CHAPTER THREE: SECRETS, UNRAVELLED
The first mistake:
He took Remus to Earth.
They'd been travelling for months—long enough that he'd forgotten what Remus had said about returning to Earth. Or overlooked it, or something. But they landed, and he leapt out, and said, "Here we are!" without even a thought about how this could be a bad idea.
It didn't look so much like Earth, so Remus didn't say a thing.
(At first, anyway.)
They wandered for a bit, chatting and grinning and laughing and commenting on the birds and trees and the distant lights of a glimmering city of glass and marble.
"Where are we, then?" Remus asked at last.
"Earth," the Doctor said.
And the light fell from Remus's eyes, and the smile fell into a tight-lipped grimace. "I said I didn't want to go home."
The Doctor frowned. "This isn't your home. I wouldn't take you back to the 80s." And then, "Well, this is the 80s, actually. The 4180s. But—"
"I don't care what year it is. I—" His gaze was searching the sky. "Fuck."
"What?"
"Have you … have you got a calendar or something?" He was frowning, eyes wide, one shaking hand raised to itch anxiously at his neck.
The Doctor squinted up at the sky for himself, seeing nothing but the early-rising moon and the setting sun. "What? What is it, Remus, just tell me."
"Shut up! Please, just … give me a calendar."
He fumbled in his pockets for a moment before drawing out a couple of calendar books, passing one to Remus which covered this year.
"What's the date? It needs to be exact."
The Doctor gave it to him. He watched the other man closely.
"Fuck," Remus said again. But his throat was ragged this time, like he was about to scream. Like a roar or a sob could tear out of his chest at any moment.
"What is it?"
"You need to leave. Just … go back to the TARDIS. Don't come out until tomorrow morning." Another glance up at the moon—round as a British five pence coin in the early 2000s.
"Please, Remus! What's wrong? I can help—"
"No! No, you can't. I'm…" he seemed to deliberate for a moment before confessing, "I'm a werewolf, Doctor. And you've taken me to a bloody full moon. So leave before you make this any worse."
He gaped. "Remus—"
"If you stay, I'll kill you. I'm sorry. I can't—" He closed his eyes, sinking to the ground in a fluid movement and sitting on his haunches on the hard-packed ground. "Please, just leave." He had his head in hands, lips pursed.
"Remus…"
"The sun's setting already. As long as there aren't people around, it'll be fine. Find me in the morning, all right?"
There weren't people around. The city was too far off, even for a bloodthirsty wolf.
"See you in the morning," the Doctor said softly, unable to cover the shake in his voice. He turned, and walked back towards the TARDIS.
The Doctor couldn't remember being so scared as he was that night. He could try and skip to the morning—he had a time machine, after all—but he'd made mistakes trying that too many times. He wanted to get this right.
So he waited. For all his years travelling through time, he'd never gotten a proper grasp on the details of it. Hours and minutes had once seemed so insignificant to him, but these particular ones stretched further than he ever could've imagined.
But, eventually, the sun rose. He wasn't sure on the specifics, with the sun and the moon. The moon had already been in the sky when he'd walked with Remus, but there'd been no transformation until sunset. So as the sun rose, bleeding into the sky, he leapt out of the TARDIS and raced towards where he'd last seen Remus.
There was no-one there. He stared dumbly at the bloodstains in the grass.
He stood in the middle of the little meadow, eyes running in every direction, towards the treeline and over the hills. The morning light cast everything in red.
To have lost Remus now…
Where could he look? The Doctor ran through the possibilities: the woods; down by the river they'd walked by earlier; North and East and South and West; the far off, glimmering city; anywhere.
He couldn't bear to have lost another companion. It hadn't been nearly long enough since Rose, and this bared all the same pain he'd gone through back then. This was just as sudden, just as shocking, just as—
And then from behind him: "Did you bring clothes?"
He spun around. Remus was shaking, blood matted in his hair and in various places where he'd been wounded. Mud caked his skin.
The Doctor struggled for words. Those few moments, before Remus had emerged, had knocked the breath from him, and now that Remus was here—safe, thank the stars—he wasn't sure what to think. He was still reeling from fear.
"I'm fine," Remus whispered, as if he could read minds.
"I … good. Should we … we should get back. To the TARDIS. There are clothes there. And medical supplies."
"Yeah."
Remus leant against the Doctor for the walk back, and the weight against his side was so reassuring: he was fine.
It was the suddenness of it all that had shocked him. They were walking, happy, and then Remus was a werewolf and the Doctor ran to the TARDIS and then was Remus gone? Was he safe? And he was and it was fine it was fine. Remus's blood was on the Doctor's sleeve. It shouldn't have been a good thing, but it was; at least Remus was here.
Sure enough, they got back to the TARDIS, and Remus washed himself of blood and dirt and got dressed. The Doctor spent that time leaning against the console and breathing. Just breathing.
"I really am fine, you know," Remus said again, his voice less hoarse now. "This happens—happened—every month. When I'm on Earth, anyway."
"It shouldn't have to," the Doctor said.
They were quiet, for a moment, but it was a comfortable sort of silence. The Doctor felt as though he could see Remus now—his vision was no longer clouded by secrets and questions. And underneath it all, Remus was unbelievably human.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Remus looked down at his feet. "People…" he sighed. "People can be absolute shit."
The Doctor let him continue.
"Even as a kid, I couldn't tell people. In my world, it wasn't okay—at all—to be a werewolf. And I guess I thought … you're not one of us. You're not from my world. But I wanted to be judged for me, not for my condition. And obviously, you're okay with it. But what if you weren't? What if you were like every other fucking bigot? You could open the doors of the TARDIS and push me into the vacuum of space. You could leave me on some cannibal planet, or something. I don't know. I was scared. And maybe it was irrational, but I'm not … I can't afford to change. Not when everyone at home will still be judging when I go back."
The Doctor picked apart his words, pushing aside his questions and settling with: "When."
"What?"
"You said when you go back. Do you want to?"
Remus met his eyes. "I don't know. I'll have to, eventually. There are people I need to look after, and people who'll miss me. But I do like it up here. And maybe the only reason I'm here is to escape what's waiting or to get away from the transformations, or whatever, and you can have a go at me for that, but … isn't that why you're here? What's wrong with running away, for a bit?"
"Nothing," the Doctor said. "Nothing at all." He thought of Gallifrey, a place he'd once been so sure he would return to. And now he couldn't; not ever. It pained him to say it, but he had to warn Remus: "Just, if you're going to return … don't leave it too late."
Things returned to the way they were before. The Doctor avoided Earth and the surrounding area like the plague, all too aware of Remus's condition. He apologised time and time again for that one trip.
The blue rock from the purple planet (The Doctor still couldn't figure out what it was, to his frustration.) sat on the edge of the console, on its own pedestal, as if it was some precious museum piece. It witnessed every one of their adventures.
They saved a small civilisation of creatures on a bright, hot planet.
They flew around a dying star.
They attended a political convention—one that was entirely silent, with no languages in use at all, only an odd form of charades.
The Doctor learned—slowly—bits about magic and the magical world. Remus learned about the stars, and spaceships, and time travel.
And at one point, after they'd spent months jumping in time and space, it ended.