TIME ITSELF
"So all these buttons, I was right! They do steer this thing!" Raj laughed and skipped around as Phoenix began booting up all the systems.
"They do a lot more than steer! And don't touch anything! I'll have to teach you to do it properly!" She slapped his hand away from the console.
"Where are we going?"
"Anywhere you want. Anywhen you want." She smiled.
"Oooo, then can we go to the end of the universe?"
"That's...a bit far don't you think?"
"What? I want to see what happens since I'll be dead," Raj shrugged.
"For all you know, it could be tomorrow."
"Is it?" His eyes widened. Phoenix laughed.
"No. And we aren't going to the end of the universe. But we could go to a planet where there's giant moths, so big you can ride them! There's these enormous caves, and if you stand on the edge of the entrance you can jump off onto the back of one of those moths as it flies out!" They both thought this sounded like a good idea. "Hold on, Raj!" The TARDIS revved to life and Raj staggered to keep its balance as it went flying into the time vortex. "Whoa! She's eager to get going!" The engine whirred faster and faster, everything was spinning, "TARDIS, slow down! The stabilizers aren't all the way up we've got to- oh no, no!" She looked closer at the screen.
"What is it?"
"She's going too fast! She didn't let all the systems reboot, we're not stabilized!" Lights flashed, WARNING, APPROACHING PLANET. Phoenix hammered uselessly at the buttons, Raj tried flipping levers, the large red planet got closer and closer on the monitor screen but soon became obscured as they picked up so much speed white fire flew around them faster and faster-
Phoenix screamed and felt Raj grab her hand, holding onto the console, braced for the crash-
Thud.
Phoenix was pretty sure she'd lost all senses. She tried to open her eyes but either it was pitch black or she hadn't opened her eyes at all. She tried to feel for Raj but her fingers wouldn't move. Come to think of it, she couldn't feel her fingers. There was no sound, not even the sound of her own hearts beating or her breath.
Then a pinprick of light. It grew larger and larger until everything became a blank white space. Slowly, she sat up. Pleased at discovering she could sit up and could look down and see her hands and feet, she stood up and looked around. Nothing. Just a blank space. No sign of Raj either. She opened her mouth to call for him but before any sound left her mouth she blinked and found herself back in the TARDIS.
Everything was still. Sparks in the air from the console hung suspended, the lid on the box of photographs was half off, two pictures hanging inches from the ground. She noticed with a start that she was looking at herself a few feet away, holding onto Raj. Neither of them moved. Or even appeared to breathe. She didn't really have time to wonder what was going on because she heard a clacking noise behind her.
Sitting on a stool a few feet away was a woman Phoenix had never seen before but seemed oddly familiar. In front of her she had an old fashioned loom, and the tapestry on it flowed to the floor and then continued to spread out until it looked as if it covered the whole floor. Or as if it made up the whole floor. She looked down and saw that she was standing on the tapestry but couldn't feel it beneath her feet. The woman was selecting a new thread from the multitude of colorful strands surrounding her.
"Hello?"
She looked up serenely. "Hello, my child." Looking at her, Phoenix could distinctly see her but at the same time she couldn't at all. Sometimes her skin was dark, sometimes it was pale, sometimes it was smooth, sometimes marked with age. Her hair floated around her like a gentle ocean wave, but its consistency and color never quite stayed the same. Phoenix thought she could see glimpses of galaxies and shimmers of stars caught in it. She wore a simple gown of white, belted at the waist with a long golden chain which fell down to her knees. An hourglass hung at the end.
"Where am I? Am I in the TARDIS?"
"That's a bit of a difficult answer. You're everywhere. And nowhere." Her voice even was impossible to place an age and range.
"Who are you?" Phoenix watched, mesmerized as her hands moved back and forth deftly over her work.
"I am Time."
"You're...what?" she tore her eyes away from the weaving and looked at the lady. Their eyes met. They were gold. Phoenix had to look away after a mere moment. There was something terrible in them.
