The Man Above

The hand on her shoulder made her stop.

Brooke let out a breath, pushed her hair back from her face, and wiped the blue blood off onto her trousers. The knife was sheathed, and then she looked up at gave her dad an easy smile.

“Good,” she murmured. She looked around, worried there were more about. But then, they would have come out by now.

She switched her torch on again and started down the next corridor, ducking under a thick web, squinting in the light.

His head hit some low hanging moss. Icy waterdroplets slithered down his neck from it, down his neck and underneath his shirt. The Doctor shivered and kept his screwdriver out and at the ready.

At the question, he looked up at the strange, trapezoidal ceiling and around. There were hallways branching off this way and that, and, at a loss for where to go next, he snapped out his sonic and gave the area a scan.

A little beep, and he pointed toward the corridor to their left.

“This way, I think.”

Then, a pause as he considered her question. The Doctor frowned. “The tomb? I don’t know. It seems rather large.” He bounced a little as he walked, looking over at Brooke as a rather wonderful thought occurred to him. “--We’ll know when we find wherever we’re going, eh?” 

So many nights she had hoped for a visit, hoped for the attention and distraction from him to release some of the tension and pain building up inside of her. So many nights she had stared at those very stars, praying to gods she didn’t believe in that she could get even a glimpse of him to know that he still cared about her or how she was doing after so severe a loss.

And now he was here when she finally stopped hoping. When it was when and how he wanted.

But it was always about what he wanted, wasn’t it? Always about what was best for him, about getting him on the right path and moving forward, damn whoever fell along the way. It didn’t matter what she wanted or needed, it never did.

Unfortunately, if he was as young as she believed, then her actions today could affect how he treated the past her, and the last thing she needed was to be the cause of her own pain.

Apparently she wasn’t quite done pretending just yet.

He would make her need him. She would never leave, not like the others. He wouldn’t LET her.

He saw the reluctance; he saw the exact moment she gave in. The moment she did, a smile spread across his face, ear- to-ear-- that stupid, childish grin that he knew she couldn’t resist for the life of her, and he offered his arm.

“Well then, Professor Song, we best be on our way.”

Oh, she was making this too easy. 

As he walked on gangly, spindly legs to the blue box lying in wait on the hill, he said to her, voice silken and spider-soft:

“Find them?” She cocked her head, intrigued, confused and intrigued that a person who lived here, seemed to live, seemed to know it so well, would still have to find things. It all sounded very mystical, very magical, like things she had read in books, things she had read in books and short stories and tales and sometimes even on television. When the television had worked. When the programmes weren’t blocked. 

“A library sounds very nice, very wonderful,” She told him with a smile, “Our library…that is the library in our town is very small, and the books…there is not much choice. Things are…forbidden…prohibited?” Genie looked at the Doctor hopefully, thinking perhaps this library, a library here, would have more things…things that would not be prohibited  “Where is the library?”

He started down the hall, form perkier, straighter somehow than it had been even a few hours before. There was something to be said for finding a new friend. Finding new friends made the whole world bigger and brighter, it opened up possibilities. Finding new friends shaved hundreds of years off of even the most ragged and ravaged of souls.

“Prohibited?” He looked back at her, over his shoulder, the skin where his eyebrows really should have been rising slightly. “--Everything’s allowed here. Well,” a pause to correct himself, “Not quite everything. Being boring is prohibited and so are endings. I. Hate. Endings. And boringers. The blue boringers. Never push them.” 

The library was normally only a hop and a skip away from where they were, but the TARDIS had sensed his excitement and shortened it to just a hop. They came to the door, and the Doctor stopped at it, his hands covering the doorknob, twitching slightly in excitement as he looked back at Genevieve.

“This library. It’s got whatever book you’re looking for, any time, any you want.”

He turned the knob, threw the door open, and beyond it stretched the library, a city, a cavern, books and books and books stretching up and out in all directions on shelves and piled in corners. He so liked the library in Glasgow and he supposed the TARDIS had modeled hers to look very like it. 

“Pretend like that. Pretend you’re just this adorable, happy-go-lucky man when you’re just a killer,” she hissed. 

The question, Azmael’s question-- no, Brooke’s question, was clear and sharp and quick as a knife and as slow burning as acid. The Doctor pulled back from her a little, surveying her. Watching.

That old chest of his rose and fell, and he felt his heartbeats slow just a little bit.

Why else would she have been the center of so much destruction as she had been since she left him?

Of course she would never tell him exactly what it was that bothered her, nor let him see too much of it, even if she didn’t feel like hiding everything. Some deep part of her wanted to keep their relationship as it was, though all the good parts of it were now only memories.

Oh, that would not do.

There was a split second, a second where anger flickered past the carefully crafted puppy-dog act he was wearing. But, as soon as it was there it was gone, tucked away. He could be angry with her later, show her just how much she needed him. 

She was nothing without him! She wouldn’t exist without him!

“I want to be with you now,” he whined. “We could go back to the TARDIS. Do the-- the you know what?” Those nonexistent eyebrows waggled. Ever the flamboyant child. 

