One Last Glance

by Sallangel

In another time, another place, the Doctor stands by the grave of a dear one... Something I wrote when I felt like writing something more artsy. I suppose it counts as AU possibly . Yet another short drabble.

He took one last glance.

Gazing, imagining, drawing the scene in so it would stay with him forever.

He turned away, the wind pulling him from where he stood, tossing his hair around playfully like a child. But what made him turn away wasn't the wind, it was the war. The war that was now over, yet still griped at his happiest and precious memories. The war that had stirred and reshaped the entire universe.

Briefly, he looked back. Across the hills, through the trees, out into the blue vastness of the sea. The wind mocked him, pulling browning leaves from the tree near where he stood, twirling them, dancing with them.

The wind could do as he pleased. The wind was infinite, old as time, yet young and lively. Down and down the leaves tumbled and rolled, happy spirits, colourful and bright, compared to the seeming darkness as winter drew closer. How black the world had become, and how black it would forever be.

His coat flew around him, flapping like the wings of a bird. Again, nature mocked him. Here sat the sea, flowing and pulling and moaning, forever moving.

Here sat the leaves, dying and re-growing and falling and wondering along the windy currents.

Here flew the birds, caressing the clouds, the sky, and the stars. Unlike him, oh how so unlike him, was nature. Power, and wisdom and grace had nature. Nature was free. Nature was beautiful and wonderful and magical. All life comes from nature, all living things, and to the earth must we return. With brief but saddening tears he turned to the dark shadow under the tree. Like a flower, she was beautiful, like a leaf, she blew where the wind took her, and like all things in nature, no matter how wonderful they are and how hard we cling to them, she had died.

Here lies a twining Rose, so beautiful a face

And here asleep she lies, in such a heavenly place.

Those words, and that place, would haunt him forever. The gravestone, stoney and cold, lay slanted under the tree, as if, like its occupant, it was sleeping. He kneeled down to sweep away the fallen leaves from her grave. There, taken from his pocket, he laid a white Rose. The wind, powerful and playful, picked it up. Tossing and turning and twirling, the Rose danced through the air. Over the edge, tumbling and rolling, down to the blue vastness of the sea...