Chapter Text
“My fam.”
The words hung still-heavy in the air of the console room, despite the TARDIS doors being held wide open to the weightless, star-sprinkled void of deep space. Yaz had gone to bed, and Ryan and Graham had gone home. For good.
The Doctor sat with her legs crossed on the threshold of her ship, trying to take comfort in the hum of the engines and the slow, dizzying spin of the universe around them. At least Ryan and Graham were safe, at home, where they wanted to be. They had wanted to leave her, and after the whirlwind of the past couple of whiles she really couldn’t blame them. Running with the Doctor, travelling in the TARDIS, was often dangerous, and whether it was wisdom or luck that made her friends step out in time, they were probably right to do it. This wasn’t the most painful way to lose someone, she knew that well. But it made her want to remember. The two who had just walked out, and the others who came before them.
**
Barbara was the first, she elbowed her way into the Doctor’s life and changed both of their lives forever. For Barbara – all the wonders of the vast, unexplored universe, all of time and space laid down at her feet. For the Doctor – something even more wondrous, something that would stay with her for centuries to come. If it had been only Ian who stumbled into the TARDIS in that London junkyard, they probably would have had an easier time of it – sweet, kind Ian, eager to please, to protect, even when the Doctor had been anything but eager to befriend the humans. But it wasn’t just Ian, it was both of them, and the Doctor, meditatively watching the glow of a distant solar system a billion years from that moment in time, still felt a deep gratitude in her hearts. Barbara challenged her, made an impact so big that the Doctor would spend the rest of Time longing to fill the gap she’d left.
She could imagine them even now – the console room different, the TARDIS younger and pleased with her clean, geometric designs. Late nights like this, at first arguing constantly, Ian playing peacemaker as they shouted at each other about kidnapping (Barbara), breaking-and-entering (Doctor), putting them all in mortal danger (Barbara), annoying her to the point where she would happily embrace death actually (Doctor), well the damage is done now so we’d better find a way to fix this together, hadn’t we (poor Ian). The arguments frequently ended with the Doctor threatening to show Barbara something so incredible she’d have to admit she was happy to be on board and it might even occur to her one of these days to say thanks, and Barbara saying she certainly would not thank an ill-mannered criminal for taking her places she didn’t want to go, no matter how impressive.
Then, arguments that were friendlier in tone, bickering because they’d learned to trust each other but were still used to going from zero to a hundred at the slightest provocation. Then, unexpected moments of gentleness, meeting each other halfway. Then, a certainty they’d trust each other with their lives. Already had, in fact. Many times over.
One night in particular, they’d come back from an eventful dinner (all sorted out in the end and the killer robots switched off, so overall a success) and an exhausted, grumpy Susan and slightly tipsy Ian had headed to their bedrooms already but Barbara still lingered in the console-room.
“Nightcap?” the Doctor offered, already on her way to the TARDIS kitchen.
Barbara looked pleased. “Ooh, yes. Thanks, Doctor.”
When she returned, ice cubes clinking in two old fashioned glasses, Barbara was eyeing the room and the Doctor could tell she had a complaint to make.
“Here you go, my dear.” She handed a glass to Barbara and waited.
“There really ought to be windows here," Barbara said. "I mean, it’s a beautiful night out there. It's a shame we can’t see it.”
The Doctor thought for a moment, then balanced her own glass on the console with misplaced confidence that promised to turn into a whiskey-soaked short-circuit mess. “Just a moment.”
Please, she thought at the TARDIS. Take us somewhere nice. She pictured a supernova, a galaxy spinning in rainbow colours, and pulled the lever, grabbing her glass just in time before the ship lurched into the vortex and brandy sloshed onto the console.
As the engines ground to a gentle halt, the Doctor flicked a switch and the doors started to slide open.
“Where are we now? Are you sure it was a good idea to take off, just when we’d managed to land somewhere relatively safe for once?” Barbara frowned at her – but teasing, not mad.
“We’ll soon see.” The Doctor strolled to the opening doors and peered out. And there it was, space spread out in deep blues and bright greens, stardust and cosmic proportions, all tucked safely behind the TARDIS force field. She heard a squeal behind her.
“Doctor! The doors!”
“It’s perfectly safe, Barbara.” She turned her back to the universe, grinning. “Come and see. The TARDIS will protect us.”
Barbara looked supremely suspicious as she edged towards the doorway, glass in hand. The Doctor sat down, swinging her legs over the threshold into nothing. Barbara’s footsteps behind her halted, she heard a deep breath being drawn, and then Barbara joined her in the doorway.
“I’m going to be sick, Doctor.”
“Oh?”
“It’s so huge.”
“Beautiful, though, isn’t it?” For some reason, this felt like a very important question. She needed Barbara to see beyond the terror of the unimaginable dark depths, to see the beauty and wonder in it all, like she did.
“Yes,” Barbara breathed, carefully setting her glass on the floor and slumping down next to it. “It’s stunning. Oh.”
The Doctor turned to her and saw her lower lip quiver. A tear rolled down Barbara’s cheek, glittered in the low light of the universe, as she stared in front of her, drawing shaky breaths and gripping the threshold between indoors and out there.
“Hey,” the Doctor said softly, and touched her fingertips to Barbara’s bare arm. “We can close the doors if you want.”
“No, I –” Barbara wiped her eyes. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologise. Quite a shock to the system, I’d imagine.”
They sat in silence for a little while longer, then took their glasses, clinked them together, drank. Barbara leaned her head on the Doctor’s shoulder.
“I never thought it’d be like this.” Barbara’s voice was quiet, still a little teary. “I always wondered about the people who were... The First, you know? The first person to discover something, the first man in space. How it would feel to be that. All those stories told about you, your name in books and museums and statues for ever.” She snuck her cold palm into the Doctor’s, and the Doctor squeezed her hand. “And now I’m the first person to see this.”
The Doctor bit back a snark about her being the first human maybe, about this being a reasonably busy part of the galaxy, even though the scale of it all hid the other ships swimming about in the night even now. “So you are, my dear.”
“And no one can know,” Barbara sighed. “No one will dog-ear a page in a textbook and wonder about how it felt, to be here, in this moment. No little girls looking up at the sky and wanting to be the next First.”
“I’ll know." The Doctor squeezed their intertwined hands for emphasis and smiled softly at the universe unfolding in front of them.
“I’ll remember.”