Fic - Sunshine on Skin
Title: Sunshine on Skin
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He gasps in a breath, eyes fluttering open, mentally reeling from sensations he can’t comprehend...
Warning: Spoilers for Doctor Who series 3 - Gridlock and Last of the Time Lords
A/N: For the Notsobigheaded Ficathon, and with grateful thanks to _stolendreams_ for beta-reading.
He gasps in a breath, eyes fluttering open, mentally reeling from sensations he can’t comprehend. There’s a similar gasp nearby, and he rolls his eyes, trying to see who’s there, flailing out with his mind and meeting a shock of nothing that would have made him think he was still dead if there wasn’t sunlight in his eyes (on his skin! warmth on his skin!) and all those strange feelings crowding in on his mind.
“You were dead!” he hears, and blinks and tries to look around again, but can’t quite manage it. He wonders how long he’ll last outside his tank, then remembers that he’s just come back from the dead (it’s been so long since that happened… good to know he hasn’t lost the knack, though) and it doesn’t much matter.
“What have you done with him?” demands the other person, and he tries to think to her, I’m right here. You do mean me, don’t you? Or do you mean the Doctor? I don’t know what’s happened to him… but has no success. He frowns, squinting up at the ceiling far above him, and wonders what’s going on.
“Who are you?” the stranger cries, getting hysterical, and that startles him enough that he moves his head to look, and sees Novice Hame crouching a few feet away, wide-eyed. He starts to smile at her, a confused, benevolent smile, but suddenly realises that he moved his head, and the angles are all wrong, and he has a neck and now his own eyes are wide and the smile is one of delighted shock.
There’s a hand in his vision now, and he stares at it, thinking, That’s mine, isn’t it? I have hands. Sunshine, I have hands!
Hame stares at him desperately, (and now he recognises her voice, no longer muted by glass and fluid) saying, “I was only gone for a few minutes. How did you get in here? What have you done?”
Things start to fall into place a little. He died. He died and came back just like he always used to! He’s back the way he was. Those sensations confusing him - that’s touch. That’s the coldness of the floor on his body, the damp is the water from his shattered tank, the points of hardness are shards of glass, and coils of cables. And the warmth of the sun…
He opens his mouth, trying to remember how speech worked, and breathes out a few times, finding a certain easy harshness and extending it, delighted by his own success, sighing, “Haa-aay,” and having to close his eyes from the sheer glory of feeling his lungs work. He licks his lips and puts them together, keeping his eyes closed and just about remembering, trying, “Mmm…” and then grinning so wide it hurts.
The poor cat is still staring at him, and he opens his eyes and holds her gaze and puts his sounds together, and smiles, saying, “Hay-mm. Hame.”
There’s something there in his memory about how this works, and he tries a few more sounds out, enjoying the click of “Kuh,” and lap of “Ulluh,” and then getting quite distracted when he figures out how to purr. He lies there on the floor, not knowing how to move, and says nothing but “Trrrrrrrrrrrrr…” until his breath runs out and all of a sudden his body’s laughing for him. He’s so surprised that he stops, blinking at Hame, then laughs again and lets go, revelling in the sound of his delight and the feel of everything.
Very quietly, Hame edges away and fetches her gun.
It’s coming back, though. He knows more than enough words, and he’s seen others do this, and vaguely, somewhere in the depths of his mind, he knows he used to do this too.
“Isss mee,” he says, hanging on to the sibilance of the “s” a little too long, but not caring. It feels so good. “Hame. It. S. Me.”
“Who are you?” she asks him, slow to catch on. But then this is technically impossible (they had enough trouble believing how old he was, it’s understandable she might not be entirely happy with the idea that he comes back from the dead - in a completely different form, no less) so he forgives her easily.
“Boe,” he says clearly, with just the right intonation. “I was Boe.”
“Explain yourself,” she demands, pointing the gun at him threateningly, and he laughs again, saying, “I can’t die.”
He’s getting the hang of speaking again, doing his best to quell the desire to lie there and play with sounds a little longer. Hame needs to know what’s happened. He still needs her help.
“If I die,” he says, “I come back. Like this.”
“But you’re human,” she whispers. “I scanned you. You can’t be Boe!”
“’S complic… lik. Kah-lik…”
He stops himself, knowing he’s getting distracted too easily, and grins sheepishly at her. Facial movement’s easy, though finesse might be more difficult. He’s used to a much bigger expression.