"I am Time."
"But time, it's a…"
"A concept? An idea? A thing?" she finished.
"Yes."
"Oh no, my child. Time is so much more. You of all creatures should know. A Time Lord, though I always thought that was laughable. As if anyone could claim to be lord over me. It has been a long while since anyone saw me like this. I'm too vast to be looked at all at once. I drive men mad, kill them most of the time." She continued weaving. A thread caught. She tugged at it and sighed, "It's this one again. Your father's thread. It always finds a way to tangle up my design and goes about snapping other threads."
"Where's my thread?" Phoenix asked, surveying the tapestry. Time plucked at a golden thread. It intertwined with her father's blue one once, several rows back.
"If you went along the tapestry a ways, you'd find it overlaps many more times."
"Where does it end?" She saw part of it sitting in Time's lap.
"That would be telling." Without warning, a tear appeared in the tapestry several feet away from Time's hands. She hastily pulled it to her lap and grabbed the four unraveling threads, quickly tying them off before they could make a hole, "Happens sometimes." Phoenix watched for a few more seconds then asked,
"So I'm here, but I'm also there?" She pointed to her frozen self.
"So many questions," Time smiled, "And yes. You are defying logic, and are indeed two places at once."
"Can he see us?" She asked, nodding at Raj.
"Yes. But not like you do."
"What do you mean?"
"Your TARDIS flew into me."
"But...we always do that."
"No, you always fly through me. Not into me. That's much more dangerous. I'm going to drive you mad if you don't stop. And I will kill him." She sighed.
"Don't do that! I'm sorry! I'm sorry I flew into you!"
"I wouldn't do it on purpose, my child. But neither can I stop it. It just simply is the way of things, I'm not good or bad. I just am." She tied off several threads and began with some new ones. Phoenix was momentarily distracted trying to see some kind of pattern in the design. It didn't look very orderly, it seemed to tangled and knotted.
"How...how do I stop it?"
"Well you'd need someone to come along and give you a good shove out of the way. And there's only one other TARDIS who could do that." Phoenix felt like a hand was twisting her stomach into a knot. "You snapped the connection between your threads last time you met. You'd have to tie them back together." She held out the two threads. Phoenix noticed another one, a purple one, which was rapidly shrinking in Time's lap.
"What's that one?"
"Ah. That is his," she looked at Raj, "It wasn't supposed to end yet…You must make up your mind, Phoenix."
"This is going to hurt, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Alright." Phoenix bit her lip and nodded. She grasped all three threads.
Immediately, wind rushed in her ears, colors flashing- she could see Raj on his knees, hands over his ears, a woman who might've been his mother, but no- that wasn't Raj that was Rose, Rose Tyler- no it was Amelia Pond- Donna Noble- the Doctor Donna- River- then she saw Sammy, Ashton, she could hear Jesse's voice-
Then there He was. All of him. All of his faces, standing in a line in front of her right inside her TARDIS. All twelve faces looked around wildly, as if searching. The wind rushed faster, she could feel heat from somewhere.
"Phoenix," they all called, "Where are you?"
"I'm here! Can't you see me?"
"Phoenix! Child- please tell me where you are!"
"I'm here, I'm-" she caught her breath then called, "Papa!" All twelve pairs of eyes looked at her, directly at her. "Papa, I'm here!" She tried to run to him, but she couldn't move. She squinted against the bright light, she didn't know where it was coming from, "Help! Help us!" Phoenix grasped his hand for a moment, it slid from her grasp, their fingertips separating-
He called her Name.
The final piece. The only thing she couldn't remember. And when she heard it, she knew it was hers. Really and truly hers.
The threads were slipping, she was falling down, through the tapestry. She hung over space by those three threads, she could see her TARDIS below spinning out of control. She looped the threads through her hand, slipped down until only her fingers remained in the knot. An inch more and it would be tied.
Then the Phoenix fell, arms outstretched into the embrace of the stars.