But Not Every Day
"Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day." – River Song, "Forest of the Dead"
When Miss Evangelista dies, she feels it for a second.
The pain is instantaneous, ripping through her muscle and tissue and meat and she just screams before it's all silence and dark lights and the quiet. The wonderful, horrible quiet that beckons to her, drawing her in for an instant. It's like sleep and awakening all at the same time for that single moment.
Then she suddenly appears in the middle of a street, the orange glow of a streetlamp behind her.
She's dressed from head to toe in black, a black dress swamping her form. It's like the most gothic form of a wedding dress she's ever seen, darker than the dress that Melissa Majora wore in her wedding to that Plasmavore wannabe that she read in last month's copy of West Quadrant Dreams Monthly.
She can barely see out of the thick black veil - but when she moves off down the street, the lights from other houses making the rainwater in the gutter shine like oil rainbows, she stops in front of a shop. It's some random bookshop in the high street, old paperbacks lining the shop front, but her attention's drawn to the fact that the shiny glass can let her see it for the first time.
No one's around, not at this time of night, so she lifts up her veil and finds her face in the shiny reflection of the glass. It's like something from the horror movies she used to download off the Data Cortex back home. She and her friends used to sit in her room, sipping on the latest flavour of a jumbo-sized Slushon Max, and screaming in a macabre delight when some twenty-first century girl got stabbed from behind or hacked the deformed killer to death.
She looks like the mutants from "The Hills Have Eyes", the Ghost in "Last Revenge" and Samara combined. She tries desperately try to cry, but she can't. Her mind overtakes her emotions and she starts to realise that she has work to be done.
And then she blips onto a street, right underneath a house where a young woman with red hair is looking at her, looking after Miss Evangelista as if she's some sort of angel or a vision from her past, like a plot in some Agatha Christie novel. Then Miss Evangelista recognises her - the nice woman from the Library.
Donna Noble looks down at her and Miss Evangelista smiles behind her veil.
---
She tells Donna Noble to start believing in the real world, the real life outside of this girl's dreams and her fantasies for everyone to live happily ever after.
The last thing she knows, when the strange white light comes, is that maybe her penance for a life not well lived is over. She's leaving purgatory and entering something else.
So when she awakens in a stately home, underneath clean white linen sheets, she thinks that she's finally awoken - that something must have happened. She must have been involved in an accident, probably while Reiko or Katie was busy driving the grav-cars, after a night at some club, and they got in a crash.
Everything, the adventure and journey from home to the strange Library, with Mr. Lux and River and the crew she knew never liked her; all of it must have been the strangest dream, the result of her mental processes and her conscious part of her mind resulting in creating this fantasy in order to stay both active and sane.
But then she realises, that everything is real. She died, and came back, and this is some sort of heaven. A personal piece of an unaltering permenant haven, a sanctuary.
And the reason she knows all this is that Charlotte Abigail Lux comes to her and tells her it.
---
River Song arrives after Miss Evangelista's seen that the others are here. She emerges from her room, dressed in a white blouse and faded jeans that feel wonderfully worn and perfect to her - so far from the rich clothes she used to wear, where Daddy used to pay for anything she'd been seen in once and tossed it to the United Charities afterwards, no matter how much she liked it.
She still can't get used to seeing her face - her non-corrupted, original face - smiling back at her in the mirror in her room. She plays with her hair, finding a tortoiseshell comb in the drawer of the large wooden desk and ties her hair up with it.
She finds Anita and Proper Dave playing snooker in the games room, both of them laughing and shoving each other playfully while Susie and the Storm plays on what she considers to be an incredibly old jukebox, which she knows is called a Wurtlizer. What she doesn't expect is for Anita to hug her like she's her sister and for Proper Dave to kiss her on her cheek like an affectionate older brother, before potting the blue ball into the corner pocket.
Charlotte is busy with Doctor Moon, dealing with something, so Miss Evangelista decides to find out where everything is. She passes the kitchen, an actual kitchen without food-droids or Replicator 2000's, finds the indoor swimming pool, and surveys the gardens from the relative safety of the oversized porch.
It's raining, typical British rain, and she sits down on the marble bench underneath the porch covering, next to Other Dave who gives her a huge grin and hugs her to him.
"I'm so glad you're here." He says, murmuring the words softly against her dark hair as they watch the rain splatter heavily and incessantly against the grass.
She shivers, partly due to the fact that Other Dave is holding her close and partly due to the fact that whenever it rains, it tends to be cold. Other Dave leaves her for a moment, shrugging off his jacket and leaving him in just a shirt and Miss Evangelista's arms encased in a warm leather jacket that smells of oak and lemon and earth.
When River comes, it's a warm day, and everyone hugs her, delighted that she's here. Miss Evangelista walks back to the house after a beat, bare feet cold against the stone. They eat a dinner that Proper Dave cooks; it's just spaghetti and meatballs, but it's made, not bought, and Miss Evangelista feels a large delight when Anita leans over her shoulder and asks her to help with the sauce.
