RP: Log, "I Never Left You," for stardustflying

[watch_is_me]

He flies around the TARDIS console, piloting with both hands, both feet, his nose, an elbow here, an elbow there, nudge this lever this way, and that one that way, just a touch, a smidgen, there, there, can't she go any faster? Of course, it doesn't matter, faster doesn't matter, not when you're traveling through time, but it feels as though it matters. Human beings always wonder when he fails to explain the complexities of time and this is it, this is why, because time's personal and shared, everyone and no one's, relative and set, and can't she go any faster?

"Come on, old girl, come on, come on... Amps to 11, ludicrous speed, damn the torpedoes, come on."

And he jumps back from the console, bounces on his toes, because he's made all of the adjustments he can, and it's up to her now, the TARDIS. He trusts her, she'll get him where he needs to be, but he can't help the impatience.

First they'd landed in London instead of Edo, and, really, those just weren't the same. Tokugawa Japan and 21st-century London, they both had their merits, but the ukiyo—kabuki and geisha and chonin and samurai—wasn't one of London's. Well, not yet. Give it a few millenia.

So he'd settled down to repairs, and she'd gone off to see the sights and the shops; he'd given her a mobile before she'd taken off, universal roaming enabled, certain she'd be fine. If she could handle the Titanic, disintegration and reintegration, she could take on London.

Halfway through the repairs, the TARDIS had started up, of its own accord. A time scoop, he'd thought, but that was impossible, they were gone, all dead, the ones who could do that to him, summon him at will.

It hadn't been a time scoop. Temporal genetic lock, the Menagerists, an elite group of 7000th-century dilettantes who collected rare...animals of all types, all across time and space, and kept them on an elaborate prison planet. A zoo. And what rarer than the last of the Time Lords?

It had taken him minutes to escape, but months to get the rest of them out. There had been human beings there, future humans, survivors past the destruction of the Earth, and how could he leave them?

But the instant he'd had them all away, out in the Menagerists' hijacked private star-yachts, he'd shot to the TARDIS, because he couldn't leave her, either. Astrid. His Astrid.

The TARDIS sets down, and he thanks her, a mental nod, nothing spoken, as he bolts through the doors, out into an alleyway. The same place. Good. The same time? He's not so sure. Maybe. Has to be. He can't be that far off, can he?

And he fishes his own mobile out of his jacket pocket, dialing her number as he dashes out into the streets proper, eyes scanning over every passerby, every shopfront window. She's here. She's got to be here. He didn't mean to leave, and he won't let this be another parting, another failure, something to remember and regret.

Faster, faster, the phone has to dial faster, ring faster, he has to run faster, through the streets, as though velocity were like gravity, an attractive force. As though faster mattered.

Comments

[stardustflying.livejournal.com]

Where Astrid can only hope, only he can make reality. Twice now she's wandered with nothing but a dream to keep her searching. Once as nothing but sentient atoms weaving their way through universes over months and months; drifting, but never aimlessly, magnetized by only his presence that could breathe life into her. And here, right now, for five days she'd endlessly searched, never stopping, never faltering in her stoic determination to seek what she needed, what she'd always needed since before she even met his other.

Cars, people, buses, bikes, noise. The discordant cacophony of it all slipped away. She'd lived it, with nothing but hope to spur her on, and hope had provided.

His heartbeats against her lips at his pulse are all she hears now as he carries her away from it all, their beat bringing peace and clarity and sleep.

Her eyes flutter open briefly in response on the table, and for a split-second he's clear. With a small smile she whispers, "I know."

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

He smiles back, at her words, his hands busy applying the last of the sensors, right under the neckline of her clothing. He moves lightly, the barest pressure needed to stick the discs to her skin, afraid to linger, to invite another moment like the kiss. He doesn't need his time sense to feel those moments, the possibility of them, to know that they will happen, later if not now, that a decision is being made, between them, something irrevocable, with every touch, every one of their few words.

