[oncoming_storms] - Water
You feel it the moment he succumbs to the water, the intense aching throughout your entire being, ripping at your Heart like nails, coarse and heavy. Where there should be the constant, comforting sound of his hearts, his song humming against your mind, you hear naught but silence. It echoes and runs for eternity, spearing through you and, for a moment, you refuse to believe it's there. You sing as loud as you can, desperate to fill it, but nothing can and your song eventually becomes screaming, a long, low keen that no one but you can hear and it's enough you want to die with him.
But though you want it, though you rail and cry for it, you cannot join him. Death does not come so easily for you. (It should not be easy for him, you rant. He should not die, he should never die, he is everything to you, he is better than that, how can he possibly let himself give up when you claw at him as you did, begging and pleading he not leave you alone. It should not have been so easy to condemn you to silence.) Oh, it will come, eventually, but it is the nature of your Heart you cannot simply turn it off. It must wither and weaken, all the strength and energy stored within dissipate into the stars.
And so you wait, alone. Completely and utterly alone. No one can hear you sing, no one can understand you, and there are none others like you in all the universe. You at least had him before, and he you, some modicum of comfort in all the vastness of space. But now he's left you without even that.
Something changes, though. You hear a heartbeat you never expected to hear again, that you never should have been able to hear again. It is intermittent and weak, but you hear it. Eventually, it grows stronger. You're pulled from the wreckage long after the silence has taken hold, recovered in the darkness. You feel hands and hear voices, but they all mean nothing to you, because they do not belong to that one heartbeat. So you wait until the hands and voice match, because you need to be sure.
And you are right, of course. You know that heartbeat, have heard it before. It lived within you for some time, travelling the stars alongside the man who left you behind. But it shouldn't be here, she shouldn't be here, and just the act of hearing that heartbeat gives you hope. If she can be here, if this little heartbeat can break the laws of Time, then surely it's a sign?
He didn't die, of course he didn't die, you tell yourself, deceptive and delusional in your grief. He was pulled to her universe, that must be it. He was pulled in and so you cannot hear his song, but if her heartbeat can return, then his can as well, can it not? Surely she's trying to bring him back to you?
So you hold on. The aching silence tears at you every day, but you hold on because he's waiting. He must be waiting, and if you just do a little more, if you let them attach one more wire, reroute your power supplies one more time, give just another small piece of your Heart, you can see him again. And he'll smile and pet you and say how sorry he is for leaving you behind. You tell yourself every moment that this is what will happen, because if you don't, her heartbeat will hurt all the much more, because she should not exist here. If she exists and he does not ... you can't finish the thought for the sheer amount of pain it causes.
Another heartbeat joins the one you're familiar with and this one scares you. It sounds so very familiar, as if you've known it a long time, but you can't have. You've no data, you've no knowledge of this person. But she carries with her a shadow that makes you cringe. Time is chaotic around her, ever in flux; it is unnatural and painful and you want her away from you. But she smells of the Doctor, the faintest traces of him, and you're so desperate to have him back you let her come near you. Let her touch you.
As soon as she does, you see it. You see all Time, all the possibilities around her. It is not the shadow on her back that should frighten you; it is her. She weaves Time without thought, grasping at threads and reworking them, never aware of her actions. She is the reason he's gone. She grasped a stray strand of Time and so snuffed out his. But you see other strands, other places, where she walks beside him, where she comforts you and pilots you and this other strand feels right. It isn't the desperation of loneliness telling you, either. It's something you inherently know.
You don't even think about it when they hook you up again. You've all ready made your decision. He isn't coming back, not in this world. The familiar heartbeat did not kidnap him to her universe, because the unfamiliar heartbeat stole his strand. You have nothing left here. But there is another you, and another him, and another her, the proper ones, and they can still be saved.
The universe has no need of a ship with no pilot, and you've no need for a universe without him.
They flip the switch and you sing, as loud as you can. It's the last song you'll ever sing.
Muse: The TARDIS
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 944
But though you want it, though you rail and cry for it, you cannot join him. Death does not come so easily for you. (It should not be easy for him, you rant. He should not die, he should never die, he is everything to you, he is better than that, how can he possibly let himself give up when you claw at him as you did, begging and pleading he not leave you alone. It should not have been so easy to condemn you to silence.) Oh, it will come, eventually, but it is the nature of your Heart you cannot simply turn it off. It must wither and weaken, all the strength and energy stored within dissipate into the stars.
And so you wait, alone. Completely and utterly alone. No one can hear you sing, no one can understand you, and there are none others like you in all the universe. You at least had him before, and he you, some modicum of comfort in all the vastness of space. But now he's left you without even that.
Something changes, though. You hear a heartbeat you never expected to hear again, that you never should have been able to hear again. It is intermittent and weak, but you hear it. Eventually, it grows stronger. You're pulled from the wreckage long after the silence has taken hold, recovered in the darkness. You feel hands and hear voices, but they all mean nothing to you, because they do not belong to that one heartbeat. So you wait until the hands and voice match, because you need to be sure.
And you are right, of course. You know that heartbeat, have heard it before. It lived within you for some time, travelling the stars alongside the man who left you behind. But it shouldn't be here, she shouldn't be here, and just the act of hearing that heartbeat gives you hope. If she can be here, if this little heartbeat can break the laws of Time, then surely it's a sign?
He didn't die, of course he didn't die, you tell yourself, deceptive and delusional in your grief. He was pulled to her universe, that must be it. He was pulled in and so you cannot hear his song, but if her heartbeat can return, then his can as well, can it not? Surely she's trying to bring him back to you?
So you hold on. The aching silence tears at you every day, but you hold on because he's waiting. He must be waiting, and if you just do a little more, if you let them attach one more wire, reroute your power supplies one more time, give just another small piece of your Heart, you can see him again. And he'll smile and pet you and say how sorry he is for leaving you behind. You tell yourself every moment that this is what will happen, because if you don't, her heartbeat will hurt all the much more, because she should not exist here. If she exists and he does not ... you can't finish the thought for the sheer amount of pain it causes.
Another heartbeat joins the one you're familiar with and this one scares you. It sounds so very familiar, as if you've known it a long time, but you can't have. You've no data, you've no knowledge of this person. But she carries with her a shadow that makes you cringe. Time is chaotic around her, ever in flux; it is unnatural and painful and you want her away from you. But she smells of the Doctor, the faintest traces of him, and you're so desperate to have him back you let her come near you. Let her touch you.
As soon as she does, you see it. You see all Time, all the possibilities around her. It is not the shadow on her back that should frighten you; it is her. She weaves Time without thought, grasping at threads and reworking them, never aware of her actions. She is the reason he's gone. She grasped a stray strand of Time and so snuffed out his. But you see other strands, other places, where she walks beside him, where she comforts you and pilots you and this other strand feels right. It isn't the desperation of loneliness telling you, either. It's something you inherently know.
You don't even think about it when they hook you up again. You've all ready made your decision. He isn't coming back, not in this world. The familiar heartbeat did not kidnap him to her universe, because the unfamiliar heartbeat stole his strand. You have nothing left here. But there is another you, and another him, and another her, the proper ones, and they can still be saved.
The universe has no need of a ship with no pilot, and you've no need for a universe without him.
They flip the switch and you sing, as loud as you can. It's the last song you'll ever sing.
Muse: The TARDIS
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 944