Aftershocks ('Amnesty'/'In the TARDIS' entry

[templeremus]

Title: Aftershocks

Characters/Pairings: Ryan Sinclair, Graham O'Brien, The Doctor. Walk-on part for Yaz.

Word Count: 1350

Genre: Character Study/Angst/Missing Scene

Summary: Graham deals with the fallout from the fam's time in the Punjab. There's a lot more to deal with, too, but they'll get there in the end. Coda to episode 11.06.

The ride back to Sheffield was more subdued than normal. Yaz avoided meeting anybody's eyes, hanging back by the entrance as the ship rumbled and lurched. Every now and then she'd flex her wrists, examining the way that the henna patterns moved when she did.

 

Graham and Ryan exchanged glances, but kept quiet. Anything they might have said would have sounded inadequate, like trying to make small talk at a funeral. For the first time since they found themselves in the Doctor's orbit, Yaz was somewhere they couldn't follow. They knew the lie of the land - had walked a parallel path together, in the days after Grace died - but this was an unfamiliar, gentler kind of loss. Yaz was smiling as she reached for her phone, and when she spoke her voice had an officer's brisk calm.

 

"Hi, Mum. Is Nani there? Put her on, please."

 

The Doctor watched her through the doors and out of sight.

 

"Right then," she said: turned on her heel, and collapsed.

 

There was no time even for shock. Graham put out his arms without thinking and grabbed the shoulders of her coat, slowing her fall into a kind of footballer's dive. With Ryan's help - and why can't this place have a sofa, a small frantic part of Graham's brain whispered - he was able to drag her into a semi-reclining position, her back propped up against the nearest pillar. Her face - what he could see of it, underneath the hair and the hood - was set in a tight grimace. Beside him, Ryan was looking almost as peaky, eyes huge and glassy with fear. Oh Christ, said the voice in Graham's head. He shouldn't be seeing this. Not like this, not again.

 

"C'mon. Scaring us here, Doc."

 

She came to with a jolt, as if someone had trickled cold water down her neck. "S'okay," she muttered, slurring the words together. "S - just an aftershock. Noisy bunch, the Thijarians. Talking to 'em really messes with your- uh. Thinky space. Mind."

 

Ryan was fumbling with his phone. "I'm calling an ambulance."

 

"Oh you are, are you?" snapped Graham, with the sudden belligerence of the well and truly helpless. "And do you want to explain the magic blue box to 'em, or shall I?"

 

The boy flinched, and Graham kicked himself mentally. Idiot, idiot. "Sorry," he said, through slow, calming breaths. "Um. I don't think we should move her, for now. Just - get a cushion or something, yeah? I'll stay here, 'case she wakes up properly."

 

Ryan didn't need telling twice. He was out of the room like a shot, almost clipping himself on the console as he went. One of these days they would need to have a talk about this instinct to duck out when the going got tough, though Graham knew that he was hardly the man to take charge of it. For most of his life he had been the sort of person things just happened to, whether he desired them or not. Grace was the one who had spoken up on others' behalf, refusing point blank to let an unfairness or injustice stand without protest. Of all the things he had loved about her, it was the certainty that he missed most keenly. Though the Doctor waged a similar moral crusade with the universe, life in her wake was unpredictable, each day a different battle. It took all Graham's energy just to keep up.

 

Also, his knees were starting to hurt. Careful not to let go of the Doctor's hand, he stretched his legs out until he was sitting parallel to her, their shoulders almost touching. The movement was enough to rouse her, and she gave him a smile that - even under the sunset-glow of the main console - looked distinctly pallid.

 

"You don't have to stay here, you know. Any of you. S'nothing a bit of kip won't sort. Go and - have tea, or write poetry, or. Whatever it is you lot do when I'm not looking."

 

Graham shook his head. "It's no trouble. Really, Doc." And I've nowhere else to be, he didn't add. Nowhere except a flat with too much quiet in it, and a patch of earth that is meant to hold everything Grace was. Aloud, he heard himself saying, brisk and a little too hearty: "Spend a lot of time in hospital, you get used to waiting around for things."

 

She had closed her eyes again, head lolling off to one side as if the weight of it were too much for her neck to support. For a moment he thought she might be on the verge of passing out, but her hand was still clasped firm around his, and when she spoke her voice seemed clearer than before.

 

"What was it like? If you don't mind me asking."

 

Graham took a while to answer her. He'd lost the habit of thinking about those days. Excavating them required an effort that was almost physical, like working a muscle that had begun to atrophy.

 

"You know, good patches and rough," he said, careful now, sizing up each word as it left his mouth. "We'd talk, read. Uh, magazines, mostly. And Grace had this knackered CD player, people took turns bringing in their music."

 

The Doctor perked up a little at that. "What sort of music?"

 

It was easier, somehow, when she wasn't looking at him. He focused on a segment of floor-pattern just beyond her feet, and allowed himself to linger in the memory.

 

"Well, what you might call the golden oldies. None of that - acid or grime or whatever it is they have on now. Most of us stopped following the charts 'round about the time of the Beatles."

 

His friend hummed in reply, her free hand tapping out a rhythm on the floor.

 

"Picture yourself on a boat on a river

With tangerine trees

And marmalade skies..."

 

She mouthed to herself for a few more beats. "Nice boys, those. Though they left out the silver leaves. I always liked the leaves."

 

Graham had the uneasy - and by now quite familiar - sense that the conversation was getting away from him. He was learning, gradually, not to mind it so much.

 

Ryan had emerged from a side-door to their left, clutching an armful of bedding and a tartan-patterned Thermos as if his life depended on it. "I kept looping back on the kitchen," he said, nodding to the Thermos. "Reckon your ship was trying to tell me something."

 

The Doctor cracked one eye open. "Good lad. Superheated infusion of tannins and-"

The rest of the sentence was swallowed in a fresh grimace. "Agh. Y'know what, I'm going to be quiet for a bit. Wake me if you get bored."

 

By enveloping the supporting pillar in a blanket and framing the area all around it with cushions, the two men were able to create a sort of alcove for themselves and the Doctor. It was oddly cosy, and reminded Graham of his single desultory attempt to take the family camping straight after Ryan left school. They'd pitched the tent on an incline and woken up piled on top of each other, Grace stifling her laughter into his shoulder.

 

The Doctor was there now, mouth open a little, the last bit of tension twitching out through her fingers. Moving with exaggerated care, Graham extracted his hand from hers and reached for his phone. He hovered, on instinct, over his home number - the tricksy side of grief, always seeking comfort where it no longer resided - before moving to Yaz's.

 

Calling felt like an imposition, and in any case he wasn't sure that he had the right words. After some hesitation, he wrote:

Doc resting up. dont worry. Well wait for you in the Tardis. G.

 

"Is everything okay?" Ryan whispered. Still hugging the Thermos against his chest, he had folded himself into the space beneath the main console, as if to take shelter there.

 

Graham nodded, surprised by how easy it felt. The fearful voice in his head was only a murmur now, easily lost in the ship's steady thrum.

"It will be," he said. "Promise."