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The Doctor knelt in the long pale grass of the Northern Cassannal plain, trying his very hardest not to let on he was crying. The buffeting wind grew to a roar in his ears, blowing out his jacket behind him, showing the red silk lining like a bleeding heart. A figure lay in the meadow in front of him–a beautiful feminine boy–or maybe a masculine girl– with byronic curly hair, gently bleeding through his shirtsleeves, pooling in the creases of her leather coat.
'It's okay, Doctor,' he said, his voice already faint, ‘you have to remember that this isn't your fault.'
The Doctor looked wretched, holding onto the young woman's hand as though he could hold him back from death by sheer will alone.
‘Oh, of course it's my fault Mihangel, it always is, with these things. If only I’d just left you alone, you would still be fine! You would be at home, safe.' his low voice was choked and more gravelly than usual, the lines on his face deeply furrowed.
‘I would still be working at a newspaper in Cardiff serving coffee, Doctor.' He smiled, pained. The deep red on his shirt darkened. 'Now I have the best story ever. I travelled the stars, saw things no one will ever see again - and I did it with you, Doctor. Even with everything... I'm happy we did this.'
The Doctor smiled a little ruefully, attempting a sardonic laugh that still came out fraught with emotion. They had been so close to getting away unscathed, the battle was almost over, the fighting that the Doctor hated so much, all those people dying, he hadn't meant to even be there—it was almost over. The Valli had been driven back, their ugly red ship was retreating over the sky, when Mihangel had tripped at just the wrong moment, fallen on just the wrong patch of ground, and been shot through the back with a sickly green blade from a last warrior. The Doctor had taken him into the TARDIS, pulling out the blade as quickly as he dared, talking a thousand miles an hour, running through endless lists of cures to whatever it had been poisoned with, he'd cured much worse injuries than this, he was a doctor after all, it was what he was good at-
'Doctor,' Mihangel had said softly, leaning against the bookshelf on the cold console room floor. 'Take me somewhere nice. Let's go somewhere beautiful.' And the Doctor had looked over at the smiling boy, meeting his eyes for the first time in the last five minutes.
And there he saw a dying wish.
And it was beautiful, the Doctor thought ruefully. They'd ended up in the exact same spot about two months in the future, Cassannal's soft greenish grasses already regrown, with their quick growth cycles. They cushioned Mihangel well, the sky a clear light yellow above them. He ran a hand down Mihangel's cheek. She stiltedly raised a hand to cup the side of the Doctor's face, thumbing away a tear.
‘It's okay Doctor’, he repeated, and breathed out. And did not breathe back in. The Doctor let out a muffled keening and bent over beside her, still gripping her hand.
After some interminable period—for what is time to those who are Lords of it—the Doctor stood up. Then looked down at his friend's body still, then gazed over the rolling hills. Fire ecosystem in meadows like these, he thought. He pulled the sonic out of his breast pocket and sparked the ground beside him, lighting the grasses. The flames licked Mihangel's coat. The Doctor turned away, unable to bear looking. He strode calmly towards the TARDIS as the plains behind him spread with fire, coating the ground with rich ash to feed the next season of meadow life. But even the wind and the parching heat of the smoke could not completely dry the tears from his eyes.
It was. Dark. For a very long time, all Mihangel could feel was that it was dark. It wasn’t a void, but it wasn’t a place either. It reminded him of when she had walked into the theatre before the rest of the crew had showed up, and, not know where the light switch was, he had stood in the middle of the stage in the dark, sensing the vast space and at the same time not knowing if she was half a centimetre away from stepping off the stage and into the orchestra pit. She knew there was something else out there but didn’t know what. Didn’t know where the walls were. Trying to call out, he opened his mouth.
‘Hello?’ she had said, trying to speak quietly, voice quivering. It sounded far too loud. For the first time he had realised what the expression ‘swallowed by the dark’ meant–everything felt like a massive gaping hole, like he was inside something slightly alive.
Alive…… wait–I’m–I don’t think I’m alive? Am I? What happened? Didn’t I die?
‘Doctor?’ he tried to call out, gasping more than he meant to.
He was laying in a field. The grass was beautiful and soft, the sky was pale yellow and a tear ran down the Doctor’s long nose–the Doctor!--his… friend? Oh. He’d just called out to the Doctor to help. Wait. No he hadn’t.
‘Yes I have’, she murmured. It was hard to speak. Her mouth felt strange, like her lips were too heavy. Was he remembering something? Where was the Doctor? Where was she, for that matter?
‘Mihangel, I can save you, I can save… you… Mihangel–’
A hand lifted up and brushed a tear off the Doctor’s lips. Wait. That’s my hand.
No it wasn’t? Mihangel looked down at her hands. They looked almost faded, like a photograph on very old paper. But he could still see his hand reaching out for the Doctor’s face.
This isn’t–this isn’t right. How long ago was that?
The moment seemed to stretch on like a fever dream, the smallest of movements whooshing by and yet seeming to take forever, even though Mihangel knew she was standing still. She was laying in a field, the Doctor leaning over her. She was watching the Doctor hunched over her own body, as if watching them through a tiny camera viewfinder. She was standing in a dark room not knowing whether the edge of the stage was right in front of her or five metres to her left. She thought her eyes were still open but she blinked and nothing changed. She might have stood there for years or two minutes, there was no way to tell.
