The Girl Who Lived
Doctor Who/The Blacklist crossover- almcvay1 (concreteredhead)
A/N: I’ve wanted to do a Doctor Who/Blacklist crossover for a while, and then this opportunity presented itself. Implied Lizzington, and kind of sad. Be ye warned.
Raymond Reddington sat in the leather chair and stared at the fire. The tumbler of scotch in his hand was empty and as tempted as he was to pour a little more of the liquid painkiller, he didn’t really want to be bothered. Thoughts of Lizzie consumed him, much like the fire consumed its fuel. Grief was not at all a new emotion for him. He had loved and lost and mourned before. He had an entire life that had been laid to waste, and the hole that had carved inside him had never been filled. Lizzie seemed destined to become another empty space and he wondered if there was even anything left of his heart and soul anymore. He felt…hollow inside.
The grinding, wheezing noise broke the silence with which he had surrounded himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the slow materialization of the blue police phone box. It seemed Dembe would never stop looking out for him, no matter what happened.
The man who came out of the box looked much the same as he always had. But as he came to sit across from him beside the fire, Red noticed the small things. The bowtie was gone, replaced by a cravat. The usual jovial smile was absent, and the solemn expression made Red wonder what he had seen, what happened since the last time. He had always known the Doctor was much older than he appeared; this was the first time he had seen him wear his age so obviously. He was not grieving alone tonight.
“Can you…? You know what, never mind. I already know the answer. I’ve always known the answer.” Red rubbed his eyes, trying to ease the tired, dry feeling.
The man who was called the Doctor smiled ever so slightly. Of all the humans he had known, and he had known quite a few, Raymond Reddington had been one of the few to accept the limits of time travel and the fact that time could not always be re-written.
“I know she was precious to you, Red. I know you loved her. And she loved you. “
“Did she? After everything? I know she said it, but I just can’t stop thinking that I never told her everything. I never explained myself. I hate that she may have left this life never knowing how much I loved her.” The glass in his hand threatened to crack under the force of his fingers. The Doctor reached over and pried it carefully from his grasp. He carried it to the table by the window and poured a healthy measure of the liquor. He sipped it cautiously; this body had never really adjusted to the taste of alcohol. But if ever a night called for a drink, it would be this night. Red had lost his Lizzie, and his own family, the Ponds, now lost somewhere in time, forever out of his reach. The Doctor took another swallow of the liquor and let the burn of scotch merge with the pain of heartache.
The Doctor sat back down across from the heartbroken man he had kept a weather eye on since they met so many years ago. He once thought he had never met anyone with such a genius for trouble as Raymond Reddington, and thus far, he had not been proven wrong. Even Rory the Roman could not equal him in getting into life-threatening scrapes. The thought of Rory made the Doctor wish he had poured some more scotch.
“Who have you lost, Doctor? I can see it on your face, plain as day.”
“My family. Amy and Rory. They’re not dead, exactly, but lost. I lost them. “
“I’m terribly sorry, Doctor. I know your friends are so special to you.”
“I keep losing them, Red. They get lost, or they die or they decide to leave and I wish I could stop…needing them. Every time I tell myself, never again. But I always do, and this always happens.”
“Yes. I tried to tell myself that once as well. In fact, I managed for almost twenty years to keep myself away from her. But then I couldn’t do it anymore, I had to come back, I had to save Lizzie. And then it turns out that I’m the one who doomed her from the start.”
The Doctor nodded in sympathy. Being a time-traveler wasn’t the same as being able to see the future. There were always a million little elements, tiny grains of sand, and by changing one thing, you precipitate the very tragedy you meant to prevent.
He bounced to his feet, extending his hand to Red. He couldn’t save Lizzie Keen. But maybe he could give Red just a little bit of hope.
“Come here, Red. I have something to show you.”
Red found himself pulled into the Tardis. He had been inside once before, but it never failed to amaze him, the sheer size of it.
“I see you’ve redecorated.”
“Yes, a bit,” The Doctor whirled around the central control module, pressing and flipping; Red would never even begin to understand how it all worked.
“I don’t like it.” He allowed a brief smile at the glare the Doctor sent his way. It seemed colder inside than the last time he had seen it. All gray metal and white light. Perhaps it was a reflection of the Doctor at present. Alone and trying desperately to shut off the feelings that were responsible for his pain.
The whooshing, groaning noise was accompanied by a feeling not unlike air turbulence upon landing.
“Where are we, Doctor?”
“Baltimore, Maryland. The fourteenth of April, in the year 2026.”
Red stepped out on to a suburban sidewalk. The street was tidy, lined with trees and generously sized houses with well-kept yards. He followed the Doctor down the street and together they made their way through the hedges to a backyard where a birthday party was in progress. He could see Dembe’s daughter and her husband setting out paper plates and silverware. Samar and Aram emerged from the kitchen door with a cake, topped with ten candles. Seeing them grabbed Red’s heart in a fierce grip, that’s why the date had seemed familiar. Today Agnes would be ten years old. This was her birthday party.
He sank to his knees beside the Doctor, still hidden in the shrubs. His chest ached and his throat burned with unshed tears as he watched Cooper and even Donald Ressler appear with brightly colored gifts. Then he saw her, and if it was possible for time to stop, Red knew that it surely had. Agnes, it had to be her, came around the corner with another girl, Dembe’s granddaughter, only a few years older. She was small, with her mother’s dark hair and porcelain complexion. He watched with tears streaming from his eyes as she greeted her family, for that’s what he saw here, a family. Born from tragedy, but strong and loving.
The Doctor knelt beside him in the grass, watching as the candles were lit and the song, off-key as always, was sung. Agnes smiled and laughed and made her wish, closing her blue eyes. Red felt his heart skip a beat when he saw Lizzie’s eyes in that heart-shaped face. She opened her gifts with the relish of a happy child and Red found himself smiling as he watched her excitement. The last box was bigger than the others, and she had to stand on the bench to open it. Samar opened the card attached to the top of the box and Red strained to hear what she said.
“For a special girl who is ten today. This belonged to your mother and I thought you might like to have it. She loved you very much and I love you too. Happy birthday, love, Red.” Samar’s voice cracked on the last word and they all watched as the wrapping was stripped away.
The music box glowed in the sunlight and Red felt himself go weak, as though even his bones had been dissolved by his grief. It was the music box he had restored for Lizzie so long ago, and was now being given to her daughter. It hurt his heart to see it, to remember how she had wept in his arms that night, but there was the brilliant joy of seeing her child carefully wind it, closing her eyes as the song played for her. There was something here he needed, a feeling that he couldn’t name, but he had it now. It was time to go.
The Doctor was silent as they returned through time and space to the room that still seemed to be filled with sorrow. Red understood now, though. And it was something he had always known.
“You just needed a reminder, Red. It’s all a mixed bag, right? Good parts and bad, but one doesn’t cancel out the other. In fact, you can’t have one without the other. It’s taken me over a thousand years to learn that.”
Red sat once more in the chair by the fire. He could feel the sadness inside of him, but it didn’t seem as cold or painful anymore. It felt like the arms of an old friend, wrapped around his heart. He looked up to see the Doctor smiling at him. He needed to thank him, but the words wouldn’t quite come. But as they looked at each other in the dying firelight, he thought that the Doctor, perhaps, understood what he couldn’t say out loud.
“The ones we love never really leave us. Not as long as we remember them. They live forever.”