Aeryn was bewildered.
Exactly that. Bewildered.
She couldn't understand - couldn't make sense of what was happening.
Pain flared across her entire body with every laboured breath and she was pulled continually into a blackness that cut out seconds - or perhaps it was even minutes - of the agony, making it that much harder to keep up with reality - if this was even reality and not just some twisted perverted version of the afterlife, or wherever it was that people supposedly went after they died.
Because she'd died, hadn't she? She'd leapt headlong into a raging, swirling river full of rocks and other debris. There was no way she could have survived. But it had either been death by drowning, or death by basilisk. She'd chosen the manner of her own demise, and she'd accepted it as she'd plunged towards the raging rapids below. She'd made her peace with it.
So why was she still conscious? Or at least why was her mind still conscious? Thinking all these thoughts, even if her body was momentarily disconnected and unable to respond to anything but the pain.
She tried to separate everything in her weary mind, which was easier said than done when wavering between moments of blackness and moments of an odd blueness.
The blackness was silent and didn't hurt, but she was still 'aware'.
The blueness was accompanied by odd, muffled sounds and it felt like she'd been hit by a herd of stampeding horses, burned alive, done ten rounds with a judoon and fallen from the top of one of the parapets of the castle, all at the same time.
There were smells as well - blood and stone, mingled with the fresh scent of flowers and another smell that she couldn't quite place. Grass, perhaps?
The air was fresh, at least, and flooded her lungs in ragged gasps, confirming that she was breathing. The dead don't breathe. And neither do they dream...or think. And they're certainly not aware of their surroundings. She could taste something in her mouth as well. Was that water?
Blackness slowly gave way to a blur as something damp and cold touched one side of her brow, followed by a gentle splashing sound.
Slowly, she flexed one finger. Then another. Her hand curled into a painful fist. Then she wiggled her toes. Finally, the rest of her body began to comply, and after several long seconds of flexing the cramp and stiffness slowly from her joints, she determined that she must be laying on her front, somewhere.
She made the mistake of slowly blinking her eyes open to bright sunlight reflected off crystal clear water, making her wince. Her vision was blurry, and her head throbbed with an insistent and unpleasant pounding. Blinking again, her eyes finally adjusted enough to see, and she raised her head ever so slightly, to let her eyes roam around some more, building a picture of her surrounding as the blur gradually cleared. She was lying on a bank of pebbles and other rocks, half submerged in shallow water at the edge of the river. By some small miracle although there was water around her head, it had been shallow enough not to completely cover her nose and mouth, which had allowed her to breath and not drown completely.
She moved one hand slowly, placing it flat beside her and giving a tentative push to test how her body would respond. She immediately wished she hadn't.
The pain was incredible, and she let out an agonised gasp, the breath literally knocked from her as her arm gave way and she fell back into the pool of water again with a light splash, managing to just about keep her face clear of the water and now that she was fully conscious and breathing again, she coughed up a lungful of it that she'd inevitably swallowed at some point without realising.
After several long seconds to gather her strength, she tried again, and managed to eventually push herself up onto her hands and knees and crawl slowly further up and out of the water, until only her feet remained in the shallows. Before she could pull herself out completely, the pain became too unbearable and she sank once again back into the soft grass this time, coughing up even more water and spluttering as she fought for breath, her eyes squinting closed as pain racked through her whole body.
When she was able to open her eyes again, she had no idea how much time had passed whilst she'd been unconscious, but after studying her wrist watch for a long time and forcing her eyes to focus, she determined that it must have been several hours. Slumping back into the grass again and giving one last heaving cough, she rolled herself onto her back and slowly her other senses came drifting back to her in fits and starts as she began to piece together exactly where she must be.
Lifting her head gingerly - just her head, this time, not the rest of her body, (after all, it was her chest, in particular that hurt the most, so perhaps if she only moved her head, she'd be spared the pain?) she couldn't raise it very far before the pain hit again, however, and she realised how wrong she'd been, clenching her teeth in agony, slumping back down and blinking in surprise as she saw out of the corner of her eye, something that made her sigh in relief and smile.
