Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

- An excerpt from "Death, be not proud" by John Donne

It is one of the most unthinkable, unimaginable scenarios; so impossible that even this defeatist human race never factored in this outcome, never even considered it; at the end of the world, they survive.

Humans, he thought. He scowled at nothing in particular. Then again, you could say that he scowled at everything.

Coffee, he decided. He needed coffee.

Looking out the window, you wouldn't think that anything has happened. Most of London's skyline has been hastily repaired. It has never been the most particularly cheerful place. Even right then, rain clouds coloured the cityscape with a distinct monochromatic greyscale. Almost like a special effect. It has always been like this, though, if his memory serves him right (most days, it doesn't). Looking out the window right now, if you were not the Doctor (if you had not seen and been through what he has), you would think that this were just a regular rainy day in London. The end of the world never came. He would be able to look at the world and not see the blood on the streets, not hear the frightened little screams as they tried to claw off their own arms when the burning started, and maybe even remember what day it was.

But that isn't how this works.

The Doctor looked away from the window and started to rummage through his cupboards only to find them surprisingly empty.

Hadn't he just eaten? Or was that yesterday? How many hours ago was yesterday? When was the last time he slept? What day was it? How many days has it been? Too many questions, too many thoughts in his head in an all too quiet flat. He wanted to hit something. He balled his hands into a fist only to flinch. He looked. Bruised, skin split along his knuckles. When did that happen? That recognition started a revolution as all his other injuries started bellowing just the same. Scratches along his back, his shoulder, his neck. Bruised patches along his ribs from the times he'd subconsciously tried to wake himself up to no avail. He groaned.

He really wanted his fucking coffee.

"Journey!" he yelled to an empty flat. Two seconds of silence later, he yelled again. More silence.

It took him thirteen more seconds to remember something that he probably should have remembered thirteen seconds ago. Reassigned. New orders. Something like that. Journey Blue was his favourite for no other reason that she could stomach him more than any of the other pudding brains did. She could take his orders without asking too many stupid questions. Good with a gun. He shouldn't like that. He didn't. But he couldn't deny that she was useful around that way. It has been, more or less, a year since rebuilding started. They were allowed some time off for reprieve (he was, not Journey but she was assigned to care for him [maybe assigned was the wrong word as that insinuated she had no choice in the matter {she did} but that's not to say that he was particularly pleasant company] - he had no next of kin, not anymore - and she did that as painlessly as his temperament would allow) but you could only keep a good soldier for so long. There was still so much to fight.

If you were to ask him, he'd say five days. It's been five days since Journey left. A day since he'd run out of food. (In actuality, she has been gone for nearly two weeks; he has been without proper food for three days, surviving on a few biscuits a few days past their expiration date, a few hours at a time.) He'd had worse. The end of the world could have that effect on you. Make you get used to being hungry. Rations had only just become somewhat bearable again.

His stomach complained - moaned like the living dead. (Ha, he thought. He should write that down. Ironically, obviously.)

The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair - pulling harder than necessary, he didn't seem to notice, and a few strands left his scalp painlessly; wiping his hands on the cloth of his trousers - and licked his thin, cracked lips. Pulled away dead, flaking skin from them with his teeth. His stomach complained again, more aggressively. He could taste acid and blood at the back of his throat (two tastes that he had gotten quite accustomed to, unfortunately enough) and pain - an incredibly annoying, ridiculously sharp pain like brain freeze right by his temple started acting up.

Maybe he was turning. (Ha, he thought again. As if the universe would be that fucking kind.)

With a sharp exhale, he knew he couldn't just stay in his depressingly silent flat with his depressingly loud mind. There were too many books along the shelves against the walls - some of them, read; most of them, reread - along the floors, stuck between the mattress, by his sink, on top of the washing machine, stacked on top of the kitchen counter, et cetera. Fucking everywhere. Journey never touched any of the books when she was here. She'd known too well how much he'd hated it whenever things weren't where he expected them to be. At the back of his head, he wished she would have cleaned up a little. Because he sure as fucking hell wouldn't.

He was swearing too much in his own head. He just really wanted his fucking coffee. Maybe a scone too or something. (He had vague flashbacks of the Lake District upon that thought. He bit the fingernail of his thumb, trying to remember why he would think that. He didn't remember.) He should probably go out - pick up a few groceries (good God, they could do that again?) and maybe get some new books, new bed sheets (his were too thin, too frayed). Something. Something else aside stay holed up in his flat, waiting to die.

