008: A Good Deed in a Weary World [Location: Around the City]

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

It was time.

Drusilla had been waiting patiently – for the right moon and the right moment and, most importantly of all, the right people – and, at long last, it was time.

“Little lamb, little lamb
My birthday is here at last!
Little fish, little fish
Do you think I'll get my wish?
Little lamb, little lamb
I wonder how old I am ..?”

Centuries and centuries. It didn’t matter. She’d made her wish and Miss Edith was already on her way. A hundred birthday gifts – a thousand! – couldn’t mean more to her than that.

The vampire stayed close to the shadows. Not because she needed to, no, but because the darkness was soft and familiar. The sleeping city rippled with anticipation. Something was happening. It had started with the Extras, though they hadn’t – wouldn’t – harm Drusilla. Unlike the rest of the residents, she was moving with purpose and determination, encouraged by the hamsters and aided by the stars. They guided her footsteps, telling her who to seek and how to find them.

The first one would be easy. His name had been on the tip of her tongue since she’d spoken to the hamsters. He was so lonely. The loneliest man in any world. He’d be delighted to see a familiar face, wouldn’t he? Just for a little while? His hearts – two of them, which would make sure a mess if his throat was ever slit – hammered with the need for love and attention.

She didn’t know the others, not really. Just their faces. Just their faces and wishes that called to her across the city.

That was more than enough.

OOC: Open to the unfortunate lucky individuals who are about to benefit from Drusilla’s sudden surge of charitable feeling. There is also a fresh heart in a box on Ruby's desk. Good luck with that?

Comments

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"It's---"

He struggled with himself. It was only a few words away. All he had to do was tell her about the Element. Tell her how to program it. Or tell her not to allow Rassilon to wake up. Stop the Time Lords before they go too far. Save Gallifrey, save all of them.

"It's a fixed point," he said. "And I've---I've destroyed fixed points before, Romana. The consequences can be worse." Though, he allowed himself to admit, how could anything be worse than what happened?

He just wanted to save her.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

She ghosted her hand down his arm and threaded their fingers together. His skin was strangely cool, but, then again, so was hers. She didn't have a soul to warm it.

"You do what you believe is best for the universe," she soothed. She didn't croon as Drusilla would. She was cleverer and calmer. Majestic. Her comfort was a different kind of comfort. "That's all we can do."

How would the real Romana have reacted to a change in a fixed point? Drusilla didn't know because the Doctor couldn't be certain.

"I need more information, Doctor. About Taxon. About the fixed point."

Drusilla understood the concept of a fixed point, more or less. A knot in a string that couldn't be untied.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Drusilla paused and turned and fixed her eyes on Shane. It was strange, very strange, to be seen as a boy. Her limbs felt heavier and, almost unconsciously, she stood a little taller.

"Shane?"

He needed to sound confused. Drusilla poured emotions she rarely felt into the word.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

It was Romana. He didn't feel any fear telling her everything, anything.

"Everyone dies," he breathed. "Everyone, Romana."

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

No. No, it was Drusilla, but she was very good at keeping secrets. She'd learned how to wrap them up and tuck them away a very long time ago.

"What do you mean?"

A fear she wouldn't allow to take hold. A calm that threatened to shatter. A hand that gripped his a little tighter.

"The Time Lords?"

[shaneonyou.livejournal.com]

"Ty. Oh my god." A laugh crept into his voice, and he stepped closer, closing the distance between them. Not even thinking about whether or not Ty would return the action, he pulled him into something of a bro-hug, but a little bit warmer than that, thanks to four months of absence.

"When did you get here? I didn't -- see anything, hear anything, jeez."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. He was so tired. So very tired of so much, and he wanted her to be Romana. If the illusion was weak enough for it to shatter with a breeze, the Doctor would've clung to it with every fiber of who he was. Romana would hold him up.

"I can't tell you," he said. "I can't have happen to you what happened to Adelaide, Romana."

Romana wouldn't understand, of course, but he had to explain. He had to have her understand, even if she didn't truly get it.

"I'm so sorry."

