Red ⋆ Doctor Who

Chapter Sixty-four

Cherry shivers as she sits out in the garden of her house. There's an unopened bottle of white wine on the table, beside a nearly finished bottle of red. She has a blank look on her face as she empties the glass of wine in her hand and then refills it with the rest of the bottle. Her Tardis blue notebook feels especially heavy in the pocket of her jumper and she sniffles, pulling it from her pocket and throwing it down on the table. It's stupid now. What's the point of it? She won't be travelling through time now, so she'll only see Melody when Melody breaks out of Stormcage and decides to visit her. If the diary didn't have precious memories of days the three of them spent together, she probably would tear it up. She'd burn it.

She spends a lot of her time in the garden, listening to the birds, listening to the neighbours. It's like a little safe haven for her. It's the only place where she feels any comfort. The only place not touched by the Doctor. The house is filled with memories. It's like a ghost house, haunted by memories.

Photos of them line the walls. The furniture was chosen by him. He decorated the entire house. He's been in every part of it. They've been together on every surface. Every single room. And never as husband and wife. Always boyfriend and girlfriend.

She became a wife and a widow all in one day. She laughs when she realises that, and she shakes her head. It's not a happy laugh, or even an amused one. It's full of bitterness and anger and hatred. She hates the universe. It's so cruel to her. Of course, she became a widow on her wedding day. Who else would that happen to? Who else would meet their fully grown, adult daughter on the same day that daughter was taken from her as an infant?

And now she's stuck. Alone. Amy and Rory have each other, and she can't talk to them about how she's feeling because she doesn't want to be a bother. They're grieving too, they don't need to deal with her. She'll have to leave them at some point, anyway. She'll have to run away from them when they start to grow old. It's too painful. She's doomed to the life of a Time Lord without the tools to escape. She doesn't get a Tardis. She doesn't get to travel the cosmos. Instead, she's stuck on earth with everyone around her growing old and settling down while she stays frozen. Widowed and alone.

The flash of light at the end of the garden pulls her out of her wallowing and she quickly wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her hoodie. She looks up to see Melody walking over to the table, dressed in the same camouflage outfit she wore when they were with her in the Byzantium.

She forces a small smile on her head and offers her an empty wine glass. "Amy told me there was a freak meteor shower two miles away, so I got us some wine."

"Thank you, dear," Melody grins at her mother, unscrewing the lid on the bottle of white and pouring herself a large glass. "Aren't you cold?"

"No," Cherry lies, and then asks a question to deflect Melody's worry's about her. "Where are we?"

"I just climbed out of the Byzantium," Melody tells her. "You were there. So young. Didn't have a clue who I was. You're funny like that. Where are you?"

"The... uh... he's dead," Cherry stutters, squeezing her eyes shut as she says it out loud. Melody's expression is unreadable as she hears this news, and she raises her eyebrows at her mother.

"How are you doing?" She asks, and Cherry presses her lips into a line.

"Fine," she lies again, and Melody sighs.

"You're an awful liar," she remarks. "You should ask dad for lessons. He's much better than you are."

"He's dead, Melody," Cherry says again, her face screwing up, and then she feels a crushing guilt. "I killed someone. I killed Madam Kovarian."