Zepheera-Vision — I Look Good

Zepheera stared.

Contrary to the Doctor’s worries, she wasn’t
remotely interested in Captain Jack Harkness in any romantic sense
or…otherwise. She’d only just met the man. The only thing she was curious about
was his apparent inability to die. For as long as she could remember, Zepheera
couldn’t seem to age. So in a way she and Jack were quite similar.

As fate would have it, an opportunity arose
for Jack to make use of his ability. There was a room filled with incendiary
radiation that sat underneath a rocketship which was prepared to ferry the last
of the human race to a paradise at the end of the universe that they called
Utopia. The radiation had already killed one technician who was connecting the
couplings that would get the ship off the ground. Now it was up to Jack, the
only man who could enter that room without dying.

Zepheera had tagged along at the last second,
eager to watch this bizarre ability firsthand. But the next thing she knew,
Jack was undressing. She was most definitely not attracted to him, she was
adamant about that. But watching someone sixteen times her height move so
quickly, even doing something as simple as removing his shirt, was undenyably
fascinating to the four and a half inch tall borrower.

She jumped when the Doctor popped into her
view, checking over the radiation levels and the other readings on the control
panel. He hadn’t yet noticed Jack. It occurred to her that the radiation he
would be subjected to wouldn’t affect the clothing he was stripping off, so she
regained her composure and cleared her throat.

“Er, Jack?” she piped up, still a
little timid around this new giant.

The Doctor glanced Jack’s way, only to
double-take once it sank in.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I’m going in,” Jack reminded him.

“But–from what I can tell, the
radiation doesn’t affect clothing, only flesh,” said the Doctor.

“I look good, though.”

With a smirk at the Doctor and a wink at
Zepheera, Jack pulled his braces back on and strode purposefully into the
radiation-ridden room. Thankfully, only his wool coat and button-down had been
removed.

Asks and Prompts are open! | Submissions too!

Helping Hands — Part 1/3

Prompt from @neonthebright: The Doctor drops/misplaces his sonic somewhere he can’t reach and Zepheera goes on a mini-adventure to retrieve it for him.

BTaS Canon: No – DonnaAU

Timeline: Post-Midnight, Pre-Turn Left

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Zepheera woke up feeling annoyed. She stirred under her light covers and gave a sleepy murmur as she blinked blearily, frowning at the ceiling in confusion. If the sluggish state of her mind was anything to go by, she hadn’t gotten her full eight hours. What could have possibly–?

Knock knock knock knock!

“Zepheera!”

The borrower in question heaved a sigh. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she groaned.

The Doctor continued to knock and call her name, so Zepheera gave in and kicked off the blanket with a grumble. Rolling out of bed, she stumbled toward the exit to her hidden home.

The Time Lord had happened upon four-and-a-half-inch-tall Zepheera in the possession of scientists, trapped in a tank and pumped full of drugs. He rescued her, revived her, gave her a place on his ship and offered her the chance of a lifetime: to see the universe.

After over a century and a half of more of the same, and sometimes worse, nothing could have made Zepheera happier.

In the year that followed, she grew close to the Doctor and his human companion, Donna. They traveled together, ran together, and fought to rescue alien civilizations together. Despite their size difference, the three of them actually made a brilliant team. For instance, the Doctor carried knowledge from across the universe, Donna’s cleverness cropped up in unexpected places, and Zepheera could always find her way into places they couldn’t reach. In their downtime, the larger of the travelers were perfectly comfortable with Zepheera carrying on the lifestyle of her people.

She borrowed from them, scavenging materials from the virtually infinite number of rooms in the TARDIS, and over time she’d put together a humble home hidden behind the wall panels.

She liked to believe that she’d come across the loose panel that was now the entrance to her house entirely on her own, but sometimes she suspected that the Doctor had loosened it for her to find when she wasn’t looking. Either way, he and Donna were both aware of her base’s location in case they needed to find her in an emergency.

Rude awakenings like the one Zepheera was recovering from made her regret that decision.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming!” she called. That silenced the Doctor’s knocks at least. Careful to avoid the few borrowings she left lying around, she squeezed through the gap that led to the corridor and squinted up at her giant friend.

“I. Was. Asleep,” she pronounced, shading her eyes as she tilted her head back to meet his gaze. Luckily, he was kneeling, so she didn’t have to look far. Zepheera’s annoyance softened when she noticed the Doctor wringing his hands and looking quite distressed. “What’s wrong?”

The Doctor blinked. “Ah. Yes, well, y’see, the thing is… Well, what happened was, I was, er, I guess you could say tuning up things in the console room; it’s a bit more complicated than that – okay, much more complicated than that – but anyway, I digress–”

“If you could get to the point, please,” Zepheera pressed, quickly losing patience.

