#APAT: a BTaS AU

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Perspective Taking

Foggy

From this list of g/t prompts

AU: The Donna Trilogy; A Patient, and Time

Note: Told ya I wouldn't quit these three <3 Bringing in a classic trope that was very fun to play with. Set shortly after Zepheera resolves to try joining the Doctor and Donna on their adventures again, and sometime well before Midnight.

~~~

Zepheera's vision was blurry as she blinked up at the ceiling. She found familiar shapes above as things slowly cleared up. Brighter dots of the lights all over the domed ceiling, the squiggling towers of the coral supports, the console and center column itself in the corner of her eye…

The fogginess that struggled to clear up was in her memory. The last she recalled, the Doctor had approached her and Donna with a strange-looking contraption. He'd apparently invented it wholecloth, and it was untested, but he was so completely certain of its function that Donna and Zepheera didn't have a chance to question it.

What had he called it? Quantum commutation something-or-other?

“...Zepheera…!” The call of a familiar voice snagged her attention.

“Doctor??” she responded, voice instinctively raised to be heard by her giant, distant-sounding friend.

“Ow…! Keep it down, we're right here!” the Doctor scolded, a little louder this time.

Zepheera frowned. That didn't make any sense. If her friends were anywhere close to her, she wouldn't just be able to hear them much more clearly than she did the Doctor now. She'd be able to feel the power in their voices from such a proximity.

With some effort, she lifted her head to look around. Her gaze remained turned upward out of habit; where else would she find people over a dozen times her height? And she still couldn't put her finger on it, but something felt…off.

Zepheera forced herself to sit up, hoping to shake off this strange feeling so she could get up and find out what happened, but that only made her twice as dizzy. Everything above her, especially the nearby console, it all moved too fast. Her eyes squeezed shut to try and force the feeling away, and she ended up leaning against something vaguely rough and round. She didn't recognize what it was through the sudden seasick feeling that had overcome her.

“It's alright, Zepheera! Just… Don't move!”

Donna's voice made Zepheera stiffen from head to toe, and it started to sink in why everything felt so wrong. Her human friend sounded just as distant as the Doctor, even as she shouted. And now that Zepheera was somewhat upright, her voice sounded like it was coming from below, not above.

Zepheera took in a long, slow breath as she mentally prepared for what she was about to see.

Squinting her eyes open, she turned toward the voices and forced herself to look down. The sight made her stomach flip all over again.

The Doctor and Donna stood barely taller than Zepheera's longest finger!

They were only a few feet away, much closer than she'd originally thought. Their approach was slow going on their much shorter legs, haltingly making their way closer to Zepheera while struggling to keep their balance on the catwalk-style floor. The Doctor's steps were more confident than Donna's, putting him slightly closer, but he still had to choose each carefully. And now that she knew to pay attention to it, Zepheera could just make out the sound of him faintly grumbling under his breath about slip-resistance being a moot point at this scale.

Zepheera tore her gaze away from them to look more closely at her surroundings as it belatedly hit her. The grate on the floor was much smaller than she'd grown used to, only her fingers would be able to slip through now. She was about eye level with the old yellow seat across the way while sitting down. And the thing she was leaning against for balance was the console itself.

Her friends didn't just get smaller. Zepheera got bigger.

“How did…?”

“Just breathe,” Donna emphasized, drawing Zepheera's wide eyes back to them. The encouraging instruction made her notice that her breathing had become shallow in the midst of all the realization, so she put effort into slowing it down and evening it out.

The Doctor had come to a stop a short distance from Zepheera, hands in his pockets and head tilted back to take in her new size and the enormity of his console room. Donna, not far behind, finally caught up and immediately popped him on the back of his head.

“And you can go on and answer the question, dumbo!” she chided as the Doctor choked out a pained noise. “What the hell happened??”

The Doctor glanced sheepishly between his companions, rubbing the spot where Donna had hit him. “Well… There's always room for error.”

“A lot of room for it, now!” Donna shot back, spreading her arms wide to indicate the room at large.

Any words of defense caught in the Doctor’s throat as the ground rumbled under them both. The nature of the floor led them both to have fairly wide stances in order to stand already, so their balance wasn't terribly thrown off. They wavered only briefly until the tremors calmed down, and then glanced Zepheera's way.

For her part, Zepheera thought she'd hardly moved. The Doctor and Donna had walked up from behind her, and having to twist half her body around to keep an eye on them wasn't exactly comfortable over time. So she'd braced her hands against the floor and scooted to sit on one hip and give her bent legs room to rest on the floor.

She simply wasn't used to her movements carrying such weight to them. Feeling heat rising in her olive cheeks, she offered a contrite grimace and whispered, “Sorry…”

“Look,” the Doctor sighed, running both hands down his face. “Altering the mass of living organisms is extremely complex. To have it be done with little to no ill effects on the subject, let  alone three is– and I'm really not trying to brag here, I'm only stating facts– a total screaming genius feat!”

“Glad he really tries for us, eh?” The remark slipped out while Zepheera was concentrating on slowly and gently shifting her body to lay flat, facing her friends properly. She glanced back to make sure she wasn't shaking them up with her movements anymore, and caught a glimpse of Donna's smirk.

“Humble as ever, he is,” she agreed with Zepheera.

The Doctor gave an exaggerated eye roll and tossed up his hands. “Well obviously, things didn't go as planned.”

“And what was that plan again?” Donna prodded.

“I thought we went over this!” 

“All I remember is you busting in with some new gizmo, yappin’ at ninety miles per hour, and then–”

“Urgh, fine.” The Doctor shot a look upward to find Zepheera still at last, propped up on her elbows and ready to listen. He softened a little, then explained.

“The purpose of that ‘gizmo’ was temporary proportional homologization. Admittedly it was a bit cobbled-together, and a malfunction seems to have translated the effects to be transpository rather than coextensive as intended–”

“In English,” said Donna and Zepheera in unison, the latter more weary than annoyed like the former.

The Doctor heaved an exasperated sigh. “Wires got crossed, and instead of making us all the same size, we swapped sizes.”

 “See? Wasn't so hard, now was it?” Donna said with a snarky smile.

Before the Doctor could think of a comeback,  Zepheera asked him, “Why'd you want to do that?”

The tiny Time Lord rounded on her, flabbergasted that she would even ask. That died down a tad when he locked onto Zepheera’s now-humongous violet gaze; she was only curious about the Doctor's reasoning, not strictly against the idea.

“Well… I mean, come on, we're all curious, aren't we?” He looked to Donna and Zepheera in turn. “Haven't you wondered what it all looks like from the other side? Even just a little bit?”

Neither woman could deny it, so he nodded and pressed on. “The main idea was that, by making us all the same size– either Donna and I coming down to you or you coming to us, Zepheera– the one or ones who aren't used to being that size could have some guidance that way. Y'know, at least one of us wouldn't be…”

“Totally lost?” Donna offered.

“Yeah,” sighed the Doctor after failing to come up with an alternative that sounded better. He gave a shrug and admitted, “I got a bit overexcited about it all and didn't give it a once-over before trying it out, so…sorry.”

Zepheera started to nod in reply before remembering that even that small shift would now affect her shrunken friends. She'd been around them more than long enough to know that for certain, and she simply found it normal. The others…not so much.

Donna huffed and tossed her hands up, muttering something about how it was a good idea; her voice was now too quiet for Zepheera to make it out clearly over the short distance. 

“You said, ‘temporary’?” Zepheera recalled. “How long's this meant to last?”

The Doctor tugged thoughtfully on an earlobe. “Oh…considering how swimmingly this test has gone, it's hard to say. Could all go back to the way we were in an hour, maybe…or two, or five–”

“Five?” echoed Donna and Zepheera. The oversized borrower forgot herself, and her exclamation came out more strongly than she meant it to. Her jaw clamped shut when she saw her friends wince at her volume.

No matter how many hours this lasted, she doubted she'd ever get used to this.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

The Act of Untying

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU); aftermath of The Question, and a conclusion...?

Note: It's David Tennant's birthday! And once again I'm posting the last chapter of one of my stories... I promise I'm not doing this on purpose.

This chapter is designed to be the last one of A Patient, and Time. I almost guarantee I'll add bits and pieces here and there in the middle of the story, but no matter what, this is where it ends.

...Or is it?

~~~

Zepheera was everywhere and nowhere.

The bright blue light that consumed her was all around, and it sent her careening. Like someone had picked her up and tossed her at full strength, and it just kept going on and on without end.

Until it ended.

The ground found her immediately. Even once she landed on her face, everything continued to spin– though that was based on feeling more than sight. Zepheera's vision was blown out from the brightness that seemed to last an eternity and an instant all at once. She very nearly vomited from the motion sickness.

Cheap and nasty, the Doctor had always called time travel of this sort.

Wait…

That device… the temporal what-was-it? Edwin had been going on and on about it, and had it pointing at Zepheera just before…

Zepheera’s next breath was deep, like she'd just emerged from underwater. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear away the blue and take in the world around her. 

Where was she? When was she??

It was all so overwhelming and distant at first. Her senses struggled to catch up. Most prominent and alarming was a sensation Zepheera was terribly familiar with. Vibrations in the ground– constant and all around, at steady intervals.

Footsteps. Far too many of them for a borrower’s comfort.

And behind (or more accurately, above) it all, the murmur of voices like distant thunder making conversation. Zepheera's blood ran cold. Wherever she was, it was somewhere out in the open, with people much larger than her around. 

Not ideal at all.

She suddenly became aware of a closer rumble in the ground that was increasing in intensity behind her, and her head whipped around. Her vision had cleared just enough to take in a sight that dropped ice into her stomach. 

