11Disclaimer: I don't own "Doctor Who" or "Twilight", and the essential details of the original concept of this fic came from a video posted on YouTube by heroesdwtw- which has unfortunately now been taken off YouTube- and is used with their permission
Feedback: Much appreciated
The Funeral
When the TARDIS materialised in our requested destination of Sarah's attic, it didn't take long for the children to virtually dash out of the ship, Rani immediately berating Mr Smith for not warning us about the Shansheeth while the computer revealed that the main Shansheeth group had already expressed their apologies for the actions of their brethren. Santiago and Clyde were each clearly impressed at this glimpse of Mr Smith and the TARDIS in action respectively, but as I stood in the TARDIS with Jo, Sarah, and the Doctor, a part of me couldn't help but focus on what was happening around me inside the ship rather than outside.
However I tried not to think about it- however much the TARDIS had 'programmed' my mind so that I couldn't consciously think about it- I knew that this would likely be the last time I ever saw the Doctor…
"Same old TARDIS," Jo said, walking around the console with a blanker wrapped around herself, staring at the brilliant orange interior. "It doesn't matter what's changed, it still… smells the same."
I wasn't sure if I would define the similarity as something as basic as smell, but I appreciated Jo's point; this TARDIS console room might look like a strange combination of the TARDIS when I'd travelled with the Doctor and the console room I'd seen this incarnation using in his future- the future one had just been blue and felt a bit more coordinated- but there was still something comforting about it despite its unique qualities…
"No," Jo said, shaking her head. "I've got to say goodbye, or else I'd stay with you forever. Besides, I probably couldn't keep up any more; get you into trouble with the Time Lords."
"Mmm… Yeah, I'd probably better go," the Doctor said, in an awkward tone that discouraged me from correcting Jo's assumption about the status of the Time Lords in his future. "You know me; stuff to do."
"Planets to save, wrongs to right and tea to drink, mmm?" I smiled at him.
"Glad you're doing well anyway, Swan," the Doctor looked at me with a warm smile. "I took a look at everyone last time, but it was… well, you miss details."
"Plus you could only get so close, right?" I noted, understanding what the Doctor was trying not to say; whenever he'd last looked in on me, I must have been too close to vampires for him to want to get closer in case they realised he was there.
"It's daft, though," Sarah noted, shaking her head briefly as she smiled at the Time Lord. "Because we were all saying… we had this theory that if you ever died, we'd feel it, somehow we'd just know. But that's just silly, isn't it?"
"I don't know," the Doctor mused, his expression particularly contemplative as he looked at us. "Maybe not… because between you and me, if that day ever comes… I think the whole universe might just shiver."
The solemn moment was broken when the Doctor made a small jump at us, Jo, Sarah and I starting back in response before we exchanged smiles and began to laugh.
"Something to think about another time?" Jo said.
"Good plan," the Doctor nodded at the three of us. "Jo Grant, Sarah Jane Smith, Bella Swan… keep being brilliant."
"Just be you," Sarah replied, before she and Jo headed for the TARDIS door.
"Goodbye," I said, pausing to look at the Doctor one last time before I turned and followed the other two women out of the ship, looking back with a new sense of sorrow as the door closed and the TARDIS dematerialised.
And that's the last time I'll ever see a Doctor who knows me…
"What is it?" Sarah looked at me, prompting me to realise that my eyes were slightly wet.
"It's just…" I began, sighing in resignation. "I actually already know how the Doctor's going to die."
"What?" the other five looked at me sharply.
"How?" Jo asked.
"Because I met three of him while I was travelling with… with the one in the brown suit, you know… and one of them was the Doctor who just left, but at some point in his future relative to what just happened," I said, indicating Sarah so she'd know which Doctor I was talking about.
"Hold on; you've already met the Doctor we just met… in his future?" Clyde looked at me in surprise.
"I'm not sure how far in his future, so don't ask," I clarified. "But I did meet him, along with… well, it was an earlier incarnation… and we stopped a Zygon invasion… we even saved Gallifrey… and just before we left, the Doctor who just left this attice told my Doctor that he'd learned they're destined to die on the planet Trenzalore."
"Trenzalore?" Rani repeated in surprise. "What's special about Trenzalore?"
"I… I don't know," I said sadly. "I didn't have time to ask; the Doctor just said that it was where his grave was going to be-"
"The key word in that sentence is was," another voice said, prompting all of us to spin around in surprise to see a short brown-haired woman standing in the door of the attic, smiling politely at us.
"Clara?" I looked at the Doctor's future companion in surprise.
"Clara?" Jo and Sarah looked at me inquiringly.
