doctor who - five
Oh, and Lucy got caught along with him too.
five
ship: light nine/lucy
828 words. expository pg.
The first year was hard. Well actually, not so much hard, as lined with thinly veiled attempts at the taking of Eleven’s life for the mess he'd gotten them into. No, Gareth’s life; she should be used to calling him that by now, after all, it’s been four years. He’s not even the Doctor anyways, not really, and believe you her, she’s tried. Tried everything, actually, but the slightest turn of phrase in the wrong direction and he’d start cringing… and she knew better then to continue down that path. So she’d left him in the dark, where Harry had done, simply using the few basic truths he did know to build upon.
Time travel was real, a man named The Master did exist, the Wardrobe wasn’t just jammed shut, and it really was bigger on the inside. Simple things, things that didn’t make his eyes go wild inside his head. She whistled some tune she couldn’t quite place, throwing the oven doors shut and wiping her blackened hands on an apron around her waist. Her hair was dripping down, quite literally, in great sweaty strands and she didn’t bother shoving them back, not yet.
She had a date with the man from down the street tonight, a bit of a mean looking man, but that was alright. Reminded her of… the tracks that that particular train of thought went down always brought the smell of old leather to her head and she shook it away, the cobwebs particularly thick today. A date and she’d bought a new dress, and everything. Well, new, as in not embarrassingly old, and that was good enough for her. The oven was over heating and this brought her back down from her fancy thoughts of new linens and handsome, albeit short tempered suitors.
She knew how to pick them, that’s what Gareth had told her when he’d first seen the man. It didn’t bother her too deeply. Despite his severe lack of attention for details, always holed up in his room, miserable from the looks of it, she could count on his protection if she needed it. That was a part of him being the Doctor that even not knowing could not cure, she supposed. By the second year she had grown a bit fond of him, even if he was useless and really, he needed someone who didn’t find him completely far gone.
Not that she knew what else to do with him. Couldn’t well leave him alone for too long, he was bound to go off and get sentimental with the customers, regaling them with tales of adventures she was quite sure he’d never taken. Besides, he had a knack for showing his precious notebook off to the wrong sorts of clients, getting them in trouble more often then not. No, he was her one chance out of this place, and he needed her to remind him to bathe once in awhile. Mutual relationship, theirs; it didn’t hurt that she knew Harry, could keep that memory alive for him. That was perhaps the most important duty she found herself carrying out.
By the third year she’d forgotten all the little insults she had taken to calling Nine and, towards the end of that year and into their current one, she didn’t really remember his smile anymore. Just the smell of leather, always leather and she found herself drawn to the tannery more often then not. It was hardly her fault the memory grew faint over the years. Gareth didn’t know him for much of anything, couldn’t help her remember like she did him Harry. Not that she blamed him. She didn’t want to remember and, perhaps, that was why it was so easy to forget.
One could hardly blame her. An example like Gareth lying about, drugged out, miserable, thinner then she thought was really healthy. Then anyone really thought was necessary, to be honest. The thought reminded her to pull the pot pie from the oven before it burned all the way through. Even in this day and age she still couldn’t cook. On that note becoming a baker might not have been the most successful of plans. Then again, Gareth had said to keep low, tuck their heads just down below average, so that no one noticed them; timelines and the like, she didn’t listen to most of what he said.
A knock at the door and he told her to come in, not bothering to get up, and she knew what he’d look like before she even walked in. Prone on his sofa, with all likelihood, talking to thin air, and feeling up on the wardrobe, looking for some nook or cranny, a crack perhaps, that they had missed. They hadn’t and he was, on the sofa this time, eyes shut. She set the food down on the table next to him, sliding down to the floor and rubbing the inside of his wrist. “You need to eat.”
“Later.”
“Now Gareth.”
And he does.
five
ship: light nine/lucy
828 words. expository pg.
The first year was hard. Well actually, not so much hard, as lined with thinly veiled attempts at the taking of Eleven’s life for the mess he'd gotten them into. No, Gareth’s life; she should be used to calling him that by now, after all, it’s been four years. He’s not even the Doctor anyways, not really, and believe you her, she’s tried. Tried everything, actually, but the slightest turn of phrase in the wrong direction and he’d start cringing… and she knew better then to continue down that path. So she’d left him in the dark, where Harry had done, simply using the few basic truths he did know to build upon.
Time travel was real, a man named The Master did exist, the Wardrobe wasn’t just jammed shut, and it really was bigger on the inside. Simple things, things that didn’t make his eyes go wild inside his head. She whistled some tune she couldn’t quite place, throwing the oven doors shut and wiping her blackened hands on an apron around her waist. Her hair was dripping down, quite literally, in great sweaty strands and she didn’t bother shoving them back, not yet.
She had a date with the man from down the street tonight, a bit of a mean looking man, but that was alright. Reminded her of… the tracks that that particular train of thought went down always brought the smell of old leather to her head and she shook it away, the cobwebs particularly thick today. A date and she’d bought a new dress, and everything. Well, new, as in not embarrassingly old, and that was good enough for her. The oven was over heating and this brought her back down from her fancy thoughts of new linens and handsome, albeit short tempered suitors.
She knew how to pick them, that’s what Gareth had told her when he’d first seen the man. It didn’t bother her too deeply. Despite his severe lack of attention for details, always holed up in his room, miserable from the looks of it, she could count on his protection if she needed it. That was a part of him being the Doctor that even not knowing could not cure, she supposed. By the second year she had grown a bit fond of him, even if he was useless and really, he needed someone who didn’t find him completely far gone.
Not that she knew what else to do with him. Couldn’t well leave him alone for too long, he was bound to go off and get sentimental with the customers, regaling them with tales of adventures she was quite sure he’d never taken. Besides, he had a knack for showing his precious notebook off to the wrong sorts of clients, getting them in trouble more often then not. No, he was her one chance out of this place, and he needed her to remind him to bathe once in awhile. Mutual relationship, theirs; it didn’t hurt that she knew Harry, could keep that memory alive for him. That was perhaps the most important duty she found herself carrying out.
By the third year she’d forgotten all the little insults she had taken to calling Nine and, towards the end of that year and into their current one, she didn’t really remember his smile anymore. Just the smell of leather, always leather and she found herself drawn to the tannery more often then not. It was hardly her fault the memory grew faint over the years. Gareth didn’t know him for much of anything, couldn’t help her remember like she did him Harry. Not that she blamed him. She didn’t want to remember and, perhaps, that was why it was so easy to forget.
One could hardly blame her. An example like Gareth lying about, drugged out, miserable, thinner then she thought was really healthy. Then anyone really thought was necessary, to be honest. The thought reminded her to pull the pot pie from the oven before it burned all the way through. Even in this day and age she still couldn’t cook. On that note becoming a baker might not have been the most successful of plans. Then again, Gareth had said to keep low, tuck their heads just down below average, so that no one noticed them; timelines and the like, she didn’t listen to most of what he said.
A knock at the door and he told her to come in, not bothering to get up, and she knew what he’d look like before she even walked in. Prone on his sofa, with all likelihood, talking to thin air, and feeling up on the wardrobe, looking for some nook or cranny, a crack perhaps, that they had missed. They hadn’t and he was, on the sofa this time, eyes shut. She set the food down on the table next to him, sliding down to the floor and rubbing the inside of his wrist. “You need to eat.”
“Later.”
“Now Gareth.”
And he does.