Title: Every Star, Every Warren

Rating: T

Summary: "What sort of name is 'Doctor'?" "What sort of name is E. Aster Bunnymund?"

Warning: FEELS, two eccentric sassy time travelers, movie!Bunny with Book!Bunny background, post TATM in the last part Whovians you have been warned.

Done for believethebunny on Tumblr. Hope you enjoy~

Welp, this is the result of listening to the Doctor Who soundtracks nonstop. I decided to use Eleven because his character is similar to Bunny. Also, he still writes a Christmas list and has even partied with Santa Claus. How can he not be the perfect candidate?

XXX

For the record, the Doctor wasn't really sure what compelled him to jump down the giant rabbit hole in the ground. He had just dropped off the Ponds after they had prevented the assassination of Queen Victoria V in the year 2968 and had decided to have a bit of a lark in the 15th century, the time of the Cossacks, maybe decorate a Faberge Egg or two.

He had wanted to go to Russia, but the TARDIS had other ideas. In other words, right time period, wrong location.

"Really?" he shouted to the sky as he burst out of the blue police box only to be faced with a balmy spring day. "Honestly Sexy," he remarked offhandedly, "can you for once take me where I want to go? Or at least give me a notice? 'Hey, I'm about to land in a warm climate, don't wear your stuffy coat and fuzzy hat'. Is that too much to ask?"

After carelessly tossing his winter gear back inside, he ventured forth into the grassy knoll, breathing in the crisp air and savoring the warmth of the sun. Ah yes, it reminded him of the time when he had travelled to the planet of Jardinia, a truly spectacular floral paradise.

Granted, it had been infested with Miterims, poisonous monsters that resembled chemically enhanced locusts, but still.

Whipping out his sonic screwdriver he did a quick scan of the landscape and deemed it safe, grinning with unabashed joy as he let his guard down for the first time in a very long while. But he didn't understand—why did the TARDIS take him here, where there was no apparent danger?

The answer came to him as he almost fell into a gaping hole smack-dab in the middle of field.

"Whoa!" he gasped. "Well…this is new," he bemusedly intoned, pointing his sonic. "You don't set off my sonic but you're a bit of an anomaly aren't you…a big hole right in the middle of a lovely field…hm, unusual, wouldn't you agree? Unless of course, this is a rabbit hole." That thought made him pause briefly. "But what kind of rabbit would require a hole of that size?"

A daring thought flickers into his mind, and a mad grin spreads over his face. "Let's find out, shall we?"

Letting out a breathless laugh as he bounded towards the edge of the hole, he didn't even turn around as he locked the TARDIS. Peering into the unknown, the Doctor eventually grew tired of waiting. After all, why wait when something new was just down the hole? The Doctor leapt into the tunnel, and as he disappeared into the waiting darkness, he yelled out one more thing:

"GERONIMOOOOOO!"

EVERYONE NEEDS A GUARDIAN

"Whooooooaaaaaaooooooh!" Soaring out of the tunnel and rising a good two feet in the air, the first thing that came to the Doctor's mind as he looked around the new destination was green before he landed flat on his back on a worn path.

"Gah," his face briefly flickered with pain before he patted his entire body to make sure he had all his limbs. "Hah, brilliant. Up we go!" Jumping to his feet, he looked about him with the unbridled joy of a kid whose birthday had come early.

He was on an island. The bright blue waves lapped gently against the shore as he awkwardly sifted through the sand to reach a dirt path further ahead. All around the path spring flowers and fresh young greens beckoned to him, a purple willow tree reaching down to brush against his hair. Spinning in a circle to take it all in, the wild beauty of the island prevented him from realizing where he was going until he stumbled into a stone circle of…eggs?

"Well this is new," he commented stepping closer to get a better look.

A grating noise stopped him in his tracks as the statutes whirled around simultaneously to face him, fearsome expressions on their round visages.

Stumbling back in shock, the Doctor could only let out a spluttered "Wh-what the—!" before he felt the tip of a spear poking his back. "Whoa!" Whipping about to face the assailant, he came face to face with…a group of moving eggs with spears.

"And…who…are…you?" one of the eggs aimed his spear at the pulled out sonic. "Oi, there's no need for that! Well, you're certainly alive, but you're eggs! Moving eggs. With spears and legs. And a temper," hastily putting up his hands when they all pointed their spears at him, he wracked his brain. "Judging by the oxygen type I'd say this is still Earth, but the climate is unlike any I've seen. Wait, could it be Austr—?"

"Blast! I thought I closed that tunnel!" a voice called out from the distance.

Looking up, the Doctor perceived a giant figure swathed in green robes and holding a staff…were those rabbit ears? As the figure appeared to vanish and reappear right in front of him, the Doctor could only gape.

