Fic: The Three Davids
Title: The Three Davids
Author:
buckbeakbabie
Fandom(s): Casanova/Blackpool/Doctor Who crossover. Yep, you read that right.
Characters/Pairings: Giacomo Casanova, DI Carlisle, Tenth Doctor/Rose.
Rating: PG 13, just to be safe. Giac is in it. ;)
Summary: Based on this picture, for the
whooligan contest.
There followed a round of confused shouting, during which time the Doctor had whipped out his sonic screwdriver and attempted to analyse the Scottish bloke, who turned out to be a police officer, by the name of DI Carlisle. Carlisle swatted his hand away angrily, and produced his badge, but the Italian man, Giacomo, had co-operated more, and had barely flinched when an intrigued Doctor licked his forehead.
Rose had fallen to the sand laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Author's note: Thanks to
aibhinn for the beta. And I apologise in advance. This is pure, 100%, unadultered crack!fic. It was insanely fun to write. Carlisle and Giac insisted on giving the Doctor some love advice. :) This is cross posted to a few comms, apologies if you get it a few times.
“Right,” the Doctor said. “This is the place.”
Rose stepped out of the TARDIS after him. “Blackpool?”
The Doctor nodded. “Yup. 2006, April, I think,” he said, glancing around. “Seems to be some disturbance in time. Thought we should come and check it out.”
Rose glanced around. “Well, nothing looks out of the ordinary to me,” she said, nodding towards two men on the beach shouting at each other.
“Ah, Blackpool,” he said. “Haven’t been here in ages, but not much has changed.”
“So what is this disturbance?” Rose asked. “Is it like another rift? Like in Cardiff?”
“Nah, more of a hiccup,” he said. “Though, I think someone may have fallen through it. Can you see anyone who looks out of place?”
Rose’s eyes were drawn back to the men on the beach. “Doctor,” she said, pointing at them. “What’s he wearing?”
One man wore a trench coat, but the man he was attempting to fend off sported an elaborate red jacket. The Doctor leaned on the railing and stared at the two men. “A very nice jacket,” the Doctor said. “Looks like eighteenth century to me. And since it’s not Panto season, I reckon we’ve found our disturbance. Well done,” he said, grinning at her. He grabbed her hand and they ran down to the beach.
As they neared the fracas, Rose thought there was something very familiar-looking about the back of the nearest man’s head. She caught a glimpse of the other man, and gasped. “Doctor!” she said, pointing at him. His hair was long, and unkempt, but his face looked startlingly familiar. The Doctor had noticed too, and was looking very shocked.
Rose hurried forward, and the wind carried the men’s voices to them.
“Look, I’m not going to hurt you, if you could just calm down-” the short-haired man was saying in a Scottish accent.
“This is wrong!” the other man said, gesticulating wildly. “You - you cannot be real.” Rose thought he sounded Italian.
“Hello hello hello,” the Doctor breezed as they reached the men. “What do we have here, then?”
“It’s okay, sir, I’ve got this under control,” the Scottish man said, not looking back. The Italian was staring at the Doctor. “Now, sir, I can help you but you need to calm down. This is unsettling for me too.”
“This is impossible,” the Italian breathed, pointing at the Doctor. The Doctor stared back, intrigued. The Scottish man turned around, and did a double take. Rose gasped again.
They all looked exactly the same.
****
There followed a round of confused shouting, during which time the Doctor had whipped out his sonic screwdriver and attempted to analyse the Scottish bloke, who turned out to be a police officer, by the name of DI Carlisle. Carlisle swatted his hand away angrily, and produced his badge, but the Italian man, Giacomo, had co-operated more, and had barely flinched when an intrigued Doctor licked his forehead.
Rose had fallen to the sand laughing at the absurdity of it all. She looked up to see all three men staring at her. Giacomo was smiling at her, Carlisle was looking at her with a raised eyebrow, and the Doctor was rolling his eyes.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s get to the bottom of this.”
“Excuse me, but who is the police officer around here?” Carlisle asked. “Who do you think you are?”
The Doctor ignored him, focusing his attention on Giacomo
“Where is this place?” Giacomo asked. “I’d heard England was strange, but this?”
“I’ve told you, you’re in England,” Carlisle said wearily. “Blackpool.”
The Doctor shook his head. “How did you come to be here?” he asked.
“I was in a carriage - travelling north from London,” Giacomo said. “With this woman, Clara…” He drifted off. “Anyway, it was storming. Very atmospheric. There was something on the road, so the horseman stopped. I got out, was hit on the head by something, and woke up not far outside this place.”
“He’s making sense all of a sudden,” Carlisle said. “Before, he was speaking in fragments - sounded a bit like Italian, though he knew some English. But now, it’s perfect. How did that happen?”