Once she'd recovered enough to be able to make a move, she stubbornly tried again, determined to get up, regardless of the pain she would inevitably inflict upon herself in the process. Lifting her head very slowly, learning from her earlier mistake, she sat herself up, then shakily pulled herself back to her feet, wobbled unsteadily for a moment, and then staggered towards the TARDIS.
By sheer luck, or coincidence – she wasn't sure which, and neither did she care either – she'd washed up at the edge of the meadow where the Doctor had parked the time machine. And as she half walked, half stumbled back in it's general direction, something fell out of the sopping folds of her jacket.
Bending down, she found the aviator glasses blinking back up at her, one of the lenses cracked but otherwise they still looked pretty much in tact. She gave another triumphant cry of relief as she quickly pulled them back on and felt the familiar ear-popping sensation that she'd quickly gotten used to when wearing them. Her voice came out in a hoarse croak at first when she tried, but after a few attempts she got it working again. "Doctor? Doctor!"
His voice, when he replied, was incredulous, albeit incredibly tinny and crackly from where the glasses had taken a hell of a beating, just as she had. "Aeryn?!"
"Doctor, it's me!" she exclaimed, holding back tears as she was suddenly overwhelmed by everything that had happened to her in the last few hours, in particular.
"You're alive!"
"Yeah….yeah I am….I'm all right….Just a little battered and bruised, but I'll be fine."
"Where are you?"
"Would you believe back at the TARDIS?"
His laughter echoed in her ears and she found herself joining him, finally stumbling up to the wooden Police Box and leaning against it heavily. "Doctor, where are you?"
"I, uh….might have climbed a tree and got myself stuck."
She didn't have the energy to be surprised by this, so she just heaved herself up again as much as she could and stepped round the TARDIS to the door. "Doctor, I can't get in. The door's locked."
"Why would you want to get in?"
"In case that thing comes back and tries to finish the job?!"
"Ah you'll be fine. Just check your pocket, I'm sure I dropped a key in there at some point....possibly..."
"You don't sound too convinced."
"Well I'm not sure it hasn't fallen out after your impression of an Olympic diver...eight points, by the way. I wanted to give you a nine, but the take off was a bit haphazard, and the entry could have been better. Needs more work I'm afraid before it's worthy of a nine or a ten."
"Well at least I got an eight. Better than nothing, right?" Aeryn chuckled, as she fumbled in each of her pockets, searching. "And what if there isn't a key?"
"Ask her really nicely. That usually did the trick for Clara. Once the two of them got over their differences, I mean."
"Okay….I've got a key!" She grinned triumphantly, pulling it out and slotting it into the door, which swung smoothly open for her. She stumbled inside and very nearly burst into tears of joy again at how safe she felt all of a sudden. Especially when the door swung gently shut behind her and she was enveloped in what had quickly become a now very familiar and comforting sound to her. The gentle hum of power and the quiet beeps and bleeps of the various parts of the console.
"Thank you," she whispered reverently, running a hand over the metal railing. "Thank you."
The time rotor rose and fell once, and she smiled, taking that as a greeting. Then she raised a hand, adjusted the glasses on her nose slightly, and said "I'm in!"
"Brilliant. Now you can come and get me, and we can put phase two into practice."
"Hang on a sec, phase two? Wasn't that the running for our life and surviving certain death, part?"
"No time to get technical, Hoppity-"
"And we're back to Hoppity again..."
"Now look, I need you to come get me. Like I said, I'm in a tree, and I'm stuck."
"How are you stuck, exactly? Don't tell me you're afraid of heights."
"I am when there's a sleeping basilisk wrapped round the bottom of the trunk!"
"Oh," she winced. "Yeah, I can see why that would be a problem. Uh, yeah…..I'll uh….I'll go and get the cavalry and they can, uh….rescue you." She floundered, suddenly realising that she actually had no idea what to do. She'd never been in a situation like this before. At least not on her own.
