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Plunging forward, the ship hurtled through the air, alarms ringing and heat and sound mixing into the horrific sensation of falling, falling—
Lucie Miller was going to die.
Her grip tightened around the controls as she pressed her eyes shut, pushing back the fear with a newfound, wild determination. She was doing this, she was really, really gonna do this. And she wouldn't be afraid, she wouldn't be bloody afraid. A deep breath, and then, with a final grunt of glory, Lucie threw forward her entire weight to the controls, swerving the shuttle to lock course onto the mouth of the Dalek mine below. The ship shuddered beneath her as the energy of her command flamed through it, engines firing up at full impulse ahead.
Time seemed to slow and she watched idly as a little red light in front of her blinked, breathing a sigh of relief at last. It was done. There was only one way now, she told herself calmly, and that way was ahead.
The room, the ship, everything whizzed around her in a dizzying circle. Shutting her eyes in concentration, she tried desperately to keep her hands steady on the controls, determined to keep the ship dead on course till her final moments. She was seconds away from collision, her hair billowing behind her in a scorched mess, tears obscuring what little vision she had left, but she wouldn't wipe them away now, because what would the use of that be? She was done, her purpose served. This was her choice, she told herself, her death. She was going to save the human race.
The thought filled her with warmth and pride, and from somewhere, someplace inside her mind that hadn't been corrupted by all this misery, she found a wave of happiness.
Prouder and braver than she ever thought she could be, Lucie Miller had a smile on her face as she hurtled to her death.
She grimaced as she heard the sound. She was sure this wasn't supposed to happen. Was this some kind of pre-fatal hallucination, where you heard — or thought you were hearing — the things you loved most? Because from somewhere, probably from all that talk about confidence and hope, she'd found herself imagining the sound of the TARDIS. Now, here, of all places, she could've sworn she heard its echo in the burning ship—
"Lucie!"
She gasped as she felt a hand grasp her wrist and spin her around in her seat, and then she came face to face with the Doctor. Here, now, in the dying ship, the Doctor. He'd said her name, and now he said it again, but she couldn't hear.
The Doctor. Lucie felt herself well up with joy and happiness and compassion and, most of all, gratefulness, because the Doctor really had saved her, he'd come for her, hadn't left her to die—
He knelt beside her and hurried to pull her out of her seat, but she found she couldn't even stand. Her vision swam, her entire body wobbly and unsteady, never mind her legs. Her urgency intensified as the heat grew more and more intense — the ship was going to blow any second now, they'd both die—
"Doctor," she whispered, "Doctor, what're ya doing here? I'm supposed to be dead, I'm supposed to be—"
"Shh," said the Doctor, helping her stand. "We don't have much time. Any time at all, in fact — this place is going to go up in a number of seconds. Just lean on me and I'll take you—"
He was saying something now, but she couldn't hear. She couldn't hear anything at all, except the roaring of the flames as they consumed the fiery metal. Alarms blared as the ship's systems declared defeat, the floor quaking; she could feel the explosion brewing in the depths of the ship, mere seconds away. They had to leave, and now, quickly.
She turned round to see the familiar blue of the TARDIS right behind her. Its doors were open, inviting, and best of all barely even two steps away. The Doctor, already inside, reached to pull her through swiftly and she staggered forward, the familiar control room spinning in all directions.
Lucie collapsed as she entered, holding onto one of the walls for support. She slid onto the floor, wincing in pain: her legs were killing her. She never thought she'd see the inside of the TARDIS again, she thought wearily, and ran a hand over its polished panels.
The Doctor, on his feet, had turned and made to slam the door behind them, but before he could, there was a flash of orange and a deep boom that shook the entire ship. Lucie gazed forward, entranced, at the bright orange light of the explosion in front of her, at the heat and the swirling dust of metal—
The explosion that should have killed her.
The entire TARDIS shook and the Doctor was thrown to the floor beside her. She tried to say something but he was too busy with the controls, leaping up to flip switches as the entire room quaked and shuddered with the force of the explosion raging outside its doors. He managed to hit a switch and suddenly, all was still; then, the TARDIS groaned its familiar noise as the ship began to dematerialize.
Lucie sighed and leant back. She was safe now, she knew that noise. They were in flight, away. Nothing to hurt them now.
The Doctor knelt beside her, and she looked up. She'd forgotten how she'd missed him, how she'd missed this room, this ship. This life. He gave her that painfully familiar warm smile and opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off before he could even begin.
"Oh, come here, you!" Lucie practically knocked him over as she leapt forward and pulled him into a hug. He hugged her back, so tightly that it surprised her, and she found herself wondering how long he'd been alone, without her, to miss her so deeply.
"You saved me. S'alright," she muttered tearfully as she buried her head in his shoulder. "S'alright. I'm safe now, Doctor, I'm alive. You did it, you did, you saved good old Lucie Miller so she didn't have to die—"
The Doctor smiled and pulled back, as if taking her in, the very fact that she was before him. "Oh, Lucie, Lucie, Lucie... I missed you." He paused. "Lucie, you don't know... You didn't know... You're safe now. Are you alright?" He hugged her again. "Why are you crying?"
She sniffed back her tears into a laugh. "Why am I crying? Why are you crying?" She chuckled and reached to wipe away the tears. "We thought I was dead, didn't we? I thought, too — I thought for a moment — Lucie Miller—"
"Shh," he said, putting a hand on her back as she shook with the force of her sobs. But she was smiling through her tears. He looked her over again, put one hand around her. "Never again," he said resolutely, but he wasn't even looking at her. He was starting someplace far off, over her shoulder. "Never will I lose someone again."
