ahhhhh it's been so long! I'm sorry!
CHAPTER TEN: AMONG THE DEBRIS
A while later, the Doctor took up the hunt again. Some crazy sense of need steered him around the TARDIS, setting the control exactly so. He should be seeing Remus in the 90s.
Once he landed, he swung open the door, examined his surroundings.
Where was he? From the landscape, Scotland. He should be pleased—finally, a chance to use this accent!—but there's a sense of dread inside. How old would Remus be now—thirty-something? He wondered, with that perpetual sadness in his eyes, how the man had fared up until this point. How many scars would he have now?
A castle. He was at a side entrance to a castle.
The castle was gorgeous. Pale stone, well-kept and polished. The windows were paned with glass and the towers tapered into elegant points. When the Doctor took a step inside, the door was well-balanced. The corridors were wide.
The hallways were not empty. Remus found himself amongst groups of people, of all ages. Tourists? No. They looked sad, some of them. Injured. Wearing the same odd robes Remus had been wearing as he stood on that bridge, all that time ago.
Carefully, he stepped up to a girl who was sitting dejectedly in an alcove. Her sleeve was heavy with blood. There was a bruise across her left cheekbone.
"Do you know where Remus Lupin is?" he asked, gently as he could with a face like this.
She looked up. "They took him to the Great Hall, I think." And then, "I'm so sorry."
"Are you … are you all right?"
Her voice was firm. "I don't think anyone is."
What was going on? It was surely some magical event, or else how could he not know about some catastrophe like this, right under his nose in the UK? He sped up a little, feet taking him towards someone else.
"Where's the Great Hall?" he asked.
A single finger, pointing. This man, with tears staining his cheeks, wouldn't even look up at him.
"Are you all right?" he found himself asking again. No answer.
Faster. He pushed himself to walk faster. Something was wrong here. Something was so, so wrong. The place looked like a battleground. And all around … these were children. There were just children, talking in huddles, covered in blood and dust and eyes dark with pain.
He asked for directions again and again until he finally reached a huge set of doors, ripped off their hinges around the empty doorway. And inside, sure enough, was a hall. A great one. Grand and beautiful and terrible, rubble built in the corners and—
Bodies. Bodies.
(He thought of the Time War, unable to ward his thoughts away from it. There had been no bodies left; nothing but dust. But the death toll … there were deaths to the point they became numbers, rather than individuals. To the point the Doctor couldn't handle death like that anymore, for years afterwards, the stench of it making him retch, his chest squeeze, his hearts rattle—)
"Is … is Remus Lupin here?" he asked someone. A balding man with dulled red hair.
The man he'd asked looked at him. His eyes were hollow. "I don't recognise you," he said.
"I'm … an old friend of his. Is he here?"
"I think…" The man's voice was sad and gentle. "I think you're a little late," he said.
And the feeling came, all at once, crashing over the Doctor's hearts. His chest was being trampled, crushed under the weight of loss. Because Remus had been there for him. Remus had been one of the best friends he ever had, for however short it lasted.
Remus had understood him, as well as a human could.
"He's—"
"Yes," the man said. "I'm so sorry."
It had happened again. Another companion, dead or gone or their memory wiped or whatever other hundreds of things had happened in the past to his friends.
And this was why he shouldn't travel with humans:
This pain, which always came at the end.
He wandered dumbly towards the line of bodies in the centre of the room. Throat choked, eyes watering. This face hadn't felt emotion like this before. Not this overwhelming shock. His hearts felt shrivelled. Something sharp was pressing into his skin.
His feet carried him over to a body. A body.
He was too late. Too late.
Remus was older, and more scars had joined the ones the Doctor knew so well. Lines carved into his cheeks, and around his eyes, and creased his forehead. His skin was pale. His eyes were closed.
(What he wouldn't do to see those eyes again, glittering in the starlight, shining and feeling and so very alive.)
"Oh, Remus," the Doctor muttered.
There was a girl next to him. A girl, a woman, equally dead. Lying next to Remus Lupin. Their hands nearly touched. He didn't know the whole story, but the Doctor found himself hoping that Remus had been happy, at least for a little while.
(A bitter part of him wished Remus could've been happy with him, in the stars, in the TARDIS, a million miles away from this Earth which the werewolf had seemed to hate so much.)
(In retrospect, the Doctor would realise—of course!—that it was the Moon that Remus hated. Should've known. Too late.)
"It was as if he was waiting for someone," came a voice to the Doctor's side. He didn't flinch, but he took a sharp breath in.
The woman standing beside the Doctor was Scottish too, with grey hair. She had sharp features but kind eyes. And she was sad, like everyone here.
"I'm sorry," is all he could say to her. This woman—a human (a witch)—somehow made him feel small. Made him want to atone, to apologise.
She looked down at the body, as he had. And said nothing.
"Was he … was he happy?"
A pause. "Almost," she said. "I think he was almost happy."
His stomach lurched. He shouldn't have come here.
And maybe—maybe—he shouldn't have let Remus leave at all.
..
Sorry about this one.
Just one chapter left! There'll probably be some little deleted scenes at the end cos i think i'm funny but the fact remains that we are NEARLY DONE!