Gravel, rain, and galaxies

Stars and strats

The pair approached the other Jeffie. The humanoid figure looked about an exact copy, windswept frizzy curls, same height, same gray tennis shoes. Save for the blank black eyes and pinpricks of black liquid oozing from their pores, they were identical.
"I'm the Doctor, this is Jeffie, Jefferson as you called them," The Doctor began evenly, "why are you here? I can take you to a new home if you just let them go." The other Jeffie kept staring at its counterpart, ignoring the Doctor's words. "C'mon, you were accessing their surface memories! You're in a body now, use words." He ended with a curiously threatening tone. The creature tilted their head a fraction of an inch, as if processing.
"...I... am... Jef-fur-sen," it mumbled.
"Jefferson! Okay, alright, that's what we'll call you," the Doctor readily agreed. Jeffie glanced up at him and saw spots of sweat started to bead his brow. They would have to stay determined. "Why are you here, Jefferson?" The Doctor asked.
".......zuh...suh..." it whispered, "...stars."
"What?" The Doctor asked, bewildered.
"What? What do they mean?" Jeffie asked tensely.
"I don't know," the Doctor gasped, "Oh think think think!" He repeated while hitting his palm on his forehead. Jeffie looked back at Jefferson, whose absent gaze was now turned to the beach. Jeffie turned and saw the docks had vanished. Water was lapping at stones only a few feet away from everyone.
"Uh, Doctor!" Jeffie said, pulling the man's hand. They had forgotten they had been holding it still until this moment. The Doctor looked up at the water, the sweat on his face more visible. He stared hard, and Jeffie noticed it seemed like gears were turning in his mind.
"Jeffie, what is the name of your island?" He asked once again.
"What? What does that have to do with anything?" They retort.
"Because," he responded, staring at Jefferson, who had come closer, "you don't live on an island."
Jeffie gasped. Information came flooding back to them like an overflowing storm drain, their name was Jeffie Ann Beeley, they lived on a farm in rural Kentucky, in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors or town for dozens of miles. Suddenly they realized the sound of the waves was the sound of swishing summer grasses, the fields that surrounded their house, their room. It was 2004, their cousin had recently mailed a box full of movie posters with a hidden compartment concealing a pocket radio and a pair of headphones. The only way to get signal was to sit on the front porch, which they could only do at night when they were alone. Technology like that was forbidden by their parents. They were sitting, listening to a sad country song they had never heard before, the rain misting their skin and bouncing off the bridge of their freckled nose. They had been looking at the clouded sky, disappointed, until they closed their eyes hard, imagining a sky full of wondrous stars.
"I was thinking of seeing the stars," Jeffie said, in awe.
"Stars." Jefferson repeated. The Doctor, whose face didn't shake his bewilderment, turned to Jeffie and leaned to their eyesight.
"Jeffie I rarely ever do this, but if you let me into your mind I might be able to untangle you both," he said with his greatest effort of a calm demeanor. It didn't fool Jeffie.
"Isn't the problem that there's more people in my mind then just me?!" Jeffie objected.
"I promise it won't hurt its only a brief mind link, more like going through a memory catalogue. It will let me see quickly what is in your mind that it wants, what it's attaching to," he continued, "it will be quick. Just a touch and I can save you." Jeffie glanced at Jefferson. "I can save you both."
Reluctantly, Jeffie met the Doctor's gaze and nodded. "Thank you," he exclaimed relieved, and placed his hands on the temples of their head.
He closed his eyes, his pupils dashing back and forth- like they were running.
"Mmhh..." he murmured. Randomly, Jeffie remembered her little brother peeing in a pig pen at the county fair, getting her family banned for the year. "Sorry, some old memories might pop up, side effect..." the Doctor mumbled. Recent memories flickered in the back of Jeffie's mind like an animation reel. Rewinding to the previous week, where Jeffie had hid from their father behind the hay shed, sobbing. Immediately Jeffie imagined a large door slamming between the memory. "Oh Jeffie.." the Doctor whispered softly.
"Please don't make it harder for me," they snap."If aliens get to be real they should at least know the dangers of choosing me to be the one they get in contact with."
He had fast forwarded to their meeting, and Jeffie felt a slight buzz in their head as memories were being scrubbed back to replay. "Sorry," the Doctor apologized, honing in. Jeffie felt a dastardly sensation that they were being watched, and watched closely.
Their eyes were closed.