But then the doctor spoke, spoke loudly, and she jumped, retracting her hand, looking at him, worried she had done something wrong, that she was not meant to touch. Micha always hated when things were touched that were valuable or highly prized, had status or importance. Don’t touch them, Genie, darling, you know how easily these things break, and you know you’d just feel terrible, darling. 

But then she realised he was only answering her question. “Oh! I see! I understand!” She nodded, smiling, relieved, “But it still sounds very bewildering…so very different! To have…to be friends…for this…for it to be a living thing and not a thing-thing!” 

She pointed to the stars above, “How…..are they there? How are they inside? Are there others things like this?” She pointed again, gesturing, looking at him with a curiosity filled with enthusiasm, filled with excitement, “Things that I can see?”

He was done picking up humans. Done breaking things. He had to remember that.

But she was so excitable!

“It is very different! But a good different!” The smile on his face was huge. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to show her the world, how everything worked. 

At her question, he looked up and that smile got wider. “It’s a projection. A picture...but with light.” A pause, then. “The whole TARDIS is full of things like this! We just have to find them.” The Doctor looked around, looked at the door, then back at her. “You like books, yeah? How does a library sound?” 

But it seemed to be the only way the two of them could talk without talking, that they could hide how they truly felt about the actual discussion at hand.

It was awful and River hated it, but there was no way that River could tell him that she had thought about children before, that the image of their children had crossed her mind. Yes, it was impossible, she knew that, but it didn’t stop her.

Only his words stating that he had absolutely no desire to have them made all of those images immediately cease and die in her mind. His words and actions always were the best way to control how she was with and around him.

She ran a hand soothingly over the console as she finally closed the distance between the two of them, one of her hands covering his own and her eyes focused on it.

“Let’s go get some tea, sweetie. I think we’ve done enough to her for a little while. We can come back to finish the work later.”

God he missed his granddaughter. 

The TARDIS was a mess of angry humming, and he shushed her, ran his hand over the console. When he looked up, River was there, and she was touching his hand.

He heaved a breath, letting the tension walk out of his body.

“Tea. Tea is a good idea.”

She couldn’t stay with him, she just couldn’t. If she did, it was undoubtable that soon enough he’d find out that he didn’t care for her, he just cared for the bit of her she allowed him to see – the tiny fraction of her personality that was mostly behaved. He would leave her, and she’d be more alone than she’d ever been.

The last time she was that alone and afraid, she had managed to wipe it from her memory, this time she wouldn’t have that same fortune. And she wasn’t sure that she could handle it.

So she had to stay away, she couldn’t stay with him for a long period of time, even if sometimes that was all she truly wanted. Just her, the Doctor, and the TARDIS, going absolutely anywhere and when they wanted.

She flinched lightly as he grabbed her hands, staring at him for a moment as he continued to plead. Then finally, with a short breath and giving his hands a light squeeze, she spoke.

“It’s because I love you so much that I can’t stay. You might never believe me, but I promise you, it’s for our sakes.”

Except, maybe she didn’t need him. Maybe no one did, really. Amy had chosen to be with Rory rather than to come back into the TARDIS. Martha had left. Rose had his twin, his clone. Sarah Jane had her life. Romana had had hers. Nobody needed him. Not really. He just whizzed into people’s lives and uprooted them. He broke things.

He thought, of all people, River might need him. But no, she didn’t. Not in the end.

In the end, it was just him and his box and the Universe, and he  was getting so, so old.

“It’s not for our sake,” he said, voice gone flat, “It’s for your sake and you know it.”

He was the one who could understand her more than anyone else she had met, even if it wasn’t completely so. The selfish part of her never wanted to lose that.

Her eyes moved down to his hand as he gently touched her skin, her breath catching as his fingers glided over her skin. She could feel the pulse of her double heartbeat under his touch, just as he could likely feel the rate that it had increased since he had first touched her.

From time to time, she glanced up at him, a light smile on her face as he continued to touch her. Her eyes fluttered shut at the light kiss to her shoulder, tilting her head away ever so slightly to give him more room to move. The smallest of moans left her lips as she felt the gentle tug of his fingers in her hair, swallowing and moving her hands to his chest, her fingers gently gripping into his coat.

“I see,” she whispered, slowly blinking her eyes open, staring at the roof above them and the patterns of shadows the fire had left upon it. If they were to be as close as he said, it would be difficult to hide the similar shadows she knew lingered in her heart and mind. She knew she could manage, but it would still be rough.

One hand covered the fingers so latched onto his coat, loosening them gently, holding her hand in his. His thumb brushed over her knuckles, moved to her pulse point, felt her double heartbeat once more beneath his fingertips. His other hand stroked through her hair.

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, his eyes sparkling, almost shining as she gave him the greenlight. He loved her so much, this kindred, bespoke soul of his. 

Leaning forward, he brushed his nose against hers, touched her forehead to his, breathed her breath into his lungs, and kissed her.