounding a hospital in London, they'd only come to pick up a new toaster and a remote control, he needed the parts to adapt the Ripper, he said, and Seth came along with him.
"I'm sorry dad, I will keep my mouth shut while you're flirting" quipped the girl as a nurse passed by their cubicle, took a look at the Doctor, John Smith and promptly blushed prettily and smiled at him. He kept his poker face on while staring pointedly at Seth.
…
"I need you to distract them" The Doctor paused on his rush to find the Plasmavore and stared at Seth and the human doctor, Martha Jones. His eyes lingered on Seth and she could see a plan boiling in there along with the darkness that sometimes took form on his face. The young looking girl nodded understandingly and took Martha's hand as she made to follow the Doctor.
"Trust him the way he trusts us" Seth said, pulling on Martha's arm. It was a testament to Martha' strength when instead of complaining, she simply nodded and blinked down at the green eyed girl.
"But how do we distract them?" Martha asked sensibly, a Judoon making his way to them as they talked. Seth smiled mysteriously and left the Judoon to scan Martha.
"Human" The mechanical voice confirmed, making Martha half sag in relief and disbelief when Seth pushed her gently and stepped in front of the scan. "Non-human".
"Secondary Scan to confirm species" The Judoon requested, another one came to them and pointed a gun at Seth's direction, daring her to move. The young looking girl merely kept her smile, winking at Martha when the woman sent her a look.
"Human with non-human traces, unknown sub-human species confirmed"
"Indentify yourself" The huge Rhino-like creature demanded.
"I am a genetically altered human with doubled 23DRGUZA12 genes and " Seth answered, going on a strong of technical spiel that made Martha cross eyed. It took a few minutes until Seth finished with her descriptions then crossed her arms "I am not the fugitive you are searching for" And her voice carried all the authority she has acquired over nine hundred years of leadership.
"Specimen catalogued" the Judoon grunted, offering Seth a nod as the troupe continued down the corridors to where the Doctor ran to. Martha snapped out of her daze and thought fast on her feet, she attracted the attention of the Judoon to make them follow her back to the MRI room where she last saw the strange alien man go.
…
"She saved your life" Seth poked the Doctor's ribs.
He nodded, looking down at her. "You could have done it"
Seth muttered something about a 'petulant baby' and voiced out loud. "You are going to take her with you anyway"
"Yeah, I guess I was about to invite her along" He agreed, smiling slightly. "Did you see her? She's so brave" His voice wavered, and Seth poked him again.
"Want to talk about it?" the Doctor hesitated, his mouth opening and closing as if picking words to say. "I promise I won't judge you, I have no room to judge anyone"
"Her name is Rose Tyler… and she is absolutely brilliant… and what makes her so great is that she has no idea how magnificent she is" He paused, giving Seth a searching look before continuing. "There was a war… and I came out of it a broken man, the last of my kind… but before that, even before that I was broken, I forgot what living was about and only existed, always on the edge… I am so old Seth, so old that even I forgot how old I am, I've loved and lost so many times, what is one more mark in the middle of so many?"
The young looking girl shrugged, her eyes blanked by her own feelings in this matter – she could understand what he was going on about, she lost so many loved ones, her brothers, her children… "But it is worth it, this pain… it makes the emptiness not seem so overwhelming when we still can feel the pain love leaves when its gone, I will keep loving for as long as I can, because it is worth it" the Doctor nodded with a wan smile, patting her head.
"It was worth it, oh so worth it… when I met Rose, I was still raw from my loss, still hurting. She took the pieces of myself into her hands and molded back a new me, literally speaking… I took her liveliness so selfishly, her flirty nature, her love for life, her enthusiasm… Rose tinted glasses covered my eyes and I hurt her time and time again, yet she stood by my side and held my hand during the worst of it, hiding her pain and tending to mine… And what made it even more painful was that while I was using Rose, she wanted nothing more than to stay with me, not be pushed away like yesterday and be appreciated for what she was always giving me."
He swallowed thickly. "She promised to stay with me forever, and I didn't believe her, how could I? She is human, and humans are so fickle! I could feel something approaching, a feeling that her promise was empty and she would be leaving me willing or not. But I took what she gave, I took her promise and allowed myself to believe at least the feeling was true… The storm came… a rift to a parallel dimension opened and Rose's family all fell… I sent her away to stay with them, and know what she did? The daft child came back to me! She was willing to leave her life behind to stay with me… In the end, she couldn't hold on and fell into the rift, screaming my name and begging me to save her with her large scared eyes, she was willing to lay down her life for me and I saw the truth at that moment, even though I always knew what she felt for me… Though I couldn't move, all I could do was watch as she fell to the Void…" He breathed in "At the last possible second, the parallel figure of her father came through and caught her, taking her away to the other dimension."
"I never said goodbye before… to anyone. Goodbyes are so painful, it marks the end of something and I have always been a coward when it came to facing that reality… I owned it to Rose though… She was not like the others, she gave me herself fully so the least I could do was face her one last time… I found a small cut in the fabric of the universe that would allow me to send an image, it required so much energy that I had to harvest a dying sun" He blinked slowly, a small smile stretching the corners of his lips. "We had only two minutes" He added, "two minutes to say everything we ever wanted to say to each other, and I couldn't say anything that mattered… She voiced the love she felt, confirming what I knew, I hesitated, lost a few precious seconds and lost my chance to say it back… my last words to her and I was only able to say her name" He cringed as a painful shudder crossed his face. It was still so raw, Seth realized… He blamed himself for everything.
She didn't waste a second to throw her arms around his neck and pull his head to lay on her shoulder, holding him down with her thin arms and frame. "You think you didn't deserve her, I can see in your eyes" Seth pushed him enough to look into his face, he was so vulnerable right now, with a painful jolt, Seth felt like she was holding Abel. "But it was not your choice, she chose you, chose to love you, accept it, cherish it and make the most you can from it, no use moping on what could have been… I can understand Doctor… I've been scared of losing someone I loved before, I will live forever, my body never wilting or dying, eternity inside the body of a young girl with the heart of a woman… But you know what? I will never regret the ones I love, because they are able to love back the monster I've become" she allowed her own insecurities to bleed through, offering what empathy she could to this strange alien who reminded her so strongly of her brother. "And I am sure you will see her again, if she's as devoted to you as you make it sound, I doubt she will sit quietly while you're here on your own. Have faith, if you believe hard enough, it will come true one day" He didn't give an answer, but she felt him relaxing a fraction under her arms.
They stayed that way for a while, drawing comfort from the other. Seth felt the burning sting of tears forming behind her eyes. She missed her home so very much, but no sobs left her lungs. She was a little startled when the Doctor pulled away with a large plastered smile on his face.
"No use staying here moping like little girls!" He looked down at her and winked, she smiled tentatively back. "We have a Martha Jones to collect!"
"Next time, we will be having a huge tube of ice-cream to go with all the angst" Seth warned as she straightened her dress. "If you're going to be my BFF, you have to do it properly"
"BFF? That's so… girly! I say we be mates, aye?"
"Whatever you say, pal"
"You're enjoying this too much"
…
Not really meant to have a continuation… I just wanted the Doctor to have someone with him after angsting for months after New Doctor Who' second season… That and I was on a binge with Trinity Blood lol! If anyone wants to continue this, be my guest.. I'm not really in that fandom anymore, though I may continue this in the future if I bundle up enough heart to re-watch Doctor who without crying and angsting… again.