the tardis ghost

# GHOST IN THE MACHINE. private and selective original character from bbc's doctor who.

exploring non-existence, struggling to be known, being part of something bigger than yourself, not knowing where you end and someone else begins, dedication without reward, eternity

one minute until midnight, new year day.

it wasn't really new year, of course. well, it could always be new year or never be new year if they really wanted it to be. human (or martian or gallifreyan or draconian) dates and times didn't matter in the tardis. time passed differently; slower or faster depending on the angle at which you looked.

regardless, there were now thirty seconds until midnight.

they were in the tardis, parked on the shore of a river on the opposite side of where a big new year celebration was happening. the doors were wide open, allowing the doctor to watch the crowd and autumn to listen to the announcements that were somewhat faint at such a distance. it was how she knew there were now twenty seconds left.

it was déjà vu, in a way. this was far from their first new year celebration. different times and different places -- 2000 was a big one -- but it wasn't exactly novel. except, while autumn might have technically been there all those times, it was as the background. she wasn't part of it. this was their first new year together -- at least, their first in thousands of years, and the first that the doctor would know about.

FIVE

they were sitting on the ground in front of the open door. autumn had her knees pulled to her chest.

FOUR

autumn wasn't sure where the doctor got these year-shaped glasses. the doctor had mentioned a hat as well. autumn assumed she was wearing it.

THREE

she had a bottle of champagne tucked between her legs and aimed at the door. one hand clasped the neck tightly. she had already found the part she was supposed to twist to release the cap.

TWO

the doctor had joined in the chanting. autumn was too focused on everything else to count.

ONE

she knew that the fireworks were coming, yet she clenched her hand tighter around the champagne as they started to whistle in the distance. at the last moment she got too nervous to actually open the bottle, and that anxiety was not helped by the sudden and loud sound of a party horn being blown to her right.

it took a very sharp turn from being totally fine to being completely overwhelming. she shouldn't be here. why was she here? this wasn't for her. not like this, with the doctor. it had been fine before. they were fine and now she'd inserted herself.

the fireworks pounded at her head.

and just like that, the doctor leaning over and giving her a quick kiss on the forehead stopped her spiral. all she had been able to focus on were the loud sounds and the uncomfortable way the glasses rubbed against her nose and her fear that one wrong move would cause the cork to go flying off and destroy something. but those clouds cleared up at the doctor's touch, bringing her back to the present.

autumn blinked, then smiled a bit awkwardly as the doctor leaned away and chattered, making up for the silence of her companion. she reached up to readjust her glasses, then feeling along their rim. it was a weird shape, but she knew it read "2025." her finger came away with some glitter.

“And at church you are..?”

“Quiet.”

“Yes, good.”

Autumn couldn’t help a little smile as her mother smoothed down her dress and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. It was a new dress, pink and yellow, and Autumn was sure it was beautiful. It felt beautiful. She was like a princess, especially with her hair all done up. Maybe she wasn’t as pretty as a princess – somebody would certainly have told her by this point that she was pretty if she actually was – but this had to be close.

𝑨𝑵𝑰𝑴𝑨𝑳: white-tailed deer 𝑪𝑶𝑳𝑶𝑼𝑹: soft yellow (and pink) 𝑺𝑶𝑵𝑮: choker by 21 pilots - i don't bother anyone / never make demands / choking on the circumstance / self-sabotage is a sweet romance / seems like all i'm worth is what i'm able to withstand / sooner i can realize that pain is just a middleman 𝑵𝑼𝑴𝑩𝑬𝑹: three 𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑹: 7:27 a.m. 𝑷𝑳𝑨𝑵𝑻: dandelion 𝑺𝑴𝑬𝑳𝑳: coffee, ocean water, honey, very subtle sweat 𝑪𝑹𝒀𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑳: iolite 𝑺𝑬𝑨𝑺𝑶𝑵: late fall 𝑷𝑳𝑨𝑪𝑬: an island. it doesn't really matter where she is or if she's surrounded by people; at the end of the day she's alone 𝑭𝑬𝑨𝑹: being known 𝑺𝑷𝑶𝑹𝑻: horseback riding 𝑾𝑶𝑹𝑫: absence 𝑬𝑴𝑶𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵: fear 𝑴𝑨𝑮𝑰𝑪𝑨𝑳 𝑨𝑩𝑰𝑳𝑰𝑻𝒀: invisibility 𝑼𝑵𝑰𝑽𝑬𝑹𝑺𝑰𝑻𝒀 𝑺𝑼𝑩𝑱𝑬𝑪𝑻: literature 𝑴𝒀𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑳𝑶𝑮𝑰𝑪𝑨𝑳 𝑪𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑻𝑼𝑹𝑬: glawackus 𝑴𝑨𝑱𝑶𝑹 𝑨𝑹𝑪𝑨𝑵𝑨 𝑻𝑨𝑹𝑶𝑻: death 𝑴𝑰𝑵𝑶𝑹 𝑨𝑹𝑪𝑨𝑵𝑨 𝑻𝑨𝑹𝑶𝑻: eight of swords 𝑳𝑰𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑨𝑹𝒀 𝑮𝑬𝑵𝑹𝑬: magical realism, gothic, techno-horror 𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑹 𝑺𝑰𝑮𝑵: virgo 𝑬𝑳𝑬𝑴𝑬𝑵𝑻: wind 𝑾𝑬𝑨𝑷𝑶𝑵: pepper spray 𝑻𝑯𝑹𝑬𝑬 𝑬𝑴𝑶𝑱𝑰𝑺: 👻🔧💗

