Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s a rainy day on planet Earth. Sheets of fine water droplets fall to the ground, sending little rivulets of water running down the road. There’s a light breeze in the air, and Kestrel has nothing currently bothering him. For a change.

He’s got his headphones on playing Linkin Park and contemplating what to eat when a tiny furry blob catches his attention. Glittering beads of water on black fur against cold wet tarmac. Crawling weakly across the road. A little cat!? How hadn’t it been noticed yet?

And a car was heading straight towards it.

Before he could even form a proper plan, he runs into the road, scoops up the little one in his arms and stumbles back onto the pavement on the other side, the sound of brakes screeching and his heartbeat thundering in his ears.

And as he regains his balance, stepping backwards, he feels a searing pain spread across his skin, and an aching numbness in his bones. His skull fills with static and his vision flickers. And he’s suddenly in a golden field under the canopy of pale green trees with feathery leaves.

Still clutching the cat to his chest, which snuggled up to him with no complaints, he gives himself a once over. Skin is still there. Bones too.

The sunlight jabs his eyes with needles though and the air makes his throat itch and sting. Still lightheaded, he wobbles forwards and he’s immediately put through the exact same process again, reemerging back onto the streets of Cardiff and smacks into someone heading in the opposite direction.

“Oh, I’m so so sorry-”

“Ahh not to worry,” the stranger replies, cutting in, “Trans-dimensional travel can leave you feeling a little disorientated.” He gently takes Kestrel’s shoulders and manoeuvres him into a more stable standing position, and then proceeds to buzz a weird looking device in his face.

“Trans-dimensional what? Dude, can you stop with the-” he bats the thing out of his face.

The stranger fixes his bowtie. “Trans-dimensional,” he says, matter-of-factly. And then points the glowy buzzy pointy thing at the general air. “I mean, I just came to refuel the TARDIS but then the cloister bells started going off and then there were some strange readings so of course I had to go investigate,” he rambled, almost incoherently. He begins gesticulating with his hands. “Naturally, I assumed it had something to do with the temporal rift that runs through the whole of the city, and I was right.”

Kestrel sniffs and repositions the cat. “What was that place?”

“An alien planet,” The Doctor says casually whilst reading his decidedly screwdriver adjacent device.

Kestrel takes a moment to process, but by then, the stranger had already stepped back through the ‘rift’ and disappeared.

Kestrel looks between the rift and the cat, and back again. “Do you promise not to sit in the road?” he asks, gently placing the cat on the ground. It begins to meow incessantly, gripping onto Kestrel’s sleeves desperately.

“Alright. Suit yourself.”

He returns the cat to his arms, holding it a little closer and takes a deep breath, tensing up as he passes through the rift, his lungs screaming like they are drowning, his head stinging like it’s drying out. He emerges on the other side feeling incredibly awful, but the feeling begins to subside quickly, his vision flickering back to life.

The Doctor looks back to face him with a resigned sigh, but he doesn’t look overly displeased, and begins to march off in a seemingly random direction.

“Hey, hey!!” Kestrel exclaims, jogging to catch up with him. “You can’t just say something like that and wander off.”

The Doctor slows down, tilts his head, asks, “And what’s your name then?”

“Kestrel.” Slight pause. “Wylde.” Another pause. “With a ‘y’ and an ‘e’.”

The Doctor smiles, “I’m The Doctor… with an… ‘o’ and… an ‘o’.” He looks puzzled for a moment before spinning around and turning his focus back to his sonic.

Kestrel shifts the cat so that it rests more comfortably against his chest. “…Right. And you’re saying this is an alien planet?” Sceptical.

The Doctor turns to face him, incredulous, and then looks pointedly up at the clearly very alien sky, several planets peeking out through the hazy blue, as well as what appeared to be a space station. “…Yes?!”

“Alright fair enough, but how come gravity is the same?” He asks whilst bouncing a little on his feet, gently, as not to upset the kitty. “And how come I’m breathing fine? Does there just happen to be the perfect Earth blend of gases?” He raises his eyebrows suddenly. “What if there’s not enough oxygen or something and I’m actually just hallucinating you or something? Does lack of oxygen cause hallucinations? I would check the Internet, but I fear we might just have no reception.”

