Fades to Black

[amberfocus]

Title:  Fades to Black
Author:  Amberfocus
Characters:  Donna Noble, Eleventh Doctor
Genre:  Angst, vignette
Rating:  G
Beta:  JeopardyFriendly
Summary:  Memory is a dangerous thing.
A/N:  I'm not exactly sure where this one came from.  I'm a bit blocked on the usual so I just sat down to write and this is what came out.

Fades To Black

 

It’s odd what she remembers and what she doesn’t. Sometimes she sees it all so clearly, more than a memory, as if he could step out of her mind and walk along these shores in front of her. The sky is dark and the sand is always cold beneath her feet; cold, wet, sad. A tragic loss occurred here and she doesn’t know what it was, can’t remember if the loss was to her, to him--what him?--or to someone else. What compels her to come here, to save all of her money and visit this place year after year, she doesn’t know.

It’s almost like she can taste it in the wind, the remnants of a life fantastic, on this bitter shore. She often imagines an imprint in the sand and a harsh grating noise almost, not quite, lost in the crashing of the ocean’s waves, and a blue light that slowly fades away. It’s meaningless to her, snatches of something less than reality but more than nothing at all. It always is and yet she comes here, walks in the whipping wind, avoiding what she can of the chill, tucked into her thick brown leather coat, and tries to find meaning.

 

She thinks there was heartbreak for someone that stood on this beach, tearing and painful heartbreak that clenched at stomachs and throats. She thinks that the air echoes with screams that did not come, but had they sounded they’d have been heard all the way to London. She thinks that something ended here and she doesn’t quite know if it was for her or for someone else or both. For some reason, in the biting wind she also feels hope, though it does not reach inside her to fill that cold and empty gap. That hope does not belong to her.

 

She removes a strand of ginger hair from her mouth and turns her back on the image that isn’t there. A man catches her eye a little way off and she thinks for a moment that he is watching her, but as she gets closer to him, she can see he’s simply watching the beach. His face is sad, melancholy, like he lost something amazing and he’ll never get over it. Much like she feels some days.

 

“Hello,” he says when she meets his eyes.

 

She swallows thickly, feeling as if she’s on the cusp of some brilliant revelation. “Hello,” she says guardedly. She looks him over. He’s young and his hair could do with a good cutting. His features are interesting, the nose wide and the cheekbones high and strong. She can’t make out his clothing beneath the heavy, black wool coat. There is absolutely nothing familiar about him.

 

“Do I know you?” she asks.

 

The man shrugs at her, a small smile playing for just a moment at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe in another life,” he says and suddenly his eyes look very old.

 

She shrugs her shoulders and inclines her head and walks away. When she reaches the car she has hired for this excursion she pauses for just a moment, looking back the way she came. The beach is deserted. The man is gone. And then she hears it, the sounds of what was silenced and what was lost, as it all comes rushing back into her head.

 

The word comes to her from nowhere and it falls from her lips, the most beautiful syllables she’s ever heard.  “TARDIS.” She remembers. The beach, what was found and what was lost again. What was given and what was taken. The pain rushes in and then she hears it again, coming back, finally coming back to her, and he—and she knows it's him even though he doesn't look the same—is rushing out and catching her as she falls to the ground.  It's all going to be okay now.

 

“Doctor,” she whispers.

 

“Donna,” he says.

 

Everything fades to black.