Companion of Death - A Doctor Who Fanfiction (Thasmin)

Interlude: The Tattoo

No Missy this interlude. Instead, we get some Echo/Ashildr sisterly bonding time.

I crept to my sister's room in the dead of night. I could have done this earlier, but I preferred not to be around prying eyes. Although Time Lords slept but an hour each night, now was downtime in the TARDIS and they were nowhere to be seen. In fact, I was the only person walking around at present.

Ashildr had seen me take the amulets out of my backpack in the cavern and had doubtless wondered what I was doing then. Now I held the yang amulet in my hand and was on my way to tell her the story behind it.

I knocked on Ashildr's door and she opened it a crack. When she saw it was me, she stepped back to let me in.

"How did you create fire to melt the first Auton?" my sister asked as soon as I had crossed over the threshold.

I had prepared myself for this conversation, so I was not thrown off-guard.

"I don't know," I lied. "It's just something I could always do."

"Lie and evasion," Ashildr muttered. "Do you not trust me?"

"Knowledge is dangerous," I stated.

"I have a Mire med pack in my head," my sister snapped, pointing at her forehead. "It restarted my heart. Almost nothing can kill me. So tell me."

"Our people gave me this ability," I explained, not providing much detail. "Then they regretted it, and they cast us out. It's difficult to control. Even now, I still cannot summon fire at will. But the power is getting stronger, and I fear the day when..."

When I am called upon to use it. I did not voice these words because I could not tell Ashildr any more about it than I already had.

"You're a pyromancer," my sister said, grinning. "Cool."

"It's dangerous, Ashildr," I said seriously. I unfurled my fingers and dropped the yang amulet into her hand. "Here."

She lifted the little white comma up to her eyes. "It's yang," she said, sounding a bit surprised.

"It was my brother's," I told her. "He was obsessed with it. I have yin." I pulled my amulet out of my t-shirt to show her.

Ashildr took it in her hand and gave a small smile. "I lived in Japan for a while," she said. She started. "I'd forgotten that. I lived billions of years with a tiny human brain... I had to keep diaries to remember. Human brains are pathetic."

"Keep yang to remind you," I suggested.

Ashildr let go of my yin amulet and slipped the yang around her neck. "Tell me about your brother," she commanded.

"Well, what should I say?" I asked. "He was five years older than me in my human life. My protective big brother who saved me from our father." I looked down. "My father was abusive. Eventually, Mom up and left him and we moved from New York to Earth, Texas."

"Earth?" Ashildr asked, confused.

"It's a small town in Texas," I told her. "The only place on Earth that is officially called Earth. The move was hard on Mom and stress killed her. Damon practically raised me through my teenage years. When he started college he became distant, his studies taking over his life. And then he was killed in a hit-and-run. The cops never caught the perp. But he was a good person, such a pure soul. He saw good in everything. Me? I let the darkness swallow me."

I slid my finger under the leather cuff I wore on my right wrist and rubbed at the raised lines. It was a nervous habit. Ashildr noticed and raised a questioning eyebrow. I removed the cuff and showed her the black marks. It looked like barbed wire.

(AN: The tattoo. This is when I slowly start to reveal things. Well, I started in "Interlude: Secrets and Lies", but this is when it starts to build up more quickly.)

"You got a tattoo?" Ashildr demanded.

"It's not a tattoo," I stated. "I've had it all my life. I have no idea what it is, though."

"So it's a tattoo that isn't a tattoo, and you don't remember getting it," my sister said. She sighed. "That's not good."

"You've seen something like this before?" I asked, putting the cuff back on.

"Not really," Ashildr said hesitantly. "Well, sort of. Not like that."

"Like what, then?" I asked.

"Numbers on the back of a person's neck, counting down the minutes until their death," my sister whispered, not making eye contact. "A chronolock. I was allied with the Quantum Shade for a while, which was foolish, but I was only trying to protect Trap Street. The Time Lords forced me to put one on Clara's friend, so she'd come running to save him and bring the Doctor with her. They only wanted the Doctor and his knowledge of the Hybrid. Clara took the chronolock to save her friend and the Time Lords got the Doctor."

"But you traveled with Clara," I said, confused.

Ashildr looked up. "I did," she said. "They were the best years of my life. The Doctor managed to extract her from the timeline a second before her death. She was removed between one heartbeat and the next, making her sort of immortal. She didn't need to eat, sleep... or breathe. She never tired. We could've run forever. But eventually she decided to go to her death. Her life was meaningless. She was barely human anymore. The decades we had together were stolen time. That's what she told me. So I brought her back to that moment and watched her die bravely. At least she got that. A brave death."

"I'm sorry," I said awkwardly.

"Don't be," Ashildr told me. "I don't remember everything of my human life, but I'll never forget Clara."

I nodded, understanding.

"We still have to work out what your tattoo is," she stated, determination in her voice.

"Definitely," I agreed. " I'm glad I have you on my side."

"Always," Ashildr promised.

"Great," I said, humor evident in my tone. "Makes it easier for me to fulfill my promise to Clara."

"Oi!" my sister protested.

"You sound so Brit," I teased.

"And you're such a Texan," she countered.

"Go to sleep," I ordered.

Ashildr scoffed but lay down, and was asleep in seconds. I stretched out on her couch, too lazy to go back to my room. I lay there, marveling at how I had thought she would be the last person to know about my secret, and here she was fighting on my side. It was our unspoken agreement that we would find the answers together. If only she knew that I already had my suspicions, but could never tell her everything. Knowledge was dangerous, regardless of the Mire med pack in my sister's head.

I went to sleep and dreamed about Clara, to my amazement. I barely knew her. But it was better than nightmares about how I came to have powers over fire, so I wasn't complaining. Clara was a wonderful woman and had done my sister a world of good. Even just seeing her in the Matrix had caused Ashildr's resolve to crack just a tiny bit. She had left a mark on my sister, made her a better person, even when to get through to an immortal who can't remember everything is next to impossible.