The Doctor, is still staring at him and making a face. “You ask an awful lot of questions, don’t you, are you sure your name isn’t Mr Questions, Kestrel Wylde with a ‘y’ and an ‘e’?” A smile creeps across his face.

Kestrel laughs, a little nervously, “Pretty sure. Now are you going to stop being all mysterious, and just tell me what you know? Please?”

The Doctor gestures wildly with his hands, “Yes. Yes!” He checks his pockets and hastily pulls out a train ticket dated from the 1900s, an Uno card, and a pencil. He waves about the train ticket. “This is Earth.” Waves the Uno card. “And this is where we are right now.” Stabs a pencil through them both, and pulls the ticket through the hole in the Uno card.

“There’s an alien space pencil that’s jabbed a hole in the fabric of spacetime and is pulling it through into here.” Kestrel asks, absently stroking the cat in his arms.

“Exactly! Alien space pencil!” The Doctor beams. “Except it’s nothing like that at all, but if it helps you understand, then think of it like that.”

“Ok, I think I’m following. And the rift… thing… back there was the-” Kestrel turns around to see the grove of feathery trees far far in the distance. “Uhm…”

The Doctor looks up from his sonic. “Ohhh, I see. You really shouldn’t have followed me.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and shuts his eyes. Exhales slowly.

Kestrel stares at him, waiting for an explanation.

“We’re- we’re in the Fae World now, the laws of physics, go a bit… off,” he trails off.

Kestrel chuckles to himself, he’s having a really weird day. “Right so my degree is gonna be useless then. Awesome.”

“You study physics?” The Doctor asks, suddenly interested.

“Uhh, yeah, physics with astronomy. I enjoy it.” He smiles placatingly.

The Doctor’s face softens. “Humans,” he mutters fondly and pivots on his heels, heading off in a random direction again.

“Hey, I heard that!”

Kestrel speeds up to catch up with him, striding side-by-side now. The cat is now purring, and Kestrel makes sure to scratch its fluffy cheeks.

“This place is beautiful.” Kestrel comments, his gaze picking out the little alien bugs fluttering around the bright wildflowers. A huge dusty orange-brown object juts out from the swaying grass. Some sort of large animal herd is grazing near it. He immediately changes course to investigate, peeling away from The Doctor’s side.

“Hey! Only I’m allowed to wander off- ooh!”

*****

It’s a rusted metal machine of some sort. Yellow and white lichens plaster the surface, and small ferns sprout up from the ground beside it.

Kestrel tilts his head and squints. “Looks like a robot knight or something.”

The Doctor skips right up to it and licks it. “Iron,” he mutters to himself.

“Bro, you’re gonna get space tetanus.”

“Robot knight is not far off at all actually! The previous inhabitants of the planet must have built these to fight the Fae. Fae don’t like iron, you see.” He gives it another tentative lick. “It’s very old.” Pause. “Space tetanus?!”

“So the ‘Fae’ are the ones wielding the alien space pencil and stealing planets? And why don’t they like iron?” Kestrel asks, moving around the robot to inspect the other side. “Yeah, space tetanus! You’re gonna have to get a shot or something.”

The Doctor buzzes the screwdriver thing at it. “It’s all about binding energy. That’s how they get their power. Iron is the most stable element; there’s just no binding energy to extract from iron. That’s why they really like stars and nuclear power stations; they’re the perfect Fae playgrounds.” He reads the sonic.

“Ok so this planet was stolen by the Fae and the inhabitants fought back with these machines?”

“Yup.”

“And they lost?”

“That does seem to be the prognosis.”

“So how are we going to stop them from stealing the Earth?”

“Working on it.”

“Reassuring,” Kestrel mutters.

The Doctor puts away his sonic. “I’ve done it before; I’ll do it again.” He grins and holds his hand out for Kestrel to take.

Kestrel ignores it but keeps by his side anyway. “You’ve saved the Earth before?”

“Quite a few times actually… it’s becoming a habit.” He looks briefly concerned.

