TITLE: The Doctor's Angel
AUTHOR: MikeJaffa
SYNOPSIS: Spoilers for "Revolution of the Daleks" and "Flux:" The Doctor makes a friend in Space Jail
DISCLAIMER: BBC owns Doctor Who. I am making no money off this fic.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Written in the middle of season 13. Not sure how it lines up with canon now, but here it is.
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I stand on the landing pad of the Jadoon's asteroid prison. I'm apart from the other angels in my choir, and the human minion who secured my release. I'm absorbing what I learned from our hive mind, that something called The Flux is coming, and not only does this give us the opportunity for conquest, but our greatest enemy, the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, is not expected to survive.
The other angels are giddy with the thought, but I don't share it. The good news of always being turned away with your hands over your face is they can't see your reaction, and I bury my thoughts so the others are not aware of them.
Usually when we attack someone and displace them in time, there is no consequence, but I attacked the wrong person and got caught and imprisoned. Maybe I will tell you sometime. The cell they kept me in had a platform that I would stand on during "sleep" and then they would feed me energy. Then techs would put me on a hand truck and take me to the yard for "exercise." A joke because I could only move if no one observed. How often does everyone in a room and watching on TV monitors blink at the same time? Once, I tried to send my image through the security cameras. Turns out the Jadoon had buffers and antiviral software to prevent that. But I still heard things. So I knew the Doctor was in the prison before I first met her.
"Hello, Angela. That's what I'm going to call you, Angela. Angel, Angela, stupid, I know. But you don't look like a Fred."
That was the first thing she said to me in the yard, and that was how I found out she was in the cubicle next to me. When she blinked, I lunged. Of course, the neural shocks in the fence stopped me, but I hoped I made my intention clear.
She made a face. "Yuuuuuh. Definitely not a Fred."
I returned to my place with my hands over my eyes. But I also found her charming.
And so it went day after day for cycle after cycle, years in human terms. "'Morning, Angela," she would say to me. I would attack. We were enemies. I made that plane. At least, we were supposed to be.
But sometimes she would talk to me. She would tell me stories or ask me questions. She sounded so affable. How could this being be the scourge of the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Sontarans? How could she have dispatched choir after choir from the host of weeping angels? I sensed no malevolence in her. Then I reminded myself the Doctor was known to be deceptive. He—she—had used humans from Earth as her cannon fodder for ages. So of course, she had her charm. Satisfied with that, I endure her false friendliness for more years. I would not be swayed.
Or so I told myself…until the day all that changed.
She came into her space one day. I lunged and returned to my space. I didn't think anything of it, until she spoke:
"Do you know what you've done to me? Do you know why I hate you so much?"
I lowered my hands when she blinked. She was standing at the fence, a serious look on her face.
"Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, the odd power mad conspirator," she went on, "I don't hate any of them. And I give them a chance. But I never want to hurt anyone. Even the Daleks. But you…when I look at you, I keep wondering about how to kill you. How to wipe out all the weeping angels. But then I wouldn't be any better than you." She paused and sat down next to the fence. "And then I think, maybe you're better than me. Yeah, you send people back in time to die in the past while you eat their potential energy, but they have good lives. They find someone, get married, have kids, good homes, anything they could ask for. What do I do? I show them time and space…and get them into one scrape after another. Only got a couple killed, but maybe they were the lucky ones. The rest live but they're changed. Is it really better? Maybe not. And I can't stop myself. I tell myself it'll be different, that it'll last, but it can't. Even I can't last." She started crying and buried her face between her knees. "Maybe it's better if I'm locked up forever," she sobbed. "Yaz, Ryan, Graham, they'll be better off without me…" She trailed off as she rocked back and forth, sobbing gently.
All my righteous outrage vanished in that moment. This was no monster, no murdering psychopath bathing the stars in blood. If anything, this was a gentle soul who shouldn't have been living that life, and who was carrying more angst and doubt and self-loathing than any one being should have to bear.
As she rocked back and forth, I crossed to the fence and crouched down. I raised my right hand and held it near the fence, palm open and towards her. It was the only gesture I could think of.
The Doctor raised her head and wiped her tears. She smiled. "Well, whaddya know? There's a heart in all that stone." She raised her left hand and held it opposite my palm. When she blinked, I let myself smile. I'd heard our smiles are disturbing, but if the Doctor felt that way, she gave no sign. We just sat there for a long moment.
The Doctor lowered her hand and wiped her tears. Then her smile returned. "So, Angela, how do you lot stop on a dime like that? I've never weighed a weeping angle, but you probably got quite a few stone of…stone…not fat shaming at all…but that's still a lot of inertia. How do you do it? I thought the skirt might act as an inertial damper, but then I remembered the lot at the Byzantium didn't have skirts while they were restoring…"
We never had a moment like that again, and we fell back into our old pattern after that. But it felt different, at least to me. Like a game, or a dance. And I loved to listen to her. She had good days and bad days, but the bad days were never that bad again. And when she had a bad day, I would position myself closer to the fence, as if to say, 'I'm here for you. It'll be all right.' And when I was in my cell during "sleep," I wondered if I could do what she did. If I could even be something other than what I had been.
The last day I saw the Doctor, she came in and didn't greet me, which happened sometimes. She noticed a Silence in another pen. Weeping angels are the only ones who can remember a Silence when we look away from them. (The angels can also move when the Silence look at us. I don't know why that is. And it is my understanding that the choirs on Earth—in particular, the choir that had colonized New York City-were irritated when the Doctor chased the silence off Earth in 1969. Trust me, you REALLY don't want to know why.)
"I forgot you were here," she said to it. (OK! THE SILENCE WERE THE NEW YORK ANGELS' BOYFRIENDS! ALL RIGHT!?)
A human male in another pen said, "What about this face? Remember this?"
I heard her run to the fence separating them. "Jack? Jack!"
"I knew you would look better in these colors than me. Hello, Doctor."
She sounded surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"What do you think I'm doing here? Breaking you out. Temporal freezing gateway disinhibitor bubble. Catchy, right? If it were me, I would have called it a breakout ball. Freezes time temporarily, phases the occupants through walls, only problem is, it doesn't last long."
I heard energy crackle, then Jack said, "Hi!"
"Have you had work done?" the Doctor asked.
"You can talk. Now shut up and run."
They ran in the bubble through the walls and vanished. The Klaxon sounded moments later but they were never recaptured.
Another prisoner was in her pen the next day, but I never tried to bond with that individual. I was glad the Doctor had got out, but I still missed her. I simply endured as the years went by.
Then the day came when my choir got a human minion to get me released. I reconnected with them and learned of the Flux and its threat to the Doctor. I excused myself to an edge of the landing pad and thought about it.
I shouldn't be concerned about the Doctor. I should just think that our enemy is getting what she deserves. But I can't. All I can think of is my friend, who gave me a name, showed me kindness, and poured her hearts out in front of me. And I finally understand why she does what she does, because she has to. I have to. I can't let her face this Flux, not without trying to help. My honor and my feelings demand it.
The human blinks, and as the quantum lock breaks, I cut myself off from the choir. They wouldn't approve and I don't care to explain. I spread my wings, feel them catch the time winds, and throw myself into the vortex, searching for…for my friend.
I'm coming, Doctor.
I don't know where or when you are. I don't know if you remember me. I don't even know if this is a good idea. This could be the biggest mistake of my life.
But nothing is going to stop me from finding you and trying to help. Whatever happens, you will face your destiny with an angel at your side.
THE END…?
