Chapter LXXXI
Mira
She was in the kitchen together with Martha, preparing something to eat – they had found fresh vegetables and rice-noodles, so the easiest thing to do had been a stir fry. The TARDIS didn't seem to think too high about fast or convenient food, at least she hadn't been able to find any.
She had wanted to head straight to her room, have a shower and then – well – trying to get some rest, but Martha, as well as she herself as she had to admit, was starving. The Doctor had stayed back in the console room, but said he wanted to join them in a little while.
She noticed that Martha was giving her strange looks all they while whilst she was stirring the food in the pan. Probably she was suspecting that something was going on between her and the Doctor; wouldn't be to her surprise after what had happened on that spaceship and the things they had said to each other. Though she was pretty sure Martha hadn't noticed them holding hands in the console room, neither him giving her a kiss on the cheek. Not that it would have been a big thing if Martha would find out, but she liked to keep it between him and her, at least until they both knew where it was heading.
But, truth to be told, that was right now the least of her worries. It took all her strength to keep up a mask of self control and content, and not to break down in tears.
Over the last hours everything had come together, and the more time passed, the more she realised how close it had been. Not even for herself, but for Martha, and also for the Doctor. She didn't even dare to think about how things could have gone wrong if he wouldn't have been able to fight that strange life form for so long. A thousand possibilities were popping up in front of her eyes. What if he would have killed someone? If he himself had survived, he would have never forgiven himself. What if he would have died and they – Martha and her - survived? She would have been all alone in this strange universe, with literally nowhere to go. The universe - seemingly so incredibly cruel in its indifference from the perspective of every intelligent being - separating them so shortly after they had finally found each other would have well fitted into the great scheme of things.
Apart from all that she had realised she was actually envious of Martha. It was gnawing at her that she had this simple, normal life with all her simple, normal problems, being able to just give her mother a call.
There was a good chance that this would never ever happen for her again. Even if there was a way back to her universe, who could say how much time had passed there? Maybe they were all long dead then. And maybe not only the people there, but–
The image of the black and dead sky she had seen in her dream appeared before her eyes again.
It was then when a slightly burned smell reached her nose.
"Mira?" Martha's voice reached her ears.
She looked down at the pan and quickly started to move the vegetables in there again.
"It's not too bad," she replied quietly without looking at Martha. "Just a bit dark, but not burned. Not really burned at least."
"Well, I don't mind," Martha replied lightly as she put plates on the table. "I just want something to eat and then have a shower."
"Definitely still edible," she replied absent-mindedly.
Martha stepped over to her, the bowl with the rice-noodles in her hand and poured them into the pan.
"So," she said without looking up, "You've been together quite a while then?"
Martha
Well, there it was. She knew had to ask it eventually, otherwise she would just drop dead. There most likely wasn't a right moment for it, so she could just ask it now, for she actually was alone with Mira. For some reason she didn't dare to ask the Doctor. No, that would be too obvious. And especially now, after all the things Mira had said to him back on that ship, she just needed to know. At least a part of her had the decency to actually feel bad for thinking about how her chances with him were, right now of all moments.
Mira turned her head around and looked at her, apparently dumbfounded. But who could really tell with her? Was she really that surprised? She still didn't fully understand how her psychic abilities were working – Mira couldn't read her thoughts, that she had said herself, but apart from that? Who could tell.
"What do you mean?" Mira finally asked tentatively.
"Well, you and him. You've been together, haven't you?" she asked, trying to sound casually, turning away to place the empty bowl back on the counter.
"No," Mira said slowly, shaking her head. "We... No, we haven't been together. Well, we travel together, and I stay here because I don't have anywhere else to go, but that's it, really... Why?"
For one long, awkward moment they just looked at each other. She couldn't help but to feel as if Mira could read her like an open book. It was almost like the looks the Doctor sometimes gave her.
"Don't know, really," she said and shrugged. Oh hell, how to get out of this situation? "Just seemed like it to me. You seemed to know each other quite well, this 'old couple' feeling, you know? "
"Old couple feeling?! Really?" A well known voice behind her made her jump.