“Sorry,” he says, almost not lingering on the rs. He slows himself down and gets the words out piece by piece. “It. Is. Com. Pli. Cate. Ed.”
For a few seconds they’re both silent, and he closes his eyes and tells himself sternly to concentrate. He’s talked lots in the past; he didn’t feel the need to linger on every sound back then. Plenty of time for that later, he decides, and opens his eyes again, determined.
Slowly, but with precise clarity, he says, “I was human. I could not die. I came back. When I was a mill-yun… Oh, nice word. Remind me about that one. I was a million years old. I was forgetting things, so I changed myself to remember more. I became Boe. I didn’t die for another million years, and I learned so much, but I still forgot things, and I ended up in a tank, forgetting what it had been to be human, and wanting to die. The Doctor came then. You remember.”
She nods weakly, and he grins, carrying on because he’s loving the sound of his own voice as well as the feel of it, and he’s really getting the hang of talking again.
Faster now, remembering more of the shortcuts and slurs that lurk in casual speech, he says, “We saved them, Hame. We saved the population of New Earth. And I thought I’d die. I did, I suppose, but I wasn’t long in the darkness, and here I am, come back human and whole and Hame, it’s glorious. Oh, there’s a lot to be said for being old and wise with a brain big enough for a million years of memory and telepathy to boot, but sun, I’d forgotten about feeling. Everything’s so… much.”
He stops, breathing quickly, and watches Hame look between him and the broken tank. He can see her trying to work out another way of fitting the facts together, but though there may be many reasons behind the disappearance of the erstwhile Face of Boe, it’s difficult to come up with another theory that fits in the strangely coincidental appearance of a naked dead human. Who then comes back to life.
“Hame,” he says softly, and she looks back at him. “You’ve been so good to me. Even before the Doctor came the first time, you were kind and patient. You listened to me whenever I needed to talk to someone. You never thought I was lying to you then. Believe me?”
He can see the first cautious belief in her eyes, and smiles reassuringly at her, then the hand in his vision twitches, and he gasps.
“Did you see that? I moved! Hame, I moved my hand! No, wait. Everything in order. Hame, I have hands!”
There’s a slight curve to Hame’s lips, he can just about see. She’s almost smiling. He grins back at her, but most of his attention’s gone to that right hand now. He frowns at it, wondering how to get it to move again, then moves his head, remembering how his neck works, and examines his shoulder, and all the muscles down along his arm, then the wrist and the fingers. Reasoning that the shoulder, being closest to the neck, will be easiest, he starts from there, and all of a sudden he can stretch his arm out.
“Yes!” he cries joyfully, moving the arm and then the hand, the fingers - clenching and unclenching, and then even lifting his arm up and waving at Hame, laughing giddily.
With his newfound hand, he locates his other arm and repeats the process, quicker. And now he has two hands, and stretches up like he can reach the ceiling, groaning with the pleasure of having a body and being able to move. That strikes him suddenly - he turns to look at Hame, eyes wide with sudden realisation, and says, “I don’t need to be moved. I don’t have to use teleports or attendants or anything anymore. I’m free. Hame, I’m free!”
“Yes, you are,” she nods, finally putting aside her gun and relaxing, watching him lie back and laugh.
“What sort of a body do I have?” he asks her suddenly, exploring with his hands. “I can’t remember what I used to look like. Is it good? No, don’t tell me. I don’t care. It’s mine and that’s what matters. I can feel and touch and speak and hear and see and it’s so good.”
His leg twitches, and he yelps with pure delight, then cackles, “I can move! Oh, Hame, I want to get up. How do I do it?”
She looks him over and considers, then waves one paw and says, “Roll onto your front, then push yourself up and stand.”
“Whoa, whoa,” he tells her, waving his hands in imitation, just because he can. “One thing at a time. How do I roll over?”
“I could help you,” she suggests, starting forward, and he reaches out to take hold of the paw she offers him, saying, “No, I want to do this by myself,” and then getting a little distracted, fascinated by the feel of fur against his skin. For a little while, he lies there and runs his thumb over the back of her paw, and she lets him, smiling.
“You’re a lot more beautiful when you’re not behind glass,” he says idly, and she sounds amused when she tells him, “You were the one behind glass.”
He laughs, taking his hand back, and says, “At least you believe me, even if you’re not going to be as respectful as you used to.”
