So, after updating Just Another Accidental Marriage (which all you Daliya shippers should check out after this because it's very shippy), I sat down to write the Doctor/River centric chapter of Deafening Silence and I was simply without muse. Then I remembered the kiriban Marmalatta requested 'Daliya arguing and fluff', and once I started writing, I couldn't stop.
This story is set after Deafening Silence, either before or during the second installment (which is some distance off, I know), and is dedicated to the wonderful Marmalatta who reviewed every chapter of every story I have abeit a few! THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU WONDERFUL PERSON. Due to this, she was the 600th review on Deafening Silence, hence the kiriban. Hopefully this will repay the favour a little. :P
"If you had just left it alone like I told you to, Aliya, we wouldn't be in this mess!"
"I might have made it worse, by accident,but it was your lack of care for her that caused the problem in the first place!"
"Yes, because naturally, it's my fault, it's always my fault, isn't it?"
"As a matter of fact, yes, it is, because you can never do anything right!"
"And you never do anything wrong, no, you can never be wrong, the little engineer-"
"I can never be wrong? Have you looked at yourself lately?'Oh, I'm the Doctor, I know everything in the universe and everyone should snivel at my feet and adore me!'"
"You've been more than happy to adore me more than once, Aliya, pining after me over the centuries like a lost puppy! Did I ever tell you how glad I am that you finally got over me?"
SMACK.
"Well, I suppose I simply realised how much of a selfish, egotistical jerk you are."
"Oh, name calling and physical violence, that's very mature of you…so is scowling at me like that."
"…I'm going to have a shower. Try and fix it, since you're obviously not going to let me anywhere near it again. Try not to break anything while I'm gone."
The Doctor spluttered as oil started leaking all over his face as a result of the wrong coil being pulled out. He was trying to fix one of the TARDIS' most recent glitches, but she wasn't cooperating. Perhaps in all honesty, he was being a bit rough with the old girl. He was simply not the best of moods.
Unsurprisingly, he and Aliya were in a fight. As fighting pretty much consumed half of the time they spent together, one would think that they had managed to either get used to going through it, or ever better, to avoid the fighting completely. Sadly, that was not the case.
It had started off the way things always did with their fights; something completely trivial and pointless. This time around, he had been tinkering and she had been lecturing on him and telling him that he was doing it wrong. But when she had gone to do it her way, she had made a mistake and made the initial problem ten times worse. They'd been arguing, then it escalated, and then it simply got personal.
Strangely, the TARDIS seemed to be not too happy either, though why, he had no idea.
"What's wrong, sexy?" He asked, and slid out from under the console to stand up and examine the controls with confusion. A hum of blatant disapproval and irritation emitted from the ship. He frowned before heading off to the closest bathroom to wash the oil off his face.
Clean and refreshed, the Doctor had just put the towel back on the rack when he was alarmed to hear the Cloister Bell ringing. His head snapped up and he sprinted back to the console room, and saw Aliya coming down the stairs in a similar manner. For a moment he paused, attention momentarily diverted. She clearly had left a bathroom in a hurry too, as she was dripping wet and wrapped in only a towel. It was strange to see her usually curly and somewhat fluffy-looking hair completely sleeked down her neck, darkened by the water. It made her look small, and even less intimidating than usual. His thoughts snapped back when he registered that she was shouting at him.
"What the hell have you done now?" The blonde demanded furiously, and before he could respond, the TARDIS doors flung open, revealing some kind of jungle outside. They both shot wary glances up at the Time Rotor before slowly crossing to the door and walking outside, expecting to be faced with some terrible problem or a solution to the needed TARDIS repair.
Instead the doors slammed shut behind them, and they both raced back, trying to the door only to come up short.
"We're locked out. She's locked us out!" The Doctor said in shock. "I really don't know what's going on."
"She's your ship, try and reason with her," Aliya snapped, thankful she had managed to not fly into a fury at his deduction. "Or at the very least find out why she's locked us out." She went behind a tree to dry her hair a little with the towel before coming back out, hair now in damp clumps and the towel staying up on her body on its own.
The Doctor pressed his hand and forehead against the wood, trying to connect with his ship. All he could sense was wariness, agitation, and an urge to…apologise? Reconnect? What did that….oh.
He sighed heavily. "She's locked us out until we apologise to each other and stop fighting."
"Well, maybe I don't want to apologise, we never have before, we've just always gotten distracted by something else and forgotten about it," Aliya stated flatly, "But this time we haven't been distracted, we're being commanded, and I like that even less. You had to steal the TARDIS with the attitude, didn't you?"
The Doctor closed his eyes in an attempt not to get angry. "Do not start, Aliya, do not knock my ship, especially when she's already cross with us."
"I just don't like being told what to do, it irritates me for some reason," She replied with slightly less force.
"I am aware," He said tiredly. "Add that to the fact that I like to be in charge and give orders, and there's probably the reason for half of our fights right there."
"Or maybe we're just not compatible," Aliya muttered as she sat down on a nearby rock.
"We've already been through all that, though, our worst fight was ages ago, we've moved past it, we're getting better-"
"Are we?" Aliya looked up at him with eyes shining full of some kind of emotion. "We're not getting better, we simply don't have those circumstances. Maybe you've moved past it, but I still have nightmares that one of our fights is going to end the same way!"
