#Zepheera

[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.

[creatorofuniverses]

Day 13 – Genres

Today's challenge is to recommend three fics from different genres! So without further ado:

Borrowed Time and Space by @borrowedtimeandspace! A crossover between Dr. Who and The Borrowers can only mean high energy sci-fi adventure! Zepheera's a great character and this series is a lot of fun.

Borrowed Courage by @rosella35! A contemporary fiction, mixed-size society drama playing out between a size-shifting borrower and an exterminator's daughter. Plus some fantastic art from the author!

Far From Home by @therealbrigeedarocks! A classic fantasy where a normal human winds up in a world of giants, where humans are less than second-class citizens- she's not gonna take that lying down, of course. Great art here too!

[a-smooth-smiminal]

I'd love to see Zepheera in your style! She's a borrower; 4.5" tall, olive skin, deep violet eyes, brown hair in a short bob usually. Dresses in dark earth tones and the occasional jewel tone. She's generally upbeat and caring and does what she can for others, but the smile more often than not hides the pain of a haunted, functionally immortal woman.

Don't know how much info is helpful, I don't have a character sheet for her, only previous commissions. There's more about her on my main, where I play with her in the world of Doctor Who!

Prev commissions by @quackghost and @abookishweasel

SHARETOBER!!

I want to draw other GT characters for GTOber

Heyo!

Instead of doing gtober only drawing my characters, I think I’ll draw other gt creator’s ocs! If you have a gt oc that you want me to draw, be sure to reblog this post with your character sheets included for a chance for me to draw them!!

Be sure to tag other gt creators that might want their ocs drawn too!!

[brothersapart]

What would the Doctor/Zepheera think of Oscar?

@borrowedtimeandspace --

I mean, it seems that no matter what time it is in his life, Oscar always gives off that intense “adopt me” vibe. Who are the Doctor and Zepheera to deny it?

They’d adore the mousey lil guy. He’s timid, but he’s no coward when it counts. Practically raised himself since he was a kiddo and everything! They can’t help admiring tenacity like that.

[witcherfan]

I found a Doctor Who and his four inch borrower companion

named Zepheera over at fan fiction.net

https://archiveofourown.org/works/678948/chapters/1244185

[ao3feed-doctorwho]

Sherlock Edition

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2rjfH9L

by The_Raconteur_24601

A bunch of Zepheera-Visions based on Sherlock (BBC) GIFs.

*I do not own the GIFs used! They are used for illustrative and inspirational purposes, and I claim no ownership over them

Words: 682, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 4 of Zepheera-Vision

Fandoms: Sherlock (TV), The Borrowers - All Media Types, Doctor Who (2005)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Characters: Zepheera (OC), Sherlock Holmes, Tenth Doctor, John Watson

Additional Tags: sherlock gt, giant tiny - Freeform, the borrowers crossover, sherlock crossover, giant, TINY - Freeform, G/T

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2rjfH9L

[homeiswheretheheartsare]

DW - Tenth Doctor and Zepheera

Commission for @borrowedtimeandspace of their OC Zepheera and the Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who.

View their post here.

deviantArt / Tumblr / Twitter / Etsy / Storenvy / Society6 / Inkbunny / Redbubble

Commissions are OPEN

[borrowedtimeandspace]

While scrolling last night, I came across this post of David Tennant/the tenth Doctor tossing things, and my brain, as it usually does, inserted my OC into it because

What if

The Doctor just. Tosses Zepheera around sometimes?

Not roughly, of course! But say she needs to get somewhere either far or high up (for her) and getting the leg up is much faster. Like, the stakes are high and, small as she is, Zepheera is the only one who can get where they need and fast, so... Yeet!

Or, for some added fun, Doc scoops Zepheera up in his hands mid-conflict and tosses her to a fellow companion for safety and to free up his hands because whatever's going on, it isn't over!

The more warning Zepheera gets about it, the less she'd chew the Doctor out later for tossing her about.

Idk why it took this for me to realize how yeetable my girl is, and how much Ten would not be immune to it.

And now I'm gonna be wondering which Doctors are more or less likely to do the same. Thoughts?