“You, your magic screwdriver, and your bow tie?” Kestrel teased with a grin.

“And my magic blue box, and hey! Bow ties are cool!!!”

Kestrel holds his free hand up in mock surrender, “I didn’t say they weren’t!” he points out with a laugh.

Chapter Text

The tall golden grass of the rolling hills reaches up to Kestrel’s knees, and as the pair walk in what appears to Kestrel as a random direction, little emerald dragonflies with opalescent wings flutter out of the way, snatching tiny ruby-red insects in their mandibles. The cat purrs under the warmth of the sun and rubs its black fur over Kestrel’s hoodie.

Kestrel slows down again to sneak closer to a bird that was hovering about a couple metres above the wildflowers. Not too close as to scare it off, Kestrel can pick out two pairs of feathered wings. Wait. No. The secondary wings are actually its legs. It has mottled brown feathers and pale blue streaks on the underside of its wings. Beautiful.

It suddenly dives, hind talons reaching out and snatching a much smaller bird that was rustling in the grass.

“Hey, Doctor,” Kestrel whispers. “Did you see that bird?”

He stands up straight and looks around. The Doctor is too far away and poking at something in the ground.

*****

The cat perches on Kestrel’s shoulder as he crouches down next to the Doctor.

“What’re we lookin’ at?”

The Doctor purses his lips and raises an eyebrow. “I’m not sure…” And points his screwdriver at what looks like a metal plate half buried in the dirt.

“What is that thing, anyway?”

“Screwdriver,” he answers brightly.

“Doesn’t look like a Philips to me.”

“Sonic screwdriver. Very handy. Good for opening doors and assembling cabinets.”

Kestrel nods. “Awesome, I can totally see us doing those things round here. In this random meadow.”

The Doctor looks up with a laugh. “Currently, I’m trying to figure out what this is.”

The cat hops off Kestrel’s shoulder, clearly also intrigued by the random metal plate that Kestrel found significantly less interesting than the local fauna.

A click.

“Aha!” The Doctor cheers. “A trapdoor! I love a trapdoor. Trapdoors are cool.”

And he descends into the dusty pit.

“Oooooh!” comes the sound from below.

“Anything interesting?” Kestrel calls down.

“I think this was built by the original inhabitants! Come see!”

Kestrel scoops up the cat back into his arms and clambers down the ladder.

It takes a minute for his eyes to adjust, but once they do, he sees faded colourful sheets hanging like canopies, charred wood in round stone pits, and four-fingered handprints on the stone, beside other small illustrations.

He finds the Doctor bowed over a little tent in the corner, something in his hands.

“Hey, what is it?”

The Doctor places the item back down. “Nothing, nothing, it… just reminded me of something.” He walks away, pointing his sonic screwdriver at the darkness.

Kestrel picks up the thing. It’s a little stuffed animal. Looks a little like a bison, but with six legs and huge fluffy ears. It only has one button eye, but there’s stitches to suggest it used to have two.

He gently places it so it’s sitting comfortably in the wool blankets.

“Kestrel, look at this.”

The Doctor is standing by a hanging piece of cloth, covered in symbols and diagrams Kestrel cannot read, difficult to see in the low light conditions anyway.

The Doctor traces a finger along the markings, deep in thought.

“That thing in the sky. It’s the Fae’s. That’s what they’re using to widen the rifts and steal entire planets.” He steps back away from the cloth and begins to pace. “And the inhabitants of this world knew that; they were trying to fight back. Someone must have got very close to be able to draw these diagrams, this map.”

Kestrel waits for him to elaborate.

“The Fae,” and he starts waving his hands about, “they’ve got stations all over each planet, so they can pass easily between here and their main base, their central hub, that thing in the sky. And that central hub contains the thing, whatever it is, that they’re using to tear apart the fabric of spacetime.”

“What are we going to do?” Kestrel asks quietly.

The Doctor starts grumbling to himself and scanning the bunker with his sonic. He rummages through sheets of hanging cloth and reemerges holding something metal. “Perfect!” And he starts doing something to it with the sonic, the dim green light reflecting off the old metal. “This must have been part of one of their war machines. If I can juuust- Finished!!” He bounces up to Kestrel. “One perception filter! This’ll render us practically invisible, as long as we stick together and stay quiet.”

