Imaginary Lines, or Rory Weasley: Master of Death

by HidingInTheWeeds

Rory falls through a time vortex and wakes up as the only blonde Weasley, and a squib at that. The Master asks the Doctor for help. [Timelines: HP universe, July 1996. DW universe, before 'Angels Take Manhattan'. References DW episodes 'Utopia', 'The Sound of Drums', 'Last of the Time Lords', and the special 'The End of Time'. Search tardis (dot) wikia (dot) com for synopses.]

13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The red TARDIS had been so excited to embark on her first journey. She had flown eagerly from Gallifrey to where she was being called, swirling joyfully through the cosmos, instinctually and unquestioningly knowing that this was her purpose.

The Time Lord who joined her was grateful, overjoyed, even awed by her presence, and the TARDIS shared in his feelings. They set off together and she was happy, so happy to be at the beginning, to be young, shiny, and ready for adventure. It was what she was created for, after all.

The first place they'd gone was nice. Lots and lots of people, lots of languages to learn, forms to pattern, energies to scan. Her Time Lord even brought a friend, and then the next thing she knew, they were in another TARDIS! Red –because that was the word her Time Lord thought most often when he thought of her– felt protected by the more experienced TARDIS, who tried to tell her a lot of things about the Master and the Doctor, things that didn't make a whole lot of sense to Red, because she just couldn't imagine anything bad. The Master had been good to her, so why would she?

Then they went to a place that had an energy her Time Lord especially liked. He brought people to come and see her…everyone seemed to like her and she was glad to have company. But then, something happened. A woman's blood was dripping on her, and she could hear the woman crying. She could hear her saying No, don't. Stop, you're hurting me. Why? And Red shared in her feelings, in her pain and fear. And when Red felt her die, she understood what bad was, and how it was different than good. Then the man who had done a bad thing to the woman did something bad to Red.

She had never been sick before, but that was the word for it. Sick, infected, possessed. These were words she'd heard in what she'd thought was the nice place, from the people who walked by, from the information she'd pulled from the data cloud. These were words she'd heard from the blue TARDIS, about the Master. But the words had lain dormant, aching for context, until the bad thing happened to her.

Red realized that she believed in good. She believed in her Time Lord, who had been good to her. She couldn't yet conceive of betrayal and abandonment, or rather, she chose not to, because she knew she had to hold onto the good in order to resist the bad. Good was simply better, and stronger.

So, Red chose to be fearless, and to fight. So, like many an organism attempting to rid itself of a sickness, Red began to run a fever.