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Borrowed Magic: Lost in Flight

There's something out of place in Wellwood forest, and a mismatched pair of someones chasing after it.

Bowman Leafwing wouldn't be the patrolsprite he is if he didn't investigate. It's hardly his fault that it leads to a much bigger adventure than he anticipated!

How could he plan ahead for travel through time and space?

Posting on Archive of our Own Thursdays @ 5pm Central Time

Cowritten by @borrowedtimeandspace and @neonthewrite

Artwork by the lovely @abookishweasel

[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]

Ad Perpetuam Memoriam

AU: The Donna Trilogy | If I Could Turn Back Time

Note: Farewell, Ten...

Not a ton of actual g/t in this one, as per usual in If I Could Turn Back Time. More of a recontextualization of Ten's regeneration.

~~~

Burning.

Everything inside, burning like the sun.

It was all the Doctor could do to contain it all. He'd held it in for as long as he could. Now it was coming for him. To take him away, and replace him with some new man.

He'd done his best to make the most of his remaining time. That was his reward, after all. Getting to say goodbye.

And he had, in his way. Seeing faces that had been all together not so long ago, now scattered across time and space. Doing good and living their own lives.

For most of them, he hadn't said a word. Not because there was nothing to say, but he was never one for a proper goodbye. In his mind, this was better. Saving Martha and Mickey. Introducing Jack to another familiar face. Even protecting young Luke from harm and being able to wave goodbye to his dear Sarah Jane one last time. 

It got more complicated as he held a copy of A Journal of Impossible Things and stood in line to meet and have it signed by the author.

Verity Newman. The great-granddaughter of Joan Redfern, the woman whose heart he inadvertently broke when she fell in love with his human persona back in 1913.

Whether he meant to or not, the Doctor had hurt Joan in one of the most painful ways possible. In John Smith, she had found a love deep and profound, and had no way of knowing that his life was not only false, but fleeting by design. The Doctor was a living reminder of that fact. 

That's why he couldn't bring himself to visit her directly, even though it would have been easy enough to do in the TARDIS. He had no doubt that seeing him again would do more harm than good. At best she would turn him away, as she had done so long ago, before he could get one word in.

No apology in the universe could satisfy that hurt.

What was almost worse was that, as he waited his turn to speak with Verity and have her sign a copy of the novelisation of Joan’s journal, she wasn't the only person on his mind.

Ever since he started his farewell tour, he had at least a vague plan for how to visit everyone he wanted to see. For Joan, this was the best he could do. It wouldn't make amends, but would at least acknowledge what he did wrong. After this signing, he had an idea for an indirect goodbye for the Nobles. And though he couldn't cross universes to see Rose one last time, he still had opportunities to at least glimpse her in the past.

And there was still one person he was incapable of seeing again.

He did his best to push that thought out of his mind. The man in front of him was walking away, and it was his turn to see Verity. She and Joan deserved better than absentmindedness in that moment.

~~~

The wedding was beautiful. Well, what little the Doctor saw of it from the outside, in the aftermath of the actual ceremony. Donna and Shaun were glowing, showered with flower petals in the pleasant spring breeze. 

When the Doctor managed to catch Sylvia Noble and Wilfred Mott's attention, he was sure to keep the conversation with them short, yet meaningful. He simply gave them the gift he'd brought, and explained how he was able to come by it. 

A small token from Sylvia's late husband to give to his daughter on her wedding day. 

He stuck around long enough to see it given to Donna. She had no clue about the weight it carried, but her mother and grandfather could silently appreciate it. After everything he and Wilfred had gone through that Christmas, saying goodbye to him and Sylvia felt just as important as saying it to Donna. Even if he couldn't say so directly to her without risking her safety.

Wilfred had been a rock for the Doctor in the time leading up to the end. Out of anyone on the planet, he was the one who managed to hunt the Doctor down fairly quickly, and right when he needed someone. 

At first it was just good to have someone to talk to again. Traveling alone was starting to take its toll. With the foreboding feeling of his death hanging overhead, he'd had nobody to open up to about it, nobody who might even begin to understand what that meant for him.

