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

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

No. Not gone. Not while she lived on in his head. She longed to tilt her head up and kiss his eyes and drink in all the tears he wouldn't let himself shed.

"We have plenty of time, Doctor." Time for him to tell her whatever he wanted and unburden himself as best he could. (A Time Lord couldn't run out of time, although Drusilla could. She wouldn't stop unless she had to. She didn't want to anger the hamsters and lose Miss Edith.)

Her expression encouraged him to share. Romana was strong. Romana could carry the burden as well as the Doctor.

"Tell me what do I need to fix it. It's our duty to repair time as well as preserve it."

[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.

[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?"

[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."

[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.

[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]

"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."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He smiled, despite himself. "Nah, I threw that into a black hole. It disagreed with me." It was the third he'd lost in such a manner. Frequent Otherstide gifts that were never used and rarely opened.

She touched his cheek, and he could feel Romana's hand there. Cool, Gallifreyan skin and slim, slender fingers that had programmed the TARDIS and rewritten universes. Part of his mind acknowledged that this was wrong, that there were reasons he never touched or held Romana like this. They needed to protect themselves, they needed to protect what they had between them.

"It's always all right," he murmured, though he couldn't believe the lie anymore.

Maybe he was stronger, now. Maybe he could hold her now because he could hold himself up, because he knew how to survive such losses. Or maybe he was simply weaker. Whatever the reason, he leaned into her touch.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

"Very responsible, Doctor."

A smile. Like the flicker of a match in a deep black cave.

She left the hand on his cheek. He wanted it there. If nothing else, it would extinguish that little flicker of uncertainty. There wasn't much space between them, but a single pace - small, by both vampire and Time Lady standards - closed it even more. Inches but not feet. She'd never like metric.

"I'll do whatever I can to help you."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

And this was good. It was good to know he had her, right there. He could touch her, now. He could ask her questions and advice, rather than just trying to call up her voice as his own conscience. He needed her and she was there.

In a way, that was so like her, wasn't it? She always said she would be, and he always believed he'd stopped that from ever being true.

"Thank you," he said, smiling very slightly as well. Small movements, small moments in time. A courtship for a Time Lord could take centuries, but in many ways, he felt like he only had minutes.

He leaned in, just a little more, until his lips just brushed hers. Too fast? What was he even doing?

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Oh, bless him. Bless his little hearts and his soft kiss. His lips ghosted over hers - over Romana's - with a tinge of nerves and a tumble of emotion.

She allowed the illusory Time Lady to hesitate, just for a moment. Although she'd been softened by her travels with the Doctor, Romana was still a little stiff and a little proper. If she'd been real, she might have pulled away entirely, but Drusilla couldn't abide such foolishness.

She kissed him back with the lips of a vampire and the soul of a Time Lord.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

There were things he should've been thinking about, of course. He should've been thinking about how wrong it was to kiss Romana, how his hearts would break when they left Taxon again. He should've been thinking about Rose, whom he loved and had constantly lied to since she'd arrived in Taxon. He should've been acknowledging that this couldn't be.

He wasn't, of course. His mind was reeling because he was finally kissing Romana. Hundreds of years of dancing around their emotions and he thought he'd never be here, right here, kissing her. And that, really, was brilliant and deserved his full attention.

He kissed her carefully, gently, as if afraid that he might break this; that the moment the kiss ended, the moment would be over forever. It would, though he had no real way of knowing that as he kissed her.

[a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com]

Drusilla wasn't used to gentle kisses. She'd been kissed with love before, of course, but she'd never experienced such emotion before. If she hadn't been holding the image of Romana in her mind, she might have allowed herself to pretend that it was all for her. She liked the idea of being loved and needed and savoured.

Her hands - her hands? - slid up into his hair. The Doctor thought she would slip away and she would. But not just yet. The vampire was caught in the moment.

[iam-thebadwolf.livejournal.com]

Rose had gotten the Doctor's message to meet him at the work site. She'd struggled with it because a part of her wanted to show him how it felt to be left but then he knew that. It wasn't a lesson she needed to teach him so she sucks up her anger, preparing to lecture him about disappearing on her and heads toward the work site mentally preparing herself for seeing him again.

Only she's not prepared for what she sees. She's not prepared in any way shape or form. It shocks all the breath from her lungs for a moment, possibly an audible gasp. The anger keeps her tears at bay for the moment. When her voice comes it's full of anger, haughtiness and riddled with pain.

"Could just said you don't want to see me anymore, Doctor. Guess she's why you moved out."

She's surprised she can find the strength to stand much less the strength to speak but anger disguised as hurt does a good job of fueling many actions and words.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor hadn't noticed her arrival at first. He was rather wrapped up in kissing the woman that got away, the one who was a huge chunk of his previous lives---but then Rose spoke, and he found himself breaking the kiss to turn and look at her in shock and embarrassment.

"Rose!" he said, gaping a little at her arrival. Wait, he'd asked her to meet him here, hadn't he? He hadn't expected Romana to arrive, and he certainly hadn't expected the conversation to end up, well, the way it had.