Massive hooves crashed heavily against the cobbled stone of the street, marching the attached titanic horses and the further looming carriage behind them ever closer to Zepheera, who was right in their path!

Very, very bad!

Zepheera's body moved on its own, instinct carrying her out of harm's way and pressing her to a damp curb. She watched, bewildered, as the monumental vessel passed her by and briefly cast her in its shadow.

Her heart pounded against her ribcage, but she was determined to not let panic override her. She needed to figure this out. Violet eyes darted in every direction to take in every important detail.

The sky was grey, full of clouds that had recently rained and were on their way out. Between them, Zepheera could make out a sliver of familiar blue. The people walking along the pavement, the edge of which the borrower was pressed against, looked like the people she'd spent her whole life living alongside. Human beings. Speaking English, and her own dialect of the language. Even the architecture, despite being a little archaic to her memory, was familiar.

Despite how lucky it was, Zepheera was hard-pressed to feel relief to reasonably assume that she was at least on Earth, and in England to boot.

A stray newspaper lay in the curb a few meters away, with just enough room underneath to act as a lean-to for a borrower. Zepheera ignored how sore her entire body felt as she hurried towards it. Even if it was old, it could give her an idea of just where and when she had ended up. And offer a bit of shelter while she worked out next steps. 

Ducking underneath the dampened paper, Zepheera managed to find the top of the page, and it finally gave her the terrible clarity she'd been looking for.

July 21st, 1889.

~~~

“Come on, come on!”

It was over. Alaric Edwin and his plots were no more. That didn't matter.

“There's GOT to be a trace! There's ALWAYS a trace!”

The Doctor had every wire he could find pulled out from or around the TARDIS console, all of them attached to the temporal displacement weapon. His fingers flew across every keyboard, every button and switch and control available to him. Frantic brown eyes flicked constantly around the various machinery that now filled the floor of the room, and the monitor that lit up with even more functions at once than usual.

“Come on, find it, FIND IT! No WAY you are going to out-clever ME and MY TARDIS!!”

A whirring buzz intensified from the sonic screwdriver in the Doctor’s white-knuckled grip. Its pitch and volume heightened, and its light glowed brighter as it, like the Time Lord and everything else at his disposal, was pushed to its absolute limits.

The console sparked and popped violently. Even the interior lights of the room and the central column itself flickered. The heat and plasma flying up finally forced the Doctor back from it all, and he stumbled into the old seat nearby. 

The screwdriver clattered to the floor. 

His chest heaved underneath his tight suit jacket, and his eyes continued to burn.

“No. No, no no no NO!”

In a blind rage, the Doctor threw himself back to his feet, stomped forward and ripped the weapon out from the nest of wires and cables.

“Stupid… stupid, stupid WHEEL!!”

The Doctor hurled the infernal machine straight into the doors of the TARDIS, where it came completely undone and fell into an unceremonious pile of useless electronics.

And that was that.

Like a puppet with cut strings, the Doctor slumped to his knees. His hands just barely reacted quick enough to keep him from teetering forward, fingers tingling with pins and needles under his weight.

Not again… not now, after all they'd been through!

A roar erupted from the console room, reverberating through the entire ship. Frustration and fury. Guilt and grief. All of it and more bubbled up from the Doctor’s chest and tore its way through his throat on the way out.

The Doctor didn't save her. Too slow, too cocky. And with no means of narrowing down the search, there was no chance of tracking down a single borrower who could be anywhere.

Zepheera was gone. Lost somewhere in time and space. 

~~~

By the end of the day, Zepheera’s situation became dreadfully clear.

She looked out at the now darkened and empty street, curled in a ball against the wall of an alley that had kept her hidden from the towering pedestrians.

Now they were gone, and Zepheera was alone with her thoughts. 

For hours, she’d sat there straining her ears to listen for the one sound she needed to hear most in the universe. She’d watched the street at all times in case she could make out something blue appearing in the distance.

She never saw or heard it.

Surely, she thought, if the Doctor could find a way to track her down, he would. But the way that Edwin was talking, it seemed like that wasn't possible.

Her eyes closed and she hugged her knees tight. Deep breath in… In a little more, and out slow…

Zepheera didn't want to give up hope. Didn’t want to believe the words of a horrible man. After all, if there was anyone she knew who did the seemingly impossible on a regular basis, it was the Doctor. 

Then again, she also knew the TARDIS wasn't always the most accurate ship to pilot at times. 

Regardless, facts had to be faced. She was stranded in a time unfamiliar to her, with no way to contact her friend or make herself known without risking her safety and that of any other borrowers that might be found. 

With a shaky sigh, Zepheera pushed herself to her feet. Her best bet, for now, was to find a way indoors. Stay safe and under the radar, like a borrower should. Survive.

She wouldn’t stop looking out for signs of the Doctor. If there was even the slightest chance that he might be able to find her, then she couldn’t just walk away.

And if he never came… Well, she'd figure that out when she needed to.

Tentatively– even reluctantly– she backed out of the moonlight and disappeared into shadows.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Facts and Folklore

Alien

Inspired by this list of g/t prompts

AU: The Donna Trilogy; A Patient, and Time; set after Worth the Wake and before Perspective Taking

Note: A short and sweet one for an interaction I've been looking forward to ^^

~~~

“So… are you another one of them aliens?”

“Gramps!” Donna hissed indignantly.

“What? Honest question, innit?”

Between them sat a third cup of tea, and next to that stood the borrower in question. Zepheera sipped slowly from her own makeshift cup partly to help calm the natural nervousness of meeting a new human, and partly to hide an amused smile.

Despite her misgivings around unknown giants, this being one of the first she'd formally met since rejoining the Doctor and Donna on their adventures, she already found Donna's granddad Wilfred to be a delight. She could see why her friends thought he'd be a good person with whom to start her acclimation process.

“Fellow Earthling, I'm afraid,” Zepheera answered with a shrug.

Wilf nodded, scratching thoughtfully at his short, grey beard. “And you're not one of the fair folk, neither? No pixies, brownies, spriggans…?”

“No. And, not that I'm aware of,” she said carefully. Zepheera might have been around for over a century and a half, but traveling with the Doctor showed her that things weren't always as they seemed. Even on Earth.

Her tea was already gone. It would cool so fast in her much smaller cup if she wasn't quick with it. She took one more scoop from the human-sized cup that was still nice and warm. Feeling a little more comfortable, and having been reassured by the others that Wilfred could be trusted to keep meeting her a secret, Zepheera made her way closer to Donna.

“I'm called a borrower,” she found herself explaining to Wilf. “Basically just like you, only a bit shorter. We usually stay a secret from humans, so… honestly, some of that folklore is probably based on us. The hidden people, and all that.”

With a quizzical tilt of his head, Wilfred asked, “Why's that, then?” 

“Why do you think, gramps?” 

Zepheera gave a shrug. “It's not our world, is it? We're just surviving in it.”

She'd laid all this out to the Doctor (who later passed it on to Donna) not long after she'd accepted the offer to live in the TARDIS. It felt like necessary information at that point, and they built enough trust that Zepheera at least believed they wouldn't mishandle the information.

There was plenty of trust, now. So much so that Zepheera felt perfectly comfortable approaching Donna's folded arms where they rested on the table. With hardly a thought, she hopped up to take a seat atop Donna's forearm.

“Best way we learned to do that was to scavenge from whatever humans left around,” Zepheera continued as she got comfortable. “Nothing too valuable, just easily replaceable things like food and–”

“Batteries?”

The gentle interruption from Wilfred threw her off her explanation, but she considered the suggestion. “Yeah, sometimes, I suppose.”

“Said so, didn't I?” Wilf crowed, shaking a finger Donna's way. His playful tone and smile melted any tension that had cropped up in Zephera. “I kept tellin’ ya the batteries were disappearing! But did you and your mother listen? Oh, no.”

Donna gave a sigh and said, “Alright, grandad…” 

Zepheera took a pull from her tea to cover up her own grin. She didn't look up, but Donna's eye-roll was audible in her tone.

Perhaps it was a mistake to meet Wilfred as her first new human acquaintance, she pondered as she downed the rest of her drink. She had a feeling few could live up to the standard he was setting with this meeting.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

The Question

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU); set some time after A Whole Lot of Precious Time

Note: Hope y'all enjoyed the comfort...

~~~

“No, no, it's not that I don't understand the threat, the Doctor insisted. “I get it; temporal displacement weapon, you point it at people so they do what you want or else they're, as it says on the tin, displaced in time. What boggles my mind is why you've added a wheel to it. Aren't fidget spinners a bit 'retro' for the 51st century?”

The terrible smirk on the face of the crisply suited man before the Doctor didn't falter even a hair. He continued to hold the deceptively dangerous device so casually in one hand, letting his thumb flick its shiny new wheel up and down at odd intervals. Not a thought was put into the action.

“Time… It's a funny thing, isn't it, Doctor? Suppose you'd know, the great and powerful Time Lord that you are. I should think you'd be more aware than anyone that in this day and age, temporal displacement is becoming a bit of an empty threat. What with vortex manipulators being a dime a dozen, it sort of takes the severity out of it. Just trace back the setting, or strong-arm the one with the weapon, and you'll find them eventually.”

It was all the Doctor could do to not roll his eyes at the man's monologuing. He'd prompted it, after all, and it was what he wanted. A distraction.

Alaric Edwin didn't have nearly half the planet under his thumb simply by having an odd, tricked-out relic in hand, after all. He'd come into political and social power by manipulating the populace with his network of tech worming into the vast majority of people's heads. A network powered by the master control at the far end of the room in which he and the Doctor now stood.