“I'm going to die.” Four small words that had felt like a cold anvil resting on his hearts.

He knew Wilf was well-meaning when he brought the Doctor to a cafe close to where he knew Donna would be. Hearing about her life without him was bittersweet. She'd gone back to living as an ordinary human, struggling as the rest of them did. Engaged to a friendly-looking man, sharing that ordinary life with him. And yet something within her was aware that she’d lost something, and yearned for it without knowing what or why.

Still, it meant the world to the Doctor to see her again.

Then Wilf had to go and ask him. “Who have you got now?”

“No one,” the Doctor had to answer.

“What about…” Wilf had trailed off when he glanced to the Doctor's shoulders, the breast pocket of his jacket, and found them both empty. Looking him in the eyes once more, that emptiness was present there, too. Wilf's heart sank. “Did something happen to the little ‘un?”

The Doctor's jaw clenched at the reminder. Memories crashed over him like a wave before he could do a thing to push them down. A horrible man pointing his device toward the only friend he had left to travel with since Donna had to go. Calling Zepheera's name just as the device fired, a shot of blue light engulfing the inches-tall woman and leaving nothing behind.

It hadn't killed her, but to the Doctor it might as well have. It had displaced her in time and space, and he had not a single lead as to where or when she ended up. 

If she were human, hunting her down would have been difficult but potentially doable. Like finding a needle in a haystack. But she was a borrower; not only small in stature, but hard-wired to survive by remaining hidden and not making waves. It turned the search into finding one particular mote of dust in a haystack the size of a skyscraper on an empty and uncharted asteroid floating in the Void.

“Lost,” the Doctor finally managed to tell Wilfred. “For good.”

Wilf's face fell. “Oh, I…”

“Traveling alone, now,” the Doctor pressed on before Wilf could get out his condolences. Feelings and memories now swirled around him in a maelstrom, and he was struggling to bring them to order. But maybe they needed to come out.

Right then, there was nobody he trusted more with his vulnerability than Wilfred Mott.

“I thought it would be better alone.” At this, he broke eye contact. He couldn't hide the shame in his expression, in his voice, as he admitted, “But I did some things that went wrong.”

Mars was still fresh in his mind. The water creatures overtaking Bowie Base One. Knowing full well that the demise of the crew was a fixed point in time, and being unable to resist sticking around and helping them anyway. Only to ultimately decide that he was through standing by any more when he could do something to change it.

Because who in the universe could stop him if he tried?

He learned the answer to that when he brought the few surviving members of the crew back to Earth. As he reflected on his attitude back then, the way he spoke to them and especially Adelaide…talking her up as an important figure that he'd managed to save from her established fate while waving off basically everyone else as little people. It made his insides clench in hindsight.

Donna would have given him a smack for that kind of talk, if he was lucky. And Zepheera… If she'd heard that, she'd probably never speak to the Doctor again.

And in the end, it hadn't ‘fixed’ anything at all. Adelaide still died, and her legacy remained largely unchanged. The Doctor hadn't accomplished a single thing in his act of arrogant defiance.

He thought that traveling alone would mean that he couldn't lose anyone else. Instead, he realized then that it just meant the only person he had left to lose was himself.

“I need–!”

At that point, the Doctor cut himself short and buried his face in his hands. He could feel the floodgates weakening, and finally made an effort to rein himself in. Wilfred wasn't asking for him to dump all those emotions on him at once, and breaking down in the middle of a cafe did no one any good.

Not him. Not Donna. Certainly not Zepheera.

Though they split off shortly after that, having Wilfred around for the journey to come had been a balm. The Doctor had someone to talk to, someone with ideas that weren't his own. More than that, he cared for the Doctor and had his best interests at heart when the Time Lord could only focus on the daunting tasks at hand.

He was almost surprised when Wilfred's response to learning that the Doctor was over 900 years old was to reflect on humanity in comparison and remark, “We must look like insects to you.”

Oh, no. The Doctor could never look at them that way. Least of all after he'd experienced traveling with someone like Zepheera.