Re: Sam [Location: the Edge of the Forest]

[eaturbreakfast.livejournal.com]

Sam has just finished training with Ruby and he's exhausted. When his mind is tired like this it tends to jump to more comforting places: The Ozzy concert he saw with Dean, sleeping safe in the Impala when he was a kid and always, whether he wanted to or not, always:

Jess.

That's where his mind is lingering tonight and he doesn't have the strength to pull away from a memory he knows will end in pain. She's leaning against the door frame, smiling at him and dressed in a white nightgown (which is amusing only in that she never wore a white nightgown. It was always his boxers and a smurf tee shirt). He's bent over his books in the living room studying for an exam.

Sam, come to bed. You're going to ace the test

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Although Jess had chosen simpler clothes while she was alive, the vampire adopting her form had more elaborate taste. The white nightgown was only proper. White for innocence. White for purity. She was an angel in Sam's memories so she became an angel as she hurried towards him through the trees.

Leaves crunched beneath her bare feet. Her eyes were wide. Her blonde hair flowed out behind her, like a banner. Drusilla had never been blonde before. It suited her.

"Sam?"

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

A hug. That was a good sign. A sign that she'd chosen correctly. The illusion could have shattered then, because it was only ever in Shane's mind, but, in the end, it held. People always saw what they wanted to see.

"About ten minutes ago," he - she, he, a voice that flowed from a throat that wasn't hers - answered, laughing at the hug because it was warmer than it would have been in a different city. "Where is here?"

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Poor boy. Poor boy. He was so old. So tired. Although it wouldn't have been accurate to say that Drusilla cared - she couldn't, not really, not without a soul - she was certainly moved by the story. It was a beautiful novel. A perfect portrait. Something to be savoured.

No wonder these Time Lords - even the name was old and tiring! - called to something inside her. They were so close to the stars.

"Adelaide?" she asked, because she had to. She paused, just for a moment, as if trying to decide what to do next. In the end, Drusilla allowed Romana to grip the Doctor's forearms, trying to soothe and anchor him in the same instant. He wouldn't break, not while she was here.

"Do stop apologising for something that hasn't happened to me yet, Doctor. If it is a fixed point, you can't hold yourself responsible for what will happen."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He wanted to laugh at that. Don't hold himself responsible. As if. He was utterly responsible for it. He did it, he killed them. He killed her. Or will kill her, when the time in her universe connects with his. Time was...it was like that. Nothing made sense. Everything made sense.

"It's the same thing, here," he said, trying, desperately, not to think of the end of the Time War and avoid talking about Adelaide's fate. "All these things that happened, all these things that need to happen. And whatever I do, it's going to affect them. It's going to hurt them."

Her hand against his forearm was a comfort. Having her there, holding onto him, grounding him in the way only Romanadvortralundar could, was a comfort. In the centuries between the Time War and now, he didn't just miss her. He longed for her.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

She could feel the rhythmic hammering of his pulse. Pulses. He'd taste of chaos and fire and forever, but she wasn't allowed to drink a drop. Because Romana wouldn't and because Romama didn't have a chip in her head.

"Whatever you do ..." she said, pouring his longing from her lips. Her trust. "... will be the right thing."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"But what is the right thing?" he asked, desperately. She trusted him, she trusted him utterly and he couldn't understand why. He didn't trust himself, he didn't trust the things he did, even when he knew they were the only choices left.

He didn't know. he didn't know what to do here. So many options and none of them were good. He wanted another option. He wanted another choice. Of course, he always wanted another choice.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"Send them home," Romana said, and, because Drusilla wanted return to her own world a great deal, she allowed a little bit of herself to creep into the words. Not the phrasing or inflection, no, just the fervent need that made it seem all the more real. "The people who are trapped here need to be returned to their own world."

She trusted him because he needed that trust and that affection. He needed it like breathing and dreaming. Did Time Lords dream? Drusilla couldn't be sure. The thoughts in his head were too tangled to tell.

If sacrifices needed to be made, then so be it.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

It was enough. It was like being given permission. It was like finally having the weight of guilt lifted off of him. He had to do what was necessary. Romana would always tell him to do what was necessary.

He gave her a small smile. It was tight and tired, the way he felt. But she was there. His Romana.