She turned around, feeling her face starting to burn. She hadn't heard him coming. "Uhm... I..." she stammered, but he didn't seem to care much as he turned his head to Mira.
"Is something burning?" he asked and got closer to the hob, his nose over the pan.
"It's not burned," Mira replied pointedly and finally carried the pan over to the table, waving him out of her way.
"But it smells like," the Doctor insisted, following her.
"It's just a bit darker, not really burned," she repeated Mira's words, before she realised that it would not quite come across as an attempt to help her out.
"You know what?" Mira said as she put the pan on the table with slightly more force than necessary, "Eat it or leave it."
She had just pulled a chair away from the table to sit down, when the tone in Mira's voice made her stop in her tracks. She looked over to the Doctor, who had done the same thing, his hand on the back of the chair, and caught his eyes. He shot a quick look to Mira, then looked back at her. Without another word, they sat down.
Mira
She was standing in the bathroom, leaning heavy with her hands on the wash-basin. She had wanted to take a shower, but so far she hadn't even undressed. She lifted her head again with a sigh, staring at her reflection in the mirror. For a moment her mind was more or less blank, as she studied the lines between her eyebrows, the dark circles around her eyes, and noticed how gaunt her face had become over the last weeks. But, apart from that, it was still the same face staring back at her that it had been for the last centuries. Nothing had changed, not a single thing.
She tried to remember the subtle changes she had seen in it between her late teens and her late twenties. How her cheekbones had become more pronounced, her cheeks less rounded, making her face appear slightly more womanly and less girlish – though she had still looked younger than she had been. And then, from her thirtieth birthday onwards, everything had stayed the same. Of course more stressful times had shown on her face, just as it did right now, but they hadn't left new, permanent wrinkles, grey hair or anything like that.
And now that same old and young face somehow seemed to negate all the years and years she had lived through. It was as if her own reflection was mocking her, staring back out of dead, tired eyes, laughing at her assumptions that all that had happened would make the slightest difference to anyone - not even to herself.
Her eyes were in fact – and in her belief – the only thing that had changed. When she had been younger, much younger, and she had seen pictures of herself, she had always been startled at how alive and sparkling her eyes had looked. Now they were just empty, pale and tired. The longer she was staring at herself in the mirror, the more it seemed as if someone else was actually staring back at her. Staring back at her out of eyes that reminded her so much of her father's, a fact that had once filled her with bitter hate, but soon later she had found in him someone who had really cared for her, not given up on her – and she had tried to give it back later whenever she could. And even if they hadn't seen each other for years, they had always been able to tell if the other was not well. And yet, she would have never expected to feel so incredibly lost and alone now. She had tried not to think of him because the sheer and overwhelming power of it was almost too much to take.
But now she felt like she just had to think about him, had to try to imagine what he would be doing right now. And not just him, all the others as well. All who had survived together with her for one and a half millennium. She tried to remember their faces, their voices. She must not forget them, for her memories were all she had left. But what if? What if she couldn't remember them in hundred or two-hundred years from now on? What if she was still stuck here then and couldn't even remember their faces? Would that be possible? Well, she had forgotten faces before. Faces from people she had known for only a few years, faces she couldn't remember for the life of her. But then again, she had never tried to really memorise them in the first place. Not consciously at least. She remembered the person, but failed to picture their face – she couldn't even remember their name. She could still remember the face of her own mother though, after all those years.
Really?
Could she? She tried to picture her, but how could she be sure that what appeared in front of her mind's eye was an accurate picture and not just some image, blurred and alienated by centuries that had passed. Panic was slowly rising in her. She knew that she didn't even remotely look like her mother, but how exactly had her mother looked like then? Her hair had been dark, much darker than her own. Her eyes had been dark as well, but apart from that? How had her smile been like? Her voice? She had forgotten. Maybe not actually forgotten, for there was an image, but she couldn't tell if she was only making something up or if the image was an actual and accurate memory. It was madness, and now she was pretty sure that her own reflection in the mirror was laughing at her; smirking viciously at her whilst she was slowly but surely going insane.