“Right, of course,” the Doctor nodded with a steadying breath. “Long story short, I kinda, sort of…dropped my sonic.”

Zepheera shot him a flat look. “And you woke me up because…?”

“Well, I need your help to get it back.”

She scowled. “Why me? Can’t you bother Donna to–”

“I was working in the space underneath the console,” clarified the Doctor. “It slipped out of my grasp and fell into a nook I can’t reach into. I’m, heh, a bit too big.” He chuckled sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.

As irritated as she was, Zepheera could never stay mad at the Doctor for long. With an exaggerated eye roll, she sighed in defeat. “Fine. Just give me a minute.”

Without waiting for the Doctor’s response, she went back inside to change from her sleep clothes into an outfit more suitable for borrowing. She slipped on her boots and almost grabbed her bag before remembering she wouldn’t be needing it. Instead, she tossed her grappling hook and coiled rope over her shoulder, giving her dark, sleep-tousled bob a quick comb-through with her fingers before returning to the corridor. The Doctor’s upturned hand was waiting for her, along with his grateful smile.

Ao3 | Tumblr | Ask me questions! Send me prompts!

Zepheera-Vision Epilogue — Abandoned

This is part 2 of a Zepheera-Vision based on numbers 4 and 14 from this list of one-word prompts. Feel free to send in one!

Part 1

Then came the sensory overload.

Suddenly there was light, nearly blinding
Zepheera. Then she became aware of the warmth surrounding her. Highly confused
about where she was and what was happening, she shot to her feet and
immediately fell back down. She was still sobbing and hyperventilating, and her
head was spinning and her lips and fingers tingled from lack of oxygen. But as
she fumbled around desperately, feeling the boundaries of the warm, soft,
leathery space she found herself in, the small part of Zepheera’s brain that
remained functional puzzled out another reason for her loss of balance.

Hands. She was in a human’s cupped hands. And
the human was moving very fast.

Then they stopped. Voices rumbled above her,
their clarity lost in Zepheera’s dizziness and the blood roaring in her ears.
She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her head with her arms, fearful of what
these two giants were going to do to her. After a moment, the hands opened up
beneath her. Zepheera gave a startled yelp as she fell a short distance,
landing splayed onto another pair of hands.

These new hands were bigger and decidedly
more dangerous than the first pair, but rather than trapping around her, they
drew her close to the person they were attached to. And as they gently pressed
her against a familiar pinstriped suit, her situation became clear.

She was waking up from a nightmare, which had
induced a panic attack. Donna must have heard her distress and brought her
straight to the Doctor, to whom Zepheera was more responsive in this state. The
position he moved her into now was woefully familiar to Zepheera. Remembering
his instructions, she concentrated on the Doctor’s slow breaths and did her
best to copy them. It made her chest hurt at first, but with each repetition
her nervous system calmed down another hair.

As her heart rate slowed down to a healthy
level and her head cleared, the Doctor and Donna’s hushed voices came into
focus as well.

“She’s getting worse,” Donna
pointed out.

“I know,” murmured the Doctor.
Despite how quiet he was trying to be, his voice reverberated through his
chest. Zepheera couldn’t ignore it if she tried.

“I mean, first the nightmares, then the
panic attacks, and now full-on night terrors? We can’t let her shrug this off
anymore. What good is hopping around time and space saving planets when we
can’t even help our own friend?”

“Donna, I know,” the Doctor all but
growled, sending a chill up Zepheera’s spine along with the vibrations. After
another deep breath for the borrower to mimic, he went on in a whisper.
“Trust me, I haven’t been ignoring her. It’s just… She’s been through a
lot with so-called doctors poking and prodding her and worse, and I
didn’t want to make her relive that by forcing help on her. I was waiting for
her to come to me.”

A moment of silence passed between the human
and the Time Lord, and Zepheera let out a shaky sigh. She hadn’t meant to cause
her larger friends so much trouble. Nothing she did stopped the nightmares, or
quashed this completely irrational fear of abandonment deep inside her. She
wanted to deal with it herself so the Doctor and Donna wouldn’t have to worry
about it. Clearly, that was beyond her power.

“I’ll talk to her when she wakes
up,” said the Doctor, interrupting Zepheera’s thoughts. “I’ll help
her, Donna, that’s a promise. For now, get some sleep. You need it more than I
do.”

After a second of hesitation, Donna replied,
“You better make good on that, Spaceman.” Her voice teemed with
concern, and with that her footsteps retreated further into the TARDIS.

