belated posting is belated

[doctorsfanboy.livejournal.com]

Characters: Damon doctorsfanboy and the Tenth Doctor (d6) bit_impossible
Location: The Plane
Time: Uhh, after Damon's deathmatch
Summary: Ten finds Damon when he comes back to life, and discusses his plans for bringing down the barrier and whatnot
Warnings: Cuteness?
Note: Ten has no tag! D:




Waking up from being dead was a bizarre sensation, and Damon felt ridiculously fuzzy -- like he’d been drugged. Which was a high possibility, considering how he’d woken up. The tea was helping a bit, though, and he sipped it carefully as he sat on some empty space of the Plane.

The Doctor had been deep in thought as he returned from his second visit to the Coliseum. He'd deposited the tray in the Plane's kitchen, thinking it'd be of use there somehow. Seeing Damon in the distance, though, broke him out of his thoughts and a blur of mixed emotions rushed through his mind.

His trainers slipped a bit on the starry ground as he ran over and soon came to a squeaking halt near his old friend. "Damon! You're back!" Then he noticed the tea cup. "Oi, again with the tea..." he added, grumbling under his breath. "Nobody ever thinks to bring an extra cuppa for anyone who happens across them."

Damon smiled faintly when the Doctor spoke. "I am, yes. And you can finish mine, if you like," he offered quietly. He wasn't really in the mood for tea, or anything else for that matter.

"I'm glad to see you're alive, too," he added, glancing down at his cup. He had been worried that every regeneration of the Doctor would be thrown into one of these matches.

He frowned and almost took Damon up on the offer. "No, you're the second person given tea like this. By the Twins, I take it? If anything, the release of tannins and antioxidants ought to make you feel better. Neurological stimuli, that sort of thing. I'll just make my own later!"

Then he plopped down beside Damon, stretching his legs out in front of him. "But yes, I'm still alive and kicking. Quite the feat, as well, considering I was visiting with Weber and King Big'un again. I'm really glad I brought that box of chocolates with me. He's got quite the temper on him if you rub him the wrong way."

"I can only imagine," Damon replied, frowning. He hadn't had an opportunity to meet the King. He paused for a long moment, debating whether or not he really wanted to know the answer to his next question. "You didn't...watch my match, did you?"

Please say you didn't, he thought to himself.

"No, I didn't actually," he said softly. He couldn't bring himself to watch. Not when it involved a version of himself and a friend from his Academy days. "Not upset about that, are you?"

Damon leaned against the Doctor, almost hesitantly. "Of course not. I'm glad you didn't." It was the truth; he didn't want anyone to witness something like that, especially not the Doctor.

He slipped an arm around Damon's shoulder and drew him a tight hug. Hugs helped, even though they couldn't be used to prevent one's death or restore life. And he doubted Weber had any cards that could do it on such a scale. "Who was there for you? In the arena, I mean. Which one of me?"

Damon returned the hug gratefully, closing his eyes at the question. "Your Fifth self -- the one with the black cricketing outfit. I...I tried to shoot myself first, with a staser, but he stopped me. He tried to kill himself instead, but I got in the way. I couldn't let him take his own life for my sake."

His voice wavered slightly, but he refused to cry. It was over now, and everything would be fine. There's no sense in brooding. "I don't think he ever expected me to succeed."

Had he been in that position, he would've done much the same, though he didn't want details of the plan his fifth self had devised or how Damon had accidentally died. His Damon was long gone now, as were the others, but when he allowed himself a moment to think about his people, he pictured ones who were still good and true Time Lords, the ones in his past before the Time War--not the ones so many of them became in the end.

"Well," the Doctor said thoughtfully, releasing Damon from the hug. "You won't be able to pull the wool over his eyes next time. Which there won't be a next time, but still."

"No, I suppose I won't. But for all we know, there might be a next time," he replied wearily. One of these days he was simply going to fall apart from all the trauma he'd experienced in such a short amount of time, but his mental health could wait until after this was over. "This may just be the first round of matches, Doctor."

His face darkened. "Funny you mention that... Oliver heard much the same. Only...that there were no plans to cease the matches whatsoever. Anyone who'd fought before could be called up to fight again, even if they won or lost.

"But!" he said, a bit more energetic now. "We're not going to let that happen. None of us. We're going to stop this."

Damon winced when the Doctor confirmed his guess. "Do you have a plan, Doctor? I want to help, if you do." There was a note of hope in his voice -- if there was one person he trusted to set things right, it was the Doctor.

"Oh, now Damon, we've known each other for how long and you've got to ask me such a question?" He could feel a smile beginning to spread across his lips. Now that he'd spoken to Weber and the king, he knew exactly what he had to do--and what he should tell the others.

