Zepheera-Vision — Midnight 4/4

[Spoilers for the climax of ‘Midnight’. Prepare for angst. You’ve been warned.]

Shock hit every single passenger at once as the shielded doors slammed shut. Val Cane sat down heavily in a nearby chair, her grip on Zepheera suddenly loosened. The borrower fell three feet and hit the floor hard. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t do her much damage, but she was already bruised and sensitive from the human’s tight grip. Her entire right side felt on fire. Anytime she tried to move, her whole body would ache in protest.

Less than a second after she landed, a greater impact shook the floor just ahead of her. Ignoring how much it hurt, she lifted her head to look. The Doctor had been released and fell forward, barely catching himself. His eyes and mouth were still wide from the scream he’d been mimicking, and he gasped at the sudden return of control over his own actions.

“It’s gone,” he breathed. “It’s gone, it’s gone…” He repeated the words over and over as he rolled onto his back, panting all the while.

Zepheera pushed herself to her feet with her good arm and limped closer to the Doctor in spite of her pain. At best, she was badly bruised, but none of that mattered. Her injuries would amount to nothing in a minute thanks to her healing factor. Right now the Doctor needed a friend, and none of these humans could come even close to fitting the bill.

She leaned her good side against his upper cheek, the only part of his face she could reach the way his back was arched and his body tensed. The muscles beneath her flinched faintly at her touch and the Doctor gave a surprised hiss.

“It’s okay. It’s just me,” she whispered into his nearby ear, laying a tender hand near his sideburn. “I’m here, you’re gonna be alright.”

“It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone…”

“You’re damn right, it’s gone,” she agreed, jaw clenched in emotion and slowly fading pain. “It can’t get you anymore. I won’t let it. As long as I have anything to say about it, no one will touch you. That’s a promise, Doctor.”

Haltingly, the Doctor turned his head toward Zepheera, who pulled back so his wide eye could find her. Not knowing what else to do, she pressed herself against his cheekbone just below his eye, good arm extended in the best hug she could give. With a shaky sigh, the eye closed and he leaned into her tiny embrace, curling his trembling hand behind her in return. His eyelashes mingled with her short hair, and if she noticed she didn’t react. Slowly but surely, his body relaxed and he began to control his heavy breathing, wary of Zepheera as always.

Eventually the Doctor sat up and leaned on the side of a seat with the borrower nestled against his neck. They were across the aisle from Val Cane who, like everybody else in the van, was staring at them. While the Doctor continued to catch his breath and regain his composure, Zepheera looked Val up and down. This was the woman who had grabbed Zepheera without her consent, treated her like a child at best and a pet at worst, and had seemed intent on keeping her after the company had disposed of the Doctor. Even so, the look on the woman’s face gave Zepheera pause. She seemed repentant, and for one naive second Zepheera thought she’d gotten through to these humans. They all knew now that they had been wrong about the Doctor, and now perhaps Zepheera had proved that they were wrong about her. The Time Lord took care of her, yes, but she took care of him, too.

And in five words, Val Cane tore down every mite of hope in Zepheera.

“I said it was her,” she insisted, in reference to Sky.

Zepheera shot to her feet angrily because she most certainly had not–in fact, she had been the most vocal about getting rid of the Doctor! But before she could tell the enormous woman off the Doctor angled his head so his chin partially blocked her view of the human. Zepheera almost turned her wrath to him, but after seeing his clenched jaw and the way Val seemed to wither under his gaze, she realized the Doctor had made her point for her, only more poignantly without words.

Deciding to follow suit, Zepheera strode purposefully across the Doctor’s clavicle, pulled up his loosened collar and ducked underneath, pulling it down pointedly over herself. She curled up in the comforting dimness, allowing herself to pretend that the humans weren’t out there. Their silence made it easy. She could forget about them until they were all rescued from this broken-down wreck.

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Zepheera-Vision — Midnight 3/4

[Spoilers for the climax of ‘Midnight’. Prepare for angst. You’ve been warned.]

For a moment, everything but the Doctor faded. Even the humans’ voices were dulled in Zepheera’s perception. But reality came crashing back in when flesh suddenly surrounded her, lifted her away, and she realized people were now calling with confidence and finality to throw the Doctor out.

“No, you can’t!” Zepheera struggled against the fingers of the human who held her.