All eyes were on the two men, any hired (though to be frank, they were also enslaved) guns trained on the Doctor and awaiting the signal of their commander. Edwin, confident as ever, wasn't worried. 

No one but the Doctor seemed at all aware of the tiny woman sneaking from shadow to shadow along the edges of the room.

Zepheera had jumped at the opportunity. For how tight the security was in this base of operations, it all but ignored smaller life forms. Even carrying the tiny but incredibly powerful EMP device the Doctor had given her, the four and a half inch tall borrower was able to avoid tripping any alarms. She could get in close to the master control and shut it all down long enough for the Doctor to make sure it could never come online again.

It was the Doctor's job to make sure she got there.

Once in a while, he could catch the slightest glimpse of movement in the corner of his eye, but he dared not look for fear of blowing her cover. The Doctor only noticed because he had grown so used to a borrower being around, and as far as he could tell, Mr. Edwin was so locked in his own world that he had no concept of anything or anyone else. And the Doctor was determined to make sure it stayed that way.

It was just a shame that getting him to brag about his toys was apparently the way to do it.

“But, with this,” Edwin continued, lifting the temporal displacement weapon so that the newly added wheel was prominent, “it's all random. Even I don't know when exactly I'm sending someone once I fire it off. And the very next second, well…” He gave the wheel another pointed spin. “Then it's gone. No way to trace anything back, no way to know. Nice and clean, you see? Even torture won't get anyone anywhere since I literally do not know, myself, where I'm sending people. I've even lost track of which direction takes someone forwards in time or backwards. Really turns what was once a weapon of waning relevance into something…truly devastating, if I do say so.”

The Doctor’s eyebrow quirked. “And that just works for you?” he asked, deadpan and unimpressed. In his peripheral vision, he could see the faintest movement against the side of the master control. Good job, Zepheera, he thought, just a little longer… “Not nearly enough to point guns at people, is it? Is that what you do all day, come up with endlessly creative ways to threaten people who are already in your thrall?”

“You know, I grow tired of all your questions, Doctor,” Edwin sighed. “They're not nearly as entertaining as they were. I should think the time has come for me to begin asking the questions. For instance: How is it that you think you're going to put a stop to my operations here? You've come all this way, I can only assume that is your goal.”

Behind Edwin, Zepheera's heart was in her throat. This was hardly the first time she'd taken on a task that separated her from the Doctor, especially since Donna’s loss. Her drastically smaller size lent her to very different strengths than her Time Lord friend. He'd been nothing but encouraging, if a tad protective when she first started actively taking such initiative.

The adrenaline coursed through her veins, powering her climb. If she pulled this off, millions of people would be set free from imprisonment in their own mind. She knew firsthand what a terrible fate that was, and helping put a stop to it was what kept her moving forward.

It was slow going up her climbing rope, but Zepheera finally pulled herself up to the titanic machine's console. Leaving the grappling hook and line behind, she began sprinting toward the center. Along the way, her fingers fumbled to remove the straps keeping the electromagnetic pulse device attached to her back. She abandoned the fiddly latch and simply yanked the device over her head.

The Doctor clocked this movement, and tossed his hands in the air. “Well, I'm only a concerned passer-by. Just reckoned I'd scope things out as I stumbled in, plans aren't really my forte–”

“Couldn't agree with you more,” Edwin cut in, whipping his head around in time to lock eyes with Zepheera, her arms full with the little device. 

Her steps faltered for a split second at the sight of being caught, but she quickly redoubled her efforts. Frantically, Zepheera slammed her hand down on the button that would begin the thirty second timer on the pulse. 

Edwin's thumb flicked the wheel.

Zepheera tossed the device as far as she could throw it and made a mad dash for her hook.

Edwin's arm whipped around and he squeezed the trigger on his weapon.

“Zepheera!”

It all happened far too quickly for the Doctor to stop it. A bright flash of blue light leapt from Edwin's hand and collided with Zepheera. She didn't have time to scream before the beam consumed her whole. 

In less than the blink of an eye, Zepheera had vanished completely.

Edwin's thumb once again flicked the wheel on his device with a pointed whirrrrrrr. The only sound the Doctor was consciously aware of anymore.

That smug smirk was in full force as Edwin turned back to the Doctor. “Would you like me to repeat the question?”

The Doctor didn't respond at first. He stood frozen, staring at the last spot he'd seen his friend before she was tossed into the temporal wind. And at first, Edwin took pride in shaking up the Time Lord so visibly, and was willing to wait for it all to sink in.

Then that gaze slid slowly to lock with Edwin’s, and suddenly he was the one frozen in place.

Anger wasn't all that could be found in those eyes, and Edwin could almost see for himself what they saw when they looked at him. It wasn't just the dismantling of his plans. It was the complete and total destruction of everything Alaric Edwin was and ever would be, along with anything and anyone bearing his name. Oblivion in the truest sense of the word.

The wrath of the Time Lord, whose lip curled with utmost disdain as he growled; a low tone that went well beyond seething.

“Oh, big mistake.”

[borrowedtimeandspace]

A Whole Lot of Precious Time

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU); set right after Picking Up the Pieces