Holy Galifrey, it was a giant rabbit. With dark tinted glasses. And an English accent. And an egg-tipped staff.

"I am E. Aster Bunnymund, ruler of Easter Island and chocolate maker extraordinaire. I have been expecting you…the strange man in a blue box, although the box is nowhere to be found. Strange."

Completely flabbergasted, the Doctor quickly regained his wits. "You've…been expecting me?"

"Naturally, it was written in the second volume of Beyond the Great Beyond. Or was it the sixth? I can never be sure. Now, state yourself promptly or I'll have the eggs run you off."

"I'm the Doctor."

The bunny harrumphed. "What sort of name is 'Doctor'?"

Said time lord looked at him incredulously, "What sort of name is E. Aster Bunnymund?"

"A good one," the other retorted. "Would you mind telling me why you foolishly jumped down the tunnel that I forgot to close?"

"Sorry 'bout that. Once I saw the hole my brain just went 'what the hell'," he grinned and threw up his hands but lowered them at Bunnymund's not-amused face. "Oh fine, only if your little egglets stop poking me with their spears."

Bunnymund waved a hand and the little eggs obliged.

"Right, well, after I dropped off the Ponds after they helped me with—"

"Ponds?"

"Amy and Rory. Lovely people but they're extremely stubborn. Anyway, they helped me prevent the assassination of Queen Victoria V in—"

"Queen Victoria V? The first one hasn't even been born yet!"

"If you would let me talk you would have heard me say—wait." Eyebrows furrowing, the Doctor stepped closer to the rabbit, standing almost eye-to-eye. "How do you know there's going to be a Queen Victoria?"

"My dear sir I am a Pooka," Bunnymund looked affronted. "We are time-travelers by nature and training."

Light blue eyes grew the size of dinner plates as the Doctor's mind whizzed at the speed of sound. "Oh. Oh. OH!" Spinning about in a quick circle on the spot he scanned the shocked rabbit, laughing in glee at the results. "You are! You are one! A Pooka! I read about you when I was just a boy on Galifrey!"

"…Galifrey?"

"Home planet."

"Does that mean you're a—"

"Time lord! Yes! You know about me! I cannot believe it! A Pooka! Wow," he chuckled; "I thought that the Pooka brotherhood had been…" he trailed off as he looked around the lonely oasis and at the silent Pooka, "…wiped out…"

"Yes well," Bunnymund sniffed, "there's no need to dwell on the past. I've read about your kind before, but I've had yet to meet one before now. I've never seen Galifrey, which is surprising as I know about the doings of the entire galaxy."

"You don't know my universe," the Doctor smirked sadly. "Galifrey's been destroyed for the past…1,000 years or so? Gets harder to remember as the years increase. I'm all that's left."

Quietness fell upon the two of them as they looked at each other, understanding beginning to dawn in each other's eyes. Here, in this oasis, two people—no, two legends—had met, who were linked by loneliness, by death, by the knowledge that they were the last of their kind. They were more alike, this Pooka and this time lord, than anyone they had met before.

The Doctor began to understand why the TARDIS had sent him here.

Bunnymund coughed to break the silence, holding out an open box. "Care for a chocolate?"

"A-a what?"

"Chocolate," he shook the box a little to get his point across. "I am an extraordinary chocolate maker if I do say so myself." He pointed his paw at a certain one with dark brown and white swirls. "I think you would like this one made with the blackberries found in the Lake of the Dancing Waters in ancient China with liquid white chocolate found in the River of Thoughts in the garden of Father Time. It's tartier and darker than others …but there's a sweet aftertaste."

The Doctor never really could resist sweets. Popping the chocolate into his mouth, the tartness of the blackberries, combined with the sweetness of the white chocolate, made for the most delicious chocolate combination he had ever tasted.

"This is even better than pastries from Laveny! And lemme tell ya, those French aliens certainly know how to bake!"

Bunnymund decided to take that as a compliment and smiled a bit. Truly this…Doctor…was unique among his acquaintances. "If you wish, I can show you where the chocolate is made."

"Oh yeah!" the time lord said enthusiastically, nodding his head vigorously. "I'd love to. I'm sure it'd be a blast. Just as long as I can make it to Russia in time to paint some Faberge eggs."

"Not unless they're stolen," the Pooka muttered darkly.

"What?"

"Nothing. Please, follow me. And do hurry up, I'm expecting a certain Bandit King and a certain wizard's ward tomorrow."

Grinning as Bunnymund led him through the paradise, the Doctor made a mental note to thank the TARDIS when he returned. Meeting the last Pooka and getting a private tour of Easter Island? Geronimo indeed.