The cat leans over and sniffs it.

“How does that work? Does it bend light?”

The Doctor grins. “Better than that. It works by using a low-level telepathic field. Diverts your brain away from it. Forces your mind to only see what it expects to see in that space.”

“That’s incredible,” Kestrel breathes, staring at the unassuming bit of tech.

The Doctor suddenly bursts into life with a contagious sort of energy, and bounds back to the ladder and clambers back up into the sunlight. Kestrel follows behind, a little slower and steadier so the cat isn’t jostled about.

He waited for the pair to reach the surface before marching off towards the forest in the distance, at the base of the mountain.

Kestrel calls out to him. “So where are we going?”

“To a Fae outpost. It was on the map in the bunker. Then we sneak in, pop up to the space station and shut this thing down.”

*****

The outpost is made from beams of pale stone woven together like tree roots, as if the rock grew up out of the ground, weaving and twisting and leaving hollows and nooks in the stone where ferns cling to the surface. It appears to melt into the landscape and disappears once it drifts into Kestrel’s peripheral vision.

Two slender humanoids stand near the entrance, spears in hand. Their eyes are amber, and their skin is rough like bark, and their bodies are twisted and hunched over. The Doctor holds out his hand for Kestrel to take.

“We need to stick close for the perception filter to work,” he whispers.

Kestrel shifts the snoozing cat over to the one arm gently and takes the Doctor’s hand.

As they creep closer, the crunch of grass folding under their shoes sounds as loud as fireworks, their breathing as loud as ocean waves hitting the side of a boat, their heartbeats thundering in their ears.

Somehow, they sneak past completely undetected, and the doorway opens up into a vast hall, sunlight streaming down and making the vines crawling up the pillars glow almost gold. Lots of humanoid creatures in various shades of brown and green mill about, children playing in the fountains, splashing each other with water. Stalls jut out from the walls, with Fae selling fresh produce. A lime green Fae with fern-like antennae leads a caravan of strange capybara-like animals, with tall, hare-like ears, but camel-like statures.

The Doctor and Kestrel weave between passers-by, the Doctor clearly heading toward something in particular.

A tall tower suddenly flickers into view, right up ahead, its spire pointing up at the space station in the sky.

The door to the tower is unguarded, so the Doctor sonics the lock and shuffles in, ducking to avoid the hanging vines and the three are immediately hit with a spray of mist.

Kestrel gazes upwards. A waterfall gushes down through the centre of the tower, pooling in the middle of the room, rivulets of water running down the staircase that climbs around the edge.

The tower seems to reach up to the sky, the staircase spiralling upwards forever.

The Doctor scans around with the sonic. “Aha.” And moves closer to the waterfall in the middle of the tower. He flashes the sonic briefly and the water… starts to slow… and then starts rushing upwards, growing faster and faster, shooting up into the sky like a geyser.

The Doctor grips Kestrel’s hand a little tighter, turning to face him with a big smile. “Ready?”

Kestrel finally understands what they’re going to do and nods.

“GERONIMOOOOO!!!!!!” The Doctor cheers, leaping into the current, Kestrel and the cat jumping in alongside him.

Chapter Text

Kestrel blinks awake to see a pair of bright gold eyes staring into his own. The cat is loafed on his chest and purring softly. “Ow…” he groans, peeling back the wet hair sticking to his face. Something is cheerfully shoved in his face.

It’s a jammie dodger.

“You should eat it.” The Doctor says, waving the blurry item in front of his face. “The teleport messed with your blood pressure, that’s why you fainted.” He explains. “Bless.”

Kestrel shakily sits up, holding the cat to his chest, and takes the jammie dodger from the Doctor gratefully. It’s a little soggy.

He then attempts to stand up, holding onto the Doctor’s arm for support, and checks himself. Somehow his headphones around his neck and the phone in his pocket remained completely dry, but the rest of him is very cold and very wet.

The Doctor catches his confusion. “I wish I knew. Probably has something to do with them being inorganic materials.”