The Doctor froze, staring at her. "No…Aliya, that's never going to happen again, don't think like that…"
"You can't know that," Her voice had an edge in it, her eyes narrowing at him.
"I know myself, Aliya, and I know you," He replied, and she shook her head, standing up passionately.
"No, sometimes, I really don't think you do," She spat, "You once said that the boy from the Academy is gone and dead. Well, perhaps that girl is too."
The Doctor's hearts thudded rather painfully in his chest. He didn't want that girl to be dead…but if she could believe that Theta Sigma was still inside him somewhere, then perhaps he could believe that his Ali was still inside her.
"No," He said quietly, "No, she's not gone. I see her in your eyes every day. I've changed a lot more than you have."
"Perhaps…we never used to fight at the Academy…I think I would count our fights on one hand," Aliya agreed, looking down at the ground. "But now, I have a backbone and a temper and you've lived too long to be so tolerant of someone who knows you like I do. You're old and cranky."
"You're one to talk," He retorted crossly.
"I'm not old!"
"Is that a grey hair?"
"Time Lords don't age once they're regenerated for the first time, so stop patronising me, I know I don't have grey hairs-"
"Oh, you're always spoiling perfectly good arguments by bringing facts into it, aren't you?" The Doctor rolled his eyes.
"Well, someone has to, you just stand there and get all superior over me, because you're so used to your humans worshipping you that you expect it of me too…"
"And you think that just because you got higher marks in the Academy than me that it makes you smarter!"
"I am smarter! You can be so stupid, and say the most ridiculous names for things that aren't correct at all, and you never fly the TARDIS right-"
"She's my TARDIS, I can fly her how I like!"
"You don't even use the doors right, it says pull to open, you idiot!" She shouted, and he frowned, approaching her with a force that made her take a few steps backward.
"I can open my doors however I like, and if you really are so petty as to comment on how I open my doors, then-" He said angrily, but she cut him off.
"I was merely pointing out your lack of ability to follow even the simplest of instructions-"
"Well, if you like telling people what to do, perhaps you should run along back to Torchwood and try it on those humans you like so much!" He barked, and she flinched, her eyes widening as realisation crashed over her. Her head dropped into her hands immediately.
"We're doing it again," She said quietly.
"Doing what?" The atmosphere around them was suddenly calm, and he was worried for her.
"Fighting," She whispered, looking up at him with fearful eyes, "I didn't even register in my head, I was too busy just being mad at you and needing to say something back to you…"
"That's our problem," The Doctor said, face pale and nodding as he gently grabbed her forearms, "We don't realise we're fighting until someone's feelings are already hurt beyond immediate repair."
Aliya shook her head, leaning back against the tree behind her. "No…that's not it…I mean, we do that, but our problem is that we make it personal, every time. Instead of arguing about the issue at hand, we just start insulting each other. Oh stars, I'm-I'm sorry…for everything I've ever said," She hesitated before adding, "For everything I ever did." A tear began to roll down her cheek but he came closer and let his thumb brush it away, lingering on her face.
"No, Ali, I'm sorry, for everything I ever said and did," He answered, his eyes meeting hers, "Please don't cry." She swallowed harshly and blinked away any tears that had been getting any ideas of falling. "I'm never going to leave you because you're my best friend in the universe and you keep me sane in so many ways that you don't even realise." He pulled her into an incredibly tight hug, pressing her against him and putting his nose in her damp hair. He made sure to keep his hands on appropriate places on the towel and nowhere else. "Please…don't ever leave me."
She laughed nervously against his shoulder. "Don't you ever leave me." Her voice broke a little, and the Doctor pulled away to cup her cheek with one hand, not breaking eye contact.
"Never," He said. She smiled at him and he grinned back. "One day…we'll find out the real reason why we get so mad at each other…and then we'll fix it." She nodded quickly, eyes shining. To their left, they heard the sound of the TARDIS unlocking. Both looked at it, thrilled, but when they looked back at each other, tensed slightly.
Neither had realised quite how close they had been to the other, and now that the moment was broken, it was incredibly obvious. His hand was still on her face, but the gesture now seemed very distracting. Almost the entire lengths of their bodies were touching, and their faces so close that he could count her eyelashes with ease. He was also hyper-aware of how much of her skin was bared.
"I…" Aliya said, then stopped, seemingly distracted.
Were her hearts racing? Why? The adrenaline of the fight? Before he could wonder anything further, her eyes focused, though her pupils were still slightly dilated.
"I should put some clothes on," She said quickly before ducking under his arm and dashing into the TARDIS. The Doctor watched her disappear into the box with inner confusion. What had all that been about? He had an idea, suddenly, but immediately pushed it out of his head.
"Doctor, stop getting so close to her, it's not good for either of you…" He told himself strictly, "She's not River, and never will be!" The mention of River cleared his head and replaced it with a wistful longing for the saucy winks and incredible hair that was River Song, and he pushed the TARDIS doors open, sighing.
She was never coming back. All he had now was a Time Lady who knew far too much about him and his past, and was hiding a large part of herself deep inside where he couldn't see it.
So, hopefully you liked it! :) Marmalatta, I hope this did the job!
Drop in reviews to let me know what you thought? *looks hopeful*
Love you guys! xx
-MayFairy :)