"The cavalry?" The Doctor scoffed. "What are they going to do? Throw themselves at it as a distraction and get themselves killed? No, I need you to bring the TARDIS. I reckon this branch could just about hold her for long enough."
"Doctor, you're forgetting one very important thing."
"Oh? And what's that?"
She felt terrible saying it, as she walked up to the central console. But it needed to be done. "Doctor…..I'm not Clara."
There was a long, lonely silence then, and she cringed, collapsing onto the bottom step of the flight that lead up to the upper level and face palming at her own stupidity.
"Doctor?" She asked quietly as she finally unwound the soggy, useless bandage from her hand and dropped it to one side. Then she peeled off her sopping leather jacket and that pooled into a mound as well. "Doctor, I didn't mean...I'm sorry. It's just, I have no idea how to fly this thing..."
"No, no you're right. Of course. I need to go back to the beginning again. Start from scratch. But first things first, look at the state of you!"
"What do you mean?" She glanced around, expecting to once again see him, only to realise belatedly that the shared vision aspect of the glasses must also still be working.
"Check your reflection," he sighed. She glanced up to the monitor screen, which was blank and clearly showed her reflection back to her. Blood was dribbling slowly down one half of her face from a shallow gash across her temple. She'd mistaken the blood for water, however, and hadn't actually realised.
She also had another nicely developing black eye and a bruised cheek. And there was most definitely at least three, maybe even four cracked ribs that she could feel. A busted collar bone, broken ankle….the list was endless. But right now she couldn't think about any of that. Because thinking about herself was a slippery slope that would only lead to self doubt, and ultimately failure to believe that they could do this.
She needed to stay strong. And to do that, she needed to focus on something else instead of her own physical weakness. Rescuing the Doctor was as good a distraction as any.
"I'll be fine," she insisted, pulling herself back to her feet, unclasping her waterlogged PDA from her belt and dumping that with her jacket as well, then limping to the console. "First things first, we need to get you out of that tree. Tell me what to do, Doctor."
"There's a panel of the console to your right, looks like a jellyfish."
"That thing?" She asked, turning her head to look at what she assumed her was talking about.
"Yes. Place your fingers inside. All of them, up to the knuckles and just hold on tight. If anything bites, let it."
"If anything bites?" She asked worriedly, even as she limped her way round to stand in front of it. Then, against her better judgement, she slid her fingers into the spongy folds, right up to the knuckles as instructed. "Doctor, what is this?"
"TARDIS telepathic interface. You're now in mental contact with the TARDIS, so don't think anything rude."
"Why not?"
"It might end up on all the screens. The TARDIS is extrapolating your entire timeline, from the moment of your birth, to the moment of your death."
"Which I do not need a preview of!"
Again there was a slight pause, before the Doctor said quietly, almost to himself, "Clara once said exactly the same thing."
"I'm sorry."
"Okay, look to your left. There's a lever with a red button above it, yes? Without taking your hands from the interface, hit that lever down."
"What do you think I am? An octopus?!" She snapped, seeing no physical way of being able to do that.
"Last time I checked you had two legs, didn't you? Or have you lost one and not told me?"
"You're a real pain in the -" she reached up with her foot as she was grumbling, balancing precariously on the foot that she was pretty sure was broken, and gritting her teeth, her words cutting off mid flow at the sudden shooting flare of pain up her leg. But she kept stretching, and managed to just about catch the lever with the toe of her boot, flipping it down as instructed.
"Good, that's turned off the safeguards and navigation, slaving the TARDIS to you. Focus on me, and me alone. The TARDIS will track your subconscious and extract the relevant information. It should be able to home in on me, from your memories. Now, there's another lever on your right this time. That's the handbrake. Flip it down, and that will start the TARDIS flying."
Aeryn swore under her breath as she swapped feet and used her right leg to flip this much easier to reach lever down as well. Suddenly something clamped round her fingers, and she let out a shriek of surprise, almost toppling over as the whole TARDIS shook and she struggled to steady herself back on two feet again.
"Now don't get distracted. Remember, you're flying a time machine. If you don't get this right, you could land on top of me. Or worse. On top of the basilisk."