rose was sad. noted. " sad? " maybe not sad. that was too broad. she wasn't crying or moping. angry didn't feel right either, because it wasn't like rose was yelling or acting aggressively. a mixture of the two... " disappointed. " yes, that was it! disappointed and frustrated because this investigation was getting nowhere. autumn smiled to herself. she figured it out!

it wasn't like it was really a secret. of course rose was going to feel disappointed, disheartened. they had set out to find the doctor and thus far, despite following the few leads they'd gotten, rose had returned with essentially no information. he was just... gone. frustration was natural. human. that was probably what autumn was feeling, deep down. but her emotions and outlook tended to be distorted; to outside observers, they probably made little sense based on the situation.

she'd been alone. autumn had always been alone, but when there was life in the tardis she could almost trick herself into feeling like she was part of it. there with them, even if they had absolutely no clue she existed. the tardis was grounded on earth for a couple thousand years before rose brought it back from the brink of death. it was true that time passed differently in the tardis, but that was more for its true occupants. not for someone who was so connected with it that she struggled to even think of herself as a separate entity. she felt those moments, those years. it wasn't the first time she'd endured eternity in the abandoned time machine, and it wasn't even the worst it'd been, but it still ate at her.

not that what she felt mattered. what mattered was that rose was disappointed and frustrated and they had yet to even scratch the surface of what was going on.

very rarely did autumn care that much about what the doctor's friends or acquaintances were feeling. it wasn't out of coldness, but the fact that this was the doctor's tardis. it was bonded with him, and autumn was bonded with it, and the tardis's main priority was the doctor. at this point, she usually knew what to do to cheer him up, or at least set up conditions where he was more likely to snap out of whatever mood he was in. if the doctor was happy, autumn was content. she really didn't mind that he didn't know she was the one trying to help, so long as it did help.

autumn felt that same compulsion toward rose, which was very new for her. there were a few factors she internally blamed this on. first, rose had a connection to the tardis. as, essentially, a piece of that tardis, of course autumn cared somewhat for her. second, this whole mission relied on rose's participation. autumn was limited to what could be done inside the tardis. she could fly it places, but she couldn't get out and go ask around, trying to get that information about where the doctor went. so it was selfish. rose was necessary, and it was only smart to keep her in good spirits.

but that wasn't the main reason. the main reason went unacknowledged by autumn, though she felt that tugging in the back of her mind, the tardis needling at her about how she should stop suppressing her thoughts and feelings ( now, whether that was actually the tardis, or just her subconscious which she labeled as the time machine, was debatable ). this was her first time being around rose. being around anyone, except for a very brief period of time at the very beginning of her life. for as long as autumn had been in the tardis, she'd operated in the background. no direct contact, no awareness of her existence. and it was fine. she was fine sitting back and watching the doctor live his lives while she stayed where she'd always been. it was her choice, even, because she'd known for a long while now that time was stable; her admitting that she was there wouldn't destroy the universe. it'd been that way since the end of the time war, but she chose not to approach. why should she? what good would it do? it wasn't like she was a real person.

" you're scared. " the tardis had accused one night, except it was her own voice. it was always her own voice, her own thoughts, even if she gave the tardis the credit. she couldn't deny that it was right. she was scared.

it was weird existing to someone now. interacting with them every day, even if they'd only just recently met. rose was, essentially, the first person autumn had ever met. definitely the first person since she'd become part of the tardis. autumn wasn't sure how to act. there was no denying she was incredibly awkward, even when she felt she was being normal. luckily, rose was much more concerned with the task at hand to seem to care. that was good, someone needed to be. normally autumn would be able to lock onto it, concentrate on just finding the doctor, but her thoughts were consumed with the distraction of actually interacting with someone for once. rose might have noticed how all over the place autumn seemed, but there was no way for her to know how incredibly novel this was for her.

it was inevitable that autumn cared how rose was feeling. she currently made up the entirety of autumn's social network.

chips. rose liked those. autumn remembered listening to her and the doctor talking about it. there was a lot of data autumn had about what rose liked and disliked, though it was analytical; there was no nuance. she'd just heard i like ____ and noted it. someone with an actual personal relationship with rose might be able to differentiate when chips were an appropriate gift, but it was better than nothing.

autumn had a bad tendency to walk extremely quietly. she gave no acknowledgements of the startle she may have caused after standing very close behind rose at the console and saying, " i brought you chips. " hopefully, it was made up for a little by the fact that she did, indeed, have a plate of chips, which she held up at her chest.