EVEN THE DOCTOR

Following that fateful first meeting, Bunnymund would run across the Doctor occasionally for the next 300 years. It was pretty ridiculous—years, even decades, without seeing the eccentric time lord, and all of a sudden he would pop up on Easter Island and later on in the Warren, sometimes with his TARDIS, other times without. He usually claimed those times that a tunnel had appeared before him and he just could not resist.

"You know Bunny," he once said in the 19th century, "I think you leave those tunnels open just so I can jump in to have a bit of a lark around the Warren."

Said Pooka grumbled, focusing on gathering flowers for his chocolate so the Doctor wouldn't see the "Yes" twinkling in his emerald eyes.

Now, a good century or two later, Bunnymund rested in his Warren, absentmindedly painting an egg after the harrowing deal with Pitch and the party North threw for Jack Frost after he became a Guardian. The kid had come a long way from the Blizzard of '68, which was also another faithful episode regarding the Doctor:

"Ah, Bunny! I was just—hello, what's this? I thought it was supposed to be Easter!"

"Frost…"

"What d'you mean by that? I was just fighting some Baraphya—ice creatures—in the area and now I understand why they seemed to be attracted here. Odd, I'll have to check that later…what happened to your robes?"

Snorting as the memory bubbled into his mind, Bunnymund mused on his quirky, unlikely friend. Was he really a friend? They never went on adventures or saved entire planets together, like he did with the mysterious River Song and especially Amy and Rory, his companions who travelled with him.

"Amy was the first face I ever saw when I regenerated," he once said after Bunnymund questioned him, "Rory's her husband—the last Centurion you know. Spent 2,000 years waiting for her in that Pandorica…he keeps us both grounded." He didn't say much after that, but it was clear that those companions were the people he cared for the most.

Where did that leave him, E. Aster Bunnymund, Guardian of Hope?

It was wishful thinking on his part, to think that the Doctor would carve out a place in his two hearts for him. He was always off saving the world—no, the universe—from impending doom. There was no time for him to hold any affection for the last of the Pookas, of that Bunnymund was certain.

The familiar wooshing sound of the TARDIS overcame his ears and he looked up as the blue box materialized in the Warren. As the door opened, the Pooka put on a smile in an attempt to chase away his insecurity. "G'day Doctor," he greeted the time lord as he came into view, "you just missed Easter but you can help me with…"

His voice trailed away as the Doctor fully appeared, hanging onto the door jambs like his life depended on it. Looking up at the Easter Bunny, the light from the warren threw shadows over his face, darkening him in a way that should never exist. His light blue eyes, usually filled with light and energy, were haunted and shattered. Glasses hung limply on his face, but that wasn't what frightened Bunnymund the most.

The Doctor reminded him strikingly of the defeated General Pitchiner, moments before he became Pitch Black.

"Doctor!" Trepidation shooting through his veins, he placed the egg on the ground and bounded over to the broken man, holding him steadily in his arms. "Wha-what happened? Doctor? Doctor!"

The time lord stared straight ahead, completely numb, "Th-they're gone," he whispered harshly, "Amy and Rory. The Angels—" he spat out the word with such hatred it sent chills down the other's spine, "—sent them back in time…" hate dissipated and heartbreak filled in the gaps "…I can't go back for them. Ever. I'm alone…again."

Bunnymund felt a pang as his heart plummeted, "You're not alone mate."

Of course he isn't, he thought bitterly as he helped the doctor over to where he was sitting, insecurity pervading his aura, I'm just…not important enough.

A faint chuckle, a mere ghost of the delighted laughter he had come to recognize, answered him as if he had read his insecurity like an open book, "I know."

Bunnymund stood there stunned for a brief moment before glancing down at the man he securely held by the shoulders. The Doctor, that indomitable man, the one who had jumped down his tunnel all those centuries ago because of a whim, who brought camaraderie into his life long before the Guardians, was looking up at him with tears in his shattered eyes and a grateful smile that made the Pooka feel warm all over .

"That's why I came here."

XXX

HOW DO YOU DIALOGUE? These two are some of the hardest characters to write interacting with each other, wow. Hopefully, I got it right.

And then they had chocolate, because chocolate makes everything better!

It is now my headcanon that when Amy and Rory were sent back in time, the first thing the Doctor did after River left and before he "retired", was visit Bunnymund, for who better understands the loneliness of a time lord than the last of the Pookas?

Damn guys, I have yet another brotp. BARROWMAN! *shakes fist*

School starts tomorrow, so I won't be able to post say, three fics in a span of three weeks, but I'm working on an APH/ROTG crossover.

Reviewers will receive chocolates and a fez of their choice! :D