A large part of his travels were taken in through the eyes of his companions. They were the ones with fresh perspectives on things the Doctor took for granted. On occasion, his human friends could help him realize the enormity of his decisions and actions. With Zepheera, it was a daily reminder of that. She found the strength and bravery to face a universe greater and wider than even humans could perceive it. 

The Doctor had even managed to find a way to literally see things from her point of view, and that was in the forefront of his mind as he regarded Wilfred fondly and replied, “I think you look like giants.”

She would have loved this, thought the Doctor as he looked back on Donna's wedding festivities. Seeing Donna so full of joy on the happiest day of her life… It was a sight the Doctor wanted to remember for the rest of time. He only wished Zepheera could have been there to see it, too.

And wherever and whenever Zepheera was, he wished for the same thing he had for Joan Redfern. That she was happy in whatever life she'd made for herself.

The Doctor's work was done here. He could feel himself running out of time, and he still had one more stop to make. But he was so reluctant to leave this place. Especially considering what came next.

~~~

There was no stopping it. The Doctor knew that painfully well.

Already the regeneration energy had begun to flow from his hands, even as he piloted his ship into orbit. He barely paid attention to the time he set it to, simply determined to not start whatever new life that waited for him in 2005. He couldn't risk changing anything that happened with Rose before it even began.

It wasn't fair.

That thought turned over and over in his mind. This face, this life, was still so fresh. He'd only had it a handful of years, and to have it so quickly snuffed out… Sure, he'd done quite a lot in that time, but it still felt all too fleeting. Barely a blip in his 900 years.

He could still hear himself shouting to absolutely nothing and no one, “I could do so much more! So! Much! More!” That feeling was still there, but the anger had largely settled. Now it just made him sad, seeing the end so rapidly encroaching on him.

The worst part was that he was well and truly alone for it. Rose had been there when he'd changed last, hers was the first face he saw with fresh eyes. Even when he'd sort of regenerated with the metacrisis, he'd had Rose, Donna, and even Jack there with him.

Now the TARDIS, the one place that felt like home, was so terribly cold and empty.

The Doctor could feel the heat rising, spreading from his core. Soon it would take over every cell in his body, rewrite everything that made him himself.

He wasn't ready. None of this was right.

“I don't wanna go,” he uttered, sounding so small and helpless even to himself.

No one was there to hear it. He felt no comfort or warmth in his final moment. Only the burning of a sun as his vision turned gold.

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Little Dipper

27. Jewelry

From this list of gt prompts

AU: Undefined Thirteen AU

Note: Finally watched Power of the Doctor, and I already miss Jodie. I do love the idea of these two together, and I hope I can write more for them. Very very excited for Fourteen and Fifteen though! Soon...

p.s. TIL that 'dipper' is British slang for a pickpocket. Go figure.

~~~

“Zepheera!!”

The Doctor’s voice bounced off the jagged metal surfaces around her as she called out for her diminutive companion. She watched every step and peeked around and under every single thing in her path through the wrecked ship to be absolutely certain the four and a half inch tall woman wouldn't be overlooked.

Everything had gone to plan. …Mostly. Sure, being captured and separated from the TARDIS was never ideal, but they had an ace up their sleeve! Or to be more accurate, the Doctor had a borrower down her coat hood, completely undetected by their captors.

Like usual, they played to their strengths to get out. The Doctor ran distraction, letting her motormouth run free while Zepheera snuck around in the ship's nooks and crannies to find ways to sabotage the craft. 

It was a calculated risk. They were still within the atmosphere of a planet and not that far from its surface, and the Doctor insisted there was very little that Zepheera could mess with that wouldn't have some sort of emergency backup that would kick in eventually. It was simply a matter of throwing enough out of whack to cause a little chaos and give the Doctor a chance to gain her freedom and an upper hand. Worst case scenario, the ship got a little bumped and scraped if nobody could stabilize it before they hit the ground. 

And, well…

In the aftermath of the crash, the crew were now more concerned about the ship's status than keeping an eye on the Doctor, so long as she didn't run off on them. That left her alone in her search for her friend, desperately listening for any reply.