Kestrel starts to shiver and looks around. It looks kind of like a space station, though there seems to be some sort of artificial gravity. The walls seem to be made of a similar stone to the outpost, and air seems to rush against it in such a way that sounds like breathing. And it moves. Gently. The floor thrums and the walls seem to ripple, the ferns gently swaying.

“So, we find the command room or whatever and sh-shut it all down?” Kestrel asks, teeth chattering.

The Doctor nods, shrugging off his jacket and placing it over Kestrel’s shoulders. “Yes. Shut it down permanently. Self-destruct it, whatever we have to do.”

His jacket is slightly warm, and definitely too big, almost touching the floor. The cat helpfully keeps a hold of one side as Kestrel slides his arm in, only the tips of his fingers poking out of the sleeve. Once both arms are in, he already begins to warm up. “Thank you.”

The Doctor smiles, takes Kestrel’s hand, and begins to march down the ship corridor, before stopping abruptly at a bend. His eyes go wide.

Growling. Faint. Coming from around the corner.

The Doctor tentatively pokes his head out to investigate.

“Ah…”

“What is it?” Kestrel hisses.

The Doctor flaps his free hand. “A complication to our situation. Very glad we brought the perception filter. Definitely keep holding my hand.”

Kestrel sneaks forward and peers around the bend.

“Oh.”

It’s a huge slender beast, with teal scales and long, scary-looking fangs. It has wings, but they appear to be cut short, the edges rough and taut – scar tissue. It stands guard in the middle of the corridor, leaving maybe three feet on either side of it. It has jagged scrapes all over it, and some scales missing. On its neck is a long, serrated scar, with scales bunched together on each side of the wound, where the skin had failed to knit together properly.

There’s a junction behind it, and the Doctor has already set his eyes on it, creeping forward, pulling Kestrel along with him, who hadn’t even realised his feet were moving again.

The creature seems not to notice them at all as they step over its tail and rush into one of the passageways. Another junction lies up ahead. Kestrel wonders how the Doctor could possibly know which path to take.

But it appears he does, confidently turning this way and that, occasionally taking the sonic out from his coat pocket and waving it around in the air, before returning it. Kestrel is still wearing the coat, though he’s mostly dry now. The cat is too, though Kestrel can’t recall it actually being wet to begin with. Lucky thing. Either way, it snuggles into the Doctor’s jacket, rubbing its fur into that now too.

*****

A ball of claws and tails hurtles over their heads, the two Wyverns peeling off of each other, snapping their jaws in the other’s direction, flashing the whites of their teeth.

The Doctor shuffles the pair against the wall, shielding Kestrel and the cat with his body, as the fighting Wyverns stalk back through the corridor, wings fluttering angrily, fangs bared. They launch at each other again and scramble down and around the corner. The Doctor closes his eyes, exhales, and opens them again, moving back out into the centre of the corridor.

Kestrel inspects the claw marks that they left on the walls of the corridor, raking through the moss, splats of green blood against the stone.

The Doctor squeezes Kestrel’s hand as they turn the corner.

A sapphire-blue snout juts out into the path, its body splayed out awkwardly, wings positioned crookedly, tail caught in its own talons. Jagged lacerations cover its whole body, sickly green blood covering the floor.

“Why haven’t the Fae done anything to help it?” Kestrel whispered, holding the cat a little closer to his chest.

The Doctor scans it with the sonic and answers. “Perhaps they just don’t care. Maybe the Wyvern population maintains itself.” He reads the sonic and exhales softly. “It is dying.”

Kestrel’s face falls. “How long does it have?”

“Minutes, at best.” The Doctor replies gently. “Come on, let’s keep moving.” He tugs gently on Kestrel’s hand.

The Wyvern sighs pitifully, its chest rattling. Its head lolls slightly to the side.

Kestrel glances quickly between the Wyvern and the Doctor. He makes up his mind. He wriggles his hand out of the Doctor’s and gently passes the cat to him.

“Kestrel! What are you doing?” He whispers sharply, but takes the cat into his arms anyway.

Kestrel looks into his eyes, resolute.

“No, absolutely not!”