"So no pressure then."
"Just concentrate on me. Listen to my voice, and think about where I am. Let the TARDIS find me. Yes! That's it! You're almost there! You're almost – no, no no no!"
"What? Doctor, what is it? What?!"
"You've got to think of somewhere else, now! Think of it, now!"
"Where?"
"Anywhere, doesn't matter! DO IT!"
"Doctor, what's -" the whole TARDIS suddenly shook violently again, and the cloister bell began to toll all around her, warning of the danger they were now in. Without thinking, she wrenched her fingers from the interface and ran to the door. "Doctor, what's happened?!"
"NO!" He shouted suddenly, a command so fierce she literally skidded to a halt. "Do not open that door! Right now it's the only thing keeping you alive!"
"Is now a good time to tell you I'm scared?" She whispered, backing away from the door obediently.
"And so you should be," he replied equally as quietly. "I'm projecting the view from my sonic shades to yours. Take a look."
And all of a sudden the view through the glasses changed, and she could see outside the box. And what she saw, made her blood run cold. Somehow, she'd managed to land the TARDIS on the forest floor, and woken the basilisk. Now it had curled it's massive body round the time machine, constricting and swamping it in coils of black mass. It's gaping jaws were opened wide over the doorway, and it's huge fangs were lodged deeply into the blue woodwork.
It was trapped, but it had no intention of letting go anyway, and was trying to widen it's jaws even further by dislocating the bottom. It was trying to swallow the TARDIS whole. With her still inside it.
"Doctor!" She screamed. "Doctor what do I do?!"
"Phase three!" He called back as the view on her glasses switched back to normal mode again.
"What the hell is phase three?!"
"Use the TARDIS interface, focus on a supernova. Doesn't matter which one, take your pick. Let the TARDIS know where you want her to go. Take the creature into deep space, and it'll die. It's the only way."
"I don't think I can," she whimpered, staggering as the TARDIS shook again, knocking her off her feet.
"You can and you will! You have a responsibility to act, and now you have the ability as well!"
Well, that did it. Quoting her own words back to her was all the motivation she needed. Picking herself back up again, she dug her fingers back into the panel of the TARDIS, closed her eyes and thought harder than she'd ever thought before. She thought about the sun and the stars and space. She thought about the basilisk drifting away, limp and lifeless into a black void of nothingness, and with a determination she never even knew she possessed, she kicked both levers, as before, and the time rotor rose and fell, there was a loud wheezing, and from outside the doors, a terrible screeching.
"You're doing it! That's it!" The Doctor encouraged. But his voice was starting to break up, and the crackle was becoming more and more insistent.
"Doctor, I'm losing you."
"I expect…...will…..space…..signal…..no…...worry…..fine…." And then he was gone completely.
"Doctor? Doctor?"
The rotor in the central column gave one last heaving groan and stopped, and a sudden stillness fell over everything.
Extracting her fingers very carefully, Aeryn reached over and pulled the monitor towards her. "Okay, how do we do this? Do I….do I ask you really nicely and you show me what's going on? Or….I dunno. Please, help me? Please? Because I'm alone and I'm in pain….so, so much pain and... I don't know what I'm doing….and I'm really in over my head here. So please? Please…. help me?"
She pulled the aviators off and dropped them into the mound of other discarded objects she'd left in a pile nearby, now that they were no longer in use.
Just as the despair was catching up to her again, and the pain was kicking in, overpowering the adrenaline she'd been running on until that moment, she choked back a sob and bit her lip, clenching her hands into fists and just hoping and praying that this nightmare would end soon. She was going to wake up, and find out this had all been some terrible dream.
The screen flickered and then blinked to life and she saw what was quite possibly the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. A sea of inky blackness at the edges of the screen, with a brilliant, vibrant purplish pink explosion of colour in the very centre, and stars twinkling distantly as tendrils of the supernova wove out and danced about on the screen like living flames of energy.
Sinking back onto the step again, she watched the screen in awe for a long time, before finally something clicked in her mind. "Wait…..where's the basilisk?"