Now that the conversation overhead was done,
Zepheera allowed herself to relax a little more. She had some deeply-rooted
apprehensions about what kind of help she was going to receive, but stronger
than them was the trust she had in the Doctor. If anybody could make her
better, it was him. No matter how long it took.

The Doctor leaned back, probably in the seat
in the console room if the dim lighting was anything to go by. With his chest
slightly more horizontal, Zepheera adjusted herself more comfortably. The
Doctor lifted his hand about a centimeter to give her more room, but didn’t
otherwise react to her shifting. She finally settled down laying on her side,
nestled in the space between his tie and the lapel of his suit.

The hand came back down to rest gently over
her lower half like a blanket, while his thumb absently stroked her arm and
part of her back. It was a small but comforting gesture that brought a faint
smile to Zepheera’s lips. The sound of his breathing paired with the muffled
thuds of his hearts in their strange one-two-three-four rhythm easily lulled
Zepheera to sleep.

If she dreamt at all, she didn’t recall it in
the morning.

Asks and Prompts are open! | Submissions too!

Zepheera-Vision –Abandoned

“Go on.”

Zepheera frowned in confusion. The TARDIS had
landed and the doors were open, but she couldn’t see anything beyond them. Only
darkness. She looked up at the Doctor; being four and a half inches tall, she
had to tilt her head back quite a bit just to meet his gaze from her spot on
the floor. A sudden pang of insignificance shot through her gut like a cold
hand.

“Where…” Her throat had gone dry
and her voice came out quieter than usual, so she swallowed her fear and tried
again. “Where are we?”

The Doctor nodded toward the door. “Only
one way to find out.

Hesitant, Zepheera turned the other way to
lock eyes with Donna. The human offered a faint smile of encouragement. Even
so, something felt off to Zepheera. But her friends were waiting on her, so she
carefully approached the wide-open doors.

The space outside was pitch-black, the dim
light of the console room didn’t seem to touch it. Even after she’d taken a few
steps into this dark place, Zepheera could hardly believe she was walking on
something solid. She blinked hard and looked around with wide eyes, wandering
about a foot further away from the doors. The absence of light, the absolute
nothingness was beginning to hurt her eyes.

A sudden wave of dread hit her as she noticed
the absence of something else. Vibrations in the floor that indicated her
relatively giant friends following her.

She whirled around, squinting through the
light in the TARDIS that seemed blaring to her dark-accustomed eyes.

"What’s going on?” she called,
holding a hand up as a visor as her vision adjusted. Her pulse quickened when
two immense blurs came into focus.

The Doctor and Donna were exactly where she
left them. They stared down at Zepheera with stone faces. Her anxiety mounted.
She had a feeling about what exactly those expressions meant. She had frequent
nightmares about them. And as the Doctor lifted a hand, fingers pressed close
together in preparation to click, Zepheera’s fears were all at once realized.

Zepheera was being left behind.

“I don’t understand!” She stumbled
forward, still partially disoriented, in the hope that she could make them
second-guess this decision long enough for her to make it back inside.
“Did I do something wrong? Please tell me, I’ll never do whatever it is
again!”

Click.

Zepheera’s blood ran cold at the sound of the
Doctor snapping his fingers, freezing her in place. In reaction to the Doctor,
the TARDIS doors closed on their own. The sound of the blue box taking off
broke Zepheera out of her shocked state.

“No! Please!” she shouted over the
growing noise and rising winds as the TARDIS began to dematerialize.

Vwoorp

She broke into a run, desperately throwing
herself against the wooden doors. “Don’t do this! Doctor! Donna!”

VWOORP

“Come back!!”

Tears flowed freely down Zepheera’s cheeks as
she beat her tiny fists futilely on the door. As the ship that had not only
been the vehicle for the best few weeks of traveling that Zepheera had ever
experienced but her home disappeared completely, she crumbled into a
heap on the ground. Her entire body shook, her sobs the only sound.

She felt the darkness close in on her, all
but suffocating her as she started hyperventilating. All alone. Abandoned by
her only friends in the world. Trapped once again with no way out. For a
moment, she convinced herself that the surface on which she lay felt just like
the acrylic kennel she’d spent six months in before she met the Doctor.

Once that thought invaded her head, her
screaming began in earnest.

Then came the sensory overload.

Dark or Trapped? Oh golly gosh gee, I thought you said and!

Continued in an Epilogue.

Asks and Prompts are open! | Submissions too!

Prompt: Rainbow

((I’m back! Fell into a bit of a writer’s block earlier in the week, but I’m slowly getting back on track! Anyway, here’s another prompt from this list of one-word prompts. Feel free to send in one!))