But he doesn’t do much to stop him, as Kestrel approaches tentatively, crouching down onto his knees beside the Wyvern. It senses his presence and opens its eyes, golden and piercing.

Kestrel speaks softly to the beast, as the Doctor watches on in anxious anticipation. He slowly places his palm on the Wyvern’s snout, and it exhales with the touch. Its scales are rough like bark, but iridescent, flecks of violet and turquoise reflecting amongst the deep blue. It rumbles softly.

“Hey, you’re gonna be OK,” Kestrel assures it. “It’s gonna be OK I promise. You must be so scared right now, but you’re gonna be OK, just let go, it’s OK.” He rubs its snout gently.

Whether or not the creature understood his words remains undetermined, but with a final shaky exhale, the Wyvern closed its eyes again and grew still, its whole body relaxing.

Kestrel remained beside its head, on his knees, running his fingers over the rough scales, eyes starting to sting. He feels a hand on his shoulder – the Doctor’s.

“Come on, we need to keep moving,” he says softly, helping Kestrel back to his feet.

Kestrel wordlessly takes the cat back off him, it immediately beginning to purr and rub its face against his.

He weakly takes the Doctor’s hand, letting him lead them past the dead Wyvern and down another near identical corridor.

Chapter Text

They continue to walk in silence, the Doctor turning this way and that in the seemingly endless maze, following the glow of his sonic screwdriver, the sounds of wyvern roars rattling through the stone walls and vibrating through the mossy floor.

Eventually though, it all grows quiet.

“Doctor, do you even know where we’re going? I swear we’ve been walking forever.”

“Yes, of course I do! Well, no I don’t actually, but don’t worry too much about it, I always end up figuring it out in the end.”

Kestrel sighs, and the cat stirs. It’s warm, comforting.

And they turn the corner are immediately enveloped in a huge forest clearing, sunlight trickling through the green leaves of trees towering overhead. Weren’t they in a spaceship a minute ago?

The Doctor turns to Kestrel with a grin as if to say “See!”.

Stood guarding what appears to be the entrance to the control hub are two humanoids chatting to each other in a language composed of clicks and whistles and the sound of rustling leaves and running water.

Their eyes are a deep magenta, and they have far too many, rippling across their faces, unable to settle into a single location. Their skin is green and gold, like leaf buds in early spring, and tightly wrapped around their skeleton, with bracket fungi growing from their ribs, and they have long flowy hair that almost dissolves into the air around them.

Two regal stags stand either side of them.

Despite the perception filter, they seem to lock onto Kestrel and the Doctor immediately, their heads twisting unnaturally to stare at the newcomers.

The Doctor skips over to them, dragging Kestrel along with him.

“Hello! The Fae, am I right?”

The Fae smile, their jaw splitting across their entire face. “You made it past the Wyverns and the maze,” they say and cock their heads in sync. “We’re impressed.”

The Doctor looks smug. “Thank you.”

“May we have your names?”  One asks politely.

“No, you may not have my name, but you may call me the Doctor,” the Doctor replies.

The Fae whisper something to each other in their own language, before their eyes lock in place on their faces, large and round like a snake’s, focused in on the Doctor.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to kill you now. Which is a shame, because it would have been so fun to keep you.” They turn to face Kestrel, who could hear his heart hammering in his chest, and his blood rush to his legs. “We might keep this one though, he could be fun.”

The Doctor tenses.

“You won’t be killing me or keeping my friend as a plaything, and you certainly won’t be taking the Earth to add to your little collection,” The Doctor spits.

And how do you plan on stopping us, comes the voice from all around. Pink eyes flicker open from the darkness of the trees all around them, the shadows encroaching closer and closer.

The cat suddenly launches itself out from Kestrel’s arms, growing and growing in size, until a huge black panther stands in front of the two, baring its fangs at the Fae all around them. And it pounces, tackling several Fae to the ground, sending the guard stags fleeing into the woods. It opens its jaws, and bright blue tentacles shoot out of its mouth, snatching and enveloping Fae and pulling them into its mouth, somehow swallowing them whole.

Kestrel blinks in surprise. “I was not expecting that.”