In answer to her question, the TARDIS door swung slowly open. Picking herself up again, she heaved and dragged her way over, sinking down to sit at the very edge and gaze out. The view from here was even more spectacular than it had been on the screen.
And right in the very centre, growing rapidly smaller and smaller, was a snake-like form, limp and lifeless, drifting away into the heart of the dying star.
They'd done it. They'd actually done it. Despite the impossible odds, they'd saved Elysium from the basilisk. No more people were going to die.
"We did it," she laughed, even as the first of several tears splashed down her cheek. "We did it!" And then she leant out as far as she dared, and let out the loudest whoop of joy she could physically muster. Again and again. And damn, it felt so good! "WE DID IT!"
Then she collapsed backwards, laying on the floor and laughing and crying, and punching a fist into the air and celebrating. Which was when, for the first time as she lay there, she felt something digging into her leg, and sat up again, delving into the pocket of her trousers to retrieve something that she never left home without. Ever.
A chess piece. The white queen. Holding it reverently in both hands, she shuffled across the floor back to the open doorway, and gazed out again. "What do you think, Maric?" She whispered quietly, looking from the beautiful swirl of colours beyond the doorway, then down to the chess piece in her hand, then back again. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
She could have sat there for the rest of eternity, she decided then, and the view would never cease to amaze her. But a low groan from the time rotor reminded her that she didn't have that luxury. There was someone waiting for her back on Elysium.
Someone who's motor she'd nicked. Involuntarily, and with good reason, of course.
Tucking the chess piece back into her pocket again, she set about trying to focus her mind back on the task at hand so that she could get back home again. But even as she was sliding her fingers back into the console, an idea came to her, and she knew then what she needed to do.
There was one slight detour she needed to make before she returned the borrowed TARDIS to it's rightful owner.
"Well you took your sweet time!" The Doctor huffed as he marched into the TARDIS, kicking the door shut behind him. "Do you know how long I've had to wait for you to come back? Three days! Three whole, very long, excruciatingly boring days! I hate going the long way round! Has anyone ever told you that?!"
"And has anyone ever told you that your navigation system's buggered?" Aeryn groaned, withdrawing her fingers from the telepathic interface of the console and leaning heavily on it for support.
"Only when I turn it off. Besides, that makes it all the more fun!" He was already slamming down levers and twisting dials to reset the various settings now that the telepathic interface was no longer needed.
"Not when you've got a rookie behind the wheel! A rookie who, did I mention, is broken in about ten million different places?"
"Oh stop exaggerating, I'm sure you'll be fine." He waved a hand dismissively. And then he glanced to her, and saw the expression she was wearing, seemingly for the first time. "What? What is it?"
"I've been thinking."
"Uh oh. Should I be worried?"
"I owe you an apology."
"What for?" He stepped slowly round the console to stand beside her. She wasn't looking at him, though. Instead, she was staring at the blank monitor in front of her, staring at her own reflection, with the black eye, bruised cheek and dried blood trails down one half of her face.
"For what it's worth, I'm truly sorry for what I did to you. Back when we first met. I...I invaded your personal space. Oh hell, I invaded your mind! I NEVER do that without permission. Ever! And I didn't truly understand the hurt or the pain that it would cause you. I didn't stop to think of the consequences. And...I never even considered that if the roles were reversed and someone did that to me...how would I feel about it? So, because it's only fair, there's something I wanted to show you. I pulled Clara from your mind because she was right there, at the front, and you had so many memories of her, I figured she was someone who meant a lot to you. Someone of great importance. If anyone were ever to do that to me...this is who they'd see."
"You don't have to do this," he told her quietly, even as she closed her eyes, and her appearance changed before his very eyes. A mesmerising, fluid sliding transition from one form to another. She was taller now, a young male with bright blue eyes and close cropped brown hair. And the Doctor had a fairly good idea of who he was.
"Your fiancé?" he guessed, as she finally turned to look at him.
"Maric Blaez," she nodded, speaking in the deeper voice of Maric now.