He took a shower instead, maybe hoping (hoping? he could still do that?) that the time spent not eating could trick his body into forgetting that it was hungry. Hot water on his skin - an almost forgotten luxury but not the most painstaking thing in the world to learn how to remember again - and he stood on his bathtub. Steam rose to his nostrils, surrounded his ankles. The scalding water felt good. He rest his hands against the wall and simply let the water wash everything away. The water drained away clear - no blood, at least; dirt and small clumps of grey hair, if anything - and when it got colder than he liked for it to be, he shut the tap off.

Towel to skin, towel to hair, towel to (wrap around his) waist, water (from the sink's tap, cupped in his shaking hands) to mouth, gurgled water to sink and down the drain ... and no. Still hungry. Still wanted his fucking coffee. His body was only too keen on reminding him. He huffed in acquiescent defeat though somewhat grateful that he need never admit that to anyone.

His hair was dry by the time he'd gotten out the door. In hindsight, the Doctor couldn't remember getting dressed. But he was. Fleece lined hooded jacket underneath a dark coat with red lining. Plaid trousers that he didn't remember ever buying. Boots. Two 9-mm handguns tucked into the lining of his coat, two more magazines for good measure. He hated them. Hated himself for carrying them. Hated the world and this time he was alive in for being one where this kind of precaution was necessary. He felt the pressure of his katana's hilt along his shoulder. He stood outside his door, not knowing how he got there. He checked his pockets for his keys before remembering that he wore the key beneath his shirt (he was wearing a shirt, apparently) with a chain.

He scowled at nothing. He was scowling at everything.

The streets were quieter than he remembered. There used to be youths who walked around with not a care in the world. A few of them on bikes or skateboards or whatever. A few of them would wear skirts that covered nothing while wearing heels longer than their forearms. There would be groups of laughing, smiling people - some of them taking pictures of food with their camera phones, some of them talking into their camera phones as if to an audience. He could remember a few of them texting with one hand while blabbering into another phone in the other. There was a lot of remembering to do - for the vague, Sisyphean hope that there could be any other reality that didn't involve this. That they really could carry on.

These days, people were much quieter. A lot of them kept more to themselves and hardly anyone looked at anyone in the eye. Everyone was in a rush to get home even though, for the most part, it had been declared safe. It was going to take a while before anything could ever feel safe again. A long, long while.

There were still relief efforts that were much harder to integrate in other parts of the world; the threat had turned plague to pest control, there were hardly any of them now. Still, everyone carried something to fend them off. People would see him with his katana and nobody would bat an eyelash. Children would see their parents turn then start to burn before their eyes and then shoot a bullet to their brains without flinching. He vaguely wondered if there were ever going to be a day when the streets stopped smelling like decaying flesh.

People walked past him without a word and he walked past them without a word. No one bothered him and he didn't know what he preferred - the silence of his flat or the decided silence of the people around him. Both offered no reprieve from the memories that taunted him in his mind - his traitorous thoughts, his stupid head that remembered things he would rather forget and forgot things he should remember. But outside offered some atmospheric noise. It was nice if you could forget that it was the end of the world. The click clack of feet against the pavement gave some modicum of comfort, some semblance of human presence that made it feel like he wasn't the last of his kind.

The Doctor heard a shuffle along a street corner - the unmistakable sound of flesh against a wall. A groan. Bottled water falling from the paper bags the stranger was carrying and onto the dirty pavement. The stranger - a man, the Doctor guessed - was crying. Shaking.

"I wasn't- I wasn't bit-" Stupid. "I swear! I wasn't- I wasn't!"

He looked at this stranger whose fingers were frantic upon his sleeve-covered arm, scratching and scratching and scratching. He looked at the Doctor with pleading eyes, shaking his head. The Doctor took hold of his sword's hilt, a sharp, swift shing! in the air. The stranger's breaths grew heavy, still shaking his head, and he sank to his knees. The Doctor watched, fingers flexing on the worn leather.

His heart, frantic in its dying pace, beat so strongly that the pulse reached his ears that as he looked upon this towering man (all grey and fierce, unblinking eyes) that did not look upon him with bloodlust but with weary pity. He stopped begging. He swallowed and bid himself to speak with as much dignity as he had left. Death burnt cold in his veins. His fingers trembled. His mouth watered. He was so cold, he was on fire. It has been four days since he'd last encountered one of them and thought that the nip on his ankle didn't count. ("It didn't break skin, honey, I'm fine!") His name is - soon to be was - Kenneth. Not that the Doctor would know that but he had a name. He had Mack waiting for him back home and 13-year-old Nico. He would never find his sister, Mia - she's still alive, hiding in Norway with her husband and two resourceful teenagers they'd managed to befriend along the way, though he would never find out - and she would never know what happened to him.

