mISS iT, miSS oUT

Doctor Who: Things She Thought Were Most unfair [Fanfiction]

“I’m ready, I want to be at home with my grandson” he says, a look of longing in his eyes, longing for home comforts, longing for quality time spent with loved ones.

Or was it longing for the opportunities he was about to miss out on?

I can’t help but smile, I can’t help but be moved, because I know it’s not the latter, he’s leaving for the right reasons; he’s leaving for just reasons.

He’s leaving our fam to be with his own.

This is it, this was properly it

Oh blimey, now what am I going to do?

Of all the people to turn me down, turn all this down, why him?

If I were a little less kind, a little less tolerant, I would be cursing out Ryan Sinclair right now for not speaking out about this, to convince Graham to stay, that he’s his own man with his own life to lead. Graham has so much more of the universe to see before he slips away.

I can’t tell when that’ll be, I can’t tell when the cancer will take hold of him again, all I know is I’ve lost my window to remind him every day that he should not let that scare him out of doing anything extraordinary.

Yaz tells him she’s going to miss him, she’ll miss him far more than she thinks, and I’ll miss the calming influence he has on her. I feel young Yasmine will be quite a handful to me going forward if that shove from earlier in the mission was any indication.

She seems so possessive, she’s afraid of letting go, like I’m all that tethers her to some meaningful purpose in life.

It’s not fair, I tell the universe, why must I carry on while everyone stays behind? As it pertains to Yaz, just why do I need to bear this burden of personal responsibility? Is it some kind of karmic punishment for defying the will of The Judoon? For escaping their justice?

Am I being told to grow a little? Maybe a lot?

Can’t help but think these thoughts, they always course through me whenever situations like this arise; I’m left wondering what I could have done to make things right, or different.

Oh no, now he wants a hug. That’s certainly different.

Still, it might just be one of the few things I can do right by him in this situation.

Were it not for social awkwardness, it’d be more than a hug.

My face tells the whole story, a long drawn out feature made of missed opportunity and wasted time, how inappropriate given my very calling as a time and space traveller.

He thanks me for everything…no, dearest Graham, thank you.

He prepares to leave; I can’t let him go, not after receiving a taste of his warmth, of his generosity, of his love.

I beckon him over and we all come together in one last unified circle of friendship and family, our arms wrapped tightly around each other’s waists, I hold Graham closest to me, his immediate present about to become my inevitable past, and I would no longer be a part of his future.

“Bye fam” I say.

And then he goes, Ryan in tow, and we’re alone.

Yaz is with me, but whether or not she truly is altogether there will be for our time together to decide.

For now, I am left with my thoughts.

And all I can think of is just how unfair it all is.

Is love ever fair?

Swim In The Dark [original Story]

When I was young, I loved being the right age. For me, the right age was any number between when you first learn to crawl and when you first learn to kiss.  

The latter was always the trickiest part to navigate through childhood. It was a treacherously slippery slope, and you could not so easily walk back on it unless the other participant was incredibly selfless and would let you on your way, never to speak of it again.

 The kiss could come at any time, at any age, and when it does you’re suddenly left with all sorts of responsibilities.

If it is an aunt, your grandmother, even your own mother, or an over enthusiastic father, uncle or cousin then the kissing is relieved of its responsibility. It is something that embarrasses you, but it still sets you free.

The kissing with increased responsibility can surface at any such occasion regardless, it can happen at a party, a friend’s party, a relatives’ party…why, even your party.

Just imagine that, at your own party, on your own terms, life can surprise you in such a cruel and swift way. You can proceed from the right age through to the wrong time.

And the person that kisses you would then ask what I would do with my time, and her time, and then you’d have to think on your feet. What would you say? If words were currency, how would you spend it?

That’s when you think back to all the stories you read when you were the right age, the story of heroic knights valiantly fending off hordes of creatures too nightmarish to contemplate, all to prove something to a fair minded maiden who carried with her a torch by night that lit her way through the lecherous woodlands.

These creatures, that inhabited the cold and fearful forest, had curious customs as they swam in the dark.

Whenever the embers of the flame flickered, they would flinch and rally behind the other, encouraging one to push forward ahead of the other, and dare them to take the torch from the maiden, avoiding the knights altogether.

They would flicker, they would whisper, and that was when they would take a swift breath and blow the fiery embers out, plunging, and plaguing, the maiden and the knights with darkness everlasting, and driving them down the routes they were familiar with back to the safety of their castle.

I would think back to those stories, and I would tell them to those who drove the kisses forward, the ones that would love to know how I would spend my time in their company.

They would offer me their hand, they wished to lead me into their light, but through this story, I would make it abundantly clear I would much prefer to swim in the dark.

I had taken the power from them, and if they came to me with a knight in their corner, to show what I could have been, i would look past them too.

And I would just swim in the dark,

After all, I was still the right age, and this was the right time to start acting like it.