Zepheera crept furtively up to the drawing room where she was sure to find her husband. They both kept supplies for their personal crafts in there – pinched fabric and old socks and small pins for Zepheera’s sewing and knitting, and paper scraps and pencil tips for Orrick’s drawing – but Orrick used it most often. There was a sizable crack in the floorboard that made up the ceiling in the small room, giving him ideal lighting (second only to sketching outside, which was risky for a five-inch-tall man).

He sat with his back to the door, granting Zepheera the perfect opportunity to sneak up on him and plant a quick kiss on his fair cheek.

“Happy anniversary,” she chirped, wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind.

Orrick started, then sighed and took one of Zepheera’s hands in his left one (his right was used for drawing and therefore covered in graphite). “Ah yes, how festive. Celebrating five years of marriage with a heart attack. Love you too, Zeph.”

Sarcasm aside, he smiled and pecked the back of Zepheera’s hand. She chuckled and pulled away, pulling up an empty spool to sit alongside him.

“And I was still thoughtful enough to make you this.” She presented a coil of rope she’d made to replace the one that had snapped on him a month and a half prior. This one she’d twisted herself using three lengths of dark-colored sewing thread to allow for more stability and durability. “Couldn’t manage to swipe your hook, but now that it’s officially yours we can attach it later.”

Orrick’s mouth hung open as he hastily cleaned his hands on a damp cloth. He took the rope in a firm grip, testing its strength and observing the feel of it.

“So this is what you’ve been sneakin’ around to do,” he smirked.

She nudged him playfully. “Unlike some, I’ve been borrowing since I was ten. I’ve long since mastered the art of the sneak.”

He pulled Zepheera in close, her slim frame fitting right into the crook of his arm. “I love it. Thanks.”

Zepheera smiled and leaned into his chest.

“Alright, let’s see what you’ve drawn for me this time.”

Regardless of how long she’d known him, Orrick’s skill still managed to impress Zepheera. Not only was his talent for pencil sketches unmatched by anyone she’d had ever met, but he was able to remember moments and images with uncanny accuracy and then transfer them into a drawing without flaw.

He never got tired of drawing Zepheera. There didn’t even need to be an occasion, but Zepheera was sure to receive a drawing from her husband for her birthday or an anniversary. Usually of herself and always unprompted.

She recognized this year’s portrait as a scene from their trip to the garden two weeks before. It had been raining for four days straight, keeping the humans in the house at all times, which in turn all but trapped the borrowers in their own home under the floor. Orrick and Zepheera knew it was irrational to be afraid of a flood washing away their livelihood since the house was on elevated ground, but after days of being cooped up they started to worry. Finally a bright, sunny day came along and the humans went into town too resupply and socialize. This left Zepheera and Orrick ample time to meander about the less waterlogged parts of the garden.

In the picture, Zepheera was leaning back on her hands, basking in the sunlight with her eyes closed. She remembered the exact moment: the way the warm breeze had blown through her long, dark hair and blessedly filled her lungs with the fresh air they had been deprived of all week. She just hadn’t realized Orrick had been watching.

She gaped at the level of detail in the sketch, from the tiny four-petal flower Orrick had picked and tucked behind Zepheera’s ear, to the clouds in the sky and…

“What’s that?” She pointed to a gray streak that stretched across the sky, darker and more linear than the fluffy clouds.

“It’s a rainbow,” he explained.

Zepheera frowned at it for a moment. “C’mon, I pointed it out to you. Don’t you remember?”

Recognition lit up Zepheera’s deep violet eyes. “Oh yeah, I remember. But that was later on, I was half-asleep.”

“It was still there, even if I didn’t notice it at the moment. I was just…admiring a more beautiful view.”

Orrick shook his head at the cheesiness of his own line.

Zepheera smiled anyway, moving the drawing from his lap to her own. The rainbow didn’t really matter too much. At the end of the day, it was a background detail in a portrait that was focused entirely on Zepheera.

“Thanks, love. It’s wonderful.”

Orrick gave her shoulders a squeeze and kissed her hair, which had been pulled back into a messy, careless bun.

With a smirk, she added, “I do appreciate how you tried to distinguish the colors from each other.

“Well!” Orrick scoffed, a mirthful smile playing across his lips. “If you want a life-like rainbow, then you’re going to have to borrow your poor deprived husband some colored pencil tips.”

“In this house? With possibly the least artistic humans in existence?” Zepheera giggled.

“Exactly.”

Now it was Zepheera’s turn to shake her head.

“You’re a dunce,” she sighed.

“Yeah, but I’m your dunce.”

Zepheera smirked and lifted her chin to meet his bright blue gaze. “And don’t you forget it.”

She leaned up as he leaned down to press his lips against hers. In that moment, they couldn’t be more content.