Finally, as she approached the bridge, she finally heard it. A faint but familiar voice ringing out distantly over her head.

“Doctor…!”

Blonde hair whipped around as the Doctor craned her neck to find the borrower calling back to her. It was all a bit of a mess to say the least, but she'd been traveling with Zepheera long enough to have really honed her keen eye for the tiniest movements. Up in what used to be the ceiling, a maintenance panel had come off and what looked like several rolls of wire had come undone. A tiny figure waved for the Time Lord’s attention in the hole the missing panel left.

“Oh, you're okay!” the Doctor beamed, beyond relieved to see Zepheera in one piece. She had no doubt that her friend was clever and hardier than she looked, but the crash had been a little more intense than anticipated and she couldn't help worrying. With a wave back, screwdriver in hand, she added, “A-plus work! Got my sonic back, and now we can figure out what's going on here, and how to get back to the Tardis!”

Zepheera gave an exaggerated shrugging motion with her arms as she looked down on the completely knackered bridge. “Got a bit carried away, I guess! Thought you said they had ways to keep it from crashing!”

The Doctor winced. “I may have got the model numbers muddled up. Ooh! Try saying that five times fast. Anyway, let's get you down from there! Can you climb these?” She gestured broadly toward the wires, which were long enough to make it all the way down to the bridge floor. 

The ceiling was quite a substantial height, and at a bit of an angle thanks to the ship being slightly wedged into the ground. That put the panel hole about thirty feet above the Doctor's head. Borrowers, as Zepheera had demonstrated on a number of occasions, were excellent climbers. The Doctor had no doubt in her skills, only the precarious nature of this particular circumstance. The wires all seemed rather slick, and wouldn't be likely to offer much in the way of purchase.

Zepheera seemed to be following the exact same train of thought as the Doctor, having gone quiet as her shape shifted slightly in the opening. Then she piped up, “Actually… I'll be down in a jiff. Get ready to catch me!”

The Doctor didn't have time to wonder what the plan was; Zepheera disappeared completely from the panel, leaving the Time Lord to hurry and get into position near the wires.

To her surprise, Zepheera leapt out of the hole, catching her fall on something draped over one of the wires to slide down like a zip line. The Doctor hadn't seen her use something like that before, and was certain that she would have by now if this was something Zepheera kept on her.

As the borrower slid further down the wire and closer to the Doctor, realization struck her. What little sunlight came in through windows and cracked seams of the ship glinted off the silver material of Zepheera's sliding device, the shape of which was awfully familiar. One of the Doctor's primed-to-catch hands snapped up to her left ear.

Her jaw dropped, and she shot an affronted glare to her rapidly descending companion. “Oh, you cheeky little–!”

She didn't have time to finish her grumble before it came time to actually catch Zepheera. She landed in a heap in the Doctor's right hand, breathing hard after such a leap.

The Doctor's earring chain lay across her lap, having done its job of carrying the borrower all the way down the wire.

“When did you even have time to nick that??” demanded the Doctor.

“Oi!” Zepheera shot back while she gathered the jewelry up in her arms and pushed herself up to stand on the Doctor's palm. “I didn't nick it. I borrowed it.” To illustrate her point, Zepheera took the two studs at the ends of the chain in her hands and held her arms out long for the Doctor to take it back. “Easy to forget when it doesn't come up much out in space, I know, but I am very good at it.”

The Doctor snatched the earring with a flat look at Zepheera before she deposited her to a shoulder to free up her hand. “Smart move,” she admitted. “Ask nicely for it next time, and you might earn bonus points.”

“On top of my A-plus?” Zepheera prodded teasingly.

Rather than rise to the bait, the Doctor simply started to replace her earring. This meant both her hands encroached on Zepheera's space, and she was lightly shoved off of the Doctor's shoulder to slide harmlessly into her hood.

Though she pretended not to notice, the Doctor listened for the telltale muffled “Oomph!” and the light squirming against her back before she started walking. She could already feel Zepheera starting to climb her way back up to the opposite shoulder.

“Right,” said the Doctor decisively on the way to one of the ship's numerous newly opened exits. “Back to business.”

