Not A Choice
It was not a choice, she realised. No thought was involved, no weighing of priorities.
The three men had come running back, the Doctor bringing up the rear. They were struggling to close the massive doors. Aranea, attuned to the Doctor, saw through the crystal teardrop what was approaching. A team of Cybermen, weapons already raised. The Doctor was standing in the gap between the closing doors. The weapons were aimed, and she could almost see the trigger being pulled….
Time slowed, stopped. Her hand still on the last switch, Aranea looked at the frozen scene before her. The three men, pushing on the doors; Rose, her body mirroring Aranea's before the external switches; the Doctor, standing between the doors, sonic screwdriver ready, knowing it would be too late. Two images, superimposed; her own eyes' sight, and what the crystal showed her.
Aranea saw the golden light fall upon, felt its strange, alien warmth. She turned and saw - Rose. But not Rose. Golden light enveloped her, golden dust scattered in her eyes. Tears streaked her pale face, tears of pain, Aranea knew somehow. She had infinite power, infinite knowledge. And it hurt. How it hurt.
"I can't save him again," She said sadly, "He took it from me, and died. I can only watch him. Watch him die again."
"He won't," Aranea said.
"It's your choice, Aranea," She said, Her eyes fixed upon her, the golden dust dimming until she seemed almost merely human, "You don't have to."
"It's not a choice," Aranea said, reaching out a pale hand to touch a golden one.
"I will see you again, Aranea," She said, her voice already fading, "Once more, before the end. I promise."
Aranea turned back as the vision faded, the golden light, the golden warmth gone. And saw the Doctor's eyes on her, full of sadness and regret. Time Lord, Aranea thought fondly, truly you don't know how blessed you are.
Time came back, and paradoxically, she had no time now. Her forcefield winked out, and she heard the Cybermen's weapons fire, straight for the Doctor. And dissipate around the forcefield that now surrounded him. That split second was all that was needed to close the door and seal it with the sonic screwdriver. It would hold for a time.
Aranea sent an urgent thought to Rose at the same time Now, Rose, now!, pulling the last switch and running for the door. She called up her forcefield again, too late, she knew. But it was all right.
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They had some pieces of gold jewellery, especially Aurelio who, true to his name, coughed up several gold coins he had saved up. Pulverised, turned to gold dust and pumped through the ventilation ducts, they heard the screams of the Cybermen even through the thick doors. After a safe interval, they opened the doors and found the remains, putrid green amidst the tarnished silver.
"Tell Echo what happened, and get the other plants to pool together their gold," The Doctor was instructing, "You can wipe the Cybermen out by luring them into the plants, if you play your cards right."
They had left, the Doctor, Rose and Aranea. The humans could finish the job now. Aranea stumbled into the console room, smiling wanly at Rose's concerned questions. In the medlab, the Doctor scanned her, his almost childlike face set into a grim mask as he viewed the results.
"It was shorter than fifteen seconds, couldn't have been too harmful, right?" Rose asked, desperation creeping in her voice, "Right? Doctor?"
The human had Aranea's hand in a death grip, tears only a word away.
"I'm sorry, Rose," the Doctor said, looking at Aranea.
"I know, it's all right," Aranea turned to Rose and smiled again. The pain was starting, the rot setting in.
"No, it's not all right!" Rose shouted, tears tumbling from hurt eyes, "You can't be dying! Nya, can't you…can't you… there's gotta be a way! The Doctor can fix you, can't he?"
"He can't, Rose," Aranea softly soothed, "My human organs are dead. The radiation went straight through my crystal body, and right now the only organ that's not almost dead is my brain, probably because I have several layers of organic cushioning around it."
Rose could only shake her head, incoherently denying what was right in front of her.
"Oh Rose," Aranea hugged her tightly, "Don't. Don't cry."
As the Doctor looked on, the sadness again in his eyes, Rose clung to Aranea, weeping. It was not all right after all.
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They stood awkwardly in the console room. Already Aranea was losing all colour as she lost control over her body, only her eyes remaining a brilliant blue. They would probably be the last thing to die, she realised. Her human eyes, twins to Jack's.
That was the only twinge of regret she felt. She would never see Jack again. Rose was holding the photographs they had taken one bright afternoon, when Aranea was persuaded to try on the kimono Jack had bought. In a rare moment of playfulness, Aranea leaned against the door way of the TARDIS, posing for Rose as she took pictures with a 32nd century camera, a small card-like apparatus that sent the images straight to a small printer which instantly produced the photographs.
"When you find Jack," Aranea said, "Could you show them the photographs?"
"Sure," Rose said with a forced casualness.
They hugged again, Rose frowning in order not to cry again. Aranea held on to her hand as she looked at the Doctor. There was nothing in the Doctor's face, nothing of grief, or regret. And she knew that was the most telling expression of all, for the Time Lord. The grief that was so great that he had to lock it behind walls of impassiveness.
"Doctor, one last gift," she said, "In thanks for letting me travel with you."