Lucie could feel the pain in his voice, that note of incomprehensible sadness. So he'd really thought she'd been dead. "Doctor," she said, looking up, "You alright?"
He stared at her for a moment, then pulled back, a note of surprise in his voice. "Me? Lucie, of course I'm alright. Don't worry about me. The question is, are you alright?" He said it lightheartedly, but it hit Lucie hard, what she was asking, because she wasn't sure she had an answer to give.
She paused for a moment, took a deep breath, composed herself. Pushed back the emotion. The answer should have been easy, but there was a kind of pain in her, a sense of wrong that she didn't know how to express.
"I— No, I don't think I am, Doctor," she said slowly. "Thing is... I didn't ask to be saved. I knew I was gonna die, and I went in like that, you know? This is how it was supposed to end." She took a deep breath. "You didn't ask me, Doctor. You didn't let me choose if I wanted to live. You just... saved me."
The room went quiet. The Doctor paused, opened his mouth, then hesitated as if unable to find the words. He seemed rather taken aback by what she'd said, and muttered, "But I thought... I wasn't wrong, was I? I couldn't have been. I thought you wanted to live. Surely... surely... you don't wish you were dead?" He said it with a kind of deadpan finality, as if daring the universe to have her deny it.
Lucie opened her mouth to respond, then shut it. "I— I— Look at me, Doctor!" Her voice shook with emotion as she felt it again, the horror of all that loss and pain. "Look at me! I can't bleedin' walk, I can't see, I'm bloody useless, aren't I?" She shook her head and pressed her eyes shut. "But for one, one beautiful, shining moment, I mattered. I did something, Doctor. And you took that away." She paused to wipe a tear from her eye and turned away.
"Oh, Lucie," whispered the Doctor, coming closer to her, "Lucie, no. My brave, smart Lucie. You've always mattered. You did crash the ship, and you did save the human race, and nothing we do will ever change that. And this, your eye and your legs, we can fix this." He looked at her, willing her to understand. "But Lucie, even if we couldn't, why would it be any different?"
Lucie cast him a sideways glance. "Why wouldn't it? I said I wanted to travel with you again, didn't I? But if I did, I'd have to pretend I was dead, I could never see the people I love again! I'm not stupid, Doctor. I know you messed with time, did somethin' you shouldn't have. I'm supposed to be dead, that's the way it should've gone." She turned to face him. "Sometimes stuff just has to end, Doctor. Sometimes you just have to let go."
There was a brief silence as the weight of what Lucie had just said sunk in, but it only seemed to encourage the Doctor further. He shook his head determinedly, making his way to the console again.
"No. Not now," he said, voice full of determination, of denial. "I can save you, Lucie, and I did! Time will find some way to heal." She raised her eyebrows and he continued, "Time is relative! Lucie Miller is, for all intents and purposes, dead. No one needs to know she really isn't." He was talking to himself, reasoning. "What is death, anyway? Nothing beyond the value that humans place on it. If you pretend you're dead, Lucie — like you said before — no contact with relatives, anything — it should work. Yes, it really should work."
Despite herself, Lucie smiled. This was the Doctor she'd always known, trying to fix things even if there was no right way. "But it's... it's not fair, Doctor," she told him. "That's not the way things go. I shouldn't, I know I shouldn't." Lucie hesitated when she said it, because of course she did want to live, but it was true. Not only would time be damaged, but...
"Wait," she said suddenly. "Doctor, how do we know that that's the way it even really happened?" He gave her a curious look, and she tried to explain. "I mean, you saw the ship, my ship I was on, and then, I'm assumin', it crashed and there was a great big boom, right? And you all thought I must've died." He nodded, and she continued excitedly. "But how do we know that you didn't save me, then? You could've always saved me. It doesn't change anything, me not dying!"
The Doctor gave her a small smile. "Well, that's what I thought, too. It's certainly another possibility. Maybe we aren't changing time at all, and this is the way it's supposed to go."
Lucie perked up at that. If she didn't have to be dead, then, well...
"I meant what I said, you know. I really do forgive you. And I guess... If it won't mess up time too much..."
"You want to come with me?" He smiled.
"Well... If it wouldn't be too much trouble. What with being technically dead and all that."
The Doctor laughed. "You do want to come. But what if..." He paused. "What if I don't want you to travel with me anymore, Lucie Miller?"
Lucie grinned then paused, her expression shifting as she recognized the words, remembering what she'd said all that time ago. And he'd remembered too. How had he remembered? How many times had he listened to her say that, before he'd decided to go back, breaking the laws of time to save her? Just so that conversation could be real? And just like that, Lucie knew what she was going to do.
She stood herself up and gave him a kick in the shins.
"Ow!"
"I'll take that as a yes, then, shall I?" she asked, right on cue. And then the Doctor laughed, and Lucie laughed with him, and so their adventure began.
Maybe that's how it'll go.
That's how it did go, thought Lucie. She, Lucie Miller, was alive, very much so, because the Doctor had saved her. She wasn't supposed to be, but there it was. That was the thing about knowing someone like him. Wherever you were, no matter what time or what day or even where in the bloody universe — he'd always look out for you. He was mostly good, and he really did try to be, which was what mattered. And though she'd never admit it, he meant the world to her. Whatever this had caused, whatever their time together would cost them, they'd deal with it. Chaos, the world, the repercussions of cheating death — all in good time. All in good time.