‘Doctor!’ she called out.
She felt it reverberate through the space around her. Then he gasped as he felt the air get knocked out of his lungs–there was a sensation like falling over but she had no point of reference for even which way was up. It felt like he was being wrapped very tightly in fabric, like someone was pulling on her arms and legs. Panicking, she flailed her arms around, and saw her body blur and leave an impression on the emptiness of her surroundings, endless thin layers like oiled paper stacked on top of each other, pieces of film negative held up to the light but the light was coming from inside him, pulsing through his blood–she could see her blood–
He tried to scream but he couldn’t make a noise, the whooshing sensation was growing louder around him, sounding like wind and an electrical buzzing, all building to an awful crescendo as he felt ten thousand versions of himself come peeling away, leaving in the middle, as if trapped between glass.
I’m dying, I’m–I’m dying, I’m going to die here–what?--aren’t I already dead?
--
Mihangel blinked and groaned groggily. The first thing she was aware of was the Doctor’s bony hand around hers.
‘Mihangel!’ said the Doctor, the desperation in his voice barely concealed.
She coughed a bit, tasting some honey-sweet & yet still distinctly medicinal in her mouth. They were in the TARDIS, and there was some kind of contraption made of wires and what looked like a pair of wire rimmed spectacles wrapped around his arm and hand.
‘Wha–I thought–ach!’
The Doctor had squeezed her hand rather forcefully, also grasping her shoulder and holding her as if he was scared she might float away. His pale blue eyes were still watery, his curly grey hair looking more unkempt that usually, as if he’d been running his hand through it to think.
‘Wasn’t I… wasn’t I dying?’ Mihangel took a deep breath, as though he hadn’t felt air in his lungs for a while.
Wait. Hadn’t I? Been breathing?
The Doctor pulled his hand away, moved to look him up and down. There was a long pause. Mihangel inspected the device the Doctor had been building around her arm. A small silver needle under the left eye of the glasses was still oscillating wildly between symbols she didn’t recognise.
The Doctor gave her a piercing look and shrugged slightly, an attempt at being casual that didn’t quite land.
‘Ahh,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. Yes. You were. Some of the time you did seem to be. I thought…’
He was avoiding Mihangel’s eye directly, and she had an odd feeling that he was trying to conceal something, under the layers of confusion and worry. It was awful, seeing him like this, so sad–he was struck by the realisation that he hadn’t really known the Doctor that long. That he’d almost always been, if not cheerful, per say, full of a sort of ‘I can do anything and don’t care who says otherwise’ energy, a barely contained passion. His face may have been made for frowning–as he was doing now– but Mihangel knew he had a beautiful smile.
‘I thought you were dead. The blade –he reached for the silver knife, which even dry had a look of acidity too it–‘only barely missed your major artery. It was almost…’ he trailed off.
The empty battlefield. The spaceship looming above them, casting a shadow. Mihangel took a step without looking, onto a hard shell-like disc–
There’s a blur and he doesn’t. He stumbles a little, narrowly avoiding falling on top of he realised with a chill was a booby trap, maybe a mine. He hurries over to where the Doctor is standing, taking care to watch where she puts her feet.
‘It felt like… it was like waking up from a dream, and only realising that you’d been dreaming because you suddenly knew you’d just forgotten it.’ Mihangel said quietly.
He’s laying in the TARDIS, bleeding from just under her ribs–a sickly green blade the size of the palm of her hand lies discarded on the console room floor. The Doctor is flying around in a panic, grabbing things, waving the sonic around, testing Mihangel’s blood.
He can see himself–his… body–burning. It doesn’t feel like anything, he’s watching it from very far away, a worn film from very long ago. It seems to take a very long time and no time at all, for the fire to burn and spread across the plain, and then to smoulder out. Tiny transparent grass shoots emerge from the depression in the ground where her body was. The sun rose & set again dozens of times.
He blinks and they’re both sitting beside the console. ‘Where to next?’, Mihangel hears herself ask. ‘Somewhere safer, I hope’, she says, trying to sound light-hearted. The Doctor looks at her warily, but still with an touch of affection. ‘Well I will try to be careful, Mihangel,’ he says. There’s a pause. He looks away. ‘I almost lost you.’
‘I almost lost you, too’ Mihangel said.
The Doctor stared at her blankly.
‘Hmm?’
‘Didn’t you just say–’
The Doctor frowned slightly, and seemed to be searching for the polite to say.
Mihangel shook her head. ‘Probably nothing,’ he murmured, and leaned her head on the Doctor’s shoulder. Much to Mihangel’s surprise, the Doctor hesitantly, awkwardly, wrapped his long arms around her, and they sat, breathing in time with the background wheezing of the TARDIS. She closed her eyes & breathed in the smell of her own leather coat with its charity-shop dustiness and the pine-tree scent of the Doctor’s hair.
‘We should get you back home’ the Doctor said gently, but still matter-of-fact.
It’s somewhere between very bright and very dark and I’m still here, I can see myself sitting in the TARDIS but… that’s not… right? I’m sitting in the TARDIS, I know that, but then why does it feel so….. wrong?
Wasn’t I dying? Wasn’t I dead?