" i have no use for money. " the doctor's playful dramatics were in sharp contrast to the blank, neutral expression of autumn. whether she understood that he was being purposefully over-the-top wasn't reflected in her face or tone, and with that same seriousness she placed the shoes in one of the two bins beside her.

the next item was pulled from the pile at her feet that had earlier spilled from the wardrobe. it took a bit of tugging, and even when she held the scarf high in the air, the end of it touched the ground. autumn was extremely aware that this sort of thing -- sorting through the wardrobe to get rid of thousands of years worth of stuff -- wouldn't hold the doctor's attention for very long; not in this incarnation nor any of his past ones. it was also her first time getting to do this. the situation of how much stuff had accumulated in the tardis had been bothering her for centuries at least, but it felt wrong to just throw the clothes out without him knowing (of course, she threw out all sorts of other stuff and didn't feel bad about it, but autumn's reasoning wasn't always very easy to explain). as such, she wasn't about to waste this opportunity while she still did have his attention.

time just needed to right itself. it would, eventually. it always did, when it came to this sort of stuff. the tardis had exploded or been erased from existence or otherwise destroyed countless times; autumn's initial 'erasure from time' simply meant being trapped in the tardis, but since then she'd been literally destroyed and brought back every time the tardis had. her atoms torn apart and reconfigured, over and over and over. it changed her of course -- it had to -- swathes of artron energy sewed into her dna.

and it sucked every time. it took a lot of energy, going from a living (well, 'living' was debatable in a variety of ways) being, to nothing, to back to a living being. for a brief period of time after these sorts of events, the tardis would act a little strangely, as autumn wouldn't be able to do the things she normally did for the time machine. she'd be sick and weak but as the universe worked everything out, she'd start to feel normal again.

so that was why she was sure she'd be okay. or at least, she was trying to convince herself that she would be. except this was different. she hadn't experienced this before. this wasn't a simple destruction of the time machine. it wasn't even multiple versions of the tardis overlapping, which had happened before and just given her an uneasy feeling. no, this was a duplication of the tardis, and all its contents, including her. even if there were alternate universe versions of her (there weren't. the extant's work was pretty thorough), it wasn't the same as having two versions of herself split from the same point in the same universe. even when two or more doctors interacted and she knew she was somewhere in their tardises as well, that was different because those were all from different points of time.

at first she had thought that it was actually perfectly fine. there had been no ill effects of the tardis duplication, at least initially, except a queasy feeling that went away pretty quickly. but after about a day, she found that it really wasn't fine; the doctor would have noticed that, for a few hours, the tardis wasn't acting quite right, requiring more effort on his part to navigate. but it was just a few hours; the overwhelming weakness autumn experienced was transient. it came in waves, except every wave felt stronger and stronger.

at first, autumn being sick just meant that the tardis ran itself, without her additional help. the way it had before she became a part of it; not nearly as smooth or easy, but definitely doable. but soon, as the waves hit, stronger each time, her connection with the tardis meant how she was feeling affected it, too.

this time has been the worst by far. lights went out and the console refused to respond. as soon as the doctor left the main control room to investigate, he found that the rooms got all mixed up, immediately losing the room he'd been in previously.

not that autumn noticed, or could even care, in that moment. she'd been in the library when intense pain and weakness had washed over her again. the tardis was always in her head, she could know everything, but when this sort of thing happened, that connection went dark. she couldn't focus on anything except the pounding headache (that pounding headache sending out strong psychic flairs that confused the tardis and led to all the issues it was experiencing) and the shaking of her limbs. books went flying as she crashed to the ground, curling into a ball as she was unsure whether she would throw up or pass out.

breathing went from rapid to shallow as she laid there. it was difficult to think anything through the pain that pulsed through her body, but suddenly one thought came through clearly. she was going to die. she'd been denying it, trying to think it was alright, but she knew what was causing these issues. her existence at all was a paradox; she was only real in the tardis' unique dimension. and now there were two of her, contradicting the fact that she wasn't actually a person at all. there can't be multiples of things that never existed in the first place.

this wave wouldn't be the one that killed her, but soon. except her being killed by this wasn't 'death' in the normal sense. someone that never lived can't die. time was indeed correcting itself, but as autumn didn't actually exist, it couldn't just correct that little blip. no, it would overcorrect to make up for it, putting the entire universe at risk.