Note: Some emotional hurt/comfort, as a treat. Bit of a long one under the cut, couldn't find a good place to chop it. Some of the dialogue inspired by these hurt/comfort prompts.

~~~

It was unbearably quiet in the TARDIS for a very long time.

Zepheera was emotionally exhausted when they returned, and understandably so. Ever since the incident with the Time Beetle, it had all been non-stop. The stolen Earth, Davros and the Daleks, Rose and everyone all coming back, coming together and going their own ways… Losing Donna… It was a lot to process, to say the least. Even for the Doctor.

While she insisted on making her own way down the corridor toward the hidden ‘room’ she now occupied within the walls of the TARDIS, the Doctor stayed behind in the console room to set all the lights to dim. Having a simulated night cycle usually helped his companions get their sleep, and Zepheera was certainly in need of rest now.

And as the room around him slowly darkened, leaving the blue-green glow of the center column of the console as the main light source, the Doctor dropped heavily into the old seat alongside it.

He was still there hours later, staring into the shadows.

Every fiber of his being felt wrong without Donna on board the TARDIS. Zepheera was obviously taking it hard as well.

They had become an inseparable trio, a far cry from how things were when the Doctor first brought Zepheera aboard. She'd slowly come to trust the human and the Time Lord, opened up to them as individuals and truly came into her own as a member of the team. They weren't just travel companions who quite often banded together to save people across the universe. After everything they'd been through, they were equal peers and close-knit friends.

Donna was a load-bearing pillar in that dynamic. That much was clear now.

When the Doctor removed her from the picture, it shattered the trust he and Zepheera built. It had to be done, and no amount of protesting from Zepheera or Donna would have changed that. Either it happened, or Donna died. Zepheera was just the one still around to feel the consequences of the judgment call the Doctor had made. 

She hated him for it, and he couldn't blame her. He hated himself for it. One of the best friends he'd ever made in over 900 years, and he had to destroy the remarkable woman she had become. And it wasn't just that Donna had saved the whole of reality. She was there for the Doctor when he needed someone to keep him in check. She was there for Zepheera when she needed a confidant, someone to support her healing process.

Now Donna was gone. Because the Doctor couldn't save her. Not in a way that mattered.

He wondered briefly why Zepheera stayed, after what she surely saw as a betrayal of the friendship they all had. He'd tried to offer her a way out, and she'd told him off. Did she feel some sort of obligation to stay, think she owed the Doctor anything? Surely if any of that were true, it would all have been erased by what he'd done. What she'd tried to stop him doing, begged him. And he'd ignored her, and didn't even give her a chance to say goodbye to Donna herself.

With all that and more in mind, the Doctor struggled to think of a good reason Zepheera would continue to put up with him.

He hadn't found an answer yet when he felt a small impact on his lower back.

Blinking in surprise, he squinted this way and that in the darkness before his thoughts could catch up to the present.

“ ‘Ey! Quit your squirming,” called a small voice from behind him. The Doctor froze as it was accompanied by tiny but rather pointed jabs from that same area on his lower back and tugs at his jacket.

“What are you doing?” the Doctor asked Zepheera, baffled by this turn of events. He hadn't even heard the borrower come in, let alone get close enough to pull such a stunt. 

The jabs and tugs reached the back of his ribs, and it was so odd to feel them offer the tiny woman better footholds. “Climbing, what’d you think?” Zepheera shot back. Then, with a huff, she added, “Although, at this point, more like crawling. Can't be good for your back, slouching like this. Keep it up, and your age will start to show.”

The comment drew the Doctor's attention to his posture for the first time in hours. Evidently, all the tension in his body had caused him to curl in and fold forward. Shoulders hunched nearly up to his ears, elbows rested on his knees, forearms crossed as his hands clutched at his sleeves with white knuckles.

It wasn't terribly comfortable, now that he was aware of it, but he couldn't just sit up straight all of a sudden now. For all she'd griped about it, and as thrown off as he was by it, the Doctor was loath to make Zepheera's climb more difficult. He could feel her drawing closer to her usual perch of his shoulder so, with a deep breath, he slowly released his shoulders to a more natural position to give her some room.

Even though he did his best to move the rest of his body as little as possible, Zepheera's movement paused briefly somewhere behind his shoulder blades. “See? That's more like it,” she said before continuing her ascent.

The Doctor chanced a glance toward his shoulder when he felt her pull herself up to it. She sat there so often that he was used to mostly making out her blurry shape in the corner of his eye. With a small grunt of effort, Zepheera swung her legs forward to dangle over the edge and stretched her arms over her head.

“Alright?” the Doctor gently asked, still unsure of what she was doing there.

Zepheera gave a yawn and dragged her hands down her face. “Couldn't sleep,” she sighed. “It's all…too quiet.”

Something in the Doctor clenched. She felt it, too.

He nodded, gaze turning downward. Now that he'd forced his shoulders to relax, his hands followed suit. They were quite sore from all the clenching. He gave his fingers a small stretch in place, which helped a bit.

“Times like these, I find I sleep a bit better with some… well, in company, I guess,” Zepheera went on, sounding a little sheepish. “And you didn't seem busy, so… Alright with you if I stay?”

That drew the Doctor's attention back to his shoulder, and his brow jumped nearly to his hairline. Dozens of questions swirled around his head all over again, but the one that eventually stumbled out was, “You…want to sleep here? On my shoulder?”

He saw Zepheera's shape glance his way for a moment before she shrugged. “Well,” she said, leaning forward to look down toward the Doctor's lap directly below, “preferably not from this angle.”

“Right,” the Doctor blinked. “Hold on.”

Carefully, the Doctor uncrossed his arms to brace one hand each on the matching knee. He could feel Zepheera shift positions herself, ready to adjust to the inevitable shift of gravity. He slowly began pushing himself to sit upright once she felt settled, and eventually his back pressed against the seat’s.

“Better?”

“Getting there…” The Doctor felt Zepheera's weight shift again, and he froze in place. She scooted closer to his neck, too close for him to even think about glancing her way, and then he felt a tug at his left collar.

When her weight left his shoulder entirely, accompanied by a stronger tug at his collar and then his tie, the Doctor couldn't hold back from looking down at her with complete bewilderment. His right hand lifted to hover below Zepheera before he could think better of it when he saw her dangling from the left side of his tie. All that movement was hard for the borrower to miss, and she lifted her chin to meet his gaze.

“Oh, er,” she uttered, “well, shoulders aren't as good for sleeping as sitting, y'know. And there's a good bit of white noise down here that's surprisingly calming. Suppose I should have asked, though…”

Slowly, the Doctor let go of the breath that had caught in his chest. He hardly needed reminding of the handful of times Zepheera had curled up in that spot on his chest after a panic attack or night terror. It didn't take a genius to understand that she'd grown to find some level of comfort there. This was just the first time she'd basically asked to stay there, albeit in not so many words.

“Of course, yeah, I'll just…” Since it was already hovering under her, the Doctor lifted his hand to gently meet Zepheera at her level. She immediately let go of his tie to drop down into his palm, and the hand curled in just enough to offer her a bit of security as he moved.

The Doctor scooted forward in the seat and carefully leaned back in it, propping his feet up on the console for ease of maintaining the position. He'd ideally be in it for hours, after all. In tandem with his movements, Zepheera's weight made the transition from his palm to his chest, in the gap between his tie and his lapel. The angle wasn't close to flat by any stretch, but enough for her to comfortably nestle in there. The Doctor's hand stayed curled around her, kept her from slipping downward and offered a bit of warmth in the console room that Donna had always declared to be chilly.

“Thanks,” Zepheera murmured as she settled in place.

“Sure,” breathed the Doctor in return, mindful of his volume with her so close.

Silence fell between them for a good while. With Zepheera meant to be falling asleep, the Doctor was left with his thoughts once again. He was even more confused than he was before Zepheera showed up. 

He thought for sure that it would be a few days at least before he even saw the borrower again. With her having access to the rare gap in the walls of the TARDIS, and being more than capable of finding and raiding the kitchens, she could easily survive without having to interact with the Time Lord at all if she didn't want to. 

The question remained, and in fact rang even more strongly in the Doctor's mind: Why?

A touch at his fingertip startled him out of his thoughts once again. It took a moment for his brain to settle enough to register the feeling of a tiny hand, tentatively laid across the tip of his pinky.

“It's not your fault.”

Zepheera's soft voice drifted up to the Doctor, slightly muffled by his hand and clothes. Still, it cut straight through him.

“What you did… If you hadn't, Donna would really be gone. Not just from here. And that would be the worst thing in the universe.” The light pressure on the Doctor's fingertip brushed like pins and needles toward the side of his finger. It stopped just above the first knuckle, and he felt Zepheera's grip tighten on his skin as she said with conviction, “I'm not angry with you. Never really was. I just. Hated feeling so helpless.”

The Doctor felt he should say something, but nothing came out when he opened his mouth to try. Meeting her gaze wasn't an option anymore, either. All he could do was gaze up toward the glow of the central column as though it would help him find the words.

After a few breaths, Zepheera continued. “I can't imagine how it must feel for you. Because you were right, you had to do it. But that doesn't mean you have to just be okay with it. And I don't think you are. I don't think anyone would be.”

He felt his jaw lock, as though her verbalizing the pain he tried to keep to himself suddenly and physically made it all real. His free hand clamped into his hair as his head fell back, utterly defenseless.

“You're always trying to be the strong one,” Zepheera pointed out with a quaver in her voice that she couldn't quite keep under control. “And you're really good at that, but it's not the kind of thing anyone can keep up forever. ‘Cause sometimes, the one who needs saving is the one who's trying the hardest to save everyone. So…this is me, telling you that you don't have to be the strong one this time.”

Stunned, the Doctor was in no position to resist as Zepheera tugged his little finger to curl in closer to her. Her arm wrapped around the knuckle to keep it in place, and something else touched the fingertip. Concentrating on the second sensation was almost enough to calm the swirling in his head.

Warmth. The tiniest wisps of hair. Zepheera's forehead, pressed emphatically into his fingerprint.

“We're not alone,” the borrower all but whispered, and yet the Doctor heard each word loud and clear. “We've got each other. We will get through this. Together. It's… It's what she'd want.”

The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut as he forced himself to take in and release a long, slow breath. 

That…certainly answered his questions. Before he'd even asked them.

As he felt Zepheera's grip relax around his finger and her tiny weight settle in his grasp, the Doctor noticed the tension gradually unwinding in his own body. Speaking her mind so honestly yet bluntly… it was something Donna would have done to talk sense into him.

Zepheera was right. It didn't lessen any of the hurt, but having someone around for mutual support made all the difference in feeling like they could get through it.

One by one, the fingers of the Doctor's free hand detached themselves from the desperate grasp they'd had in his hair. He rubbed at his face, ignoring the moisture caught along the way.

“Thank you,” the Doctor finally managed to murmur in return. 

He wasn't sure if Zepheera was even awake to hear him, as she stayed silent for a few moments afterward. Then, he caught the barely audible, half-awake breath that gently carried the word, “Yeah…”

For the first time in what felt like ages, a comfortable silence fell in the TARDIS.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Picking Up the Pieces 2/3

1 | 2 [here] | 3

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU)

~~~

Despite her determination to watch over Donna, Zepheera found it rather disquieting once she was alone. The silence was deafening, only barely broken by the human’s soft, sleepy breathing.

The sound brought back many memories in Zepheera. She and Donna had shared a room for a long time, before the borrower had recovered enough to find her own space in the TARDIS. She and Donna would talk for hours about anything on their minds, until one of them dropped off to sleep and the other followed. Given Zepheera's initial sleep issues, that first person asleep was most often Donna, so the sounds of her sleep were terribly familiar.

She was always full of life, from the moment Zepheera met her. It frightened the borrower at the start, but now its absence left her feeling so empty inside.

Before she could think better of it, Zepheera's feet were on the move. She marched right up to the edge of the nightstand and took the short leap to land on the purple pillowcase. She held her breath for a moment, on the lookout for any signs of movement in Donna.

Not a twitch.

This was an objectively bad move from a borrower’s standpoint. No cover, unsteady ground, and proximity to a human that could wake up at any moment. Zepheera didn't care.

Keeping her eye out for signs of movement, she carefully circled around the top of the pillow towards the opposite side, inching closer to Donna's face once it was in view. The weight of her head caused a slope, so Zepheera had to slow down to keep her balance as she approached Donna’s forehead.

She reached out a hand to touch her, but hesitated before making contact. 

When the Doctor had taken Donna's memories, Zepheera had no clue what was going on. All the confusion and pain hit so strongly in that moment that she had a hard time remembering the few moments after Donna had passed out into the Doctor’s arms. Her raw throat told her plenty about all the screaming she'd apparently done, but the one sensation that she did recall was heat.

Donna’s forehead ended up leaning against the shoulder Zepheera had occupied at the time. Desperate to be close to her friend in a moment of visceral impulse, Zepheera's hands were pressed to it the moment it was in reach. Humans ran rather warm compared to borrowers; she'd grown used to their body heat, but that… That wasn't a normal temperature by any means. Zepheera just didn't care at the time because the despair in her heart overruled the fire under her hands.

With that memory returning, alongside the knowledge that this was likely the last contact Zepheera would ever make with her best friend, she took a deep breath and gently pressed her hand to the skin.

It was still warm, but nowhere near the fever Zepheera felt before. She let out a slow, shuddering breath that she didn't realize she'd been holding. She could be upset about it all she liked, but it became clear right then that the Doctor was right. That what he did was making her better.

That didn't make losing Donna hurt any less.

Zepheera lifted her other hand to join the first, using them to balance herself so she could lean in and place her much smaller forehead on Donna's. Her eyes squeezed shut in a failed attempt to will away her tears, and she shared a breath with her sleeping friend.

“Bye, Donna…”

She stayed there for an all-too-brief moment. Just after she'd brought herself to pull away, she felt the flesh beneath her fingers twitch. The eyebrows to her left were shifting, and the chest beyond heaved with a deeper breath than before.