The Doctor rushes to the door the Fae were guarding, frantically buzzing at it with his screwdriver.

“ARGH its wood.”

“What do you mean!!!?? Doesn’t it work on wood!?!”

“NO!!!”

“What’s the point in that??!!”

“Hey!! Don’t diss the sonic!!!” The Doctor yells back, yelping abruptly as the panther scampers up behind him and crashes into the door, smashing through, sending pieces of wood flying into the new room.

*****

The entire space thrums and stirs beneath their feet as if it was… alive?

The Doctor immediately rushes over to the central command node. He steps up onto the raised platform and scans the controls with his sonic.

“Here’s the self-destruct!”

A short beep from the sonic and a red light fills the room. A countdown in foreign digits is plastered onto every surface, ticking down slowly.

“How long do we have?” Kestrel asks, inspecting the numbers on the wall next to him, a hand on the panther’s head.

The Doctor steps off the platform. “About 10 minu-”

The numbers disappeared.

The Doctor steps back up. The numbers reappear.

He furrows his brow and buzzes the sonic around the perimeter of the platform, tilting it back to his face to analyse the readings. He groans and rubs his hands across his face.

“What’s the matter?” Kestrel asks.

“Doctor.” Kestrel repeats.

“Someone needs to stay here on this platform to keep the self-destruct running. Stupid stupid failsafe!”

“I’ll do it,” Kestrel offers quietly.

“YOU CAN’T! No absolutely not, we’ll find another way.”

“This thing is tearing apart the fabric of reality as we speak, yes?”

Kestrel begins to make his way up to the platform, the Doctor standing motionless.

The countdown lights up again.

“Yes, but we have time! We have time! Step off the platform, stop the countdown and we can find another way out!”

“I think you’re lying. I will do this. I’d like to die for a reason. Saving the Earth seems like a pretty good reason to me.”

“Your whole life,” the Doctor whispers, “You’ve got all of that ahead of you.”

Kestrel laughs, “I haven’t got anything ahead of me. No friends, no purpose, not even a life I’m especially fond of. The world isn’t made for people like me.”

“But you’d still sacrifice yourself to save it.”

Kestrel frowns. “Of course.”

The Doctor lowers his head.

“Look, Doctor, I’m not important-”

“Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!” And the Doctor turns around. “We are both getting out of this, OK? I won’t allow anything less that.”

The panther lifts its head up to Kestrel’s palm.

“Doctor, the longer you stand here arguing with me, the less time you’re leaving yourself to escape.”

The panther nudges Kestrel in the torso.

“Hey, you’ll be OK, lil guy. The Doctor will take you somewhere safe-?”

The panther nudges Kestrel more insistently, pushing him backwards towards the Doctor.

“What’re you doing bud?”

Kestrel takes the last step off the platform, landing right beside the Doctor, who appears to have come to a realisation.

The countdown stays on, and the panther sits down purposefully, and gives a little ‘meow’.

Kestrel’s eyes well up.

“Thank you,” the Doctor says softly.

His demeanour changes immediately, “Right!” he begins brightly, “We’ve got to work out an escape!” he says and scrambles over to a set of controls, haphazardly pressing buttons and pulling levers.

“Rudimentary teleport!”

“Uhhmmm… Doctor!!!” Kestrel calls anxiously as Fae begin to pick themselves up off the floor and slither closer to the pair.

“I’m trying!!!” The Doctor yelps, frantically tying wires together and soldering tiny pieces of metal together, pulling random pieces of machinery from his pockets and fusing them together.

Kestrel ducks as a Fae lunges at him with a fist that turns to wood as it hits the wall behind him.

Sharp exhale.

He kicks sharply at its abdomen, but misses as the Fae’s body redistributes itself just so that Kestrel’s foot flies right through and gets stuck in the creature’s ribcage, the mass moving back and trapping Kestrel’s foot in place.

The ground suddenly seems to give way beneath him and he’s falling, falling, falling, landing harshly on the ground. Exactly where he was lying before.

He wheezes, sucking in a breath, and scrambles to grab something he can use as a weapon, finding a random metal pole conveniently emerge from the wall behind him.

