Just One Day: Unburden

[fiducia.livejournal.com]

 Title: Just One Day: Unburden
Author: Fiducia

Fandoms: Doctor Who and The Sandman

Beta: Lostwolfchats

Rating: PG

Warnings: None

Pairings: None

Disclaimer: Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, Death and other Sandman characters are owned by DC Comics and Neil Gaiman.  This was written purely for entertainment purposes and no profit is being garnered from the use of these characters.

Summary: The Doctor has invited Dee (Death) aboard for one day.  Where to first?

"SO!  Where are we going?"

 

Dee was sitting on the jump seat, clinging to the edge with her hands braced on either side of her black clad legs; feet swing back and forth excitedly.  The Doctor moved about the circular central console, careful to avoid her kicking legs as he flipped switches and yanked levers.

 

Dee cocked her head to the side, waiting for an answer.  The Doctor had been distant since closing the door of the TARDIS; his joviality cut off abruptly like a hammer blow.  He had moved slowly to the console and hadn't said a word since they'd entered the void.

 

Dee sighed and leaned back into the jump seat, crossing her arms over her chest as if to ward off his sudden melancholy.

 

"Well!?" she said, loudly.

 

"Well, what?" The Doctor answered back, quietly, not looking up from the monitor he was currently scrutinizing a bit harder than was strictly necessary.

 

"You didn't answer my question," Dee pointed out reasonably.  "Where are we going?"

 

The Doctor was silent for a moment, as if deciding how much to say.  "You'll see," was his quiet reply.

 

Dee twisted her lips into a playful scowl, launching herself off the jump seat and onto her feet.  "Well then if you won't tell me and you won't talk to me…I'll just have to find something to busy myself until we've arrived." 

 

The Doctor said nothing in response.

 

"That alright with you?" Dee queried, angling her head and then her body in an effort to catch his eye.

 

"Hmmm?" The Doctor looked up from the monitor, only now turning into what Dee was saying.

 

"What's wrong with you?" Dee asked evenly, stilling her bouncy energy and regarding The Doctor with her deceptively young eyes.

 

"Nothing!" he responded quickly.  "I'm alright.  How are you?"

 

Dee furrowed her brows just a touch.  "I am....going for a walk around your ship...until we get to where we're going."

 

"Oh lovely!" The Doctor said, false smile bright, "Have fun and don't get too lost."

 

"Riiiiight," Dee drawled out as she headed from the room and down a likely looking corridor. "I'll try not to."

 

Twenty minutes later found Dee walking back into the console room looking confused.  She stopped, turned around to look where she'd come from, turned to face the room again and shrugged.

 

"You could have told me the corridors moved around..." she observed to The Doctor.  He hadn't moved since she'd left the room earlier, positioned by the monitor like a sentry.

 

"Oh good, you're back," he said distractedly.  "We've arrived."

 

"Did we land?" Dee asked.

 

"Nope!" The Doctor replied. "But we're here all the same."

 

Dee went still a moment, closing her eyes briefly before speaking.  "Why did you bring me here?"

 

The Doctor jumped as if struck.  "Bring you where?" he quickly recovered, fiddling with a knob or two and feigning nonchalance.

 

Dee opened her eyes and shot him a look.  "To the location that used to be Gallifrey, that used to be your home, before it was wiped from time and space," she said slowly, carefully and evenly as she walked forward to stand next to him.

 

The Doctor did not move though he stiffened as her presence neared. 

 

Dee looked past him to the monitor, able to read what it said though the language was now a dead one, confirming her suspicions. 

 

"How did you know?" The Doctor nearly whispered.  "You couldn't have known."

 

"Even subsumed in this human body the nature of what I am speaks to me," she explained softly, still carefully.  "There are...echoes even still and I can sense them."

 

The Doctor bowed his head, hands braced on either side of the monitor, arms rigid, body tense.  He was silent.

 

"Why did you bring me here?" Dee asked again, not really expecting an answer this time.  "Did you think I wasn't with you here before?"

 

The Doctor shook his head back and forth, still bowed as if too heavy to hold up.

 

Dee considered briefly before speaking again.  "You haven't been back yet, have you?" she asked quietly.

 

The Doctor shook his head again.

 

Dee nodded.  "It's alright to blame me if you want.  Many others have done so and for lesser reasons..."

 

"NO!" The Doctor jerked his head up violently, leveling a look at Dee that made her trip back a step.  "That's not why."

 

Dee met his fierce gaze with a calm, steady one of her own.  "Then tell me why."