He should never have left her, even if it wasn't his choice. This wouldn't have happened. He could have kept them apart. He could have kept things right.

Now they're going wrong. Right/wrong, and he's afraid.

The instruments hum and beep, readouts in Gallifreyan scrolling across their screens. He steps away from the table to give them his attention, relieved at their scientific clarity, maths and numbers and graphs. Without thinking, he taps a quiet rhythm against the side of one display, as he leans in to follow the dips and peaks of one graph more closely. 1-2-3-4.

[stardustflying.livejournal.com]

The final remnants of her conscious mind drift away like her atoms did all that time ago while he works. As she sleeps she's stardust set adrift, and it's so cold. She's never felt so alone.

"Flying not falling" she murmurs deleriously, "I don't want to fall... Stop me falling Doctor... I have to stop the drums."

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

His eyebrows quirk at the display. Tired. That's all it is. She's just tired. More specifically, the instruments indicate she's in an advanced state of fatigue, four or five days without rest. Good. That's good—it hasn't been months, for her, only days. And bad, because she must have run herself ragged, looking for him. His fault. Good and bad, both, like everything in the past...it's been less than an hour. Has it really been less than an hour?

Time. He can barely understand it.

He runs his hands through his hair. Well. Fatigue. There's nothing he can do about that—only let her sleep and recover on her own. He'd rather it was something he could help with, do something about, make better right now, but it isn't, and all he can do is walk back to the examining table and look down at her. Sleeping.

They're so helpless, when they sleep, other races. Faces open and bodies loose and their eyes moving under their lids, and he always wonders what they're dreaming. How they can stand being so helpless, for so long.

Careful not to disturb her sleep, he sits beside her and overhears her murmuring. It bites into him, her last comment, and he knows when she wakes up, he'll offer to take her back, to him. He'll have to. Because this, what's happening now, between them, is going to be enough of a burden, for both of them, and she doesn't need the drums, too. Let this happen with him, his other; let it be even that little bit simpler, easier, for her.

He takes her hand, holds it in both of his, and can't find the words to say. No promises, no assurances. Only holding her hand in his, and waiting.

[stardustflying.livejournal.com]

Hours and hours pass as she sleeps, stardust in her dreams as she searches endlessly. Yet she can never quite get where she needs to be, her destination just over the horizon and the horizon keeps slipping further away when she nears it. Chasing it constantly, that mysterious ever moving place, that she knows will make everything alright if she could just reach it. Not once does she consider it a mirage, an empty hope, it's real and she'll get there.

She floats, ever gaining momentum and strength, she's not tired anymore and she's so close she can feel the warmth there, in her hand. She can reach out and touch it if she just opens her eyes.

And then she does, eyelashes heavy at first as the crack of light filters through. Maybe, just maybe, she made it there after all this time.

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

He'd been taking a kind of refuge in the stillness, her sleeping and him sitting by her side, holding her hand, getting up now and then to check the instruments, but otherwise just sitting, watching her, being with her. Stillness isn't an easy thing, for him even less so than for his others. The drums urge him to action, to movement, to nervous tapping and restless pacing, but the TARDIS helps him. It creeps into the back of his mind and makes the drums into something else—something more like music than the usual, mindless percussion. He lets it. He holds Astrid's hand, as she sleeps, and the TARDIS holds his hand, in its own way, lending him patience and a measure of peace. They watch her sleep, together.

When her eyes open, he's not ready. He'll never be ready, because the choices begin again, now, and he's so tired of choices.

"'Lo," he says, smiling, warm, his voice pitched quiet. "Feeling better?"

[stardustflying.livejournal.com]

She smiles at that, he's right there next to her, and she wonders if he ever moved and how long it's been.

Her hand squeezes his gently, "Much". It's a reassurance for him, as much as it's relief and welcomed lucidity on her part.

"Are you alright? I was worried about you."

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

He grins at her; she's fine now and maybe he can pretend that none of whatever's been happening has been happening. Maybe he can reassert equilibrium.