A sudden urge to smash the mirror rushed over her; to slam her fists against it again and again - until nothing but shards were left, shards to small to reflect anything. She had closed her eyes whilst imagining that, and now as she opened them again and looked up in the mirror again, her heard skipped a beat.
Behind her she could see a figure standing in the mirror. It took her a few seconds to realise it was the Doctor's tall frame in his dark-brown suite. Then it took some more seconds for her to convince herself that he was really standing there and not just a product of her imagination. Although, she was not a hundred percent sure of that. But why would she be hallucinating? He had never cared about closed doors, so he had just walked in and was standing behind her now, leaning against the door-frame, his arms crossed, looking at her through the mirror, his brows furrowed in sorrow.
She wanted to tell him to go away, leave her alone, but she feared to break out into tears when trying to say a single word. Apart from that she doubted she could just send him away. Not after what had happened between them. She had let him close to her as hardly anyone ever before. She knew and even understood him now on a level so much deeper and utterly different from anything one could hope to accomplish by just talking to someone. Not that she knew much more about his life; it was more a deeper understanding of his personality, of him. And she didn't doubt for a single second that it was just the same for him.
She watched as he walked over to her, over to her reflection in the mirror. It still seemed surreal, as if he was walking over to a different person, totally unrelated to her, who was watching the scene from a distance. Only when he turned her around to face him and pulled her in his arms, she felt in touch with reality again, at least a little bit. Now she couldn't hold it back any more, and tears were streaming down her face.
Doctor
He had felt that she was in a bad shape all the way through their quiet dinner, but to see the broken look in her eyes staring at him through the mirror had shocked him beyond words. It left him completely helpless. All he could do was to hold her as she was lying in his arms sobbing so hard that he was afraid she would start to hyperventilate or forget to breathe all together. He whispered soothing words in her ear, and it took him a rather long moment to realise that he was speaking Gallifreyan. He hadn't used his native tongue in quite a while, not even when talking to himself. But now it were the only words that came to his mind.
"Mira," he said softly after a while, speaking English again so she could understand him. "Please, calm down. Try to breathe more slowly."
But he wasn't sure she could hear him.
"Hey, look at me," he continued, holding her at the shoulders so he could see her face. "What is it? Talk to me."
He hadn't expected it, but she actually looked up and into his face, if only for a moment, before she shook her head and looked away again.
Mira, please. Let me help you.
He took her in his arms again, not sure if she was able to hear it. There was some sort of connection, but she was on the edge of panicking, for whatever reason, so he was afraid she wouldn't understand it. He carefully tried to deepen the connection, trying to calm and comfort her, as it was such a natural thing to do for his people. He felt incredibly relieved as she didn't push him away – she almost seemed to relax slightly in his arms, even though she was still crying.
"I'll forget them," she eventually said tearfully.
"What?!"
It took him a moment, then he understood.
You won't forget them.
Now she looked up at him, her eyes wide with terror. "I can't remember my own mother! I don't know how she looked like anymore! And when I can forget that, I can forget them. And everything that happened. My whole life! I'll start do mix it up, forget things, then I'll forget myself, because it's only me left to remember, and there's no one to-"
"Mira!" he interrupted her loudly, hoping to snap her out of her panic, and took her face in his hands so she couldn't look away again. "Stop it! You won't forget yourself!"
"How can you be so sure?" she whispered, sounding utterly exhausted.
Because we'll remember it, he thought to her, pulled her close again and softly stroked the back of her head. You can share it with me, everything, and then we'll remember it both.
OneWhoReadsToMuch, InfinityMars, Arashi – IV of VI, Julia N SnowMiko, DarknessShallSpreadXx, bored411, NeoMulder, E-man-dy-S: Thanks for leaving a review :-)