As the Fae advance again, a second joining the first, Kestrel strikes with the metal pole, of course, sliding right through empty space, but strikes again, skewering the second Fae, leaving them to merge together, with a head poking out of the other’s chest, limbs all tangled. It would buy him some time.

“Doctor, the Fae are all about psychic stuff, right?” he asks, scrambling to pull his phone from his trouser pocket, praying to the universe that it isn’t broken.

“Uhm, in a sense!” the Doctor responds, wires between his teeth.

Kestrel retrieves his phone, luckily relatively unscathed, and frantically searches for something and turns up the volume to max, blasting a familiar drum pattern and synth.

“GET RICKROLLED SUCKERS!!!” he yells as the Fae physically recoil, hissing, stumbling backwards. “Oh my god it worked!!! I can’t believe it!!!”

“Got it!” The Doctor shouts and the space suddenly dissolves from under their feet and Kestrel’s falling again.

Chapter Text

Kestrel blinks open his eyes, groaning, his every bone aching. Waking up in pain has been happening far too often today, he reckons, even if it was only twice. The Doctor stumbles to his feet and offers Kestrel his hand.

Shakily standing side by side, they gaze up at the sky as a bright explosion goes off, a shockwave rippling through the ground, almost knocking Kestrel back down.

“That won’t have killed all the Fae.” The Doctor states.

Kestrel glances at him. “Maybe not. But look at what you spared. These planets are beautiful and inhabited by so many incredible species. You may not have completely stopped the Fae, but you destroyed their planet-stealing thing, and without the cost of planets-worth of wildlife. You should be proud of yourself.”

The Doctor takes Kestrel’s hand in his and turns to face him, a tentative smile on his face. “Thank you,” he says quietly, earnestly.

*****

“Police Public Call Box,” Kestrel enunciates, and the Doctor watches on with an almost impatient excitement as Kestrel reaches out, grazing his fingertips against the blue wood. He spins around to face the Doctor with a curious look. “And this is the spaceship you mentioned?”

The Doctor nods, practically hopping from foot to foot.

Kestrel turns back to the box and tilts his head in contemplation. “It’s gotta be bigger on the inside or something, surely? Looks a bit cramped otherwise. Not sure how you’d fit the machinery required for spacetime travel.”

The Doctor makes a face. “Oh, spoil the good bit why don’t you!”

Kestrel turns to face the Doctor, and his face completely lights up. “No way!” He touches the door lightly and the TARDIS doors seemingly open on their own, the orange glow of the console room spilling out onto the grass. He looks to the Doctor who has an incredibly smug look on his face.

“Go ahead!”

The TARDIS whirs as Kestrel steps through the doors, and the Doctor follows closely behind, watching Kestrel, who so far, appears to be processing so much at once he begins to malfunction, bouncing along excitedly, inspecting the glass floor, the buttons around the console, and looking up at the cables hanging like vines up above. He skips over to the round doorway at the other end of the room and pokes his head down the corridor.

“How big is this thing?!”

“Very,” the Doctor answers, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. “She can spontaneously create more rooms at will, so the potential is essentially infinite.”

That gets a very excited screech.

“She’s beautiful!!!” Kestrel shouts, and the TARDIS wheezes in response.

His eyes go wide.

“Is she alive?” He whispers, recoiling his hands.

The Doctor chuckles, patting the TARDIS. “In a sense, yes. Don’t worry, she likes you.” And he beams, clearly pleased the two get along.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Kestrel whispers into the corridor, his voice echoing softly.

The TARDIS gives a gentle whir.

The Doctor comes up behind him, eyebrows raised. “So? What do you say? Will you come with me?”

Kestrel almost starts to vibrate. “You’d let me travel with you? Are you sure?”

The Doctor takes Kestrel’s hand tenderly, places something small and cold in his palm, and folds over his fingers. He looks up to meet Kestrel’s gaze. “Of course.”

Kestrel slowly withdraws his hand, unfurling his fingers to see the TARDIS key, glinting in the soft amber light.

He looks back up at the Doctor who has a big stupid grin on his face.

“All of time and space, where do you want to go first?!”