DOCTOR WHO

JUST A SUNSET

WRITTEN BY ZARIUS

The Doctor had listened to what her friends had to say, and she wondered just why fate and time had granted her people who were far too good for her.

She had been quite short with them at the beginning and end of this hectic day, spoon-feeding them only the tiniest hints as to how much she was feeling in regards to her home, and again when she revealed her and anxieties as the net of time tightened around her.

They did not flinch, not once, Yasmin told her off a bit for being cheeky to Ryan, but other than that they were adamant about staying faithful to her.

She wondered if they sometimes likened her to a sunset.

And that's what drove her to think back to a conversation she had earlier.

It was an exchange she had with Ruth Clayton, or rather, the woman who hid behind the guise of Ms. Clayton.

The latest enigma to confound her and leave her with less of a sense of self.

Inside the TARDIS, the two women stared intently at the other, each trying to get a reading of what just what was passing through their heads at this precise moment.

Were it any other time lord, this would be a much simpler process, but no, two hearts, one mind, the same mind, and a choice of words that had haunted her.

You're in my future

Perhaps this strange Doctor was lying. That was, after all, rule one for the pair of them.

Perhaps it was the timeline out of synch.

Perhaps this was a breach from an alternate reality, brought on the cracks in time, all manner of flotsam and jetsam seeping through...but all the cracks had been closed hadn't they?

How could she be from her past? Her TARDIS, her type 40, had already adapted the look of a 60s public call police telephone box, where as when she first departed Gallifrey, it did not adapt that form until she arrived at Totter's Lane with her granddaughter.

Whatever the case, the words gave both of them pause for what amounted to the longest thoughts either had had in a while.

"Homing in near your TARDIS signal, can't get too close, just imagine the temporal feedback loop. I'll drop you by the docks near my flat, how's that?" Ruth offered.

"One of us has to be wrong" said Ruth, hoping The Doctor would see sense and concede that she was in error.

The ship came to a halt with a sudden thud; it had landed back in Gloucester.

""I'd quite like it if you got off my ship now" she said." she said.

"Just one question" The Doctor said as she prepared to leave

"Just the one this time?" asked Ruth.

"Your companion...Lee, he hid with you on Earth from the Judoon, living a happy life, you were married, and you looked pretty happy, he looked after you, and he paid the price for it"

"You don't need to read me his obituary" said Ruth, tutting at The Doctor's temper.

"Did you love him? Truly? Or was that all the chameleon arch?" asked The Doctor, the demeanour of Ruth shifting ever so slightly almost as to verify what she said.

"He was a good man" she said.

The Doctor had seen that said about many a soul, including hers in a few lifetimes, she'd practically wrote the book on how good men are regarded.

"Yeah? Really? Because I reckon he was a great man, he must have been very special to put up with the idea he was in love with just a sunset...bright, full of energy, but could it love him back? Only when it was shrouded in night it seems. If you're somehow me from the past, then take this bit of advice home with you...they'll come a time where you'll find yourself again shrouded, and you'll have another chance at happiness...it won't last long, but maybe you could try not taking it for granted when it's all over, and inquire if those you leave behind made it in life happy and whole in the end"

Ruth opened her TARDIS doors.

"I'll be sure to send your advice to OK magazine, in the meantime, you have my OK to leave" she said.

So The Doctor left, she walked along the docks and pieced together her scattered thoughts, which were barely registering clarity before Ryan and Yasmin found her and told her what Captain Jack Harkness had told them.

This led them all the way back to the TARDIS, back to the here and now, and to the conversation that had just taken place, with the promise made by her mates.

By her family.

"We'll be here, by your side, like it or not...Doctor" Graham said, as humble, genuine, and sincere as he could possibly manage.

The Doctor's angelic eyes lit up at the committed look in his.

If he had ever thought of her as a sunset, she decided right there and then she would do nothing but rise