Donna was waking up, and Zepheera needed to be scarce when she did!

Throwing caution to the wind, hoping the human was too out of it to truly notice, she pushed off of Donna's forehead with both hands and used that momentum to scramble back along the pillow. Donna’s brow furrowed, and a hand loomed overhead to absently rub her forehead as she gave a yawn. By then, Zepheera had slid over the side of the pillow and landed silently on the mattress, tucking herself out of sight behind it.

“Blimey…” she heard Donna mumble. Small movements that Zepheera couldn't see translated into tremors through the mattress under her feet. “What time is…?”

Zepheera dropped from a crouch to her hands and knees as the mattress heaved under her thanks to Donna sitting up properly to have a look around and down at herself. From her hiding spot, Zepheera could see Donna fish through her pockets to find her mobile, its screen glowing softly in the distance.

“Thirty-two??” Donna exclaimed, properly awake and full of all that energy once again. With a final lurch under Zepheera, she hopped out of bed and marched out of the room, eyes glued to her phone.

With the room completely still and truly silent, Zepheera had nothing left to distract her from the overwhelming dread that told her it was over.

Donna was gone, forever.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Picking Up the Pieces

1 | 2 | 3 [here]

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU)

~~~

“Donna? I was just going.”

“Yeah. See ya.”

Such an absentminded goodbye from Donna sent something cold right to the Doctor's chest. After all they'd been through, very little would feel like a satisfactory farewell, but this…

And as he walked away, listening to her mundane phone chatter fade into the background, he reminded himself that he was lucky to get any sort of goodbye from Donna at all.

His remaining companion didn't even have that luxury.

When he poked his head back in the bedroom and took a quick glance around, he didn't see Zepheera right away. That was to be expected, as she was meant to hide. So he gently called out, “Zepheera?” and waited for a response.

None came, at least not directly. If he hadn't lived with someone so small for so long, he might have missed the quiet sound of sniffling. And it wasn't coming from the nightstand.

The Doctor approached the bed with measured steps, and he hesitated only a breath before leaning down to gently pull back one side of the pillow. Having long since sensed his movement, Zepheera was just pushing herself up to stand as she scrubbed at her cheeks. It took her a few ineffective steadying breaths before she brought herself to lift her chin and lock eyes with the Doctor.

He felt the slightest bit of his resolve to stay strong for everyone here crumble away. Those tiny violet eyes were no longer full of the anger towards him that they had when he left the room. Without it, all that was left was the hurt that the Doctor knew he shared with her.

With one hand holding back part of the pillow, he lowered the other to lay palm-up next to Zepheera. She stepped up onto it stiffly, shoulders squared and chin held high. The Doctor recognized it as her attempt to put up a front the way he was, as she remained motionless while the Doctor's fingers curled into a living railing beside her.

Her hastily built walls shattered once the Doctor lifted her away and drew her in towards himself. Despite moving slowly and smoothly, he felt her weight shift and her usually impeccable balance waver in his hand, and he froze. He watched her knees give out from underneath her as she collapsed in a heap at the base of his fingers. She leaned as heavily as her slight frame would allow against the lower segments of two of his fingers, and the Doctor felt more than saw her tiny hands clinging to one of them as she shook with barely restrained sobs.

A tightness in his chest made the Doctor aware of the breath he'd been holding, and he forced himself to give one long inhale and exhale. Still, he couldn't bring himself to break. Zepheera needed him.

So he carefully lifted his free hand to curl its fingers around Zepheera's back, gently resting on it in case she rejected the gesture. She didn't, and any remaining weight she carried leaned into their touch. With that acceptance, the Doctor let his fingers reach further, all but surrounding the borrower in his hands as he drew them into his chest.

It wasn't exactly a hug, but it was the closest they could come to one in that moment. Though the Doctor couldn't do the same for himself, he let Zepheera grieve and work through the emotions he kept inside.

“Doctor?”

Wilfred’s gentle voice, filled with concern, drew the Doctor's attention. Seeing the state the Time Lord was in, he glanced between his hollow gaze and the curled hands he held close. 

“I'll walk you out,” offered Wilf, wishing he didn't have to.

The Doctor nodded, finally dragging his feet to move out of Donna's room. Out of her house. Out of her life. For the last time.

At least he wasn't alone.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

December Without Roses

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU)

Note: "God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December." ~J.M. Barrie

~~~

“I thought we'd try the planet Felspoon,” Donna– or rather, the Doctor-Donna– mused to the tiny woman on her shoulder.

“Felspoon?” Zepheera echoed, amused by the odd syllables. More than that, it was still strange to hear Donna speak this way. Since the Metacrisis, she could hear inflections that were very much like the Doctor. They truly had combined in her.

“Yeah, Felspoon! Good name, isn't it?” Donna grinned as widely as Zepheera had ever seen as she slowly circled the console, manipulating the controls as she went. “Apparently, they've got mountains that sway in the breeze. Mountains that move! Can you imagine?”

“Oh, I can, easily! I mean, I live with you two, don't I?” Zepheera chuckled with a glance at the Doctor. 

The mirth died on her lips when she saw him leaning gloomily against a pillar to the side. It dawned on her that he'd been perfectly silent since they'd returned to the TARDIS.

“Donna,” he said, just above a whisper. “She doesn't understand. It's not fair.” 

Something went cold in Zepheera. His expression gave away nothing that he was thinking, and something about his voice, his eyes…not cold, but… Zepheera couldn't put her finger on it.

Turning to look up at Donna, she also noticed that she hadn't met the Doctor’s gaze even when he called her name. “What's he talking about?” she asked Donna.

Donna shot her a glance and a smirk that Zepheera might not have thought was forced, if not for the sudden shift in the air. “Oh, y'know. Now that I've got Spaceman’s brain, he's not the only one who can fly us to Felspoon and back! ‘Cause anything he can do, I can! And you know, he's always running around the place in flight, but juuuust a tweak here and there could make flying this ol’ girl a breeze-breeze-breeze-breeze–”

Zepheera bristled to hear Donna start to repeat herself, like a skipping record. It seemed out of her own control, and the borrower turned a frantic gaze toward the Doctor. 

He looked the same as before, only a slight furrow in his brow and a shift in his weight taking him from leaning to standing. He wasn't surprised, he couldn't even bring himself to look concerned. 

Donna was still– Zepheera didn't have a better word for it but glitching– so she whirled back and gave a good handful of her red hair a firm tug. “Donna!”

“I'm fine!”

With that insistence and another overly-cheery smile, Donna continued to fuss with the controls. Zepheera had to crouch and cling to the lock of hair still in her hand to keep upright. It occurred to her that Donna was putting more and more of the console between herself and the Doctor as he slowly stepped closer. 

“Nah, never mind Felspoon. Y'know who I'd like to meet? Cole Porter. Zepheera! We were just talking about Cole Porter the other day, weren't we? What’dya say? How's about meeting Cole Porter? Cole Porter, Jane Porter, Harry Potter- no, they're fiction- friction- fiction- fixing- mixing- rickston- Brixton–!”

A sharp gasp cut through Donna’s mile-a-minute meltdown, and she convulsed until she was bent in half over the console, leaning on it for support. Zepheera, stunned by her friend being in clear distress, didn't see the movement coming. Her grip on Donna’s hair had gone slack, leaving her with nothing to catch her fall when her boots slipped on the slick material of Donna’s jacket.

Next thing Zepheera knew, she'd landed in a heap. Not on the cold, unforgiving console, but an outstretched palm. Looking up, she was surrounded by the curtain of Donna's red hair, her pained breaths kicking up Zepheera's own messy bob in the gusts. Fingers curled over her head, just enough to brace her through the movement of being pulled away from Donna. She found her gaze meeting the Doctor's when they unfurled.

Just like always, he'd rushed in to help when she needed it.

“Tell me what's happening,” Zepheera demanded, her voice tight with concern.

A hint of emotion flashed in his eyes, a fraction of a second of pain. Then he gave a long blink, and it was gone.

“There's never been a human-Time Lord Metacrisis before now,” he explained evenly. He cut his eyes to Donna, who'd just begun to recover from the last overload. “Tell her why.”

Donna gave a sigh, then faced Zepheera and the Doctor by extension. She met his gaze briefly before letting it drop to Zepheera's. “Because there can't be.”

Zepheera frowned, trying her best to put together what it all meant as she looked between her friends. “I…I don't…”

“The part of me inside her is burning her alive,” the Doctor clarified, maintaining that level tone. Zepheera's eyes shot wide open, mouth agape as Donna pointedly averted her gaze once again. “It's going to kill her if she stays as she is.”

“Well, you can stop it, right?” Zepheera asked desperately. Her eyes had already begun to well up at the thought of losing one of the closest friends she'd ever made in over a century and a half. “I mean there's- there's gotta be a way to fix it!”

Once again, Zepheera caught sight of a hint of sadness in those brown eyes before it was pushed down. After a deep breath, he simply said, “There is.”

It should have been happy news. But it wasn't.

The Doctor's hand moved Zepheera away from that gaze and towards his shoulder. A numbness set in, her mind swirling and setting her body to automatically slide off of his palm and sit heavily next to his collar.

She knew what that look meant. Understood why it was so scary to see, after all the freaky things Zepheera had seen and experienced in their travels. The Doctor was hopeful to the point of stubbornness, always looking for a way out, a way to win, a way to save as many as he could. He never gave up on anything or anyone.

Seeing complete and total resignation in him tightened Zepheera's chest and made her breaths come quick and shallow. No amount of grounding exercises could bring her down from the overwhelming dread that whatever happened, they were about to lose Donna for good.