These were his last thoughts. He forgot to think about calling his family but somehow, he didn't really want to. How do you say goodbye like that? His heart never slowed, it stopped his teeth from chattering. The old man, for all his scowling angry eyebrows, was more patient than he thought he would be. He had just one request.

"Make it quick?"

"Aye," replied the Doctor. A pause. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

The stranger nodded, tears streaming down his face. He closed his eyes and breathed, hands closed into a tight fist. The last thing he ever heard was the sound of a blade in the air. Then nothing. His headless body fell to the floor, warm red quickly staining the pavement. Kenneth's fingers twitched. His eyes were, thankfully, closed. Blade cleaned with the back of the man's shirt then sheathed once more. He wore leather boots for a reason.

The Doctor picked up the dead man's fallen water bottles. They'd rolled far enough away that the blood had not traveled that far quite yet. Two young things, he couldn't be bothered to figure out what they were, rushed past him to scavenge what remained of the corpse. Wallet, pocket money, a packet of gum? Whatever they could find, he'd seen enough of them. He didn't say a word. He still just wanted his fucking coffee.

A Nando's was open just a few barred doors past where the body laid. There were too many people as it had become more of a soup kitchen than anything. Barter was just an acceptable form of payment as much as pounds were but the Doctor wasn't there for food. Too many fucking people, too many fucking pickpockets. He'd just strolled in to tell someone who looked like they were in charge to tell them to call the body in. Clean up needed to be informed immediately. He didn't have a mobile so he couldn't do it himself. The "looking-in-charge" person blinked at him and nodded. There was a way about him that people just tended to do what he told them to do. He left. He would have asked for a coffee but there were too many people. The smell of food had gotten to him, though. His stomach was practically howling.

There was no particular destination, really. Half an hour's mindless, aimless walking. He was more wandering about, almost hoping that his feet could think better than his head did. Practically dragging himself along the pavement, he was. He'd forgotten about the two water bottles he'd stored in his trouser's pockets. It was only about twelve steps later that the smell hit him. So strong, so deliciously decadent that it was enough to almost make him believe in God. Almost.

A bell rang when he opened the door himself, the smell hitting him stronger than before. Freshly baked bread. The Doctor couldn't help but close his eyes upon entering and moaned, a guttural groaning sound, as the reality of this place hit him. An actual café. An actual fucking café.

"Don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing people do that."

Coming to his senses about a second too late, he blinked his way into actually, properly looking at where he'd stumbled into. Paint was peeling from the walls. One of the windows were still barred but there was just enough light to make it look alive. This was a place that shouldn't even exist - it was the closest thing to something that had never been touched by the end of the world. The interior was painted a pale, pale blue and so scarcely decorated that it made the place look bigger on the inside. But there were a few loaves of fresh bread just waiting - baguettes, focaccia, bagels, even English fucking muffins - to be devoured. And the place wasn't too crowded, which was surprising enough in itself. Just a few people, minding their own business and dunking their warm biscuits into their hot tea. Crowds should be flocking to this place on the smell alone. But it was nice. Quaint. Quiet. It didn't make any fucking sense. It was impossible.

And he was dying for a fucking coffee.

The woman looked up at him. There was hardly any other direction for her to look, really. Her eyes were huge. Wider than any other living human's. And sad. But she was smiling? That was what people did when the corners of their lips curved upwards when they were happy, right? But she was sad too? This woman even had that thing on the cheeks where it looked like it was caving in on itself. Dimple, as the word would register eventually. So round were her cheeks, especially when she did that smiling thing. The Doctor had just killed a man without being bothered but a smiling little stranger? He didn't think humans could still do that. Smile. Joke around. Be warm. It was almost enough to make him forget that he was hungry. Almost. She'd spoken to him but he'd just stood there and blinked, thin lips parted as he gawked upon the impossible sight before him.

"I-" Even he didn't know where he was going with that sentence. She broke him off before he could even begin to embarrass himself.

"Sit," she said. A command. She raised an untended brow. "Coffee?"

"Please."

A/N: Have a post-zombie apocalypse coffee shop au ft. Twelve & Clara. Because why not, right? Also available on AO3 under the name "owedbetter". Let me know what you think! :) xxx Jo