Tender darkness filled their senses. The scent of damp moss and hay perfumed the cold air. A twangy brass guitar and set of drums beat like a heart into their ears. Warmth from their fleece sweatshirt protected them from the chill. Chapped hands gripped onto the tiny radio tightly, condensation forming from the conjunction of its cool metal surface on hot skin. Somewhere in between the beat, in this melody, somewhere in the song of the frogs, the bay of the horses, the trot of the farm dog- somewhere buried in the roots of the grasses and the fences lining their fraction of the world; somewhere in the rain, Jeffie knew they could hear them.
"Jeffie," the Doctor uttered.
Jeffie blinked, and they were standing on the beach still, now facing Jefferson.
"Jefferson is part of a roaming constellation, The Anchorite's Sisterhood formation," he said, finally understanding. "They travel across space, like an ocean current of stars."
"Stars?" Jeffie repeated. The Doctor nodded.
"Their current is pulled by a magnetic field, a tide like your oceans, but instead of a moon, what pulls them and guides them, is dreaming." He took a step towards Jefferson. The blank eyed copy had stood back and straight, and remained unmoving. "You weren't merely thinking of seeing the stars, hardly even wishing, what you were doing was dreaming, true dreaming!" He exclaimed excitedly, mirroring the excited speech he gave about other planets earlier. "True dreaming is a magnetic force, it's a power that can change minds. Stop wars. Create art and worlds," he paced between the two. "Some choose to be guided by it, Doctor Martin Luther King Jr led a movement to a nation whom failed him and harnessed his sight of that dream to a better future for all. Generations were born under the premise of dreaming! Even I was born under someone's consciousness, dreaming of adventures and monsters and running, ehhhh the running," he groaned. "Even you. Strong Jefferson. Determined Jeffie. If I can't see the stars I'll will them into existence." He pursed his lips and stood beside Jeffie again. "Except this time, they listened, and talked back."
"I can always hear them," Jefferson responded clearly. "They sing to me."
Jeffie blinked at their identical twin, then at the Doctor.
"It's time to let them go," the Doctor said softly. Jeffie looked at Jefferson longingly, and sighed.
"They feel like an island," she whispered, "and they listen to us. Talk to us, they feel like our sister."
"They're not, and you can't keep them with you. They belong on earth, and you belong in gamma space, a thousand years from now!"
"They pulled us through. Transcending time. Their heart bit a wormhole out of the universe like an apple."
"You shouldn't even know what an apple is, let alone an idiom. It's time to let them go."
The Anchorite's Sisterhood nodded, looking longingly at their young companion.
"They are in so much pain Doctor, they are so alone. But I feel them still. They know that if they can pull the stars to their bed, they will face their life. I hope they know that we stars wish on them too." The Anchorite Sisterhood resembling Jefferson stepped forward, wrapping their arms around their copy, melting back into one being. Anchorite Jefferson walked back to the Doctor, who opened the door of the TARDIS with a creak. As soon as they breached the threshold, Jefferson's body fell, the Doctor swiftly catching them. Stretching them out to lay on the floor, he drapes his trench coat over the young adult. A constellation swimming with stars floated gracefully above. The TARDIS surged, light flashing and walls pulsing. The stars surged as well in response.
"After they wake up, I'll take you all back to your time in deep gamma space. I hope this taught you sisters how to share," he scolded, "and I hope it taught you how to be human. I've never met another species of people who brave danger ceaselessly and tirelessly armed with nothing but the wonder in their hearts. I hope Jefferson has taught you that."
"They will always be protected by us. Not in ways they will see, but in ways they will feel." The stars respond, circling the ceiling of the TARDIS, dancing along etched names. "Even unattached, we are now connected. Even you can't break that Timelord." A single star hung lower than the rest, almost as if to look at Jefferson's sleeping body. "May we sing them to sleep?" She asked. "It's an old lullaby, and about a runaway." The Doctor looked up at the star with expectant and knowing eyes. He clenched his jaw and nodded silently. Swirling like Van Gogh's paint strokes, the dazzling stars form three spirals above the two.

"Little man, stay, stay by my side.
I'm scared of the dark, afraid of the night.
The fire has burned out but the rain, she comforts me. I want to share my happiness with you. Little man, come follow me, over the wood
To the willow tree. Climb the branches, past the clouds
And look at the stars
Then this traveler in the dark will thank you for your tiny spark.
All that is gold does too glitter
The old that is strong never withers away
I can feel it too
Oh I can feel it too
Little man."