"I'm sorry. How long ago did you lose him."
"Four centuries," she turned away from him to look at her reflection in the blank monitor screen. Her wounds had temporarily healed themselves and she was able to stand upright, unpained and uninhibited. "He was a hunter, just like those men you met when you first came here. But he never hunted for sport like they did. He never actually killed anything if he didn't have to. He protected the kingdom from predators and kept us all fed each winter. But he never took trophies, and he always spared lives whenever he could. One day there was an accident. He was shot by a stray bullet. It wasn't anybody's fault. Just wrong place, wrong time. But the men he was with all blamed each other – all turned on one another. Their families very nearly started an entire civil war. My father stepped in and told them all that they were dishonouring Maric's memory by fighting, and that they should be ashamed of themselves. From that day on, the whole kingdom vowed that we'd never let anyone else die because of a stupid hunt."
She balled her hand into a fist and slammed it against the console, even as her strength failed and she was no longer able to keep up the image. Sliding back into her original, broken form, she stumbled and the Doctor caught her.
"That's why you stopped me from doing anything to those men," he realised. "Because of the promise to Maric."
"I panicked," she admitted quietly. "When I thought you were going to hurt them, I panicked. I thought I was going to fail his memory and – Doctor I'm so sorry for what I did."
He could see in the reflection of the monitor that she was crying now. Silent tears trickled down her cheeks to mingle with the blood and dirt from her recent adventures. First things first, before he even attempted to address everything she'd just told him, she needed medical treatment.
And he knew exactly where she could get it.
"Apology accepted," he told her gently, scooping her into his arms. She didn't protest. She was too weak and upset to protest. Though she did give him a curious look when he carried her through the TARDIS door to reveal he'd parked them in her private bathroom.
"Don't worry," he smiled, crouching down to sit her at the edge of one of the bath tubs. "I promise I won't look."
She just laughed as she slid herself painfully into the healing waters, fully clothed, and submerged herself below the surface.
The Doctor, meanwhile, kept true to his word and headed for the door, pausing only to study the music console for a moment. It was highly sophisticated technology, of that he had no doubts at all. Yet docked right in the middle was a very old, battered iPod. It's screen was cracked, it's casing scratched and damaged and it was incredibly old by technological standards. Well over several thousand years old, at least. How it was still working was a miracle that even he couldn't figure without pulling it apart and dissecting every tiny millimetre of it. But he wasn't going to do that, because it belonged to Aeryn, and it apparently held some sentimental value to her, considering how she'd tried to preserve it as much as possible, given it's age.
Reaching out to the controls, he flicked the music on and skipped through a couple of the songs, until he came to one that he recognised.
Like a small boat,
On the ocean,
Sending big waves,
Into motion,
Like how a single word,
Can make a heart open,
I might only have one match,
But I can make an explosion
He knew that song! Where had he heard it before? Where did he know it from?
And all those things I didn't say
Wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time?
He closed his eyes, and entered what he often called the Storm Room – an imaginary TARDIS inside his mind, where he could think and solve puzzles and voice his thoughts aloud, where only he could hear them. It was the same Storm Room he'd retreated to during the four and a half billion years of torture he'd endured when trapped in his own confession dial.
And, just like then, he wasn't alone now either. Clara was wandering about the TARDIS, humming the tune lightly as she wandered, singing the words under her breath.
This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I'm all right song
My power's turned on
Starting right now I'll be strong
I'll play my fight song
And I don't really care if nobody else believes
'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me
When she saw him watching her, she smiled and pulled out the ear buds she'd been wearing. His eyes followed the white wires down to a small device in her hand, which she held up for him to see. A device that looked exactly like the one that was now plugged into the console in Aeryn's bathroom. Except it was newer and less beaten. But it was exactly the same, regardless. And that was where he realised he'd heard this song before.
Snapping back to the present, he looked again to the iPod in the docking station, and frowned. This device had belonged to Clara. It was hers. Not just a copy, or one that looked similar. It was actually hers. He confirmed this a moment later as he flicked through some of the images that had also been saved on it. They were hard to see through the gigantic crack in the screen, but they were unmistakable, never the less. This was Clara's ipod.