“You’re not ill,” she tells him, going back to her earlier position, and making herself comfortable. “And you’re not acting in a particularly dignified manner. If you’d care to explain why I should treat you as I used to, perhaps I’ll consider it.”
He grins at her, saying, “No, I like it. I like being undignified and utterly unworthy of respect. How do I get up?”
Following her instructions, he throws his left arm over beside his right, and heaves himself over onto his chest, then pauses and has to reach down to try and sort his legs out. Hame’s laughing at him freely now, a strange mixture of giggles and chirps and purrs that has him turning to look at her, grinning.
“Get your hands beneath you,” she tells him, demonstrating by placing her paws together, palm out, in front of her chest. He nods and obeys, then says, “That feels strange. What next?”
“Push yourself up,” she says simply, and he hesitates, licking his lips nervously.
“You’re sure?” he asks, cheek pressed to the floor, and gradually becoming aware that the cold, while delightful purely for being a sensation, is not especially comfortable. When she nods, he sighs, gathers up his courage, and shoves the floor away from him.
“Ha!”
He stays like that for a moment, legs useless, body arched up, and peers at his new (old?) arms, admiring the muscles standing firm as he holds himself up.
“Get your knees under you,” Hame urges him, and he frowns, then drops his head to peer down at himself, trying to remember how to make his legs work. One leg twitches again, but that’s the most reaction he gets, and then he’s distracted by a new, increasing sensation in his arms.
“What’s that?” he asks Hame, investigating his arms again. “They feel hot. And tingly.”
Hame frowns for a moment, then starts to say something, just as his arms buckle under him and he hits the floor again.
“Oh,” he says after a moment. “Pain. Right. I’ll try and remember that.”
And then he starts laughing, face first on the floor of New Earth’s grand Senate building, with a cat watching him struggle to come to terms with having a body again.
Hame sits back and watches him laugh until he cries, and then he turns his head and catches her eye, and they’re both off, stretched out in the sunlight, howling with laughter, and Hame’s got a planet to govern and he’s got a whole life stretching out ahead of him, with so much to find out and so many ways of exploring joy that he can’t even consider remembering everything, and perhaps he’s doomed to go round in circles for eternity, reliving the same adventures and the same delights and never knowing it, but right now it doesn’t matter.
Right now, all that matters is sunshine on their skin and the pure glory that is living.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He gasps in a breath, eyes fluttering open, mentally reeling from sensations he can’t comprehend...
Warning: Spoilers for Doctor Who series 3 - Gridlock and Last of the Time Lords
A/N: For the Notsobigheaded Ficathon, and with grateful thanks to _stolendreams_ for beta-reading.
He gasps in a breath, eyes fluttering open, mentally reeling from sensations he can’t comprehend. There’s a similar gasp nearby, and he rolls his eyes, trying to see who’s there, flailing out with his mind and meeting a shock of nothing that would have made him think he was still dead if there wasn’t sunlight in his eyes (on his skin! warmth on his skin!) and all those strange feelings crowding in on his mind.
“You were dead!” he hears, and blinks and tries to look around again, but can’t quite manage it. He wonders how long he’ll last outside his tank, then remembers that he’s just come back from the dead (it’s been so long since that happened… good to know he hasn’t lost the knack, though) and it doesn’t much matter.
“What have you done with him?” demands the other person, and he tries to think to her, I’m right here. You do mean me, don’t you? Or do you mean the Doctor? I don’t know what’s happened to him… but has no success. He frowns, squinting up at the ceiling far above him, and wonders what’s going on.
“Who are you?” the stranger cries, getting hysterical, and that startles him enough that he moves his head to look, and sees Novice Hame crouching a few feet away, wide-eyed. He starts to smile at her, a confused, benevolent smile, but suddenly realises that he moved his head, and the angles are all wrong, and he has a neck and now his own eyes are wide and the smile is one of delighted shock.
There’s a hand in his vision now, and he stares at it, thinking, That’s mine, isn’t it? I have hands. Sunshine, I have hands!
Hame stares at him desperately, (and now he recognises her voice, no longer muted by glass and fluid) saying, “I was only gone for a few minutes. How did you get in here? What have you done?”
Things start to fall into place a little. He died. He died and came back just like he always used to! He’s back the way he was. Those sensations confusing him - that’s touch. That’s the coldness of the floor on his body, the damp is the water from his shattered tank, the points of hardness are shards of glass, and coils of cables. And the warmth of the sun…
He opens his mouth, trying to remember how speech worked, and breathes out a few times, finding a certain easy harshness and extending it, delighted by his own success, sighing, “Haa-aay,” and having to close his eyes from the sheer glory of feeling his lungs work. He licks his lips and puts them together, keeping his eyes closed and just about remembering, trying, “Mmm…” and then grinning so wide it hurts.