The human–Jethro’s mother, Val–held the borrower firmly in a fist and shushed her like one would a small animal, stroking the back of Zepheera’s head and neck with the pad of her thumb. “Don’t worry, sweet thing, it’ll all be over soon.” This was the only thing she said softly; seconds later, she was barking at her husband to “get him out! I want him out! Throw him out!!”

Zepheera craned her neck to see what they were doing to the Doctor. The father had his arms crooked under the Doctor’s shoulders, and the only resistance he met with was the Doctor’s foot hooked around the bottom of a seat. A tiny bubble of hope rose in the borrower’s chest at the thought of the Time Lord fighting back. But one of the other humans, the professor, started to help the father, wrenching the foot from its hold. Zepheera struggled again, but the mother’s grip on her tightened.

Young Deedee was terribly overwhelmed, eyes darting from the mother to Zepheera and then the Doctor and back, covering her ears from all the shouting going on; with her arms pinned to her sides, Zepheera envied her that luxury. Jethro seemed emotionally conflicted at first, but eventually pitched in to carry the Doctor out after his parents had chastised him harshly. The hostess, who initially protested, was torn. And all the while, Sky cheered them on and the Doctor copied every word.

“Molto bene!” she cried triumphantly, catching both the hostess and Zepheera’s attention. The Doctor parroted his own catchphrase.

“You see!” Zepheera called in hopes she’d be heard in all the noise. “It’s not him, it’s her! That’s his voice she’s using!” This earned Zepheera a brief glance from the hostess, who turned her diligent attention to Sky.

“Allons-y!” “Allons-y!”

Now there was no mistaking it. The hostess understood the truth, and that was all Zepheera needed.

“SHE’S TAKEN HIS VOICE!”

With determination, the woman tackled Sky against the emergency exit, smashing down the glass-shielded button without hesitation.

Six seconds of screaming and brilliant X-tonic light later, Sky and the hostess were sucked out of the vehicle, disappearing into Midnight forever.

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Zepheera-Vision — Midnight 2/4

[Spoilers for the climax of ‘Midnight’. Prepare for angst. You’ve been warned.]

All eyes turned to Zepheera. She had been relatively quiet the entire trip, taking all the Doctor’s warnings to heart. Unless she had something that needed saying she simply observed, and when she did speak it was either to or in defense of the Doctor. Now, with her cheeks streaked with angry tears, it was finally her turn to shout.

“No one is throwing anybody off this truck, especially not him! Can’t you see he’s the victim in all this? I guess not, since the last thing you want to do is help him when he needs it the most! The charity of the human race!”

“The little one…” Sky mused, cutting off Zepheera’s tirade.
“The little one…” the Doctor repeated beyond his own control.

“She’s like his pet.” “She’s like his pet.” “So loyal…and foolish.” “So loyal…and foolish.” “Poor dear, thinks the Doctor is a good man…” “Poor dear, thinks the Doctor is a good man…” “And can’t understand what’s happened to him.” “And can’t understand what’s happened to him.”

“That’s it, he’s brainwashed the little thing!” Biff Cane asserted.

“She’s not a thing!” cried Dee Dee, the student, in Zepheera’s defense.

“That’s enough, Dee Dee,” the professor barked at his assistant. “It’s only a logical assumption. With a brain mass such as hers, she’s bound to be, shall we say, impressionable,” he surmised, addressing the whole company.

“I reckon she’s working with him,” Cane intoned, pointing at Zepheera accusingly. “He’s probably trained her up to believe him, do whatever he says! They’ve been in cahoots the whole time!”

“Don’t be stupid, I am not brainwashed! I am four times your age and perfectly capable of thinking on my own! Unlike some!”

“You listen here, you little–!”

“Dad, leave her alone!” Jethro Cane interjected, the dark broody teenager staring down his father.

“That’s how he does it.” “That’s how he does it.” “He makes you fight…” “He makes you fight…” “Creeps into your head…” “Creeps into your head…” “And whispers…” “And whispers…” “Listen…” “Listen…” “Just listen…” “Just listen…”

Zepheera was listening, and each word Sky made the Doctor say broke her heart a little more.

“That’s him.” “That’s him.”

With each repetition, the Time Lord’s jaw clenched a little harder, the tremors that seized his body worsened and his eyes brimmed with tears. The Doctor was fighting it, but he was losing.

“Inside.” “Inside.”

