The Mistress can feel grass under her feet and the chill of night biting into her. She breathes the outside air and it's so heavy in her lungs, so fresh, so much more than the air beneath the ground. She breathes deeply, greedily, like a woman trapped beneath water freed.
Her feet still run, she hadn't brought shoes with her, hadn't thought that far.
She knows he can't be far behind- he can't just not know where she is now, can he?
The thought is dizzying as she presses forwards, going away, getting away- there isn't much difference in those words, is there? She feels it still in her bones.
Freedom, freedom, freedom, fear.
Because what does she do now as she spins beneath the shadows of trees and dances in the dark cast by streetlights, laughing when she can breathe. She can't go back surely- he told her that he would protect her and she's abandoned that and he'd forgive her but it would be even more stifling to go back now she can feel time again, spinning and spinning and spinning around her as her mind processes the time that has gone by while she's been trapped in that void of a space.
She doesn't belong here, doesn't know anyone and the guilt is pressing down on her still.
How many has she killed? How could she leave him? Why did she do that? What is she doing?
It hurts suddenly to be away from him, his attention. She knows she loves him but she needs to be away and that gives her guilt too. She knows that she can't heal in the way he wants, not so quickly, not so isolated.
She needs to breathe in the cool night air and feel the breeze against her skin so she stops moving, catching on time as she stills and looks out across the flat grass, suspended in the moment as she watches clouds move across the dark sky.
She breathes in and out, smile pulling at her lips at the beauty she'd never felt before.
There are stars there- she could name them all- but for now she just sees them.
She wanders for a while, hearing sounds and heading towards them despite her nervousness. There's a sign with one of the human languages on which she's too tired, too overwhelmed to translate and there's a group of humans on the path.
She doesn't know what she wants, torn between running away, watching them and trying to engage.
They laugh, a group but each of them slightly different, and pass bottles and she can tell the moment when one of them spots her, locks eyes briefly and tells their group.
She isn't sure what to expect but it isn't really for them to approach her and ask if she's alright. Some of their voices slur and Rassilon she wishes for the relief of drinking right now, to forget and just be.
"Are you lost?" One of them asks. They aren't being unkind- she can tell that much.
The Mistress thinks for a moment, uncertain.
"I guess you could say that." She grimaces at the honesty even though it feels good in some way, "I'm not really sure where I'm going anyway." She tells them, presuming that that would be that and they would move on.
"Do you think any of us know where we're going Miss? Harvey can't walk two straight feet!" Crows one of them, further stumbling into another one who pushes them back to their own feet good naturedly.
"Yeah well you aren't five straight feet." Is the returned shout from one of the humans directly in front of her, laughing as the other responds by hitting their chest.
"You got a problem with over six foot of gay?" They ask, tilting their head to the side in a strangely sinuous movement.
The Mistress can't help but laugh a little at the interaction, so bizarre and so distracting and so ridiculous that the few others with them are jokingly holding each of the ones who were talking back as they pretend to fight, everyone laughing and squawking, bottle passed between them and snatched from others hands in the harmless way that only people who care can do.
Somehow she finds herself telling them little parts of her life while sitting on a park bench, bottle to her lips as they listen and comment, everyone piled on top of each other as if this is something they do every week.
Somehow she finds herself laughing and dancing and comfortably drunk under coloured lights, probably the strangest sight there that night but not caring.
There's guilt about the pity the humans feel for her but it doesn't matter as they all laugh and spin and push up against each other, stumbling and when she asks one of them why they invited her, why they stopped, why they've given her drinks and paid her way in and one of them gave her her spare shoes to wear, the answer is surprisingly lucid.
"You looked lost." They shout over the noise, laughing unashamedly. There's no further explanation and the Mistress supposes that she doesn't need one.
When they leave, a mass of bodies pressed together for stability and attempting to run down the street, laughing and screaming, the Mistress can't help but be swept up finally in the feeling of belonging.
Even though she's not wearing the same clothes, even though she's far older, even though she's far smarter, even though she's far less drunk than they are, even though they aren't even from the same planet, let alone species-
Still. She feels good. She feels safe. She feels happy.
Some of them live together and she falls asleep in a pile of bodies, half on and half off the couch and hasn't felt so loved in a long time even though she's only known them for hours.
It takes a few months to adjust.
She cons her way into an easy job, one low enough that she can escape the Doctor's notice hopefully and into a decent place to live. It's not quite to her standards but it's enough to be close to the lights and the drinking and the fun.
The faces change all the time but she feels known in a small way by all the people she meets, dances with, laughs with, talks to and it's like breathing air again after being underwater to just speak freely and drink whenever she wants.
She's planning nothing and letting go of everything, cutting the ties she'd wound herself up in for so long and the lights above her are warm colours like fire so she laughs, tipping her head back to the sky in the clamour and heat of the crowd. She reaches for those lights like she used to reach for the stars, content now to never reach them as she spins and twirls among all the humans around her, laughing too and not caring about any of the things that she's done before.
Occasionally she'll feel guilty for leaving him and not having seen him or anything but it's what she needs at the moment and she thinks that he would understand that if they met again and she explained it to him.
So she'll laugh in the park with faces she probably won't see again for a week, lights in the trees swinging in the breeze as she pulls out a bottle and they share it around.
The Doctor smiles softly at the release on the Mistress' face. He passes back behind the other trees as he returns home to bed and a very welcoming book.
He can't help but feel lighter now that she's found happiness.
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