The poor cat is still staring at him, and he opens his eyes and holds her gaze and puts his sounds together, and smiles, saying, “Hay-mm. Hame.”
There’s something there in his memory about how this works, and he tries a few more sounds out, enjoying the click of “Kuh,” and lap of “Ulluh,” and then getting quite distracted when he figures out how to purr. He lies there on the floor, not knowing how to move, and says nothing but “Trrrrrrrrrrrrr…” until his breath runs out and all of a sudden his body’s laughing for him. He’s so surprised that he stops, blinking at Hame, then laughs again and lets go, revelling in the sound of his delight and the feel of everything.
Very quietly, Hame edges away and fetches her gun.
It’s coming back, though. He knows more than enough words, and he’s seen others do this, and vaguely, somewhere in the depths of his mind, he knows he used to do this too.
“Isss mee,” he says, hanging on to the sibilance of the “s” a little too long, but not caring. It feels so good. “Hame. It. S. Me.”
“Who are you?” she asks him, slow to catch on. But then this is technically impossible (they had enough trouble believing how old he was, it’s understandable she might not be entirely happy with the idea that he comes back from the dead - in a completely different form, no less) so he forgives her easily.
“Boe,” he says clearly, with just the right intonation. “I was Boe.”
“Explain yourself,” she demands, pointing the gun at him threateningly, and he laughs again, saying, “I can’t die.”
He’s getting the hang of speaking again, doing his best to quell the desire to lie there and play with sounds a little longer. Hame needs to know what’s happened. He still needs her help.
“If I die,” he says, “I come back. Like this.”
“But you’re human,” she whispers. “I scanned you. You can’t be Boe!”
“’S complic… lik. Kah-lik…”
He stops himself, knowing he’s getting distracted too easily, and grins sheepishly at her. Facial movement’s easy, though finesse might be more difficult. He’s used to a much bigger expression.
“Sorry,” he says, almost not lingering on the rs. He slows himself down and gets the words out piece by piece. “It. Is. Com. Pli. Cate. Ed.”
For a few seconds they’re both silent, and he closes his eyes and tells himself sternly to concentrate. He’s talked lots in the past; he didn’t feel the need to linger on every sound back then. Plenty of time for that later, he decides, and opens his eyes again, determined.
Slowly, but with precise clarity, he says, “I was human. I could not die. I came back. When I was a mill-yun… Oh, nice word. Remind me about that one. I was a million years old. I was forgetting things, so I changed myself to remember more. I became Boe. I didn’t die for another million years, and I learned so much, but I still forgot things, and I ended up in a tank, forgetting what it had been to be human, and wanting to die. The Doctor came then. You remember.”
She nods weakly, and he grins, carrying on because he’s loving the sound of his own voice as well as the feel of it, and he’s really getting the hang of talking again.
Faster now, remembering more of the shortcuts and slurs that lurk in casual speech, he says, “We saved them, Hame. We saved the population of New Earth. And I thought I’d die. I did, I suppose, but I wasn’t long in the darkness, and here I am, come back human and whole and Hame, it’s glorious. Oh, there’s a lot to be said for being old and wise with a brain big enough for a million years of memory and telepathy to boot, but sun, I’d forgotten about feeling. Everything’s so… much.”
He stops, breathing quickly, and watches Hame look between him and the broken tank. He can see her trying to work out another way of fitting the facts together, but though there may be many reasons behind the disappearance of the erstwhile Face of Boe, it’s difficult to come up with another theory that fits in the strangely coincidental appearance of a naked dead human. Who then comes back to life.
“Hame,” he says softly, and she looks back at him. “You’ve been so good to me. Even before the Doctor came the first time, you were kind and patient. You listened to me whenever I needed to talk to someone. You never thought I was lying to you then. Believe me?”
He can see the first cautious belief in her eyes, and smiles reassuringly at her, then the hand in his vision twitches, and he gasps.
“Did you see that? I moved! Hame, I moved my hand! No, wait. Everything in order. Hame, I have hands!”
