Fic: A Maze of Ashy Days

[neveralarch]

This is for dw_femslash! I will get to read the other entries eventually, I hope, but for now here is mine.

A Maze of Ashy Days
Doctor Who
Rating: teen
(wartime situations, kissing)
Characters: Ten, Leela/Donna
Wordcount: 1,700ish
Summary: Leela leaves the War behind.
A/N: written for dw_femslash, fo livii! Thanks to justice_turtle and foralllove for a very last-minute beta - you guys are the best!

Fire fell out of the sky, and Leela ducked under the torn metal carcass of a burst TARDIS. She could feel the heat as fragments of shrapnel bounced off the edges of her shelter. The knees of her uniform trousers were shredded and stained from dirt and blood, but she was grateful for their protection all the same.

Most of her squadron was similarly scattered amid the wreckage. A few were lying out on the battlefield, cycling through regenerations as they cried out wordlessly. Leela set her teeth and prepared to make a run for the nearest wounded soldier. It wasn't as if the Daleks were here to stop her - they were up above, in the ships that were burning this planet's sky. She would just have to be fast and lucky and as careful as she could be.

A TARDIS landed as she first set foot out of her shelter. The noise of it drove her back, eyes wide with recognition. Several of her soldiers shouted with joy as a police box took shape and its door swung open.

The face that poked out was less encouraging.

Instead of bouncing dark curls and a sharp worried face, the man who was looking out now had spiky brown hair and a healthier cast to his expression.

Leela was certain the Doctor had been captured, perhaps killed, and her heart sank like a bird without breeze. She gestured to a few of her soldiers to surround the TARDIS - the bombardment was slowing, and they could do that, they could take this thief and murderer.

"No," said the thief. "No, we shouldn't be here. How is this even possible?"

"Doctor?"

Leela froze, and a woman with long red hair joined the possibly-thief. Perhaps the Doctor had regenerated? Perhaps this was him from the future? Perhaps-

"Doctor, where are we?"

"Where we shouldn't be. The Time War." The man with the spiky brown hair and a weasel's face looked around, and then straight at Leela. She stood up from her crouch, and he nodded at her.

"We've landed in the middle of my timeline," he said, loud enough that Leela could tell that the words were meant for her as well. "In a bad time. I'd like to- No. I can't. I can't do anything."

A wounded soldier screamed as her regeneration ended, and the Doctor's eyes flashed with some kind of emotion. Leela shook her head and went to help those who were dying now and those who would probably die later.

Once she might have begged the Doctor to take her with him, or at least help her to make the best of this situation. But her place was here, and he could do nothing. He had said as much.

At least there was a future, after the Time Lords or the Daleks fell.

"I'm sorry!" called the Doctor, and Leela held up a hand in acknowledgment.

"Who is that?" asked the woman. She probably thought she was being quiet, but Leela's ears were sharp, sharp enough to catch the suck of the mud under her feet, the gasps of a soldier trying to grow a new arm, the whisper of a woman who had replaced Leela in the TARDIS.

"Leela," said the Doctor. "She was my friend and she’s- Well, she's brilliant."

The TARDIS dematerialized while Leela still had her back turned.

---

The day that the Time Lords fell came at last, and Leela watched it alone. Romana had been pulled screaming out of the presidency, replaced by that Rassilon. Narvin had been lost on a mission, his death witnessed but the body left behind. K-9 had been sent away long before the worst parts of the war, sent as a refugee to some friend of the Doctor’s. The Doctor himself was still fighting, would probably never stop.

Leela didn't know where Brax was. Far, far away, she hoped. Where she would like to be.

But there was nowhere to go, and the battle could not be ignored or forgotten. Leela had kept going, kept living.

Until now, when the amber sky was a bloody red, and the towers of the Time Lords were crumbling into ash. Leela stood and stared at a cloud, watching the dim shapes of Dalek battleships circle the Citadel. A TARDIS rocketed toward them, a familiar blue box, stained with rust and scorchmarks.

After a moment, Leela sat down.

Everything roared and exploded and ended. Leela was gone, and everything was darkness.

Dalek battleships circled the Citadel. The Doctor's TARDIS rose. Leela sat down, and died.

Dalek battleships circled the Citadel. The Doctor's TARDIS rose. Leela sat down, and died, again, and again, and again.

Dimly, she knew that this would happen forever, whatever plans Rassilon and his Council might have to the contrary.

The TARDIS rose, and then appeared right in front of her, the roar of its landing fading as it solidified.