"She… well, she'll travel with the Doctor we just met in his future; I met her when I met that Doctor while I was travelling with my Doctor…" I said, waving that off before looking at Clara in surprise. "What are you doing here; isn't your time… well, a few years in the future?"
"Oh, it is," Clara smiled at me. "But I just left Trenzalore a few days ago, and I thought you'd like to meet this man."
"Who-?" I began, before another man stepped out into the door of the room, this one a tall figure with grey hair and a harsh, lined face wearing a black velvet suit.
"Hello, Bella Swan," he said in a rough Scottish accent.
"Who…?" I began, before trailing off as inspiration struck me. "Doctor?"
"Hold on; a third one?" Clyde said incredulously.
"Obviously not a third one, Langer," the Doctor looked at Clyde with a harsh glare. "We're all the same man; I'm just the one who doesn't wear tweed and a bow tie any more."
"So… you regenerated?" Sarah looked at the man with a smile.
"But… hold on, you told me that your eleventh incarnation was your last incarnation!" I protested, even as I smiled at this unexpected new reunion with my friend. "You said that you… you'd used up all your lives!"
"I did," the Doctor said, his new rougher face broken by a surprisingly warm smile at me. "And then I found Gallifrey."
"Found Gallifrey?" Jo repeated in surprise. "Why did it need to be found?"
"And it's… it's all right?" Sarah said, looking anxiously at the Doctor. "You told me… everyone was dead?"
"Trapped and cut off from the rest of the universe, but they're all alive as far as we can tell," Clara smiled. "A while after we met you, the Doctor spent the rest of his last life guarding a crack in reality that led to wherever Gallifrey had been hidden, defending it from basically anyone with a grudge against his people, but when he was about to die of old age in a stand-off against the last Dalek ship attacking Trenzalore, we were able to talk to the Time Lords for help, and… well, they gave him a new set of regenerations."
"New regenerations?" Jo looked at the Doctor in surprise. "You mean you had a limit and you never told me?"
"I was only on my third body when I was with you, Jo; when I had ten more regenerations left at that time, there was no reason to worry you about the possibility of my permanent death back then," the Doctor explained briefly.
"And nowadays there's no way of knowing how many he has," Clara put in with a smile, before she looked at me with a more serious expression. "Anyway, that's the main reason we're here, really; I remembered that you were there when he told himself about Trenzalore, so I thought… well, best that everyone who knew about that particular mess also knew that he wasn't going to die for good there now either."
"Really?" I looked at the Time Lord with a smile. "Thanks."
"It was Clara's suggestion," the Doctor said, shrugging in an awkward manner that prompted me to smile; this Doctor clearly had some issues with expressing himself emotionally compared to the last two I'd met, but there was still something behind his manner that showed that he still cared even if he was bad at showing it.
"Well," the Doctor said, looking around the room with a brief shrug, "I've told you all I'm not dead before Bella could mention how I was going to snuff it, so-"
"So," Sarah said, stepping forward to place a firm hand on the Doctor's arm, "now that you are here, which implies you didn't have anything else to do right now, I think it's only fair that you stick around for at least the next couple of hours so that we can talk about everything that's happened."
"Well…" the Doctor said, looking awkwardly around the attic for a few moments before he turned to face Sarah with an uncertain smile. "Why not? Seeing a few old friends could help me get everything sorted out after that last regeneration."
It was an awkwardly worded concession, but judging by the pleased smile on Clara's face as she looked at the new Doctor, it was a positive step in terms of his personal development.
The Eleventh Doctor might have had to leave abruptly, but if the Twelfth Doctor had come all this way to reassure me, I for one was going to make sure he stayed for at least one meal with all of us. I was already sure that I was going to encourage Santiago to try and patch things up between his parents once he moved, but Jo, Sarah and I had so many more stories to share with each other about our time with the Doctor, I was resolved to get the Doctor to tell a few stories about his own time with the other two women that their children would enjoy while they found it embarrassing, and I would even see what I could do about convincing the Doctor to give Jo and Santiago a lift to wherever they wanted to go now.
We might never have been in the same room as each other before now, but we were all part of the most complicated family in existence, and I had hope that wasn't going to change any time soon.
I'd come a long way from that lonely and terrified girl who'd been so hung up on the loss of one vampire boyfriend that she'd almost killed herself, and I owed it all to meeting the most remarkable man in the known universe, who'd shown me what I was truly capable of in a manner that even Edward had never allowed me to explore.
AN: Well, that's the end of this series (unless some future episode airs where Bella's involvement would feel absolutely perfect to me based on the context of this storyline); thanks to everyone who stuck with me until the end, and I hope you've enjoyed my take on Bella Swan's journey from desperate ex-girlfriend of a vampire to world-changing ex-companion of the 'last of the Time Lords'.