[borrowedtimeandspace]

Say You Love Me Too

AU: The Donna Trilogy | If I Could Turn Back Time

Note: This one kept getting longer on me, but I wanted to make sure I did these two justice. Here's hoping I have.

~~~

“Thirty days.”

Orrick’s words cut through the dusty air inside the walls of the cottage. 

He and Zepheera hardly said a thing to one another since their talk over tea that afternoon. Nothing quite as meaningful, anyway. Her sudden return put a damper on his big plan to leave it all behind, and he hadn't accounted for dinner. Reckoned he'd borrow something nonperishable on his way out, just enough to sustain him on the journey between human houses. He'd steadily (albeit slowly) eaten through everything in their stores so that pests wouldn't find it and gather, ever since he decided what he would do if Zepheera didn't come back.

Now she had come back, and he didn't have anything in.

She was quick to offer to come with him on the borrowing trip, a standard food raid that he could easily do on his own. Still, with her penchant for vanishing, there was no way Orrick was leaving Zepheera out of his sight. So he agreed, and they silently traversed the darkened pathways under the floorboards and within the walls, all the way up to the humans’ pantry.

Despite their time apart, they fell into the rhythm of borrowing together right away. One kept watch while the other worked on subtly gathering food in a way that wouldn't be easily noticed, and they traded off these roles silently and smoothly. It was easy work for seasoned professionals, especially with most of the giant folk out of the house at that hour.

It was still odd for them both, how natural it all felt. Like nothing had changed, even though that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Orrick meant to emphasize that as he tossed the two words over his shoulder on their way back from a successful run.

Zepheera was quiet for the first few seconds afterward. “What?” she asked, though he noticed in her tone that she didn't sound like she'd misheard.

“How long you've been gone,” Orrick confirmed. He sent her a quick backward glance, though he was only able to make out her general shape in the darkness. “You asked, and it's only right I answer your question since you answered mine. It's been a month.”

His gaze lingered on her silhouette when he heard the slightest stutter in her steps, but she kept pace. He turned back to face the front once he felt assured that they weren't going to be separated again, and continued leading the way home.

It didn't sound like much, saying it aloud. One month. Some of Orrick’s most detailed sketches took him a few weeks to feel satisfied with the results. Zepheera’d knitted jumpers in that amount of time as well. Neither of those tasks had ultimately felt like they'd taken an incredibly long time in the past.

When it came to waiting to see if your spouse would return home, unsure of why they left or if they were even alive… Then, a month felt like an eternity.

Zepheera seemed to understand that, because she fell completely silent. It wasn't until well after they'd climbed down below the floorboards that she managed to whisper, “I'm sorry…”

“You've said that,” Orrick pointed out as they reached the main entrance to the home. 

The door was a lid they'd repurposed from an old tin. The hinges were intact to use like a proper door, swinging inward with a firm push and unable to do so in the other direction. To keep pests and strangers out, they'd installed a couple of small hooks to either side of it on the inside, onto which they could drop a sturdy bar (usually a pencil) that would hold the door in place.

Orrick let the door swing inward and once again glanced back at Zepheera. In this space under the floor, a little more light was able to slip between the cracks. Now the shadows couldn't hide the flush of contained emotion in her cheekbones, the way she could barely maintain eye contact with Orrick for more than a second before her gaze lowered in shame. 

The way that, though he wasn't barring the way inside, she simply stood behind Orrick. Almost waiting to be invited into the home they'd built together.

“You still haven't explained why you needed that answer. Why, of all things, that was the mystery to you.” Orrick's tone stayed even and calm, not wanting to come off as accusatory. She hadn't gone into any detail, but he knew that something had happened to Zepheera since he'd seen her last. Something that changed her.

Zepheera took a deep breath in and out, though Orrick noticed the slightest hitch, like a second small inhale before she let it slowly out. As she did so, her gaze met his and stayed this time.

“I told you, it's a long story,” she said, though to Orrick it didn't sound like an excuse. Zepheera wasn't dodging his question. No, she was simply warning him that the answer to it was far from simple.

Orrick slowly nodded in understanding. Then, with just as much care, he reached out a hand toward Zepheera, who blinked at it before looking back up at him.

“Tell it, then,” he invited.

In the dimness, Orrick thought he caught the briefest glimpse of a smile flashing across Zepheera's lips before she lifted a trembling hand to take his.

Learning that Zepheera couldn't age, while unexpected, wasn't too difficult for Orrick to accept. She had always been an unusual one, able to recover from injuries incredibly quickly compared to the average borrower. She took that in stride, and so did Orrick.

They crossed the threshold together.

