Rating: G
Prompt: #061 - Winter
Claim: The Time War
Table:
Here Spoilers: None
Characters: First Doctor, others (?)
Summary: The TARDIS is much, much bigger on the inside.
Word count: 304
Susan shows up two weeks after he left her behind. She comes in with breath of cold winter air, from a planet where the seas are made of molten lava. She comes in and smiles at him, and then she moves on, deeper into the TARDIS. He follows, and doesn’t say a word.
Her steps are as light as they have ever been. She floats through the corridors like a ghost, and the cold is cutting. After a junction he loses her and can’t find her again, but there is another woman to lead his way. She’s blonde, and petite, and her smile is patronizing. He has never seen her before, yet he does not wonder. The air is still, peaceful, disturbed only by his movement.
In the garden, she disappears behind a tree and a redhead emerges in her place, her expression bored and distant as she leads him through the frost-covered leaves.
As he’s nearing the pool, it begins to snow. With every step, it’s getting colder, but he knows who they are and knows the breath should not be freezing in front of their faces. It does, and they smile through the clouds.
His breath doesn’t freeze.
He follows the Master over the frozen water. He is the one without a reflection on the ice.
In the observatory he catches up with the Master, because the Master stops moving. He is Koschei now, waiting among the others, for they are all here; Susan and Drax and Borusa and all the ones whose names he does not yet know. They all are waiting for him, and every single one of them is smiling.
He blinks, and they are gone.
The snow remains, as do the footprints of everyone but him. He stands, unmoving, until the snow begins to melt.
October 4, 2009