Author's Note: Guess who is back?! Yes, I am alive and delivering the promise of more Doctor Who. Life has been crazy as always, I feel like an AO3 author if I were to list everything... However I am here to give this, I might have a sequel already written roughly, do please tell me if you are interested in it! No warnings really, only that this contains spoilers for the actual "The Beast Below" episode, fantastic, everyone should watch it at least twice. I hope you enjoy it. <3
A horse and a man, above, below,
One has a plan but both must go,
Mile after mile, above, beneath,
One has a smile and one has teeth,
Though the man above might say hello,
Expect no love from the beast below.
"The worst thing I'll ever do. I'm going to pass a massive electrical charge through the Star Whale's brain - should knock out its higher functions, leaving it a vegetable. The ship will still fly, but the whale won't feel it."
"That'll be like killing it."
"Look, three options: One, I let the Star Whale continue, in unendurable agony for hundreds more years; Two, I kill everyone on this ship; Three, I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then, I... I find a new name, because I won't be The Doctor anymore."
"There must be something we can do, there must be another way..."
"Nobody talk to me. Nobody—"
There was a violent slam against the console.
"—HUMAN has anything to say to me today!"
You didn't notice that you had automatically flinched before noticing Amy's glance.
You woke up with a jolt, your breathing was laboured, sweat making your pyjama shirt cling to your back, the flannel felt suffocating. Your hair plastered against your skin like a vice.
Breathe in, breathe out... Just like that...
Your heart was racing as if you had run a marathon. It didn't seem to settle, it knew it was in danger and couldn't stop beating. Get out of danger! Get out! It seemed to say. Alongside your beating heart you could hear the TARDIS humming around you. A specific hum that made it feel as if the whole ship was alive. The things it could tell if it could speak. The TARDIS had probably witnessed enough to write multiple memoirs, and none of them would be any less fascinating than the last.
Your heart didn't seem to settle, what was the danger? You were safely inside the TARDIS yet it felt like something had broken the illusion of safety.
Amy was still in the fairytale as you sat opposite of her hours later sipping breakfast tea. Your appetite was gone whilst she ate, enthusiastic about the upcoming day and adventures. Yet you felt none of that, something was still bothering you. Deep down you knew what was wrong, yet you couldn't bring yourself to—
"That's a wee bit weird that you aren't eating"
Your head shot up from staring into the now lukewarm tea.
"One isn't always hungry", you argued back.
"Aye... But ye always are"
"Touché", you sighed and left the kitchen after dumping your tea into the sink, that in itself made Amy Pond's eyebrow almost touch her hairline.
You found yourself heading back to your room, why didn't you go to the console room where the Doctor was?
"Nobody talk to me. Nobody HUMAN has anything to say to me today!"
You shivered. Why did those words ring in your head once again? Why did they bother you so much? He had just been frustrated yesterday, who wouldn't have been?
In your room were a bookshelf, you hadn't had time to explore it as well as one might wish. Now seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. You ran your fingers across the spines of the books. Who even chose these books?
Until your fingers stopped on one. One you hadn't opened in years, maybe never. Yet everyone knew the story. Everyone knew the book.
Something about it was tugging deep in your mind. Open it. Why?
You decided to take it and open it, random passage appeared in front of you, catching your eye.
"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom."
You spoke the words quietly out loud as if saying them too loudly might end the world. Your thoughts returned to yesterday. You knew the Doctor was an alien, bloody hell, he had a time machine! Yet could you ever truly come to understand how his mind worked? Could you ever fathom the knowledge, the pain the—
You were just a human, a mortal who could only learn and live so long. You had come to see yourself as an equal, as if you were on the same line, on the same team. Yet yesterday he had drawn a line.
He had made it clear, he was something more. Something you or Amy could never be.
He had looked frightening, his voice raised and something ancient written all over him. He was dangerous.
An alien trying to reach humanity who possessed godlike abilities. You wanted God to be steady, he was unsteady, which made it all so much more frightening.
You shut the book with a thud and quickly put it back where it had been. Your beating heart suddenly made sense.
Because the thing that frightened you most was not outside the TARDIS at all.
"Amy said you didn't eat breakfast", a voice said from behind.
"Cool thing about beans is that they actually came from—"
"Blimey, something is really wrong
You spun around feeling like a child who had been caught hand in the biscuit jar. When had he gotten here?
He was leaning against your doorframe, hands jammed deep into his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels.
"Which is mental, frankly," the Doctor continued, his hands suddenly flying out of his pockets to gesture wildly. Before it might have been somewhat endearing, now it felt like deflection of the unsaid, a mask.
"Beans! Brilliant things, beans. Did you know they actually came from a planet called Vega-Nine? Well, the ones with the little purple spots that sing when you boil them do, anyway. Earth beans are just... quiet. Boring. Legumes."
The Doctor froze, one hand still raised in the air, pointing at an imaginary bean. His eyes darted to the bookshelf, tracking the missing dust in front of the Bible you had just shoved back into place.
The almost manic energy drained out of him all at once, leaving his face looking impossibly old. No, old was human, this was ancient.
"Right," he muttered, his voice dropping an octave as he lowered his hand.
He cleared his throat, adjusting his bowtie with a sudden, nervous jerk.
"Yes. No beans. Modern history. We can... we can skip modern history today. Definitely."
He took a half-step into your room, his shoes clicking softly on the floorboards, his eyes searching yours with a look that was entirely too heavy for his young face.
"You're doing that thing," he said softly, tilting his head. You swallowed thickly, keeping your eyes on his, it would have felt like an admission of something if you had looked away.
"The breathing thing. Humans do it when they are thinking too much, or running away from something, or... or when they are looking at me. You're looking at me differently."
"We humans have to get air to our lungs to live, breathing is necessary, no need to analyse it", you challenged weakly, now there were two of you dancing around the unsaid.
The Doctor flinched. It was a tiny movement, just a slight tightening around his eyes, but it was there. The word 'human' hung in the air between you.
"Yes," he said, his voice quiet, lacking any of its usual bounce. He looked down at his shoes, shifting his weight. "Lungs. Spongy things. Very efficient for oxygenation. Absolutely necessary."
He let out a short, hollow laugh that didn't reach his eyes. He took another step into the room, his hands sliding back into his pockets, pinning his arms to his sides as if trying to make himself take up less space.
"I say things," he murmured, not looking at you, but at the spine of the Bible on the shelf.
"When I'm... when the sky is falling, and there's no time, and the clock is ticking in my head, I say things. Rude things. Harsh things."
He finally looked up, meeting your eyes again.
"I didn't mean it. Not like that. You and Amy, you are... you are my coordinates. Without you, I'm just a madman drifting in a blue box, making a mess of the galaxy. I need you to talk to me. I need humans to talk to me."
He offered a small, tentative, upside-down sort of smile, hoping it was enough to fix the crack in the room.
"So... please? Talk to me?"
The words seemed to stay between you as you hugged yourself, trying to sort your thoughts. The centuries he had lived, the things he had learned, the things he had witnessed, the things he himself had done... And here he was struggling to bridge the distance?
You wanted to push, to challenge, to argue.
Yet the human in you wanted to comfort him, the absurdity of the idea nearly made you laugh.
"I think I might want some of the... less lively beans. From a can preferably", you finally sighed, exhausted.
"Brilliant! Beans from a can it is!"
The sentence was barely finished before he had already disappeared out of the room.
You watched the doorway for a long moment after he had gone.
The conversation wasn't over.
For now, though, beans would do.
As long as they didn't sing.
