Survivor's Log 10:54 AM (And fic)

[aisalynn]

So... maybe the dramatic goodbye log was premature. I'm still living, haven't fallen asleep yet. I suppose this is a way fanfiction has saved my life. The POD PEOPLE haven't gotten me yet.

Title: Whisper on the Wind
Author: Aisalynn
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairings: Focuses on Ten. Ten/Rose
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for "Journey's End."

 

He could smell the salt on the wind. It was cold; the air blew through the fabric of his suit, bit at the skin of his face and hands. 

Donna would have insisted on wearing her big, fur coat.

He pushed that thought away.

Too much pain, too much sorrow. Even he, a Time Lord, could only take so much.

His feet sunk into the sand as he stood there, hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on the distant hills and cliffs. He could hear seagulls, though the sky was so cloudy that he couldn’t see them.

Normally, he chose his destinations on a whim, letting each passing fancy, or the press of a random button take him some place different, some place new. But coming here was deliberate: chosen after a long, quiet moment thinking, soaking wet from the rain and alone with only the gentle hum of the TARDIS and his regrets for company. And he had been here before.

Darlig Ulv Stranden.

Bad Wolf Bay.

It was at this place, in a parallel world (so far away…and nothing had ever seemed far away for him until she was there, separated from him), he’d said goodbye…twice. It was here he laid to rest (twice) so many plans: dreams of stardust and new worlds, of laughter and curiosity and excitement--all involving the two them, together with eternity at their disposal…It was here that he ripped out his own heart and handed it to a young girl with blonde hair and tears in her eyes.

Twice.

He supposed it was only fitting. He had two hearts after all.

And here he was, sinking into the sand as the tide got higher, feeling the cold wind and remembering the pink tint of her pale skin as she stood here on this beach, hair tangled and whipping about her head as she asked of him--both times--something he just couldn’t do.

But here he could.

Here, where the seagulls cried but could not be seen, where the weather was harsh and the air gritty with sand and salt, where the beach was empty, where--in this universe--the feet of Rose Tyler have never touched… Here he could say it.

“I love you,” he whispered into the wind, letting it swallow the sound of his voice and carry it from him. 

For a moment he let himself imagine it would carry it forever--across time and space, even, he thought, into another universe. So that when she heard the words spoken in the voice of his double, they would echo with his, and she’d know that he meant them too.