The hopelessness of the situation hit Zepheera like a train and she fell to her knees, tears welling up in her eyes. Why do I have to be so damn USELESS??

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, praying the Doctor could still hear her. “I tried, they won’t listen, I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry…”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue

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Zepheera-Vision — Midnight 1/4

[This is an alternate ‘Midnight’. Due to the intensity, I wanted to give this one closure. Spoilers for the climax of the episode. Prepare for angst. You’ve been warned.]

Taking a big space truck full of strangers across a diamond planet called Midnight? What could possibly go wrong?

Everything.

“Doctor!” Zepheera cried, climbing along the bottom of an uprooted seat to look him in the eye. But he couldn’t look back. He sat on the floor trembling, unseeing eyes more full of fear than Zepheera had ever seen in them before.

If there was one thing you learn when you sit on a man’s shoulder, it’s how much that man moves. The Doctor was always moving–always–and now he was terrifyingly still. If he could have budged, like his eyes told her he desperately wanted to, he would have. She clutched at her hair in frustration. She wanted to help, needed to, but what could she do? She couldn’t move him on her own or save him from physical harm, she was four and a half inches tall!

For once, she wished Donna were around. The loud, boisterous human would make quick work of slapping sense into the other six, who were still arguing about what they were going to do to the Doctor. All they had done the entire time was bicker and yell, giving the borrower the worst headache. And the seventh, that Sky woman…As though she could read her mind, she stared coldly down at Zepheera with the faintest of smirks.

Now the yelling was so loud it blocked out Zepheera’s thoughts. At the very least, a couple of the humans were sticking up for the Doctor, but they were quickly shut down. One more look into the Doctor’s eyes–utterly petrified, begging for help the only way he could–and Zepheera’d had enough of these humans.

“Would you all just SHUT UP!!” she shrieked.

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Zepheera-Vision — Human Again

“Calm down, John.”

“What? Calm? I am calm. Calm and perfectly…sane. I mean, any normal bloke would just imagine a four inch tall woman telling him he’s actually an alien from outer space. And offering said tiny imaginary woman beans on toast is only polite, logical, and-and-and–” John Smith stammered as the more than slightly burnt toast jumped straight out of the toaster, throwing him off his already flustered rant. He tried to catch the flying bread in a knee-jerk reaction, succeeding only in hurting his fingers and swatting the food across the counter, thankfully away from Zepheera.

“This is crazy!” he snapped, throwing his hands in the air in utter exasperation. With a white-knuckled grip on the counter, he rounded on the self-proclaimed borrower. “More than that–it’s impossible! There’s no such thing as aliens, and I’m not even sure if you’re real! Tiny people just don’t exist. And even if they…if you are real, then…why me? Why did you have to come to me??” John squeezed his eyes shut as though it would make everything go away, anxiously rocking back and forth a little. This was all too much for him to handle at once.

But a light touch brushing against his knuckles made his eyes snap open and focus on Zepheera, who had laid her own tiny hand on his. His breath caught; she had looked small before, but now in direct comparison to his hand he felt so terribly large. He couldn’t help but stare in wonder at how she somehow found the nerve to approach a comparative giant who could hypothetically grab her at any time, one who had been shouting at her not a moment ago. For that, John thought she was an extraordinarily brave figment of his imagination.

“I’m real,” she promised. He watched as she leaned down and took hold of his first finger where it sat curled in a formerly tense fist. She lifted it, uncoiled it, and laid the very tip of it against her cheek, half-leaning against her shoulder. John could feel her soft, fine hair, her miniscule ear, the warmth of her skin, and he could no longer deny her existence. When she saw the recognition in his eyes, she shifted the finger against her shoulder–to sit more comfortably, John could assume.

“I know it doesn’t make sense, but you need to understand that it had to be you. You don’t know it yet, but we’re friends, you and I. I’m supposed to be watching out for you in case of trouble. And I’m afraid, John, that we really, really need to talk.”

Zepheera’s voice was so kind and sincere, and a small part of John could not resist that look in her teeny violet eyes. “Shall I get started on those beans then?”

She smiled, sending a bubble of warmth through John’s heart. He’d made her happy, and for whatever reason he was extremely proud of that. “Yeah, I think you better had. Gonna be a long chat.”

John waited for Zepheera to fully let his finger go before carefully lifting it away and walking to the cabinet by the stove.

