For the last time, Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The morning sky was dusty. The combination of the suns still red light and all the particles in the air left a slightly disturbing hue of crimson, almost like blood splatter in a fog. In the thin, reddish haze of that early light, a man sat on a rock.

Quiet, completely alone, he sat holding a small tool in his hands, a metallic item with inserted pieces of colored, glass-like material. It was quite clearly broken, parts of it dangling from the main cylinder he held. He had an aura of exhaustion over him, complimented by a few scratches here and there and some dirt on his dark jacket and the legs of his pants. He was lost in thoughts, going through complicated events, finding patterns and devising conclusions based on them. It was all mostly busy-work, however; he already knew the patterns that were important.

"I do really hate this, old friend," he said softly to the broken tool, as he held it up in front of his face, as if to inspect the damage more closely. He then pulled a slightly bigger cylindrical case, all one smooth piece of brass, from somewhere inside the jacket, frowning slightly as he did. The air was getting more difficult to breathe as morning grew, the dust in it becoming greasy with vapors of water and things more foul. Gently, as if handling strands of crystal glass, or a sensitive explosive, he slid the broken tool into the brass cannister through a small hole in its top that had appeared. As the last bit of the tool was carefully helped inside, the cannister top closed by itself, like a bubble gum bubble being popped in reverse.

"I do really hate this," he repeated, as he stood up. He then turned his gaze to the horizon, where the sun's rays were becoming a more familiar yellow, though still through a dusty, grey sky. The man then cracked a smile and made an excited little jump on the spot, before he turned around and took a few steps towards a big, blue box nearby.

At this point, the sound of the gigantic machines crushing their way towards him would have shattered any normal human being's eardrums.

-

"Yes, I said, I'm coming!" shouted Rose, as the pounding on the door became louder. She had to fight the contents of her fridge a bit longer than she liked, making sure the horribly botched game of food tetris did not explode in an avalanche of perishable goods that had probably already, well, perished.

"You finally got what you went out for, I guess?"

Her words caused no response, but she could clearly hear the grunting of the Doctor making his way through the hallway. It had taken him a good few hours to run his errand, but that had given her some time to have a bit of peace of mind. He had been talking quite excitedly about meeting an old friend before he went, and letting her ears rest was just one of life's little pleasures. What he needed to do before that meeting was beyond her, but even a centuries old alien had his rights to privacy.

The sound of a loud bang and crash made her finally slam the refrigerator door shut and go to see what was happening. To her surprise, the Doctor was sprawled against one wall, leaning awkwardly against anything in his reach, his arms flailing desperately about him to keep his long body from falling over. For a moment, Rose stood motionless. The look in his eyes was completely new to her, and she instinctively waited for him to tell her how to help.

"Eh uhu habluga," was the only thing to come from his mouth. Briefly, she wondered if he was talking some odd or arcane language, but as he started flapping against the wall in an apparent effort not to slide to the floor, she realized he was simply not making any sense.

-

Surprisingly heavy for his skinny build, Rose managed to get the clearly disoriented Doctor to a couch before she nearly collapsed herself in a fit of exhaustion. The man slumped down, still staring into the room as if watching something invisible with complete surprise.

"Hudadish," he mumbled, then repeated it a bit louder, looking around the room as if in a panic. Rose tried to spot what he was looking at, but his gaze seemed to just jump around at random.

"Who that is?" she asked, trying to translate the incoherent mumbles of the man now fumbling about on the couch to stay upright. "It's me, Rose. Are you alright?" She knew that last question was about the dumbest one she could have asked. Whether the Doctor was shaking his head at that exact fact or because she was not getting the message was unclear to her.

"Dadadish!" he half yelled, half belched, jumping to an almost fully seated pose, his eyes finally meeting Rose's. He then proceeded to throw a small key clear across the room, obviously not in full control of his limbs yet. Rose looked at where the key's path through the air had been, befuddled as to what the Doctor was trying to tell her. Looking back at him, she moved a bit side to side. As she had expected, his head turned about a second too slowly. He was clearly very much out of....

"The TARDIS!" she cried out, finally getting a full translation of mumble to English completed in her mind. The highly disoriented, slow to react Doctor broke a wide smile and gave a clumsy thumbs-up, before he became a bit too fascinated with the thumb he had held up in front of his own face. As he moved the finger back and forth, trying to adjust his eyesight by it, Rose quickly found the small key on the floor.

Running to the door, grabbing her coat as she passed it by, she stopped one last time in the doorway, looking back through it to see the Doctor in the living room at the end. He was making a weird gesture with his flat hand, like a very drunk person trying to pet a small dog.

"Begotten!" he yelled at her. She made the same gesture in the air for a few seconds, before her brain caught the underlying message. "Big button?" she asked back, and the man grinned and waved before leaning back on the couch, again fascinated by his hand.