"Considering your tendency to jump into situations without thinking, I do," Damon teased, smiling a bit himself.

He gave an innocent shrug of his shoulders and laid back on the ground, propping his hands behind his head. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said playfully. "I grew out of the 'leaping before thinking' phase ages ago." Of course, it was a bold-faced lie. "But since you asked..."

While he laid back against the starry ground, he explained his plan to Damon. As he did so, he came to the realisation that his plan sounded decently sound, and considering he normally just dived in with this sort of thing, he was rather impressed with himself. Of course...he didn't talk about the exact details of what he was planning to do after the barrier was taken down, though. Only that he needed everyone out of there and that he'd take it from there. Besides, he had things worked out with his ninth self, as well as Oliver, and if something happened to either or both of them, well...he didn't want Damon to see that. He didn't want any of them to.

Damon laid down next to the Doctor, listening to him explain the situation. If the circumstances were different, he might have been embarrassed by the casual intimacy of it -- but as it was, he was too distracted by what the Doctor was saying.

He frowned slightly when he learned that his friend was handling things by himself at the end. "Take someone with you, Doctor," he insisted. "Even if you think it's too dangerous. You always need someone, I think."

That Damon might have been in any way uncomfortable with the present situation never once crossed the Doctor's mind. In fact, he was thinking about how much nicer it would’ve been to have a proper blanket underneath. The Plane's ground wasn't the most ideal place for a lie-down.

"Perhaps," he said quietly. "But none of our friends or acquaintances. Enough of them have died already. But I think I do know the man for the job." All he had to do was find him. Shouldn’t be too hard, he thought.

"Who is it?" Damon asked curiously. "If you don't mind telling me, that is." He only hoped the Doctor wasn't going to say himself. The two of them alone would only mean that both of them needed to be looked after.

An eyebrow raised slightly, but he shrugged. "No, I don't mind. But, erm, you might not like it, though. Just to warn you."

Damon gave him a flat look. "Doctor, I want you to understand my position. Since I arrived here, I've witnessed a massacre, been told my planet will be utterly destroyed sometime in the future, and been forced into giving my life for the one person I trust above anyone else. Just tell me."

"You what?" he asked softly, propping himself up on an elbow to have a look at his friend better. No one bothered to tell him about a massacre. Just when he thought he'd arrived in time to fully prevent one disaster, he'd completely missed another. Being on the Plane brought up some good, fond memories. But it also twisted the knife in his chest in relation to people he couldn't stop from getting hurt or disasters he wasn’t around to prevent at all, like the Fifth Axis invasion, or...

"Oh Damon... I wish that were the last one you'd ever see. But I promise you this won’t turn out to be one. I'm working with the previous incarnation right before this one. He knows Weber in different ways, and it wouldn't be right for him not to say good-bye."

"I suppose that was before your arrival, wasn't it? But it was terrible, and I discovered the corpses in the onsen…" he closed his eyes, remembering the scene. He opened them again when the Doctor told him who he was bringing. "I thought you might say that," he replied, sighing. "And I would rather like to say good-bye to Weber myself…we got along well. But I think my technical skills will probably be needed at the barrier."

"Yes, they would be better suited for the barrier. We need to try anything and everything to bring it down, and I do need your skills there. Weber will understand, I’m sure.

"But corpses?!" he asked, his face twisting with disgust. "How did they die?"

"I don't know," Damon whispered. "There was so much damage…but your self seemed to know who they were. They had bones and feathers on their backs, like wings…apparently the Machine had reanimated those who had died on the Plane, a long time ago. The Doctor said they were told to drop their bodies into the black hole." He had a feeling that wasn't the entire story, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the rest.

"Like angels you think?" he asked softly, his brows furrowed together. The more he heard about this place, the less it made any sense. "But why drop the bodies in that black hole...? Where would they go, I wonder?" Absently, his hand rubbed his chin as he mulled that over.

"I don't know the answers, Doctor. All I know is that we found the corpses…you may want to ask your self about it. Perhaps after all this is over." And it would be over soon. He trusted the Doctor to set things right.

Damon reached over, grasping his friend's shoulder. "Promise me you'll be careful, Doctor. Both of you."

He'd thought about talking to that particular incarnation about things the next time he ran into him. A conversation about those bodies, however, clinched it for him. Now he just had to find him once the deathmatch business was done and over with. Could prove more difficult that he'd like--but then again, he seemed to have a decent track record with his previous incarnation...

"Of course I will do, old friend," he said, patting Damon's shoulder in turn. "You won't need to worry about us."