[DISCONTINUED] Hazel Eyes - DW Fanfic

Chapter Eight - Burnt Fish Finger

And life went on. To an extent at least. The Doctor tried to keep traveling, but it felt empty like he was doing the wrong thing. His thoughts bounced back to Amelia for the first time since he had seen Ayaria. He was angry at himself she hadn’t crossed his mind sooner. And yet, in the end, his mind always wandered back to Ayaria.

So he usually ended up sulking around the Tardis. He slammed doors and flipped switches angrily. He walked aimlessly through the rooms with no real direction. He found rooms he hadn’t seen for ages. There was one room entirely devoted to jelly beans. The Doctor had ended up there twice. He knew what he was really looking for, but he saw no sign of her. It was like the whole episode hadn’t happened.

It was fifteen days later that he found a light green sticky note on the Scanner. When he caught sight of it from across the room the Doctor’s heart lifted and he hurried over. He couldn’t help but notice the handwriting was Rose’s and he felt the once forgotten missing feeling in his chest. He plucked it off and began to read:

Dear Doctor-
Lady said we needed to talk. Meet me tonight at 6 (Tardis time that is) in the Celestial Courtyard. Please try not to die before then because that would be a real shame. See you later I guess.
 -Ayaria

The Doctor reread the note. That was in an hour. He hadn’t heard of the Celestial Courtyard but he supposed if the Tardis really approved of it she would lead him there. An hour before he saw Ayaria again.

He had been wanting to see her again for weeks but now that he was actually going to, he was nervous. What would she act like? She didn’t seem very happy about the prospects of talking to him.
The Doctor went to his room. It was a humble little place, nothing like Ayaria’s suite. It was small and filled with old oak furniture. With no windows at all it gave the impression of almost being underground. Far different then it had looked when he had been in his last regeneration. He’d found his room always changed to suit his new self when he regenerated. For the eleventh doctor the room was the one place he didn’t have to smile and put on a show.

He made his way to the wide wardrobe. He pulled open the doors and began searching through the large interior for his big box of bow ties. The wardrobe, like every drawer and such on the Tardis, was bigger on the inside. He finally found it and picked out his favorite bow tie. It was a solid maroon color. Nothing particularly fancy, but the Doctor had taken a liking to it. He spent a couple nervous minutes futzing with his hair.

He still had a good forty minutes to kill. He went to the kitchen and messed around a while. He was so jittery by then he dropped a fish finger onto the burner.  There was a small fire, but the fire extinguisher easily handled it. The Tardis wasn’t pleased however. By the time he was done cleaning up the mess it was about time to meet Ayaria.

He walked down the halls. The Tardis led him but he could still feel her protective guidance was tinged with her outrage about the fish finger incident. He ended up standing in front of a big metal door with a plaque confirming it was indeed the Celestial Courtyard. Finally here. Finally about to see Ayaria, he felt deathly calm.

He slid open the door. The smell of grass filled his nose. He saw a large circular area of probably a couple acres filled with gently rolling grass. Paved paths wound through the courtyard. The air seemed to be filled with the blinking of fireflies. Fireflies in the Tardis? But the real spectacular part of the view was the sky. Usually rooms in the Tardis that mocked the outdoors had fake projected skies however the courtyard seemed to be open to the vacuum of space that surrounded the Tardis. The Doctor recognized the cluster of stars that formed the Wynnover System. Exactly where he had set the Tardis to drift. The Celestial Courtyard was an apt name. The only light in the courtyard was from the stars above and the fireflies, throwing the area into a perpetual twilight reminiscent of a summer evening.

Bathed in the starlight and situated in the center of the large field was a gazebo. He saw Ayaria’s silhouette inside it and began to walk up one of the paths to the gazebo. He noticed that pressed into the concrete of the paths were circular patterns that formed to recite old Gallifreyan folk songs and poetry. He continued up the path and began to make out more specific details. There was a small ledge that ran around the edge of the Gazebo to be used as a sort of table. Bar stools were pushed under the ledge.

And Ayaria. Her back was to him. She had her head resting on her arms which were crossed on the ledge in front of her. She looked peaceful there. He caught sight of a half empty beer bottle sitting next to her. As he drew closer he noticed an empty bottle standing near the leg of her stool. When she heard his footsteps she lifted her head up and turned around to see him approaching.

“Hey,” He said as he took a seat on the stool next to her.

She nodded a brief hello. Her eyes had dark bags under them. She was wearing a light pink tee-shirt over jeans. He couldn’t fail to notice the strips of white fabric tightly wrapped around her forearm. They sat in silence for a minute neither knowing quite where to start. Finally Ayaria spoke. “The fireflies are robots.”

“Are they?” The Doctor pulled out the sonic and lit it up. Robots they were indeed. A couple fireflies meandered towards it lazily. He caught one in his hand and held it out to Ayaria. She shook her head so the Doctor let it go.

“Lady says I should try to tell you everything.” Ayaria said in a flat voice.

“Well, I’m here to listen.” The Doctor.

She puts her head in her hands. “I just don’t know where to start.”

“Beginning is always a good place to start the story.” The Doctor answered, a faint smile playing on his lips.

Ayaria looked up and met his eyes. “You remember the Bad Wolf?”

The words echoed in his mind. He pushed his swirling emotions aside. “Of course.”

Ayaria bit her lip. “Well, do you know what the Bad Wolf was?”

“It was the Tardis burning inside Rose.” The Doctor answered holding her eyes.

“And you remember Rose saying, ‘I looked into the Tardis and the Tardis looked into me.’” Ayaria struggled to find words.

The Doctor nodded, trying to grasp what she was trying to get at.

“Well, to say it bluntly, the Bad Wolf is the Tardis in Rose and I’m-“ Her voice cut off a minute as she took a shaky breath.