Ao3 | Tumblr | Ask me questions! Send me prompts!

Zepheera-Vision — Reunion

Zepheera smiled faintly as she watched the
Doctor make conversation with the woman he’d thought would never return to his
life again, who had been locked away in a parallel universe for years. The
woman that, though he never told her or the borrower he’d confessed all this
to, he’d loved.

Needless to say, neither of them ever
expected Rose Tyler to show up. Then, of course, the Earth was stolen and the
sky rained down with Daleks, and she showed up in the nick of time to join in
the fight.

So many familiar faces returned that night,
but hers was the one that captured the Doctor’s undivided attention.

Not that Zepheera was complaining, but she
was beginning to feel a little forgotten sitting on the monitor on the TARDIS
console while the two of them got caught up. She cleared her throat.

“So, this is Rose,” she remarked
after the enormous pair went quiet and looked at her.

The Doctor’s brow shot up. “Yes! Of
course, introductions! Rose, meet Zepheera,” he grinned widely.

“Zepheera,” Rose repeated, looking
to the borrower to confirm she’d pronounced the unfamiliar name correctly.
After a nod of approval from the four and a half inch tall woman, Rose beamed.
“Good to meet you then, Zepheera.”

“Likewise.”

“She travels with me now,” the Doctor explained for Rose’s benefit. “Been
a while since I’ve had a non-human on board. She’s a–”

"Borrower, yeah, we have ‘em on my
world, too,” interrupted Rose, making Zepheera blink in surprise. Noticing
caution bloom in the smaller woman’s expression, she added, “Don’t worry,
it’s not anything public just yet. Torchwood’s keeping everything completely
confidential.”

“Oh, how brilliant is that!” Seeing his
diminutive companion’s relief, he and Rose turned to each other. “See,
like I was saying about great minds…” From there, they seemed to carry out
a condensed conversation that consisted of half-complete sentences, smiles, and
a small hand gesture from the Doctor.

Something inside Zepheera melted as she
watched them. The Doctor looked so happy, happier than she’d ever seen
him. He had a certain energy now, a gleam in his eye that Zepheera recognized
all too well. She’d once had a sparkle like that. A long time ago.

“You two are adorable,” she cut in,
crossing her arms in a manner that would normally seem accusatory if not for the
ear-to-ear grin splitting her features. The Doctor and Rose turned their smiles
to the borrower. "My teeth
ache, you’re so sweet.“

The screen behind Zepheera beeped, ending
introductions. Between all the reports and correspondents between their other allies,
Zepheera couldn’t help but glance back at the Doctor every now and then. Even
with all the danger and devastation out there, he maintained that gleam in his
eye. And she knew they had a certain blonde to thank for that.

Zepheera couldn’t be more proud of her old
Time Lord.

Asks and Prompts are open! | Submissions too!

Midnight – Epilogue

Midnight | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Four hours there and four hours back. Like a school trip, Donna had called it. Such a duration was the main reason Donna had chosen to sunbathe in the Midnight Leisure Palace rather than accompany the Doctor and Zepheera on their little field trip to the Sapphire Waterfall.

Only two months since the borrower had joined their travels in the TARDIS, after the Doctor rescued her from a terrible circumstance, and Zepheera was already willing to spend the next eight hours locked in a box with several unknown humans. All for what would probably amount to fifteen minutes of a pretty view. Donna had to admit it was a rather brave decision for someone less than five inches tall.

Then again, she supposed Zepheera could have agreed to go because the Doctor would be there, and he was going because

Zepheera was gonna keep him company. Go figure.

Four hours later, the pool was still empty, apart from Donna in her robe and long chair. A few people had come and gone, but she paid them no mind. In fact, she didn’t think much of it when another set of footsteps echoed from the entrance hallway. Then she remembered that all the others who visited the pool had either been rowdy family groups or extra-friendly individuals chatting up the quiet staff. The silence of this person’s approach piqued Donna’s interest enough to open her eyes and turn to look.

She gasped and sat bolt upright at the sight of the Doctor rounding the corner, his long overcoat draped over one arm. It was much too early for their return. Something was wrong, she just knew it; everything about him threw up red flags in Donna’s mind, from his stony expression to his somber gait. Full of concern, she got up and approached him slowly.

When she got close enough, her breath caught at Zepheera’s notable absence from his shoulder. The Doctor shook his head when he saw the worry in Donna’s eyes, and he nodded toward his left shoulder. Now that she was closer, Donna could detect the slightest raise in the Doctor’s loosened collar on that side. Miniscule fingers curled around the edge of the fabric as the borrower underneath, partially illuminated by the potent x-tonic light, peeked warily out at Donna.