He turned back to look in the direction of the bathtub, despite promising that he wouldn't look, and saw Aeryn leaning on the edge still fully clothed, water dripping down her face which was no longer blood streaked, an unreadable expression in her eyes as she watched him.
He pointed to the iPod. "This doesn't belong to you."
"It was a gift."
"From who?"
"I think you already know."
"How? When?"
She simply shook her head then turned her back on him. "Sorry Doctor. I'll explain everything, I promise. Just….not yet. Little preoccupied."
"Yes, sorry. I'll...uh….I'll be waiting outside."
And feeling suddenly rather sheepish, he stepped outside to wait for her. However long it would take.
The celebrations that evening were like nothing the Doctor had ever seen before. True, he usually cleared off before the clean up and aftermath got underway – he preferred to be the humble hero who stepped away without any thanks – but Aeryn had begged and pleaded with him to stay for just a little while. Just until she could clear his name with her father. It was, she'd insisted, the least she could do after everything he'd done for her and her kingdom.
She'd even convinced him to put on his tuxedo, and the Doctor had reluctantly agreed. After all, what was the rush? He had no-where else to be right then. So here he was now, a medal of honour pinned to his jacket and people smiling and thanking him over and over and over.
It really was rather boring, and he remembered why he didn't often do it now. But he'd promised Aeryn he wouldn't go anywhere without saying goodbye and despite his itchy feet, she still hadn't returned from the quiet word she'd asked to have with her father.
Eventually it all became too much for him, and after scooping a hand full of jelly babies from one of the bowls that had been laid out as part of a lavish feast for the celebrations, he went wandering through the corridors to try and find the young woman and her father, eventually finding her alone, staring out of a window and apparently lost in thought.
Slowly but surely in the kingdom beyond, life was returning. It was evening now, but birds chattered and sung in the trees and somewhere in the distance, children were laughing. In her hand, the Doctor could see that she was holding a chess piece – a white queen – and couldn't help but think it was oddly appropriate. A symbol of who she was, and everything she could ever be.
She looked so much better now. The long soak in the healing baths had fixed her right up and there wasn't even a trace that anything had ever happened to her. Not even so much as a paper cut, or a broken nail.
"You look lovely," he spoke gently as he moved to stand beside her. "I prefer you when you're not broken."
"Funnily enough, so do I," she smiled back. She looked to the medal on his chest, then back up to his face again. "My father's forgiven you, by the way."
"I should think so too," the Doctor huffed, polishing the medal with a sleeve. It was an insignificant little charm, as far as he was concerned. Worthless. But he owed it to her to at least try to be grateful. He offered her a jelly baby, and she took a couple of the red ones, munching on them thoughtfully.
"So," she looked down to the chess piece in her hand again when she'd finished the last one. "Where will you go now?"
He shrugged, even though she wouldn't see the motion because she wasn't looking at him. "Wherever the wind takes me, I suppose. You?"
Now it was Aeryn's turn to shrug. "Stay here, I guess. Same old, same old. Help my dad. Keep the peace. Be his poster girl for model citizen behaviour, or whatever it was that he told me I had to be. Basically just do as I'm told and let everyone see me doing it…." She sighed dejectedly, looking back up and out across the kingdom again. Night was falling, but it was no longer a threatening darkness. It was a soft, gentle one.
The Doctor cleared his throat in a slightly exaggerated fashion, and when she turned to see what he wanted, he held out his hand to her, uncurling his fingers to reveal a key – the very key she'd used to get herself into the TARDIS but had accidentally left in the doorway afterwards. She frowned at it in confusion not realising it was one and the same.
"What's that?"
"Your ticket to freedom," he told her. "Should you choose to accept it, of course. It's a key to the TARDIS, and I'm offering you a ride."
"To where?" She was trying not to let herself get too excited, he could tell. Almost as if this was too good to be true, and she didn't want to get her hopes up. But she took the key from him anyway.