Something jostled the Doctor’s shoulder, and Zepheera became aware of the vice grip she had on the fabric of his collar. Her vision began to clear as she looked out from her perch and found the Doctor’s hands outstretched, holding Donna in place. She in turn clung to his forearms, and Zepheera's heart broke as her words finally made it through the fog in her head.

Donna was begging.

“Please don't make me go back!”

“Donna…” the Doctor murmured. Zepheera felt the vibrations of his voice through her tingling fingers, and she yanked them back as though she'd been burned. “Oh, Donna Noble, I am so sorry. But we had the best of times.”

Blinking through tears that had long since begun to flow, Zepheera finally brought herself to look up. Donna's expression was completely shattered, tears of her own falling as her head began to hang. She paused when her gaze fell on the borrower, and somehow she looked even more devastated. 

“The best,” the Doctor breathed.

That drew Donna's eyes back up to meet his, and Zepheera felt the loss of their gaze like a physical sensation. Like a warm blanket removed in the cold. “Wait…” she uttered.

The Doctor whispered “Goodbye,” and his hands lifted from Donna’s shoulders. She once again began begging as his fingertips settled on her temples.

“Stop it!” The cry escaped Zepheera in a flurry of raw emotion. Logic and reason did her no good when no one would explain to her what was happening, so her most basic impulses won out. She found herself on her feet and throwing herself into the Doctor’s neck as though it would do anything to hinder him. The Doctor’s eyes remained closed, barely even a twitch.

With a final “No!” from Donna, whatever the Doctor had done took its final effect. Zepheera watched all energy drop from the woman as she fell forward into the Doctor’s arms. 

“Donna!!” Zepheera shrieked, but it was too late. And she was too little to do anything about it.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Picking Up the Pieces 1/3

1 [here] | 2 | 3

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU); direct continuation of December Without Roses

Note: the angst continues because I said so

~~~

Donna Noble lay on her bed, dead to the world.

The Doctor stood silently over her. He ignored the slow loss of feeling in his fingers as his hands clenched into fists in his pockets.

This was for the best. Donna would be with her family, and get on with her life. As long as she didn't remember anything about her travels in the TARDIS. As long as she forgot her friends and, even worse, the woman she had become along the way.

Everything in the Doctor’s body felt like it was hanging on by a thread. He wanted nothing more than to stay by her side until she woke up, to tell her everything and have his best friend back. But that was impossible now. Letting himself break down would do no one any good. He had to be strong. Sylvia and Wilfred were waiting, and the Doctor wasn't the only one grieving Donna’s loss.

His eyes slid slightly to the left of the bed.

“Zepheera.”

The borrower, similarly standing watch over Donna on the nightstand beside the bed, hadn't spoken a word to the Doctor since they left the TARDIS. After the fuss she'd put up before– for good reason, considering she had no say in what happened to Donna– her silence in the aftermath was almost unsettling. It had been so long since he'd seen Zepheera this quiet.

Even now, she seemed to ignore him. He took a gentle step closer and reached a hand toward her, one knuckle on track to nudge her shoulder. “C’mon, let's–”

“I'm not leaving her,” she snapped, swatting his finger away before he could make contact first.

The Doctor blinked and pulled his hand back. The actual blow hurt far less than the venom in her tone, the way she turned her back on him completely, arms crossed tight over her chest.

He waited a breath before trying again. “We can't stay. She's going to wake up soon.”

“Then she shouldn't be alone.”

With a sigh and a glance toward Donna to make sure she was still out cold and hadn't stirred, he drew closer and knelt next to the nightstand to be closer to Zepheera's level.

“I know it hurts. She can't be reminded of us, anything we–”

“Don't patronize me!” Zepheera spat, shooting a glare at him over her shoulder. “I heard you the first time.” 

The Doctor winced. Of course, she was still angry with him. Though he'd done his best to ignore them as he wiped Donna’s memory, he wouldn't soon forget her wailing sobs when it was done. The way she screamed “Don't touch me!” right in his ear when he attempted to comfort her.

She scrambled away from him as soon as she could, ending up on the old seat next to the console as the Doctor sank to the floor with Donna halfway across his lap. When she demanded a proper explanation for what he did, he gave it freely. Zepheera deserved to know that Donna could no longer be a part of their lives and why.

“You didn't even try,” Zepheera had murmured once the Doctor was done. She spoke numbly and wouldn't look him in the eye. “You could have told me, we could have looked for something else to make her better–!”

“There was nothing else,” the Doctor maintained. “Wiping her mind was the only way to keep her alive. I'm sorry I didn't involve you, but if I didn't act quickly, she was going to die–”

“Then WHAT is the POINT of us?!”

The Doctor clenched his teeth as Zepheera rounded on him, tiny violet eyes overflowing with tears once again.

“We're meant to save people,” she went on, fire in her eyes and a grit in her voice. “She didn't want to give that up, she was brilliant at it! So what good are we if we can't even help her stay?!”

His hearts sank as Zepheera's angry rant petered off into soft crying. Donna had expressed a similar sentiment when the borrower's condition was at the worst point they'd both seen. Back then, he wasn't sure if Zepheera was even awake or lucid enough to hear their conversation. Regardless, the concern his companions had for one another was palpable.

It shouldn't have ended this way.

“I'm sorry,” he breathed. He'd said it before, but he needed her to know he meant it. “I am…so sorry. But I had no choice…”

“Well, at least you got to say goodbye!”

The Doctor didn't have an answer to that in the moment. He still didn't, and that led him to concede to Zepheera's wishes now.

“Okay,” he whispered. He slowly pushed himself to stand, pocketing his hands once again. “Wilf, Sylvia…they need to know what happened.”

“Better tell them, then.” The numb tone was back, and Zepheera's gaze moved to fix squarely on Donna.

The Doctor gave an equally numb nod, and before he could think to stop himself, he added, “Don't let her see you.” 

“I'm not an idiot,” Zepheera scoffed. “I'm a borrower, and a damn good one. Out of sight is our whole thing.”

He took her point and turned to go. When he made it to the door, he chanced a glance back toward Zepheera.

“Do you…” The Doctor doubted this was the time to ask, but he wasn't sure when the right time would be. “If you didn't want to travel with me anymore after all this–,”

From across the room, Zepheera truly did look so small. The Doctor could almost forget that when he put in such effort to keep her close. And it did nothing to lessen the vitriolic effect of the scowl she locked him in as she whipped around, cutting off his question. The Doctor found himself stiffening from head to toe under that gaze.

“Don't you dare,” growled Zepheera. She swept an arm up to indicate the slumbering human beside her. “We've lost Donna. And yes, that saved her life, but it is not okay. We are not okay. I might be cross with you right now, but I'm not leaving you alone after this, and you will NOT leave me behind, too!”

The Doctor's lips pressed into a thin line as his head hung in acknowledgement of her words, ones not at all dissimilar to those he'd used to invite her to stay with him in the first place. 

“I'll come back for you,” he promised before he stepped beyond the threshold, out of Zepheera's sight.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Observations and Refections

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU); set after The Companion and A Doll's House, not long after Zepheera's rescue.

Note: Still not caught up with Doctor Who, but... the specials may have given me one or two ideas. Some points of business are in order before I get to them, though...

mainly me catching up on the show lol

*vague allusions to captivity and experimentation and mental health distress*

~~~

The soft clicks of a sliding number puzzle cut through the silence of the TARDIS’ medical bay.

Well, silent for the Doctor, sitting quietly alongside one of the beds. For the borrower, nestled in the middle of the aforementioned bed, it was less so.

It was far from a distraction for Zepheera, who was concentrating on sliding the tiles around in a square puzzle a little over half as wide and tall as her own height. The ambient noises of people well over a dozen times her size were easy enough to tune out by now. The flow of air in and out of lungs she could probably fit inside of. The gentle rustle of fabric accompanying every shift in position. Every scratch at the skin or swallow or other such absentminded fidget, all background noise that Zepheera was beginning to get used to.

The Doctor had set her up in one of the Time Lord-sized beds days ago, lending her a silky, taupe cravat to wrap up in. Both were softer than anything Zepheera had slept on in half a year, despite the Doctor’s lamenting that it all wasn't necessarily built with someone under 5 inches tall in mind. She was far more anxious, at least at first, about the location. It wasn't all that far off from the lab, but at the same time it did feel…different somehow.

The way the Doctor treated her made all the difference. He spoke gently yet respectfully to her, laying out everything he needed to do in order to check up on her, and always got her consent before moving forward with any of it. Nothing was overly invasive or uncomfortable; it seemed the Doctor went out of his way to find methods of checking her vitals that didn't make her feel like a test subject all over again.

That part didn't take up too much of their time together, which Zepheera was grateful for. In fact, the Doctor seemed even more interested in giving Zepheera small games and puzzles to solve.

It started simple, with memory exercises with cards and playing naughts and crosses with the Doctor. Zepheera found the sliding tile puzzles odd at first, having to use nearly her entire upper body to move pieces around half the time. Even so, after spending the previous day's session getting the hang of the ones with pictures to put together, she found she sort of enjoyed the one in front of her now, with numbers to align. Her moves were smoother and more confident as the numbers fell into place.

She didn't understand the point at first, but she did now, days later. The Doctor wasn't only interested in checking up on her physical well-being, it seemed.

With the puzzle finished, Zepheera sat back and looked up toward the Doctor. He had a soft smile in return, and carefully reached forward to retrieve the puzzle. If he noticed the way Zepheera bit back a flinch at the hand’s approach, he didn't acknowledge it. “Nice one,” he praised, setting it aside on a tray.