 

The Doctor broke the stare first, looking down and away, turning to walk around the console, hands stuffed in his pockets.  "I didn't...I couldn't...go back...alone," he stuttered out.  "And no one else would understand quite...like you."

 

Dee nodded again, moving to stand next to him and unsurprised to find they were positioned before the ramp leading to the TARDIS' front doors.

 

"Since, technically, I've been here before," Dee surmised.

 

The Doctor nodded quickly in response.

 

"Well," Dee said, reaching out to extract The Doctor's hand from his pocket and interlacing her fingers with his. "I'm ready whenever you are."

 

The Doctor and Dee stood side by side, hands intertwined, for a long moment that stretched on into two and then three long moments.  Dee was silent and still, allowing the weight of her hand to rest in his, waiting for him to move.  She thought a few times to offer an out; to say that they didn't have to do this if he was having second thoughts, but then she stopped herself.  He had brought them there and if he wanted to go it would be his choice.  It was not, after all, in her nature to offer ways to avoid the inevitable.

 

Eventually the Doctor stepped forward, pulling Dee with him and they walked down the ramp together. 

 

Slowly they reached the doors and slowly The Doctor reached out and pulled one open as Dee took his silent cue and reached to pull open the other.

 

Together they stared into the blackness of space, pricked by the lights of distant stars and cold beyond mortal knowing.  It looked like any other segment of space in a million other galaxies, in a billion other universes, but it was what this particular bit of space lacked that was a blow to the senses.

 

Dee never let go of his hand, and The Doctor never let go of hers, but gripped it tighter, his eyes roaming in seeming random patterns over the blackness before them. 

 

"I did this," The Doctor said lowly, his voice caressing the eternal silence that stretched before them.

 

"Yes," Dee responded simply, offering no apology for the truth.

 

"This is my fault," The Doctor said, emotion coloring his previously grey tone.

 

Dee turned head to look at him.  "No," she answered.

 

"What?" he shot back, snapping his head around to look at her, the question holding hints of his normal fire.

 

Dee smiled softly.  "You were a means to an end, nothing more," she explained gently.  "Shoulder the burden of the final act if you must, but the guilt of fault does not lay with you."

 

He opened his mouth as if to reply, gathered breath to speak but then quickly pushed it out, his lips pressing into a grim line.

 

"Did she tell you that, then?" The Doctor asked in clipped tones, breaking his gaze with Dee and focusing again on the space before them.  "Did....Ro...she...tell you...to tell me."

 

Dee's smile morphed into a grin.  "She may have mentioned it in passing,” Dee said lightly, “but I'm not Hermes to carry messages back and forth, so it was more her unburdening herself to me...just as you are now."

 

"Oh I don't know," The Doctor mused, more humor infusing his tone, glancing down at her, “I still feel pretty burdened."

 

Dee tsked around her grinning lips and rolled her eyes, "Well I can't take on EVERYTHING, you know," she teased.

 

"No," The Doctor answered, sobering suddenly, "No, you can't, but this...this was big."  He turned to fully face her, framed by the doorway of the TARDIS, the cold space where Gallifrey once lived and thrived yawning behind them, and he took her other hand in his.

 

"Thank you," he said simply, as he looked at her.  "Thank you."

 

Dee gave both his hands a squeeze, smiling up at him and letting her currently human eyes hold as much of her real age and power and reality as they could bear.  "You're welcome, Time Lord," she replied.

 

The Doctor tilted his head to the side, “Do I owe you a boon, now?  Your brother is fond of those I seem to recall.”

 

Dee shook her head, “No need.  He’s said himself many times that I am by far kinder than he.”

 

The Doctor nodded in acceptance and Dee gave his hands a final squeeze before letting go and allowing the mask of the innocent human girl she had clothed herself in slip back into place.

 

"SO!" Dee started abruptly with a grin, "Where are we going next?"  She bounced back inside the TARDIS leaving The Doctor to close the doors behind them after one last long look outside.

 

In the space that once held the cradle of the Time Lords, the last TARDIS hovered.  From inside her depths came a booming sound, though it did not carry out into the endless night.  The grinding of dematerialization began and the blue police box faded into the void.

 

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's going to be hard for him to find somewhere she hasn't been. Impossible in the past, maybe in the future. Perhaps he could introduce her to the Face of Boa...

[fiducia.livejournal.com]

Oooo...good point! I didn't think of them running across the Face of Boa. Thank you for the insight! :)