~~~

When it came to time travel, however…

It wasn't the easiest topic to simplify for a borrower, let alone one who had lived his entire life in the 20th century. Space travel was only just becoming a more prominent reality for humans, and even that felt very far away and foreign to the smaller folk, who had no such ambitions. And apparently, Zepheera had taken part in that as well!

Zepheera hardly claimed to be an expert on the matter, but she explained it to the best of her understanding. Though she had clearly prepared something that would be easiest for him to swallow, it was an intense shift in Orrick's worldview.

He was still processing it all hours later, lying in bed and staring up at the underside of the floorboards that were their ceiling. Thoughts swirled in his head in so many circles that his eyes traced them as though they were visible in the darkness of night.

At the time, he understood just enough of what she told him to be able to nod along with it. Now, hours later, all attempts to let it actually sink in kept him awake.

What struck him the most in the moment was that Zepheera had traveled with humans.

It wasn't that it was more strange than the time travel, really, but it was one of the cardinal rules drilled into every borrower's head from the moment they were born. Never be seen or heard. Human beings were powerful simply by the nature of their being, well over a dozen times the size of a borrower more often than not. Even the weakest human could do the strongest borrower great harm with hardly any effort.

Whether a given human would treat the smaller folk that way was beside the point. They all had to be considered capable of such things by every borrower as a matter of caution.

Zepheera insisted that these humans were of a good sort. Well, one of them was actually not human, but was “close enough to practically count,” which was another notion Orrick was still grappling with. The Doctor, the non-human one was called. He'd saved Zepheera from a bad situation, and that was all she could say on the matter.

She went distressingly quiet when Orrick tried to ask about it.

Most of the time spent between making and eating dinner was filled with Zepheera’s stories about this Doctor and the human woman Donna Noble. How the unnamed terrible thing that happened affected her intensely, and her companions helped her recover from it. How they inspired Zepheera to take on a more active role in bettering the lives of others where- and whenever they went. 

Orrick could tell they had been close, and the way Zepheera talked made it seem like this was a rarity for her. And he could see glimpses of the heartbreak in her eyes as she told him about how she was separated from them.

With a deep sigh, Orrick brought up both hands to rub at his eyes. He was making himself dizzy trying to understand time as something non-linear, but it was so intertwined with everything Zepheera had told him about her life.

The Doctor had a machine, she said, a vehicle of some sort that allowed them to go wherever they wanted at any time. She'd described it as something quite fantastical, far bigger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. It could disappear from one time and place, and reappear in another. 

And even with all its magics, it still rendered the Doctor helpless to find Zepheera when she was lost. This was apparently due to the nature of said separation, her being somehow flung through time to the past, well before Zepheera's own birth.

“Wait, so…” Orrick had piped up at that point. “If you were in the past, and knew about things that hadn't happened yet…why didn't you try to change them?”

Zepheera had blinked at the question, one of Orrick’s few interruptions to her story. He wasn't casting judgment on her, and the sadness that crept back in behind her eyes told him she understood exactly what he meant.

“It's…quite complicated, being in the past. Especially your own past. Time can be rewritten, yes, but the effects of that are impossible to predict.” At that, her gaze lowered to her wringing hands. “And everything that happened to me… everything I've done… It made me the person I am today. Made me better. If I tried to change even one line of my own history, then the me I am now wouldn't exist anymore. Or worse. I couldn't risk that.”

Zepheera glanced back at him then. “Do you understand?” she’d ventured to ask.

