supernova (11th doctor)

The Lodger (pt 3)

When you are close to unconsciousness, it's hard to piece together coherent thoughts in your brain and accurately take in your surroundings—but I was conscious enough upon pressing the locket again to hypothesize that either the fact that I had travelled back and forth so much within such a short period of time was making my side effects worse—or that they were gradually becoming worse over time, the more I used it.

Or both.

Either way—it took me a few moments to register the fact that someone was holding me, and calling my name softly, and I had no idea if it had been seconds or minutes.

It was as though at first the pain was so much that I forgot it was there completely—like I was simply too weak to feel it enough. But eventually, my strength returned, and a dull dread in my head turned into a loud piercing. I realized that I was gripping the Doctor's shirt—and my grip was weak at first, but growing stronger as I came to my senses. My eyes were still shut tight.

The piercing faded away, and I was finally able to understand what the Doctor was saying.

"Nova... can you hear me?"

I sucked in a deep breath, and whispered. "Yeah."

"Why are you crying?"

I opened my eyes and looked up at him, stepping away from him and releasing his shirt—realizing that it was also tear-stained, along with my face. "Well..." I stumbled back a little more, before something touched me from behind. I turned to see a broom was poking my back—which was sticking out of a strange contraption attached to a lamp shade, bike, umbrella, shopping cart—and many other strange, domestic objects—with wires running through it all. "What is this?"

The Doctor didn't respond as he normally would—only continued staring at me as though I were about to collapse again.

"Um..." I decided to begin guessing if he wasn't going to give me answers. "A scanner for interlocks th—"

"Nova," the Doctor called to me again in a low voice, stepping closer to me, still giving me the same look.

I rubbed a hand over my face and sighed, sitting down on the mattress that was on the floor, and the Doctor sat next to me. "Meredith pleaded guilty. And I mean... I knew she was, but... I still can't believe it. She's been one of my only friends for years, and one of the best friends I've ever had and... I don't want to believe that I never really knew her."

"You did know her." The Doctor assured me.

"No I didn't... It's been 6 years of friendship and I never even knew she had a sister!" My voice cracked, the tears that had calmed down only a few seconds ago threatening to fall again.

"Her sister was a part of who she was before she met you. The Meredith that you knew was the Meredith that she wanted to be for you. You knew her as she wanted you to, as she was in that moment—and really, that matters more than whoever she may have been before." The Doctor moved closer to me, rubbing my back and leaning his head on top of mine as I leaned on his shoulder.

The Doctor's speech was comforting—but for some reason, it had me reflecting more on myself towards the end, and I wondered if that was the same thought process that got him to stop being mad at me and accept me again.

"Time Lords need to sleep too. Especially with the after-effects of inter-universe time traveling, and time being longer for you because of it." The Doctor told me after I yawned.

"Do you know what the effects are? And why?" I yawned again, wondering why I never bothered to ask in the first place.

"Not... really," the Doctor admitted. "But I know they're not good—and too much is dangerous."