"Oh, me? Don't worry about me. I'm fine." He stands up with a hop, jamming his hands into his pockets and freewheeling over to make a show of checking the instruments, spinning from one to the another as he talks, bespectacled and wild-haired. "Had some chaps interrupt my repairs. They really wanted to meet me, burning desire, wouldn't take no for an answer. So it was hi-ho-the-dairy-o, upsy-daisy, me and the TARDIS, time-napped, off to this planet, beautiful planet, really, we should go, I should take you—no, I—he should take you, that'd be better, for the best, it..."

He trails off, finding no right way to end the sentence he's lost control of. Rubbing the bridge of his nose under his glasses, he looks over at Astrid.

"It wasn't my choice. I didn't mean to go. I'm sorry."

[stardustflying.livejournal.com]

It's wonderful just listening to him when he's so full of energy. He's talking about getting kidnapped, and it's all just a story to him. A story that shocks her and makes her smile all at the same time. She sits up while he talks, dangling her legs off the edge of the table, and he's just fantastic, everything about him is just fantastic.

Then it changes, no warning, his awe inspiring babble changes so fast into something far more reticent. He's rejecting her again, and it hurts. She can't even bring herself to question him, why doesn't she belong with him, it's so simple, so meant to be. Why can't he see that?

"I know Doctor, I know it wasn't your fault, you don't need to say sorry."

She's crushed, so she's responding to the part that doesn't matter, because it's easier than asking him why, it's easier than giving him chance to reject her again, it's easier to leave it hanging, not confront it.

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

He stands up straight, really looking at her, no longer avoiding her gaze. His hands are in his pockets, and he's neither tense nor relaxed, he's in that balance that comes in the moments when he decides to tell the perfect, absolute, sincere truth. When what he says has weight and meaning, to him, its not just a show, and it matters.

"I do, Astrid." And he's not just apologizing for leaving, that's secondary now, tertiary, so far away from the heart of things. He's apologizing for something greater, less definable, for what he's let grow between them, since her reconstruction.

[stardustflying.livejournal.com]

For a moment, Astrid accepts the brevity of what he's saying, her eyes meeting his, looking right at him in an unspoken understanding, thoughtful contemplation. The thud of her heart amplified in the brief silence that follows. It's clear he's talking about more than just the past few days, but what he's apologising for or what she thinks he's apologising for isn't something she wants to hear. So now it's her turn to be dismissive, to change the subject in a moment of eager evasiveness.

"Did you know that humans think they're it, the only lifeform in the universe. Can you imagine that?" She lifts her brow in surprise, an amused grin of disbelief allowing her to release the tension from the awkwardness. "Not knowing there's anything out there waiting to be discovered?"

[watch-is-me.livejournal.com]

He's more than happy to go along with her change in tone, her evasion, to slip into the bantering that has always characterized his relationships with his companions. It's familiar; it's safe; it reminds him of earlier times, better times, when he was a younger man and everything was simpler.

"Oh, they know there's something out there. They've always been looking for it. Myths and legends and constellations, they've turned their eyes to the night sky and tried to look past it, you know, through all of that dark between the stars. Always wishing for someone to come and visit them, tell them it's all true. Every word of it, every vision, every hope." He's warm, now, sincere, a man speaking on his pet subject, a true love, a source of strength. "Some of them want to be the center of the universe, star of the show, yeah, but...They're not the dreamers, Astrid. They're not the ones who'll come out and join you someday."

He pauses, and for the first time since he's seen her again, there's nothing hidden in his expression—he's happy, gratefully, unbelievingly happy. "They do, you know. I didn't think—but they were there. Year 700,000, and, well, they aren't many, wouldn't have been in the Garden if they were, bit of a rarity, an oddity, but they survive."

One of the instruments beeps and flashes a pulse of lights, demanding his attention, but he's swept up in what he learned in his months away, and he only frowns and smacks it, before turning back to Astrid. Irregular readings, must be a glitch in the system, he'd have to look at that later.