There’s a slight curve to Hame’s lips, he can just about see. She’s almost smiling. He grins back at her, but most of his attention’s gone to that right hand now. He frowns at it, wondering how to get it to move again, then moves his head, remembering how his neck works, and examines his shoulder, and all the muscles down along his arm, then the wrist and the fingers. Reasoning that the shoulder, being closest to the neck, will be easiest, he starts from there, and all of a sudden he can stretch his arm out.
“Yes!” he cries joyfully, moving the arm and then the hand, the fingers - clenching and unclenching, and then even lifting his arm up and waving at Hame, laughing giddily.
With his newfound hand, he locates his other arm and repeats the process, quicker. And now he has two hands, and stretches up like he can reach the ceiling, groaning with the pleasure of having a body and being able to move. That strikes him suddenly - he turns to look at Hame, eyes wide with sudden realisation, and says, “I don’t need to be moved. I don’t have to use teleports or attendants or anything anymore. I’m free. Hame, I’m free!”
“Yes, you are,” she nods, finally putting aside her gun and relaxing, watching him lie back and laugh.
“What sort of a body do I have?” he asks her suddenly, exploring with his hands. “I can’t remember what I used to look like. Is it good? No, don’t tell me. I don’t care. It’s mine and that’s what matters. I can feel and touch and speak and hear and see and it’s so good.”
His leg twitches, and he yelps with pure delight, then cackles, “I can move! Oh, Hame, I want to get up. How do I do it?”
She looks him over and considers, then waves one paw and says, “Roll onto your front, then push yourself up and stand.”
“Whoa, whoa,” he tells her, waving his hands in imitation, just because he can. “One thing at a time. How do I roll over?”
“I could help you,” she suggests, starting forward, and he reaches out to take hold of the paw she offers him, saying, “No, I want to do this by myself,” and then getting a little distracted, fascinated by the feel of fur against his skin. For a little while, he lies there and runs his thumb over the back of her paw, and she lets him, smiling.
“You’re a lot more beautiful when you’re not behind glass,” he says idly, and she sounds amused when she tells him, “You were the one behind glass.”
He laughs, taking his hand back, and says, “At least you believe me, even if you’re not going to be as respectful as you used to.”
“You’re not ill,” she tells him, going back to her earlier position, and making herself comfortable. “And you’re not acting in a particularly dignified manner. If you’d care to explain why I should treat you as I used to, perhaps I’ll consider it.”
He grins at her, saying, “No, I like it. I like being undignified and utterly unworthy of respect. How do I get up?”
Following her instructions, he throws his left arm over beside his right, and heaves himself over onto his chest, then pauses and has to reach down to try and sort his legs out. Hame’s laughing at him freely now, a strange mixture of giggles and chirps and purrs that has him turning to look at her, grinning.
“Get your hands beneath you,” she tells him, demonstrating by placing her paws together, palm out, in front of her chest. He nods and obeys, then says, “That feels strange. What next?”
“Push yourself up,” she says simply, and he hesitates, licking his lips nervously.
“You’re sure?” he asks, cheek pressed to the floor, and gradually becoming aware that the cold, while delightful purely for being a sensation, is not especially comfortable. When she nods, he sighs, gathers up his courage, and shoves the floor away from him.
“Ha!”
He stays like that for a moment, legs useless, body arched up, and peers at his new (old?) arms, admiring the muscles standing firm as he holds himself up.
“Get your knees under you,” Hame urges him, and he frowns, then drops his head to peer down at himself, trying to remember how to make his legs work. One leg twitches again, but that’s the most reaction he gets, and then he’s distracted by a new, increasing sensation in his arms.
“What’s that?” he asks Hame, investigating his arms again. “They feel hot. And tingly.”
Hame frowns for a moment, then starts to say something, just as his arms buckle under him and he hits the floor again.
“Oh,” he says after a moment. “Pain. Right. I’ll try and remember that.”
And then he starts laughing, face first on the floor of New Earth’s grand Senate building, with a cat watching him struggle to come to terms with having a body again.
Hame sits back and watches him laugh until he cries, and then he turns his head and catches her eye, and they’re both off, stretched out in the sunlight, howling with laughter, and Hame’s got a planet to govern and he’s got a whole life stretching out ahead of him, with so much to find out and so many ways of exploring joy that he can’t even consider remembering everything, and perhaps he’s doomed to go round in circles for eternity, reliving the same adventures and the same delights and never knowing it, but right now it doesn’t matter.
Right now, all that matters is sunshine on their skin and the pure glory that is living.