With the last bit of her will, she let go. Let go of what she could of her crystal body, enough to spawn a thousand butterflies, all pale white, fluttering, filling the dome of the console room.
"I used to have butterflies," the Doctor whispered, looking up at the cloud of white.
"I remember," Aranea smiled, "I can't do the colours anymore though."
"They're beautiful, Aranea. You are beautiful."
In the glance they shared again that moment in the plant on Dismal, two who stood outside of time and yet still pulled along by its eddies and waves.
Gently she let go of Rose, walked to the doors. The Doctor had chosen a place for her, a large blank part of space; no stars, no planets, no asteroids. No one would disturb her here. She wanted to go before she lost entirely her ability to hold her shape together, and reverted to the spider body that was the original form of an Arachnid.
She pushed herself away from the doors, closing them with while giving herself momentum to move away from the TARDIS. She looked at the blue box, so forlorn in the empty space. As she must look to them as well. She gestured at them, knowing that they must be looking at her through the display screen, asking them mutely to go, now. She drifted further and further away from the TARDIS, watching the blue box grow smaller with distance. With a flashing of light, it was gone.
And She appeared, the gold filling Aranea's vision until it seemed to fill the blackness of space.
Thank you. She smiled at the dying half-human.
No need Aranea answered in the silence of space.
I can bring you back, restore your life.
Why don't you? Aranea felt hope faintly growing in her.
It is your choice.
Knowledge filled her. Aranea had always felt the timelines as a background in her mind, a vast river in which she floated all her life. Now she was submerged in it, every detail crystal clear in her mind. The knowledge awed and horrified her, threatening to overwhelm her human mind.
She saw herself, her life like loops of thread which bound the timelines together, held them intact. Herself, the Citadel, her mother. And she understood, finally. She stretched her sight to the end of the line, watching how each of the thousand Arachnids became fully themselves, preserving the integrity of time against the avarice of those like the TIME agents.
And all this won't be, if I remain alive. Aranea closed her eyes, vainly trying to block out the vision.
Only you will remain. Rose/not Rose affirmed.
Then it is not a choice at all.
It is always a choice. For good or ill, for those unborn and those long dead, your choices have set them on their path. Every path you have taken, have saved some and doomed others. This is your gift and your burden, that you have always had the choice.
Aranea looked at Her, golden, brighter than suns.
The choice is already made. Aranea stretched out her hand to touch Her once again.
A last gift for you. A moment of time. Tell him.
A touch of gold dust on her hand, sparkling like nothing she had ever seen. Aranea pressed it to her chest, felt her human form unravelling, turning back into the spider she was born as. She died, her blue eyes looking sightlessly out into empty space.
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Far beneath her a million stars
Dead, or just asleep; she drifted. The stars burnt, hundreds of light years away. The Doctor had chosen well, her final resting place.
Only emptiness surrounds her now
The void was truly void. Even the brightest or nearest star systems were mere pinpricks of light. She did not know this. With the death of her human brain, so too had consciousness vanished. Only a crystal husk remained; soon, the last remnant of her humanness would decay and be abandoned.
Nothing, no one. No sound.
The utter silence of space. She was blind, deaf, numb. Her crystal body slowly grew, as miniscule asteroids and space dust accumulated on her and were assimilated. What could not be assimilated simply fell away.
Far away, he is waiting.
Somewhere within her, a flicker of consciousness remained. Only the slightest hint of a memory. A face. A smile. The scent of a human body. The touch of human fingers. A primeval awareness that predated thought. Hoarding that flicker to the very core of herself, her body grew around it. It pulsed. Her Heart.
Her journey will take an eternity
She does not note, nor care about the passing of time. For two billion years, she was snared by a planet and became a moon. For another three billion years, she followed a long and erratic orbit around twin stars. None of these mattered. She woke up, suddenly and painfully, finding herself hurtling towards a sun. She willed herself to safety - and found herself a thousand years in the future and half the galaxy away.
But at its end, awakening.
She gave birth, nine hundred and ninety-nine times. Her children initially had only the rudimentary consciousness of insects, but they learnt. Eventually they became sentient, and curious, and learnt of other races from the signals they could detect in space. Her thousandth child, also her first child, for she conceived one bright daughter first, but did not release her until she was ready. That flicker of memory, jealously hidden away, she bestowed upon this one.
Awareness, knowledge. Love
Her children toppled a tyrant, freed a galaxy from slavery. Each took her own path, each went her own way. In their time, they would become like her. Except her first bright daughter, who would have a greater and sadder destiny.
Is he not worth the fall?
He walked in, hesitant, not knowing what to expect. Her daughter, still wary and distrusting, showed him the Heart. In time her daughter would remember. Remember that she loved him; that she gave up immortality for him. And that she would have his child, a child who would die and become in death the mother of her race. And so the story begins again.
She watches them dance, and remembers.
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AN: I'm afraid this is my last update for at least two weeks. I'm desperately trying to finish my dissertation right now. Patience, friends, I will return anon!