Donna’s heart sank. Zepheera hadn’t acted like this around her since before they’d gotten to know each other as close friends, and she’d never known the Doctor to be so quiet.

Something happened.

Finding out what would have to wait. For now, Donna’s friends were hurting and needed her comfort. Without a word, she pulled the Doctor into a tight hug, careful to avoid his left shoulder.

It took a moment, but the Doctor eventually hugged her back. A minute later, Donna felt the tiniest of weights dropping onto her own shoulder. A wave of relief swept over her as Zepheera nestled into the soft fabric of the robe near her neck. Whatever happened out there, it hadn’t affected any of the progress between the odd pair of women.

“Alright,” she mumbled into the Doctor’s shoulder, warning them both that she was about to pull away. Meeting his dark gaze only filled Donna with determination. “Tell me everything.”

Ao3 | Tumblr | Ask me questions! Send me prompts!

Prompt: Fragile

From this list of one-word prompts, which I’m still taking. Feel free to send me one!

“Zepheera.”

The seven-year-old groaned as she was gently shaken awake by her uncle. She rolled onto her back and sleepily blinked up at him from his lap. He smiled and brushed her tousled hair back. “It’s time, sweets,” he whispered.

Zepheera grumbled unintelligibly, covering her head with the blanket Boston had wrapped around her earlier in the night.

He chuckled and scooped up his small niece into his arms.

“C’mon, sleepyhead,” he grunted as he stood and headed out. “You wanna meet the baby, don’t you?”

Zepheera pouted and buried her face in his shoulder. She really didn’t, but she knew that was wrong to say so she held her tongue. She wasn’t sure how she should feel about the new baby. It wasn’t like she was worried about the baby stealing her love; her stepfather had no idea how to talk to her, and the attention she got from her mother was all bad. Zepheera had never seen a baby, but her uncle described them as small and chubby.

Then he had to explain to her what ‘chubby’ meant.

All Zepheera knew was that she had been sent away to her uncle’s home for what felt like days (even though Boston insisted the day hadn’t passed) while her stepfather and his sister took her mother away while she was in labor. No one would tell her what labor was. Clearly, it was time-consuming.

Boston put Zepheera down when they were outside her house. She gripped the leg of his trousers, almost hiding behind them as they stood in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom. She’d never been in there, and she’d learned to be wary of any room her mother was in.

Her mother was asleep in bed, her bright red hair pasted to her forehead with sweat. Zepheera frowned, staring for a moment to determine if that was even the same person. She looked so…relaxed. Peaceful.

And she’d never put much thought to it, but her mother was quite beautiful in such a natural state.

“How’d she do?” Boston asked, cutting off Zepheera’s thoughts. She realized that her stepfather was sitting beside the bed.

Baycliff smiled wearily at Boston, his golden eyes bright even in the late-night darkness. “Sis says she did great. Hardly screamed. Boy, did she want to, though.” He tilted his head when he saw Zepheera peering curiously at the bundle of fabric he was holding.

“Come see your little brother.”

It took an encouraging nudge from her uncle for Zepheera to pad carefully across the room. She gasped softly when she got close enough to see an itty-bitty head and pudgy little arms poking out of the bundle. Uncle Boston had said small, but she didn’t think it’d be that small.

“Do you want to hold him?” her stepfather asked Zepheera, to her unfiltered surprise. She glanced at her passed out mother, who would never entrust Zepheera with anything nearly as delicate as this baby seemed to be. Still, as long as it was being offered… She nodded.

Baycliff carefully passed the bundle to Zepheera, showing her how to properly support the head in a sturdy yet gentle grip. Even so, she froze once she had the baby all to herself. She could feel his little feet shifting in his sleep against her arm. He hardly weighed a thing, even to Zepheera who was small for her age.

‘Small and chubby’, though accurate, were hardly the tip of the iceberg of adjectives that flooded into Zepheera’s mind as she took in every detail of her brother. He was light, soft, warm, innocent, and so pale; even Zepheera’s very light brown skin seemed dark against his.

Her uncle’s even darker hand reached down to smooth down the baby’s unruly strawberry-blond hair. It was an innocent enough gesture, but it made Zepheera stiffen a little. Seeing how big Boston’s hand was in comparison expanded her list of words for the baby: weak, helpless, fragile. Something protective awoke inside her, and she held the bundle closer despite the fact that Uncle Boston was one of the only people in the world Zepheera loved and trusted.

Boston sat cross-legged on the floor and carefully pulled his niece in to sit in his lap, to help her relax.

“What’s his name?”

“Kernel,” Baycliff replied.

