It is different, something has changed, and it hurts him, the change. Her kiss, her lips on his neck, he feels with an intensity beyond human (or Sto Citizen) capacity, the way he can feel things so soft, so slight, so fine that other species might miss them entirely, thick skin and clumsy fingers, and they never know what they live just on the wrong edge of feeling. This. This sharp, painful, constant awareness.
Well. People are staring, aren't they? And the driver's getting out of that car, and stamping towards him, angry and befuddled, in equal measure. Awkwardly, still holding Astrid, he slides the psychic paper from his pocket and waves it at the man. "I'm her Doctor."
He doesn't offer any further explanation, just leaves the man gaping as he carries Astrid back across the street. People get out of his way, on the sidewalks, standing back from this strange man and his distant eyes, bearing a woman away, walking with a certainty, a self-possession, a hard-edged unhurried urgency that's wrong for the crowded city streets. He's come from a battlefield, this one, holding the only survivor; Arthur with Guinevere, mourning and loving, lost and found, all at the same time.
He's wrong here, he's not of here, he's an outsider, and there's a story in his walk and his eyes, the black he wears, and the woman with her arms around his neck, the way he holds her. It's a story no one watching will ever hear.
That's who he is, and that's the wake he leaves—and he knows, but he doesn't care. Not now. Now, he ignores everything, everyone; opens the TARDIS doors without even a snap, only a question in his mind, "please," to a very old friend; and carries Astrid back to the med-bay. He lays her gently down on one of the examining tables and busies himself with the precise, quiet, centering work of calibrating instruments to Sto standards and attaching sensors to her body, delicate, hesitant, avoiding anything that might sting, for now.
"Can you hear me? This won't hurt. I won't hurt you."
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Date: 2008-11-16 06:59 pm (UTC)Well. People are staring, aren't they? And the driver's getting out of that car, and stamping towards him, angry and befuddled, in equal measure. Awkwardly, still holding Astrid, he slides the psychic paper from his pocket and waves it at the man. "I'm her Doctor."
He doesn't offer any further explanation, just leaves the man gaping as he carries Astrid back across the street. People get out of his way, on the sidewalks, standing back from this strange man and his distant eyes, bearing a woman away, walking with a certainty, a self-possession, a hard-edged unhurried urgency that's wrong for the crowded city streets. He's come from a battlefield, this one, holding the only survivor; Arthur with Guinevere, mourning and loving, lost and found, all at the same time.
He's wrong here, he's not of here, he's an outsider, and there's a story in his walk and his eyes, the black he wears, and the woman with her arms around his neck, the way he holds her. It's a story no one watching will ever hear.
That's who he is, and that's the wake he leaves—and he knows, but he doesn't care. Not now. Now, he ignores everything, everyone; opens the TARDIS doors without even a snap, only a question in his mind, "please," to a very old friend; and carries Astrid back to the med-bay. He lays her gently down on one of the examining tables and busies himself with the precise, quiet, centering work of calibrating instruments to Sto standards and attaching sensors to her body, delicate, hesitant, avoiding anything that might sting, for now.
"Can you hear me? This won't hurt. I won't hurt you."