Leela glanced between the TARDIS before her and the TARDIS nearing the battleships.
The one near her opened, and the red-haired woman opened the door.

"Right," said the woman. "Get in, hurry, I need to time this just right."

Leela didn’t hesitate – she had died enough times this day. The inside of the TARDIS was warm and bright and Leela was tired and worn. She felt as much a stranger as the first time she had walked through its doors.

"If we take off just as the Doctor blows everything up, then we should be able to ride the shockwave out of the Time Lock," said the woman. "Can you pull that lever?"

Leela pulled the lever. The doors closed.

"Hang on," said the woman, staring at her hands as they raced across dials and buttons.

Leela grasped the edge of the console and laughed as she escaped her latest death.

---

The red-haired woman pounded the console as they left Gallifrey far behind, her breath rasping out in anxiousness and joy. Leela let go of the console, gingerly, a grin still stretching her cheeks. It hurt - she hadn’t smiled in so long.

"Why did you come for me?" asked Leela. "You Time Lords have little love-"

The woman looked directly at Leela, and the words died in her throat. This woman was a Time Lady, surely - her eyes glowed and brimmed with the power, her bearing was proud with that bit of unthinking self-importance that marked even the best of Gallifreyans. Even the Outsiders had it, for all they had given up the ways of their people.

But this woman was not from Gallifrey. She was Human, achingly so. And she had the Doctor's TARDIS.

Leela remembered a battlefield, the mud and the dying and a woman with red hair.

"You," she said, and stopped again.

"Me," agreed the woman. "How many times have we met, in your time line?"

"I saw you," said Leela. "We've not met."

"Oh." The woman's face fell, and she looked down at the console. "Then- I can't keep you long. I should drop you off somewhere. Your planet- no, of course not, you wouldn't want that-"

"You are right," said Leela, though she didn't know how this woman knew so much. "Just leave me somewhere the War has not touched."

"It hasn't touched much of anywhere, now," said the woman. "The Doctor took care of that."

"You have his TARDIS," said Leela. "Where is he?"

A pause sat between them, and the woman jerked her head down to the console.

"I'll leave you on Earth," she said. "You’ll be safe enough, and you’ll fit in better there than most places. And anyway, you need to be there."

A younger Leela would have demanded to know the Doctor's fate, to know where he lived or where he lay. But Leela was an old warrior now, and she had lost too many comrades to relish being told of another sorrow.

"I've seen Earth before," she said, instead. "Take me there, and I will find my own way."

The woman nodded, and set the TARDIS hurtling off. She wasn't very good at flying it, not as smooth as Brax or Narvin or Romana. She must have learned from the Doctor.
Leela smiled again, even though it hurt.

---

The not-Time-Lady put the TARDIS down in a place she called London, though it was much different from the London Leela had visited with the Doctor.

"Do you want help with anything?" she asked. "It's not your time, obviously, and culture shock-"

"I'm beyond being surprised by new cultures," said Leela, gently. "I'll find my way."

"Yeah, but you don't have ID or anything," said the woman. She bit her lip. "Hold on."

While the woman looked for something in the TARDIS, Leela checked her uniform. She took out her deadly weapons - once she would have fought for them against any odds, but she'd had enough of killing, now. Especially on Earth, where death and fighting might bring the native guard.

Leela kept her staser, however, setting it to stun, and kept the tiny time-based gadgets which the scientists had devised in the last days of the War. She was going out into a new world, and it might be hostile.

As hostile as any world, anyway. There were no safe places, whatever this woman might say. Leela had learned that when she was a child.

The woman came back with a little blank slip of paper, small enough to fit into one of Leela's pockets.

"Psychic paper," she said. "It should get you through most of the bureaucratic hurdles."

"I cannot just leap them?" asked Leela. She knew what bureaucrats were by now, of course, but the thought amused her.

"You can try," said the woman, looking amused as well. "But I think this might be easier."

"Thank you," said Leela. She turned to the door. "Thank you for all of this."

"Well, I couldn't let you-" the woman stopped. "I can't let you. Here, Leela-"

Leela turned her head at the name, and had her mouth caught in a kiss, familiar and strange. She gave the kiss back, gripping the woman's shoulders. Comfort in a time of war - she would take it, even if she didn't understand it.

"Look for me," said the woman, when she broke away. "Donna Noble, that's me."

"London is very large," said Leela.

"You'll find me," said Donna, and opened the TARDIS doors.