“And that’s four and a half inches tall, thanks very much!”

Despite himself, John giggled at the correction.

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O H MY GOD?? i was chatting with my friend and it came to me. gossiping about humans… braiding each others hair. zepheera sitting on the doctor’s shoulder and making tiny braids in his hair, or the doctor struggling but managing to make a little braid out of zepheera’s bob. god help me im in too deep

Oh, I wouldn’t put any of that past these two. I’m positive they’ve had at least a night or two in which they may or may not have had a drop too many, and ended up making a pillow fort, swapping stories, making shadow-puppets, bitching about their exes…

~~[has the sudden urge to write this]~~

dyou think zepheera n the doc just bond over how stupid humans are sometimes bc I don’t remember the last time he’s had a nonhuman companion

Oh, definitely. It’s like they were meant for each other.

When she’s having an especially bad day and just needs to vent her decades-old pent-up frustrations, he’s always there to listen. He’ll be supportive in his own way (he still loves his humans, but he tries his best to understand the borrower’s perspective).

On the other hand, when the Doctor cuts himself shaving or stubs his toe and starts rattling off insults to humanity as a whole, she won’t get offended and will usually agree and add on.

They could go on for hours like this, getting absolutely nothing productive done. Quite a few late nights in the TARDIS debating over the pros and cons of the human race; the dangers they pose and the potential they hold. And at the end of each conversation, there’s an unspoken understanding that grows stronger between them.

~~god, I love my babies…~~

I love how, with very little prompting, Zepheera gives people the impression of has-hands-on-hips.

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Zepheera-Vision — I Was Lonely

“Zepheera?”

The borrower in question shot the Doctor a look before ignoring him, carrying on twisting a few pieces of string into a stronger rope.

“Zepheera…” he tried again, licking his lips as though in preparation. “…I need to get up.” Despite himself, a twinge of mirth tugged at his lips.

“Funny, that,” scoffed Zepheera as she looked up from her work. “That’s not what you said two hours ago.”

“But I have to–”

“‘Zepheera, I’m bored. Sit with me, Zepheera. Keep me company.’”

The Doctor sighed, an action that blew the borrower’s already messy bob about. “I know, I know. But I’ve got to check on the experiment, it should be ready by now.”

Zepheera threw up the hand that wasn’t keeping her progress on the rope in place. “Just saying. It’s your own fault for scooping me up and putting me on the pillow on top of you.”

“I was lonely,” he shrugged, making Zepheera’s perch shift back and forth slightly.

She regarded the Doctor in contemplation, but after a moment of staring at those big brown puppy-dog eyes her shoulders slumped in defeat. Gathering her work, she slid off the small pillow that she would never ever admit was actually quite comfortable, and made her way up his chest toward his shoulder.

“One of these days, you’re gonna run out of trump cards,” she informed him, pointing an accusing finger at the Doctor’s stupid grin.

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Fanart

elitefourstevonnie:

why i got zepheera’s design 97% wrong and i am very sorry –
when i first discovered this AU, it was through the brothers apart contest entry. when zepheera first came on screen, there wasn’t much of a physical description, but she was wearing sunglasses and an oversized trench coat and for whatever reason my thoughts were drawn to estelle:
then, when i started reading the actual fics, i read the description of her hair, and because i could not unsee estelle instantly my mind went to marceline’s mom.
so try though i might i could not unsee zepheera as marceline’s mom (thank you, short attention span) and when finally her skin tone was described as “well-tanned,” my first thought was “Well shit, I’ve been doing this wrong.”
so here, this is how i’ve seen zepheera for most of the series until around the end of Episode 2.
@borrowedtimeandspace

Are you JOKING ME?? This is GORGEOUS! I’ve been internally screaming for the last hour and a half!

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what her skin tone was when I started out. I just didn’t think about it all that much. ‘Well-tanned’ came about when, kind of on a whim, I decided Zepheera was biracial (like me! ^-^). Her mother had fair skin and I don’t think I ever specified for her father, and if I did I’ll probably change it in revisions. This leaves her complexion a little open–kinda like my own personal Hermione, at the risk of tooting my own horn. Personally, I now see her as olive-skinned, but I think the color scheme you used is AMAZING. Really, the only things I insist upon about Zepheera physically are her hair and her eyes, and your interpretation is just fabulous to me.