The Sensory Infusion of Pegasus Tor

[fajrdrako]

It's been a long time since I've written fanfic of any type.

Title: The Sensory Infusion of Pegasus Tor
Author: fajrdrako
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: The Ninth Doctor, Captain Jack Harkness
Challenge: from baronjanus (Thank you!)
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims, all property of the BBC.
Notes: 805 words.


The Sensory Infusion of Pegasus Tor

The Doctor sat in his comfy chair under the stars. Sometimes he thought about Gallifrey. Sometimes he thought about death. Sometimes he didn't think at all.

When he was young - younger than he was now, anyway - there was a kind of tea he used to like. It came from the planet Pegasus Tor, and was sometimes difficult to find, because of the embargo. For some races, it was an aphrodisiac. For some, a hallucinogen. For Time Lords, it caused a pleasant relaxation which kept the mind clear. For himself in particular it brought back good memories of snacks after school, a quick drink before meeting up with friends, a friendly kitchen that was a centrepoint of hearth and home. For a while. While it lasted. When there were homes on Gallifrey, and hearts still beat in Gallifreyan bodies.

Even after running away - well, after leaving - Gallifrey, he had kept a store of the leaves, and drank it on his mother’s birthday. No more than that: that would waste it. No less than that, or he would forget.

And he had forgotten from time to time, because life was busy and he was imperfect and he just wasn’t thinking. How do we know what to value, when we still have it within reach?

When his world had ended there was no more tea. Another emptiness in the vast sphere of eternity. The TARDIS couldn’t replicate the formula, and it was just as well. He didn’t deserve a simple pleasure.

He wondered idly if Pegasus Tor still existed. He could go there to have a look. He could possibly go back to when it did exist, if the TARDIS could find it. He could make it a quest. He could go forward to a time when its people will have been long dead but its plants, with their wide, wonderful leaves, would still bt flourishing. He could search the universe over to find another tea with that aroma; that mellow, acerbic taste. He could visit the scientists of New New (et cetera) Earth and they would help him, experiment till they had the perfect blend. They could make enough for the universe. He would never be without it again.

He couldn’t be bothered.

He could remember the smell, as comforting as his wife's arms, and as lost to the invariant past as she was. Tears he refused to shed pricked at his eyelids, and he waited, letting the pain pass, savouring it. Or possibly just ignoring it. Was it more painful to remember, or to forget?

Nights like this he couldn’t sleep, but couldn’t bear to be awake. The past pressed in on him. So did the future. There was no escape in head, in his TARDIS, in his universe. He didn't want company. He hated solitude. Couldn’t afford solace. What was left?

He imagined he was floating in a vast and empty space, with nowhere to turn. But there was an aroma, as tempting as any he had ever encountered. The tea? No, no, just a figment of his imagination.

A rather realistic figment. It didn't go away.

He went back to the his armchair, an empty seat in an empty cosmos. He was no longer alone there. There was a presence - intrusive, benign, loving. A companion. Laughing at him, enticing him, making him feel less alone. Dammit, he wanted to be alone and miserable. He had the right, didn't he? The smell of tea wafted around him.

"Thought you might like some," said Captain Jack. He was holding a steaming mug.

The Doctor opened his eyes. Chair, floor, stars above him, and Jack beside him, in a black T-shirt, smiling. He held up the cup. "Tea?"

"That tea hasn’t existed for decades," said the Doctor, annoyed. "It was lost when Gallifrey fell."

"Huh? I dunno. I bought it in the market on Droxia a few centuries from now, when we were there last Thursday."

"It can’t be." The Doctor snatched it from him. He took a sniff. It brought back memories of warmth and happiness; memories of the home he had forsaken, the people he had lost.

“Well?”

The Doctor took a tentative sip. Hot, yes. He took another. It had a similar rough edge on the tongue, a similar silken smoothness on the throat, a similar sweetness on the palate, but it wasn’t the tea of Pegasus Tor, which he would never drink again. Lost, like so many beautiful things.

"It isn’t the same," he said, annoyed. Relieved.

Jack shrugged, and took back the mug. "Maybe not. But it’s damn fine tea, anyway." Holding the Doctor’s eyes, he took a long, deliberate sip. His lips gleamed wet for a moment. He was surrounded by starscape.

Slowly, the Doctor nodded, leaning closer to Jack. He no longer felt alone, or wanted to be.

"Damn fine," he agreed.

- end -