Somehow, having a name to match the face added a new layer to what Zepheera thought about the whole affair. This was a brand-new person in her arms. He would be a man one day, but for now Zepheera could hold him without issue.

“Kernel…” Zepheera echoed, barely a whisper. On an impulse, she leaned down to gingerly kiss his forehead. His little brow scrunched in spite of how soft Zepheera had tried to be, and his buttery-yellow eyes blinked sleepily open.

“Hi, Kernel,” said Zepheera fondly, unable to hold back a smile. “I’m your big sister. You’re safe with me, I promise.”

Ao3 | Tumblr | Ask me questions! Send me prompts!

Zepheera-Vision — The Companion

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 2.5 | Part 3

“Doctor?”

Both the borrower and the Time Lord turned to look at the human standing in the entrance to the TARDIS console room. The
red-haired woman was shrugging on a jacket as she stepped in. “Who are you talking to?”

“I’m in the middle of something, Donna,” said the Doctor pointedly

Donna rolled her eyes and approached with purpose in her steps. “No use keeping secrets from me, Spaceman, I live here too.”

Her gaze quickly fell on Zepheera, whose heartbeat quickened at the contact with a completely new human – Donna, the Doctor had called her.

“Blimey, get a load of that!” the human exclaimed. Zepheera flinched at the volume and backed up into the screen behind her, pulling her knees close again. She squeezed her eyes shut, overwhelmed by the sight of two giants looming over her.

The Doctor looked appalled by his companion’s behavior. “Donna, lower your voice,” he rebuked. “She’s been through a lot, no need to frighten her all over again by gawking!”

Without waiting for a response, he turned back to the four and a half inch tall woman huddled on the sill of his monitor. “Zepheera… C’mon, look at me,” he coaxed.

Considering she was outnumbered, Zepheera had no choice but to obey. She lifted her head to look up at the Doctor and Donna, who had come around to stand behind the Doctor’s right shoulder. The Doctor smiled encouragingly.

“That’s it. See? No harm done. This is just my friend, Donna. She travels with me.”

“She’s so teeny,” Donna cooed, leaning over the Doctor to stretch a finger toward Zepheera, as if touching her would somehow prove her existence further. Zepheera backed away from the sudden approach before the Doctor stopped the human.

“No no, don’t do that,” he warned firmly. “Really. Don’t.”

Looking a bit sheepish, Donna withdrew her hand. “Was she always this small?”

Now it was the Doctor’s turn to roll his eyes. “Yes, now would you back off for a minute and let me get on with this?”

Much to Zepheera’s surprise, the human stepped away with a muttered apology. Once she was out of sight, the Doctor addressed Zepheera again. “Sorry about that. She’s harmless, I promise.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Anyway, what I meant to say was, I’d like you to stay. At least for a while, just so I can make sure all those drugs didn’t leave you with any permanent damage. If you could bear with me for a few days, I’ll take you wherever you want to go. Does that sound alright to you?”

Zepheera supposed that was fair. At least it didn’t sound like she’d be locked in a cage anymore. She nodded her approval.

The Doctor smiled. “Brilliant. Welcome aboard, then. Er, is there anything you want to do now?”

It took some digging, but Zepheera realized there was a lot she wanted to do. She wanted to sleep in a bed, she wanted to eat a meal that consisted of more than old cheese and bread, she wanted to drink an entire thimbleful of some kind of alcoholic drink. She looked down at herself; she wanted to wear clothes that made her feel like a person again. Then she touched a lock of her dark hair. It had already been getting long at the time of her capture, and it had grown past her shoulders over the months.

“I want to cut my hair,” she told him. She was certain she wouldn’t feel
anything like her old self until she did. And she had a feeling she could ask for the rest at any time.

Thanks again for the prompts @wingedkuriboh27!

Ao3 | Tumblr | Ask me questions! Send me prompts!

Zepheera-Vision Preface — The Companion

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 2.5 | Part 3

Zepheera moaned softly as she sluggishly came to. The events of the last few hours replayed choppily in her mind. The man…he had picked her up and held her close to his chest as he fought his way through all of the metal men in his path. She remembered gripping the brown pinstriped fabric of his suit just to keep steady. He took her somewhere and tried to get her to talk, but her drug-addled mind refused to let her respond. Then he made her drink something, and everything after that was fuzzy.

The more conscious she became, the more she noticed about her surroundings. The surface on which she lay was strangely leathery and warm…and if she listened closely, she could hear a muted thrum coming from deep within, pressing up against her body in a one-two-three-four.

It was alive. It was a hand!

She shot up with a startled exclamation, falling back on her hands and knees as the uneven ground twitched in surprise. As the hand flattened beneath her, she huddled into a frightened ball, awaiting the inevitable harm to befall her.

