…Not With A Bang by WikedFae
Summary: Two people awake to a crushing realization—the final cry has been uttered a universe away.
Flames dance before her eyes and she recoils in fear and pain. "NO!" she tries to scream, but her throat closes before any sound comes out. His eyes, his beautiful brown eyes are burning and he's crying out, only it's not his voice any more. Instinctively she turns away as the blast of heat washes over her.
All at once darkness descends, broken only by the thin rays of dawn that have begun hunting early, stretching over Tórshavn in hot pursuit of night's deep cloak. Her nightmare, however, remains. The sheets are in a tangle, her brow damp with sweat. Blearily, she squints around as her hands grab for purchase and find only empty space by the pillow next to her head. A rustle of fabric reaches her ears and she cranes her head around to see his stoic and stiff frame, barely silhouetted against the rising sun peeking through the window. He is staring at the floor, his left hand cradling his right, while his thumb idly draws circles on his wrist.
"John?" she asks, cautiously sitting up.
He slowly lifts his head and meets her concerned gaze, his chestnut orbs brimming with timidity, fear, and remorse. At seeing this, she throws off the blanket and abandons her perch, flying to his side by the window. She stills his hands upon reaching him only to exclaim, "John, you're freezing. How long've you been standing here?" Frantically, she clasps his hands in hers and rubs, imparting what warmth she can.
"I…I honestly don't know," is his answer. His voice is a rough whisper and he clears his throat. "Probably a few hours."
"Well, why didn't you wake me?"
His eyes bore into hers, their spark of fear igniting panic in her heart. "I didn't know how to tell you," he says, sadly.
"Tell me what?" she demands, her hands ceasing their stroking.
The silence around them is deafening until it shatters in the sound of his breath. "I dreamt of fire, Rose," his voice a rough crescendo. "I dreamt of fire and I…" he drops off, returning his gaze to the horizon.
She moves her hands to wrap around his wrists, her grip tightening until he winces. When he quickly looks back at her she whispers, "I dreamt of fire, too. Just now."
They continue to stare at one another, locked in a battle of understanding. Seconds later, he is the victor as her denial breaks under his watchful and logical eye and it is with shaking arms that he draws her close to him, encircling and clinging to her as tears begin to leak from her eyes.
"…It wasn't a dream," she whispers.
"No," he says as apprehension causes his voice to crack.
"You're sure?" She holds him fiercely, the last vestiges of her protest waning with the question.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure. Practically irrefutable given the memories," he sighs, momentarily tightening his grip on her.
"Memories?" She draws back to read his face, to see the grief twist his features, only to gasp as an age-old memory, newly-formed, floats to the surface of her mind. "Oh, no," she cries out quietly, watching that stranger from all those Christmases ago hobble back towards a mysterious blue box before fading into the man standing beside her now.
His eyes have misted over and he looks at her anxiously. "I…" Swallowing thickly, he tries again. "Are you alright?"
She fists her hands into the worn fabric of his housecoat to brace herself, even as tears roll down the curves of her cheeks, and nods shakily. "Are you?"
"I don't know." It is then that his knees give out and they both slide unceremoniously to the floor, huddling together beneath the window sill. "It's over. It's all over. He's not out there anymore, at least not with this face… I'm alone." At this last, his eyes slam shut as he retreats into his shell.
"Stop it," she admonishes, "You're not alone." As if to emphasize the point, she reaches up to caress his cheek, nudging him to look at her. "I'm right here, 'kay? We'll get through this, just like we've done with everything else." She can't even hide the fact she's saying this just as much for herself, as for him.
"Yeah," he murmurs. "Everything else…" He drifts off once more only to gaze at the starlight still battling its way through the slowly dawning sky.
Gently, she entwines her fingers with his and asks, "What did you see?"
He starts and looks back at her, tense—uncertain—and holds his silence.
"Tell me," she asks again, "what did you see?"
"I saw…" And he tells her. He tells her a story of adventure and woe, of monsters and monstrous deeds, of fear and of loathing, of running and of falling. One of prophesy and Masters, Time Lords and men, compassion and redemption. It is a tale so fantastical, it couldn't be anything but real, she thinks. And her heart mourns for the man sung to his sleep by the universe itself, cradled in the heart of time as he calls out—
Here, her husband's voice fails him. For the first time in her life, she sees the abject horror in the eyes of her now-tempered Oncoming Storm. Placing a hand over his thudding heart, she asks for one more ounce of courage. "John, what did he say?"
After a pause, his reticence gives way. "He, he said, 'I don't want to go.' And then he was silent." A shiver passes through him at this admission, his unspoken question blazing clearly in his eyes. And she understands.
Gathering him close and nestling her head beneath his chin, she says, "None of us do, but in the end we make peace with it."
"Do we?" he asks, needing reassurance.
"Yes, and I think you know he did as well." He's hesitant to respond at first, but when she feels him slowly nodding, she sighs in relief.
For how long they stay there, sitting on the floor, she doesn't know. But they hold one another, occasionally shedding a tear or two, watching night surrender her mantle to the coming day. And as they gaze at the celestial heavens spiraling high above, far across reality in another universe altogether, a young Doctor of nine hundred and seven, with burdened eyes that sparkle of childlike curiosity, desperately tries to keep his mysterious blue box flying; with the whimper of his last life tucked safely away, he shouts in delight as the TARDIS slams into the atmosphere with a great, big BANG!
Finis
A/N: Well, I'm my own worst critic. So I invite you all to tear this horribly unoriginal idea to pieces. I even offer you the plot bunny freely, should you wish to incinerate it. Oh, on second thought, that's quite horrible. It's not the plot bunny's fault it exists.