---
The life afterwards is strange. None of them want to move; remaining together in the mansion is fine, it's fantastic, and Miss Evangelista starts doing things she thought she'd never do. Like becoming Anita's best friend, spending hours with the woman. They swap activities - Anita teaches her how to kayak on the river next to the mansion, while Miss Evangelista does her nails and curls her hair.
One night, when they're watching some old black-and-white movie that's on the TV in Anita's room and there's a couple of pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream between them, Anita turns to her and tells her that she and Proper Dave have been seeing each other. Miss Evangelista smiles, nods and then gives her best friend a quick one-armed hug before spooning out another mouthful of Chunky Monkey and tugging with her dreadlocks with Anita had done for her.
She and Proper Dave learn to cook - she can bake, barely, from her childhood days, and he knows how to make a hell of a mean fettucini when he wants to. They laugh and play and Miss Evangelista teaches him how to dance for when he and Anita can slow dance.
One time, the five of them go out on the town, seeing dozens of people lining the streets, waiting for some club or other. They get to the front of the line easily, Miss Evangelista, River and Anita flirting with the heavy bouncer. The drinks are half price and the music isn't terrible and Miss Evangelista finds herself having fun, reminding her when she used to do this.
Back in her old life. Her real life.
She sits at a bar stool, absent mindedly sipping at her retro-style Cosmopolitan and watching as River flirts openly with a couple when she feels a pair of hands at her back.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Other Dave sits down next to her, long legs stretched out in front of him as he sips from his bottle of Bad Wolf Beer.
"Nothing. Just remembering." She tells him truthfully, slipping her feet out of her high heels, the hem of her slightly ruffled dress no higher than just above her knees but short enough that the general male populace's eyes were sliding up her legs to beyond.
"Remembering what?"
"Doing stuff like this when I was a kid. Sneaking into clubs, getting guys to buy me drinks because my I.D. told them how old I really was. Waking up the next day with a hangover the size of the Shadow Proclamation."
Other Dave laughs, watching as she scrunches her feet up and then slides them back into her heels. He stands, offering her his arm as she takes her drink. She giggles, sliding her arm through his, as they move off through the crowd.
---
She learns how to play the piano, learns from River who teaches her along with Josh and Ella. She learns the basics, before moving onto Fiona Apple and everything Coldplay did. She learns Ludovico Einaudi and First Joy and The Artist Formerly Known As Sparky McGinnis.
One night, after a dinner of a traditional chicken casserole, she plays "Extraordinary Machine" and is surprised to hear herself singing it. River, Josh and Ella all start to sing along while Anita and Proper Dave kiss in a corner. Other Dave sits beside her on the piano bench and grins, singing along with the words in the book. Charlotte giggles, playing 'I-spy' with Ella, while Josh lays asleep on River's lap. Dr. Moon watches from a corner, smiling at ease.
Later that night, she's still awake - because she can sleep in tomorrow after all - reading some pulp novel she's never heard of but is finding the most amazing, addictive read. The door opens and Other Dave steps in, closing it behind her. She dog-ears the page, noticing that he's bare-chested and looks...amazing.
The rain is back again, this time accompanied by thunder and lightning, causing her to close the window. He sits with her on the bed and they talk. She pulls the curtains, just so she can see the wind slamming into the trees gently and that's when he kisses her soundly on the lips.
She kisses him back, hands moving from the hard pecs to the smooth, mocha-coloured skin and the dark hair that curls ever so slightly at the base of his neck. His hands move along the tank top she's wearing and then peel away her top in a reverent delight as the storm continues.
---
In the early hours of the morning, the storm's subsided and Miss Evangelista dresses in her tank top and pajama pants and sneaks down to the ground floor, only a kimono dressing gown around her for warmth in the cold day. She watches as the sun starts to rise, clouds as light as candy floss moving across the sky.
She smiles, moving across the small practising room they've set up for her. Her hair's pulled back in a loose ponytail and she sits cross legged on the spacious stool and starts to play quietly, not wanting to wake the others. It's River's turn in the kitchen, and she's going to make scrambled eggs. She always does.
Miss Evangelista plays, not feeling the warmth slowly heating across her back, and when she stops, she almost jumps when she feels the strong arms sliding around her small waist and realises that Other Dave - Dave, she's his and he's hers - has been sat there for god knows how long. She's practically sitting in his lap - and does so when he grins, pulling her flush against him.
She tucks deep into him, snuggling against him for warmth and love and so much more. He kisses her sweetly, sincerely and deeply and Miss Evangelista recalls something River once read from her battered blue diary, when the children are asleep and memories are fond and clear like morning.
"Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not this day. Everybody lives."
Everybody lives.
Especially, Miss Evangelista muses, her.
Fin.