"I missed you," he said.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

The truth would break his hearts. Drusilla, who would soon be reunited with Miss Edith, didn't particularly care. Romana would have cared. Romana was better person than wicked little Drusilla could ever be.

A little longer, then. For Gallifrey's dead champion and the man who should have known better than to love her.

"And I suppose I've missed you as well," she replied, with a slight smile, "Although it hasn't been that long since I last saw you."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Yeah?" he asked, trying to pin her along his timeline. "Chronos, then? Me with the not-quite-ginger hair. Working on being ginger, never quite getting there. One day, though, Romana. One day."

He touched her long, blonde hair. Intimacy wasn't something the two of them often shared, but he longed for it, now. Longed to make up for all the times he didn't allow himself to feel anything for her.

But---wasn't her hair short, before? When he traveled with her to Chronos? No, no, he must've been remembering wrong. His desire for her to be Romana trumped the truth that was just below his fingertips.

[rubinuslapis.livejournal.com]

When she sees the box, a million things that aren't a cold gooey heart cross Ruby's mind as she anticipates what's inside. So when she lifts the top off after tearing off the ribbon, Ruby gasps a little.

Then comes the suspicion. There are only a handful of people in Taxon who know her preferences, and none of them would approve in this way. Nobody would know that something like this would give her a little skip in her step for the rest of the day. She shoves the top back on, yells to Sam that she's taking her lunch early and stalked out of the office, looking left to right in hopes to glimpse her admirer.

Her feet take her left, and she follows the streets for awhile, cooing here and there when she feels like she's getting warmer. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

[shaneonyou.livejournal.com]

Shane grinned, waving off the weirdness of someone arriving without getting broadcast everywhere. Maybe he did, maybe Shane just missed it. He didn't care. The fact was that his friend was here.

"It's called Taxon. Trust me -- alien city, we're stuck here until I-don't-know-when, and... right now it's just me and Levi here. Out of everybody from home, I mean."

He sighed, somewhat contentedly, running a hand through his hair. "It sounds crazy, but... I haven't seen you guys in four months, man."

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

She didn't shy away from the touch, no matter how rare or inappropriate it was. The Doctor didn't want that. If anything, he wanted her to lean in, which she did. Just a little. Just enough.

Chronos. Time. He was asking a question that Drusilla didn't know the answer to.

"And what, precisely, is so important about having ginger hair?" she asked, covering uncertainty with amusement. "I like this regeneration. It makes you look rather young. Except for your eyes, of course."

Such eyes. Such old eyes.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"I read a lot," he explained, flippantly. It was an old joke from an old time. He was always older than he said he was, and only Romana knew his exact age. She could always tell. He didn't know how she always knew, but she did.

She leaned into his touch and he closed his eyes, relishing this reunion, just for another moment. How close had they been for so long? How close and yet so very far away?

And she would be here, now. In Taxon. And he would have to fight through his longing for her as well as his longing for his other friends, before he finally got everyone free.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Although she'd disappeared, Drusilla hadn't been able to stray far. She was a naturally selfish creature, like all vampires. She'd given the gift out of the goodness of whatever heart she had left, yes, but, most of all, she'd given it to see the demon's reaction.

When she heard the demon approaching, Drusilla - hugging the shadows, peeping out of an alley way, smiling sweetly - laughed. Softly, softly, but loud enough to betray her presence.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Oh, facts. Drusilla didn't have a great deal of affection for facts. They could be twisted far too easily. She was twisting them right now, for the sake of that smile.

"Jeez," Ty exclaimed, giving Shane the bemused expression of someone who was waiting for the punchline that had to be coming. "This isn't some kind of joke? We've been kidnapped by aliens."

He glanced around.

"Where are the cameras?"

He'd have hoped for a reality TV show. The sort of thing that Drusilla had no interest in, though Spike had enjoyed one or two. As well as his soap operas.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"But not the TARDIS manual."

Another old joke. They were all old. The only jokes worth telling and worth hearing.

Drusilla, who didn't like that sort of fight, could feel his longing. It was as powerful as his loneliness, but sweet instead of bitter. It shimmered in the air. She watched him close his eyes and touched his cheek, feeling it dancing on her tongue. So sad, so old.

He could have had the universe.

"It'll be all right, Doctor."