“Doctor?” she called just as he was getting up to leave her to rest, as he'd done every visit before. He paused and regarded Zepheera, who hadn't spoken up unprompted at all the last few days. She fidgeted with the silk material under her as she ventured to ask, “Does all this mean I'm…okay?”

The Doctor let out a long, soft breath as he sat back down, leaning his elbows against his knees to put himself closer to Zepheera's level. This conversation was a long time coming.

“Yes…and no,” was the short answer. When Zepheera frowned in confusion, he expanded. “Well, you're physically fit as a fiddle thanks to your healing factor, albeit a touch emaciated. You're keeping down food, always good, that should help with that problem. And cognitively, you're brilliant!”

He tried to offer another encouraging grin, but Zepheera still looked hesitant, anticipating the ‘but’ at the end. His smile pressed thin and he nodded, pausing only to try and phrase what came next as delicately as possible.

“I do still have concerns regarding your…mental state.”

Zepheera blinked at him. “My…?” she uttered.

The Doctor hurried to clarify. “I only worry that, after what you've been through… Anyone going through all that would end up carrying trauma. That can manifest in a lot of ways, sometimes unexpected ones. And I'm sorry, but… well, the TARDIS has been automatically monitoring your sleep patterns in here.”

She felt her ears go hot, and her gaze dropped to her lap. Zepheera had done her best to make this process as smooth as possible, putting as much trust as she could muster in the Doctor to confirm that she was healthy and wouldn't be permanently affected by what was done to her. She hadn't panicked since waking up in his hands, hadn't put up any sort of fuss while the Doctor was around.

At night, or whatever time she took to rest, though… Then, things were less than voluntary. Zepheera knew her sleep was haunted by horrible memories, which more often than not jolted her out of any meaningful amount of sleep. Despite all efforts to make her more comfortable here, she couldn't hide from her own head.

“It's nothing to be ashamed of,” the Doctor insisted. “I only worry, because you'd said before that you didn't have anyone to get back to, anywhere to go. And I doubt that whatever's going on, it'll just stop with nightmares and lost sleep. You shouldn't have to go through that alone.”

Alone…

The word washed over Zepheera like a frigid wave. Her hands clenched around the silk of the cravat as her mind briefly flashed back to the cage. Unforgiving walls separating her from any others of her kind before they were all gone.

But that wasn't the only loneliness that flashed before her. Because even before then, around her own people, she knew that she was nothing like them. 

Every kind thing Zepheera had done for the people she helped felt so empty. Looking back on it all, she had no real passion for it, and was in fact rather reluctant to continue helping. It was simply the decent thing.

Zepheera had lied to the Doctor about them, about the place where she'd lived and the people she assumed had some level of care for her. It had been so easy to do, she realized, not just because of a deeply ingrained impulse to keep her race a secret. 

On some level, she knew that was never her home.

A shift in her balance brought her back to the present. When she opened her eyes and they darted back toward the Doctor, she found that he'd folded his arms along the foot of the bed and rested his chin on them. All this seemingly in an attempt to meet Zepheera's tiny violet gaze.

“The last thing I want is for you to feel trapped here,” he emphasized, his tone whisper-quiet and completely serious. “Whether you stay or go is your choice. I'm not going to make you stay if you don't want it. All I'm saying is, there's room for you here if you would like to.”

Zepheera blinked, searching the Doctor's warm brown eyes for any sign of an ulterior motive, any hint that he was being anything but incredibly kind in offering this. She found none.

She tried to nod to accept it, but nearly tipped forward with the weight of her head. Belatedly, Zepheera realized that all the tension had melted out of her muscles for the first time in what felt like ages, and she couldn't hide her exhaustion without it.

“You don't have to answer right away,” the Doctor assured her, gently shifting his weight away from the bed again. “Get some rest, and we can talk about it when you wake up. Okay?”

Zepheera ran a heavy hand down her face determined to stay conscious enough to convey how she was feeling.

“ ‘Kay,” she murmured, slowly easing herself to lie down. Her eyelids closed on their own, but she felt the vibrations of the Doctor getting up and trying to leave quietly. Mustering as much volume as she could through her fatigue, Zepheera managed to breathe, “Thank you…Doctor.”

She heard and felt the slightest pause in the Doctor’s gait before he continued out of the room and left Zepheera to rest.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Heart to Hearts

28. Cursed

From this list of gt prompts

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU); direct continuation of Clutter

~~~

The Doctor was quietly ashamed that he didn't see this coming. He'd known since the beginning that Zepheera had lived an abnormally long life compared to the rest of her people, and while that was a curious thing indeed, he thought it best not to look into it at the time. Zepheera had only just been rescued from people experimenting on her, and the last thing he wanted was to retraumatize her.

He was so wrapped up in the accommodations for their new companion that he hadn't given much thought to the implications. She, more than likely, didn't know at first about her ageless nature until what should have been later in her life. One could excuse mistakes they made in the past when they had the morbid comfort of knowing that life was too short to dwell on such things. Old age was the true catalyst for dwelling on past regrets and life choices, and Zepheera was at an age to have reached that point long ago.

Despite all the time they'd spent together lately, the Doctor and Zepheera had never really talked. He knew a lot about her recent trauma, but that was a six-month fraction of her 158-year-long life. This was the closest she'd come to opening up about anything that personal, with the Doctor at least.

So he got up, carefully stepping around the mess he'd made of the console room floor, and cleared a space to sit next to the chair Zepheera occupied. One shoulder gently rested against the seat, and one leg ended up dangling through a removed panel space. He wasn’t facing Zepheera head-on, but they were at least at a passable angle for conversation.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

The borrower’s gaze, angled up to watch his approach, turned down to let her short hair hide her face from him. Spotting the tension, the Doctor swung an elbow around to carefully place on the seat so he could lean in; not invading her space, but emphasizing his presence as slightly as he could manage.

He assured her, “You don’t have to worry about shocking me. Not to turn it into a contest or anything, but… Like you said, nine hundred years. Plenty of time to build a bank of regrets myself, you were spot on about that, too.”

Zepheera’s tiny shoulders slowly unwound their tension, and she gave a soft sniffle and brushed her hair out of her eyes without meeting his gaze. She took the time to breathe before she spoke up at last.

“I… When I found out that I was…that I wouldn’t… I was married.”

The Doctor’s hearts sank to hear those words. True to his word, he was hardly appalled, but that didn’t make the admission any less heartbreaking. Clearly, it was a heavy burden for Zepheera, as it took a few more breaths for her to compose herself enough to continue.

“I loved him so much,” Zepheera whispered, struggling to speak around the emotion threatening to close her throat. “And the thought of staying the same for God only knew how long while he…” She reached up to scrub at her eyes, visibly willing herself to keep it together and get this off her chest. “I didn’t know what to do, and I was so scared. All I could think to do was…run away. Didn’t even say goodbye.”

She paused to work up the courage to look the Doctor in the eye. Despite his words, she’d half expected to have made him uncomfortable with such revelations. She found him quite intent and engaged with her story, and the amount of understanding she found in his gaze encouraged more to come forth, along with fresh tears.

“But there's more. Because I didn’t just take away his wife. Without knowing it, I also took away his child. Our daughter." A small hand clutched at her shirt just below the neckline, as though saying what happened aloud broke her heart all over again to the point of physical pain. "And I ran away from her, too, the moment I could.”

The moment the words were out, Zepheera deflated. Her face was buried deep into her hands as she wept quietly, yet viscerally. The Doctor looked on, giving her the time and the space to work such intense emotions through her body. Despite her broken appearance, he knew that it had to be an incredible weight lifted off her heart to admit to.

He waited for Zepheera's sobs to start evening out before reaching a hand toward her. The tips of two fingers gently came to rest against her back for emotional support, ready to pull back if she seemed not in the mood to be touched. She offered no protest, so the Doctor stayed put.

"You asked me how I cope," said the Doctor, practically in a whisper. "I do and I don't, I suppose, if I'm being honest."

He felt the slightest pressure in his fingertips of Zepheera sitting up, still in the process of pulling herself together. He paid that little mind as he adjusted to her movements and went on. "Funny ol' universe, isn't it? Because out of all the people who could have rescued you or met you at any point in all this, we happened to meet. And I completely get where you're coming from."

"You do?" Zepheera finally dared to meet the Doctor's gaze again, and he gave her his best reassuring smile.

"I'm always running. Running from, running towards… can hardly tell the difference anymore. Seems we have that in common," he shrugged as his eyes drifted off to one side to follow his train of thought. "And plenty of times, I've had to grapple with the fact that the people I meet and travel with, they can't do that forever. Over time, they'll fade, and I'll still be here.

"But the main difference is, I knew that from the off. Time Lords don't age, you see; at least, not the way humans or borrowers do. Eventually, our bodies can wear thin, or if you live the way I do, things can happen to us that would outright kill other beings, but not us. Our way around death is to completely regenerate our bodies. Every single cell becomes new, and an entirely different body comes together to begin what's essentially a new life cycle.

"I've done this almost as many times as a Time Lord can physically handle. So many different faces and personalities over the centuries. Traveling a universe full of species with much shorter lifespans than myself, often makes me think that a Time Lord lives too long. I've looked at it as a curse, one only I bear because I'm the only one of my kind left." 

Catching himself rambling, the Doctor looked back to Zepheera. Now it seemed it was the borrower's turn to sit attentively, hanging on his every word. She made no move to interrupt.

"My point being… For lack of better phrasing, it sounds to me like you suffer a similar curse. Only, this long life isn't expected of your kind, so it isolates you from them in a way they can't understand." He watched Zepheera blink back more tears, but she nodded slowly in agreement. "That part's very different from my experience, but I know how that loneliness can feel. I know how those thoughts and those memories can creep up on you, because a part of you can't just forgive and forget. I can't exactly say I'm an expert in dealing with it all in a healthy manner, but… I do cope with it in my own way."

"How?"

A soft smile made its way to his lips, and his gaze slid over to the door that led outside the TARDIS.

"All that traveling… seeing what's out there, meeting all kinds of people and helping them out. I keep moving, and I don't walk away if I can do something when no one else will or can." Turning back to Zepheera, he gave a small shrug and admitted, "It's not perfect, and it won't change the past, but… it does make it all feel worth it, in the end."

Zepheera's gaze remained locked on the door as she pondered his words. It seemed odd at first, that all those adventures he and Donna went on could be a coping mechanism for the Doctor. Still, she could hardly discount it.

She thought back to the little community of borrowers she'd brought together decades ago. Stroke of luck, really; she'd happened to run into a group, and they were in need of a bit of organization. What started out as one good deed led to Zepheera being rather depended on, which was new. For so long she'd kept herself to herself, reasoning that the loneliness was better than having her heart broken all over again. Despite that, those lovely people wormed their way into her affections, and though she did try to distance herself from leadership of any kind once things were well established, she did stay near enough that she could be reached. 

Helping her fellow borrower had been the first proper gleam in Zepheera's life since…

"I want to try again," she declared, finding a strength in her tone of voice that surprised herself as well as the Doctor. Violet eyes reached out to his, imploring him with their stare. "Coming with you and Donna."

The Doctor hesitated only briefly before gently asking, "Are you sure?" He didn't want her to feel he doubted her, but considering her harrowing experience previously, he was concerned.

Zepheera nodded, slow and decisive. Maintaining his gaze, she scooted slightly to the side to place herself in the curve of his fingers. Such a small movement spoke volumes to the Doctor. 

"I think we are alike, as you said. Maybe seeing what you see, helping people the way you do… It could give me the strength I need to keep moving, and not just be stuck like I've been." One very small arm curled under one of the Doctor's awkwardly hovering fingertips, and he let her pull it closer. "I trust you. And I trust Donna. I know I'll be okay with you two."

Feeling the slightest squeeze of his fingertip, the Doctor swallowed past a lump of emotion. This was the most Zepheera had asserted herself in the time she'd been with them. Her final words on the matter very nearly pushed him over the emotional edge, and he knew that her decision was final.

"And…I want to help make other people okay, too."

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Girls' Day Out

30. Self Care

From this list of gt prompts

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU); a direct continuation of "Midnight".

Note: Only a few of these left! Definitely very late, but I'm still committed. And...dang, I love these two.