"Anywhere you like!" He made a grand, sweeping arm gesture. "The whole of time and space, just waiting to be explored!"
"And...and you want me to come with you?"
"Only if you want to."
"But….but why me?"
"Why anyone?" He answered quietly. "Why did I choose Rose, or Martha, or Donna, or Amy and Rory? Why did I choose Clara?"
"Because they were special?" Aeryn guessed. "Doctor, I'm not special. I'm...I'm breakable! I'm a liability! You've seen that already."
"Aeryn, listen to me." He placed a hand on her shoulder and looked her directly in the eye then. "You are special, and don't you ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Do you understand? How many people can say they single-handedly defeated a basilisk with nothing but a pair of glasses? How many people can say they leapt off a cliff, into raging rapids, and survived? How many people can say they've done half the things you've done, and still be so modest about it?!"
"I can think of one," she smirked then, giving him a pointed look.
"Yes but this isn't about me." He let go of her shoulder and turned away, pacing a little. "Well, maybe it is. But since Clara's death, I've not been a good man. I've insulted her memory, and that is unforgivable. She was right when she told me that I'm very bad at being alone and...well this is me trying to make that up to her." He turned back to her then, a sad, almost desperate and pleading look in his eye. "This is me trying to be the man she always knew I could be. And I can't do it alone."
His eyes said it all then, even if his words didn't. Please don't leave me alone any more. I want a friend. I want you to come with me, and be my pal.
How could she refuse such an offer?
"You say we can go anywhere?" She asked thoughtfully, choosing not to notice the Doctor punching the air in a silent cheer.
"Absolutely anywhere," he composed himself quickly, then held his hands out to her. "You choose. We could have lunch first, then breakfast after, because as time travellers, that's what we can do!"
"Can we go to Earth?" She asked, holding out the chess piece to him then. "Maric had a chess set that he picked up when we lived there, and he said there was this one song that reminded him of me. He had this made so that he could carry it with him and always remember me, because it's got a line of the song engraved on it. Could we go and listen to it, perhaps? Maybe if I start to remember Maric and all the good times we had together, instead of trying not to think of him because of the pain it causes….Oh I dunno….It's a stupid idea. Sorry, forget I said anything."
"I tell you what," the Doctor smiled, even as he began to steer her towards where he'd left the TARDIS (now parked outside the women's bathroom, thankfully). "You've left a small trace in the telepathic interface. If that song was dear to you and Maric, it shouldn't be too hard for the TARDIS to track it down. And I think it's a brilliant idea that we listen to it. How about live, in concert?"
"And all I have to do is think of that song?" Aeryn asked, her eyes lighting up with excitement as she picked up her pace and a very definitive spring emerged in her step.
"By all means sing it, if you know the words," the Doctor agreed eagerly, keeping pace easily enough beside her with his long strides. "I'll try and keep up on my guitar, if you like."
"Now THAT I can't wait to see!" She laughed, jogging the last few paces to the TARDIS and using her new key for the first time.
"You know what to do," the Doctor told her as he once again turned off the safeguards and navigation, then let the handbrake go.
Aeryn stepped confidently up to the TARDIS telepathic interface and slid her fingers inside, up to the knuckles. Then she closed her eyes, apparently focussing deeply on the song.
In reality, however, it wasn't the song she was focussing on. Closing her eyes made it easier to deceive the Doctor, only because she couldn't see his face, and therefore couldn't see the hurt she would most probably be inflicting upon him when he eventually found out where she was taking them. When he found out that what she'd told him about the song had been a lie.
Well, not that it wasn't Maric's favourite song. That part was true enough. And she DID want to hear it, because she was curious about it. But she'd been counting on the Doctor letting her fly once more, and that had been the only way she'd been able to work out how she could do it, without putting in dates or co-ordinates that would have given the game away.
But she wasn't deceiving him maliciously. Hell, she'd come to view him as one of her best friends. One of her only friends, in fact. And the thought of hurting him was almost unbearable. But it was for his own good. And someday she hoped that he might be able to find it in one of his hearts to forgive her.