Amongst the Stars of Home

Rating: PG, for death of a minor character

Characters: 10th Doctor, Tardis, other background character

Set: Random travelling alone time. No spoilers for anything, well after Waters of Mars

Amongst the Stars of Home

By:ladyravena

I just want to go home, the little boy had told him. Take me home, sir, please?

The child's soot covered face haunted the Doctor as he walked, alone, back to his ship on the edge of the radiation-blasted city. Ancient bombs had blown most of the city to ruins, the once shining blue crystal buildings nothing more than shattered glass underfoot. The destruction had happened long before he arrived, and there was nothing that he could do about it now. The surviving people of this world, whose name he didn't even know, had managed to live in these deplorable conditions for three more generations, until finally, water contamination and food poisoning had killed all but the last few stragglers off.

One child, face covered in soot from the constant ash fall from the skies, had been crying for help from deep within the ruins of a shop. Climbing inside, he had found the child surrounded by the dead, his family or friends or crèche mates. He'd tried to talk to the boy, only to see the light fading even as they talked, the cold green hands barely gripping his anymore. "I just want to go home," the boy whispered brokenly, tears crawling down his sunken face. "Take me home, sir, please?"

He'd promised he would, that it would all be fine, even as the last breath slipped away from the boy.

There was no one else in the area. His sonic should no life forms in the next five miles.

Scans from the Tardis showed no life forms in the city. The boy had been the last.

Just as he was.

Now, after returning from giving the boy a final resting place, he slowly walked into the Tardis, barely moved around the console, just enough to set the ship in motion, just enough to get into the comfort of the Vortex, the only home he had.

"I just wanna go home," he whispered, brokenly, tears running down half dried tracks on his cheeks. The radiation fallout was making him lightheaded, his lungs straining a little to get enough oxygen into his blood stream. There was a deep ache in his bones that he was pretty sure wasn't from not sleeping, either.

He pushed away from the console, and staggered down the hallway in search of the medical bay and a nice, deep healing coma for the light dose of poisoning. He ignored the ship, the central pillar changing its pattern of rising and falling, and the symbols that flowed across the screen on the console.

There wasn't a sedative on the ship that could knock him out, it seemed. Two shots of medicine and the poison was flushed from his system, and he could think clearly again. Two shots of sleeping agents to put him into the healing coma that he needed to heal the damage from this trip and several before it were barely making him drowsy.

He didn't dare try a third dose.

Now, despondent, he dragged himself into the main control room, wondering where the Tardis had parked herself this time. The rotor was still, the screen clear of all her calculations and coordinates and the lights were dim. After punching a few buttons, he realized that the old girl was refusing to give him a preview of what was outside. An image from her slipped into his mind, of long ago and heart breaks away, of a younger, slightly happier Doctor telling Donna, "Maybe your way's best," and opening the doors wide to the outside world.

Eyes watering, he slowly walked down the grated ramp to the large doors. Trembling fingers undid the locks on both sides so he could step back and pull the double doors open together…

…to reveal the glory that was the constellation of Kasterborous, hanging before his eyes.

His legs gave out, dropping him painfully to the grating of the ramp. Half kneeling in the entrance way, he could barely take in the sight before him for the tears that were overflowing and pouring down his cheeks… the familiar patterns, only missing one star in the entirety of the mass of beauty…

"Home," he whispered, in a language he rarely used anymore. "You brought me home."

The Tardis rumbled softly to him, warming the deck beneath his legs, making a pillow from the library slide in between the grates and his shins. She held steady, draining her power reserves slowly, as her Time Lord stared out into the stars and remembered the first time he had looked to that pattern and felt the call of the universe beckoning…

…beckoning him to come and play and explore and see and do, all over and across the stars that were home.