~~~

Steamy air filled Zepheera's lungs until they felt more full than she'd ever experienced. 

“I can't remember the last time I was this relaxed.” Her admission rode her exhale like a sigh, just barely audible to her human companion sitting close by.

After everything that happened on Midnight, Donna had insisted they all needed a proper vacation. No need for fancy leisure palaces or tourist traps, none of that fluff! The simple things could have the best impact on one's physique and psyche, she assured the Doctor and Zepheera both.

Zepheera barely remembered the name of the planet they'd landed on, but great care was taken in its selection. They had to make sure that wherever they went, the borrower among them wouldn't stick out as odd and would be accepted wherever they went. Sure enough, the spa Donna found had a sauna and plenty of accommodations for people less than six inches high. The towel wrapped around her body was not too cumbersome or thick to be useful, and she had a surprisingly comfortable bamboo seat almost identical to the one Donna was reclined in.

She smiled to hear Zepheera's voice without an ounce of tension in it, for what felt like the first time in all the time they'd known each other. The steamy heat of the sauna worked its magic on her, too, much more welcome than the X-tonic rays she'd bathed in not too long ago. Her eyes stayed closed as she replied almost automatically, “You can say that again.”

Donna didn't expect a response, content with the silence as she and Zepheera sweated their troubles away. After a moment, however, she caught the faintest sound of breathing coming from over her shoulder. That made her blink her heavy eyelids open to glance toward Zepheera. If she could hear the borrower’s breathing from even a short distance, something was amiss.

Sure enough, Zepheera was no longer lounging back in her chair. She had leaned forward, eyes closed and hands clutching her knees for stability as she slowly and deliberately breathed in and out.

“Hey,” whispered Donna, which had Zepheera blinking up at her. Not a flinch or any hint of startlement as if she were having a flashback or an attack.

Donna bit back a wince. Back when the Doctor explained what they'd been through, she'd slipped up and mimicked his catch phrase. She hadn't meant any harm by it, but considering the encounter with the repeating creature, she should have known better. The look the Doctor got in his eyes, the way Zepheera froze…

Zepheera continued her slow breathing, the pace of which Donna unwittingly mirrored as she gently asked, “Alright, dinky?”

Mid-exhale, a light chuckle snuck out of Zepheera. She and Donna had been friends long enough that the human was finally able to express her full, witty personality around the borrower without making her shrink back. All those weeks and months rooming together only facilitated that bond. Donna had plenty of nicknames for the Doctor, and Zepheera was more than happy to participate by accepting an affectionate moniker that poked fun at her size, and coming up with her own to return that energy.

“Fine, massy,” she nodded, taking the next few breaths to relax her posture. Donna’s words had been innocuous enough, but the incident was still fresh in Zepheera's mind. Thanks to her friends, she had plenty of tools to work her own way through the brush with panic.

Midnight was far away, and Donna was here. They were safe, and Zepheera refused to let the memories creep their way in to spoil their relaxation. Before she knew it, her back pressed against bamboo once again, and she gave a contented sigh. 

Soon enough, she and Donna would wrap up here, cool off, and meet back up with the Doctor for a nice, indulgent lunch. She closed her eyes once again, imagining the tastes she might experience there. What came next was up to Donna, and if it was half as soothing as this, Zepheera was up for any of it.

“I can't remember the last time I was this relaxed,” she reiterated.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Clutter

11. Melancholy

From this list of gt prompts.

AU: A Patient, and Time (Donna AU); set after Abandoned

~~~

Breathe in. In a little more. Out slow…

Zepheera's favored breathing technique did wonders for her nerves these days. That, and mindful activities like her sewing. Under a small light that sat on the old seat in the console room, the borrower sat in silence as her fingers worked patiently.

The rest of the dim console room was far from silent. Half of the floor panels were pulled up, several boxes and trunks dug out from their depths, and the contents of those strewn about the rest of the floor. The Doctor sat right in the middle of it all, digging around for the right parts for a device that had come to mind in his boredom.

This was a time in which his companions would usually be asleep. The Time Lord would dim the lights to simulate a day/night cycle for them, and he would have eight or so hours to kill. Zepheera, however, was having a rather sleepless "night". 

She wasn't overly troubled or anxious, it was more subconscious than that. Something in the back of her mind wouldn't rest, and for some reason hit Zepheera harder tonight. At first she thought she'd go for a walk, perhaps wear herself out by stretching her legs. It only served to draw attention to how heavy her feet were, and something dense that sat in the middle of her chest. 

With her mind occupied parsing through the weighty feeling keeping her awake, her body seemed to have done some thinking for her, and she eventually found herself at the entrance to the console room. The Doctor was surprised to see her there, but unbothered by her insomnia-driven wandering. He acknowledged her arrival, and paid passive attention as she climbed her way up to the seat and settled in. He wordlessly fetched the small light for her when he noticed her sewing project come out of her borrowing bag.

They'd been working together a lot lately, going over methods for Zepheera to regulate her stress levels. That, combined with the heart-to-hearts talks she'd had with Donna during their time as roommates, had gotten many things in Zepheera's head to rattle around. It had been a very, very long time since she'd felt comfortable enough with anyone to be vulnerable with them. 

Now her mind, once a deeply packed drawer, was like the floor of the console room. Moments long past, scattered about without rhyme or reason, on full display and reminding her of things she wished she could forget. Things she'd pushed down for years and years because looking back on them was too painful and saddening.

"Doctor?"

"Yeah?" The Time Lord in question straightened from his hunched seat, glancing Zepheera's way.

Zepheera hesitated, gathering her disorganized thoughts. Maybe this was what she needed. There were some things that, as much as she respected the woman and treasured her friendship, Zepheera simply couldn't share with Donna. She wouldn't understand them, not in a way that would avoid making Zepheera feel as though she were burdening Donna with them. The Doctor, though…

"You said you were over nine hundred years old, right?" she settled on asking as her hands slowly lowered into her lap.

"I did," said the Doctor with a quirked eyebrow, trying to puzzle out where Zepheera was going with this.

Zepheera began to slowly pack away her sewing, hoping to prolong the excuse to not look the Doctor in the eye as she spoke. "Do you…remember it? All that time, all those years?"

Concern started to bubble up in the Doctor as he turned to face her more directly, tinkering forgotten. "For the most part. What's brought this–?"

"And the things you regret," Zepheera interrupted, her tone sharpened enough to cut through the much larger man's voice. "Do those memories… Does it ever get easier?"

The Doctor noticed the distinct lack of a question as to whether or not he had anything to regret, but he supposed it would be fanciful to think none would occur in nine hundred years. He also sensed that this came from personal experience.

His suspicions were confirmed when Zepheera finally brought herself to turn to look at him, and he noticed the slightest sheen of tears on her tiny cheeks, reflecting her little work light.

"Is there a way to cope with horrible things you've done, when they happened so long ago that they can't ever be fixed?"