Orrick had listened to every word, but that was the point where it all started to scramble in his head. Just like he would do later in bed remembering the feeling, he buried his face in his hands. “I regret asking…”

Back in the present, the sound of quickened breathing to Orrick’s left caught his attention. He let his hands run down his face as he turned to look at Zepheera's deeply sleeping form beside him.

There really was no place for her to sleep other than the bed they used to share. She tried to insist she had something in her travel pack that she could set up, but Orrick couldn't let her just sleep on the floor. Even after everything…it didn't feel right.

It wasn't like it was before. Orrick lay flat as a board on his side, while Zepheera had started out curled with her back to him on the other. A solid inch of their makeshift mattress was left cold between them, a significant distance when the tallest between them couldn't quite claim five inches in height. Though Orrick had been too overcome with his thoughts to move, Zepheera had long since fallen asleep and began stirring more than he ever remembered her doing in the past.

He gently rolled to his side to face her. She'd writhed enough to end up lying on her back. It was dim, but not dark enough to hide the sweat on her twisted brow. The grimace on her lips as she sucked in air between clenched teeth. How one hand clutched the covers and the one nearest Orrick, tossed up near her ear, twitched as though grasping at something that wasn't there.

Before he could think twice about it, Orrick slid a hand up to gently wrap around Zepheera's and give it a squeeze. 

He understood then just how much pain Zepheera had kept to herself. From what he could tell, she had been truthful with everything she'd shared, and yet she'd glossed over the darker aspects before they could sink in. Now, it seemed like she couldn't hide it as easily in her sleep. Or hide from it.

Zepheera's hand automatically clung to Orrick’s. He froze, caught up in the feeling of her grip twitching in his; a feeling that gradually calmed down. After some time, he noticed a change in the rhythm of Zepheera's breathing and saw her shadowy shape turn his way.

She was awake. He couldn't explain how he knew that, but he did.

If she looked at him, he was only vaguely aware of it in his peripheral vision. He stared at their joined hands as his thumb gently traced along her palm, as though the new questions he had would be answered there.

“How long have you been gone?”

Zepheera stayed quiet a moment, recognizing the repeated phrasing. Now Orrick understood exactly why she'd asked, and that her own answer was not straightforward and very different from the one he gave. He waited while she momentarily pondered the answer.

“I think…” she whispered, “between when I left and when I met the Doctor, and then how long ago I was sent back in time… almost two hundred years.”

Orrick’s gaze snapped up to meet hers, something in him clenching to hear such a number.

“And…in all that time, did you…” Orrick hesitated; it suddenly felt quite silly to ask, but he'd already started. “Was there ever anyone else?”

Either the darkness was playing tricks on him, or Orrick caught the tiniest sparkle of hope in Zepheera's eyes. It was gone in a flash, and she slowly shook her head no.

Orrick scoffed at himself for forgetting. “Right. ‘Course, it wouldn't change anything, would it? You'd still be worried about outliving them and–”

“Nobody was you,” Zepheera emphasized.

His breath caught in his chest, along with any more words. 

Outside of his control, the hand holding Zepheera's pulled it closer. It stopped a hair's breadth from his lips, and with the slightest pause, he angled his wrist to instead place the back of her hand against his cheek.

Orrick's eyes squeezed shut as he basked in the warmth of her skin. So many times since her return, he'd avoided such intimate contact with Zepheera. Like there was some wall between them after what happened, a line that he couldn't be sure was safe to cross. For his own sake or for hers. Over the past few hours, she'd chipped away at that wall with her honesty and openness about her completely mad life, and he could feel his resolve crumbling. 

There was only one thing Orrick needed to hear to make it real.

“Do you still love me?” he breathed.

Zepheera's grip went slack in his hand and twisted its way out of it. Before Orrick could fear the worst, he felt her hand gently slide in to hold his cheek. His eyes shot open just as her thumb tenderly brushed away his tears.

With her own eyes welling up, glinting in the barest light that made it into the room, Zepheera spoke with more conviction than he'd heard yet. 

“I never stopped.”

Orrick kissed her. The barrier shattered.

His wife was home.

[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.