SPACEMAN AND THE MOON ― doctor who

thirty-seven; truth

listened to "atlantis" "the night we met" "it's ok" and "another love" on repeat for this chapter if you want the full emotional impact.

✰☾✰

LUNA LEANED HER HEAD AGAINST THE TARDIS DOORS, letting out a long breath, exhaustion overcoming her.

Sleep had usurped her yet again, and she woke up in a panting sweat, begging the room not to take her. She felt small and alone. So, so alone.

Even with Martha, who Luna adored, she felt distanced — like she could leave any moment. Perhaps it was how quickly both her sister and Mickey had left, and even Rose, though they were never close.

The thought of Martha leaving made Luna sick. She didn't know how the Doctor did it, companion after companion, picking through different people like flowers in a weed garden.

He was always alone too.

At first, she thought she could be alone with him. She thought they could be alone together. But then again, lonely people don't have someone to quarrel their loneliness.

She watched a star being born, nearly ten light years from Earth 2008, filling the sky in an explosion of colors; reds and yellows intermixing with the darkness that loomed around her. The blackness of space surrounding the TARDIS was painted over one stroke at a time.

For the briefest of moments, she wished the Doctor would wander out from behind the console. As though he knew she were upset.

But he never came. Plausibly, he was reading. He never slept this early, if at all, and spent most of the night in the kitchens baking for hours if he wasn't in the library reading. She caught him in the swimming pool once during her first week aboard — seeing him shirtless nearly drove her insane, before she admitted her feelings.

When he found her on the edge of the TARDIS that first night, he'd spent almost every night following with her. Or he waited in the console room in case she needed company.

But since their break up she felt radio silence. She didn't know if he would ever tell her truth about her life, her memories, her existence, but she hoped he would.

Luna knew if he apologized and confessed what he knew that she'd forgive him. And they could be happy again.

But it had been weeks since their breakup, since first getting Martha. And nothing. No confessions, no declarations, no apologies.

Nothing.

She thought things would change after she'd nearly lost in front of Martha's family -- who, according to Martha were convinced that she needed the loony-bin straight away and it was dangerous to keep in contact with her -- and he helped her back to his room.

She thought he'd be there when she woke up, feeling just as exhausted and hollow as the day before. Nothing could help her sleep anymore. There wasn't a point in sleeping. Luna could hear knocking in her head, like someone constantly rapping her skull with their fists. She could feel the throbbing of her mind as it tried to work up to speed with the Doctor's adventurous life -- but the sleep deprivation over-showered any hopes of having a coherent thought.

But it had been days since then and nothing. She'd even stayed on the TARDIS while he and Martha explored planetary systems and worlds unknown. A part of her wanted to leave -- but where would she go? Who would she go to? She supposed she could always phone Sarah Jane, but giving up on whatever their relationship was felt...wrong. She couldn't give up, not for something so easily fixable.