“It’s okay!” the man from before whispered, though it was still more than loud enough to make the borrower flinch. “You’re safe. I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you’d be awake for another few hours.”

Zepheera turned her head in the slightest to peek through the gap in the arm covering her head. He was so remarkably large, a small part of her wondered if he could even detect such a small movement.

“Look, er… I don’t mean to scare you. Would it help if I set you down?”

Zepheera frowned in confusion. She knew better than to trust this behemoth of a man after everything she’d been through. Still, he did rescue her from that lab, and he hadn’t made a move to hurt her yet. Hell, he’d had her in his hands while she was asleep! He could have easily done her in then. But he didn’t, and something about those enormous brown orbs insisted that he could be trustworthy.

Slowly lowering her arms from her head, she clutched them close to her chest as she mustered up all of her courage and nodded.

The man smiled, pleased by her response. “Alright. Here we go.”

His fingers curled back up, stretching over Zepheera’s head as he slowly leaned forward and reached out toward a flat but narrow silver surface. She practically scrambled out of his hand, grateful for the solid ground.

Without the giant man filling her vision, Zepheera took in the rest of her surroundings. He sat back in a faded yellow seat, full of holes and duct-tape patches. The room was enormous and dome-like, covered in dim, round lights. Nothing else made sense beyond that; whatever she was standing on hovered above an endless sea of strange-looking levers and dials and cranks.

“What’s your name?” The question made Zepheera’s attention snap up to the man. She pressed her back against the wall behind her and eyed him warily. He sighed, an action that ruffled Zepheera’s shoulder-length hair even at a distance. “I’m trying to help you. I need to know that you’re alright.”

She bit her lip, then swallowed thickly past the lump in her throat. It had been a while since she’d spoken to anyone.

“Zepheera,” she answered, her voice hoarse from disuse.

The man smiled again. “Beautiful name,” he remarked. “I’m the Doctor.” Her eyes flared up with terror again, and he quickly added, “No no no no, not that kind of doctor. Please listen, whatever they did to you, I’m not like them, I promise. Trust me, I only want to help.”

Unsure if she believed him or not, Zepheera forced herself to relax a little and nodded to show she understood.

“I’m going to ask you a few more questions, Zepheera,” the Doctor informed her. “Just to make sure you’re okay now that that nasty drug’s out of your system.”

Zepheera slid her back against the wall until she sat with her knees hugged to her chest. “Okay,” she murmured. She resigned herself to his care as long as he simply seemed concerned for her. That wasn’t a feeling she’d ever expected from someone his size.

As her fear slowly dissipated, curiosity began to take its place. Zepheera began to ask the Doctor questions of her own, and before long they had a back and forth going. Zepheera told the Doctor how she ended up in that lab (leaving out the details about her hidden village) and what exactly they had done to her and the few others like her. She explained that she was the only one left in that place. In return, she learned where exactly she was: inside the Doctor’s TARDIS, which apparently could travel through time and space with ease.

It was the Doctor’s turn to ask a question. “How old are you?”

Zepheera frowned, realizing that she wasn’t sure. “What day is it?” She had been captured a couple months before her birthday, but she wasn’t entirely sure how much time she’d spent in that lab.

The Doctor leaned forward and pressed a button on the console, causing the wall behind Zepheera to light up. She jumped and whirl around to stare at the massive screen behind her as it displayed a series of concentric circles. “May seventh, year twenty eighty-five,” he recited.

Six months, she thought despondently.

“I, erm. I guess that makes me a hundred and fifty-eight.” Happy birthday to me.

The Doctor’s brow rose as he sat back. “Wow. Older than you look,” he mused. “Do you all age so slowly?”

A sad smile tugged at her lips. “Nah, it’s…just me, I think.” She took a steadying breath before asking, “How old are you?”

“Nine hundred and five,” he replied without hesitation.

Now it was Zepheera’s turn to be surprised. “So, way older than you look.”

The Doctor smirked, then adopted a more thoughtful expression. “Zepheera… Is there anything for you to go back to? A home, family, friends?”

Her heart stuttered at the question. As surprisingly pleasant as this man seemed, she was definitely not comfortable leading him to her people. She still had a duty to protect them until she had a full grasp of this new situation. “No,” she answered evenly. “Nothing.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the Doctor earnestly. He rubbed the back of his neck as he seemed to carefully consider his next words. “Well, if you’d like, you could – I mean, it would be entirely up to you, of course, but… I was wondering if you wanted to–”

“Doctor?”

Zepheera’s entire body tensed at this new voice.

Ao3 | Tumblr | Ask me questions! Send me prompts!