“He’s fallen through a ripple in time,” the Doctor explained. Carlisle snorted. “I can sense these things. Came here to check it out. And the language is being translated by my ship.”
“Listen, mate,” Carlisle said. “I have no time for your jokes. Or yours,” he added to Giacomo. “You could be arrested for wasting police time. Pretending you couldn’t understand me.”
“It’s the truth,” the Doctor said.
“Time travel?” Carlisle snorted. “Pull the other one.”
“Come on,” the Doctor said. “Look at us. We all look the same. You’re telling me that you can explain this without some fantastical concept like time travel? And his clothes, his hair, his mannerisms. He doesn’t come from this time.” Carlisle looked at Giacomo carefully.
“I need a drink,” he said eventually, rubbing the side of his nose roughly.
“Good idea,” the Doctor said. “Let’s get this sorted out.”
In the pub, the Doctor sent Rose to the bar to buy a round, much to her chagrin. “Get me some peanuts!” Carlisle called after her.
“Right, Giacomo,” the Doctor said, “where do you come from?”
“The Republic of Venice,” he answered, “and please, call me Giac.” He smiled winningly.
“Ah,” the Doctor said. “And when do you come from?” he asked. “Giac?” he prodded, as Giac was staring at a young girl at the bar. Giac turned around. “What year was it where you are from?” the Doctor repeated.
“1760,” he said. “What year is it here?”
Rose came up behind him, placing his glass of wine on the table. “2006,” she said with a smile, setting the other drinks down and shrugging off her jacket. Giac’s eyes fell on her string top.
“I think I like this year,” he said.
“Oi, watch it, Casanova,” the Doctor said. Giac stared at him, taken aback. “Oh, god, you are bloody Casanova, aren’t you?” he sighed. Giac nodded. The Doctor rolled his eyes as Giac stared at a woman in a miniskirt who had just walked in the door. “Well, I suppose it makes sense. Knew he had to be a looker.” He grinned at Rose, who rolled her eyes back at him, but was smiling excitedly.
“Seriously?” she said. “You’re the Casanova?”
Giac winked at her. “What do you think?” he said, with a coy smile.
Rose giggled. “Wow,” she said. “Fancy that. The real Casanova. In Blackpool.” The Doctor was looking at her carefully. Rose nudged him. “Tell you what, he doesn’t look like Heath Ledger at all.”
“’Course not,” the Doctor said, appalled. “Far better looking.” She grinned at him.
“Excuse me,” Carlisle put in, ripping the peanuts open. “What do you mean, he’s from 1760?”
“Sorry, yes, you,” the Doctor said, turning back to Carlisle. “How did you get here?”
“I live here,” he said through a mouthful of peanuts. “And last I knew, I was the only one around here with this face.”
“Well, you are, usually,” the Doctor said. “Like I said, he fell through a blip in time, which my time-travelling ship picked up, and I came to check it out. I’ll get him back, no problem.”
“So that’s what you do, travel around time?” Carlisle asked.
“And space,” the Doctor added with a grin. “You’re a Detective Inspector. Sort of the same. Well, kind of. Not really. Less paperwork, for one. And I don’t have any superiors. And I don’t get stuck in places like Blackpool. But then again, I’d imagine there’s more danger in my field.”
“And running,” Rose supplied, grinning at the Doctor. He grinned back, pinching one of her crisps.
“Excuse me,” Carlisle said. “I want to get this straight. I’ll accept the time travel, and the ship that can translate languages, and all that. But why do we all look the same?”
“No idea,” the Doctor answered, sipping his banana daiquiri. “Coincidence? Luck? It’s not a bad face, though, is it? Haven’t had it as long as you have, mind, but I like it. The teeth are a bit strange, aren’t they? Oh, do you have a mole?”
Carlisle took a long drink of his beer and another handful of peanuts, choosing not to answer.
“What, that’s all?” Rose said. “No alien cloning plans, no plots to take over the world?”
The Doctor shook his head, grabbing a stray peanut. “Not that I can see,” he said, taking out the screwdriver again. Carlisle raised his eyebrow, but let the Doctor scan him. “We are genetically different. Just look an awful lot alike,” he said after a few minutes, returning to his drink.
Rose laughed. “This is unreal, though!” she said, looking over the three men. Giac turned back to her, and flashed her a smile. She giggled. “That is one hell of a jacket you have there,” she said.
“Chinese silk,” he replied proudly, holding out an arm. She fingered it appreciatively.
The Doctor drained his drink in one, and handed her the glass. “Rose, get us another, will you?” he asked. Rose huffed, but she stood up and went to the bar nonetheless.
“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” Giac said. “You have a very beautiful woman, Doctor.”
“She’s not my woman,” the Doctor replied. “She’s my… assistant.”
“Lucky you,” Carlisle muttered. “I get stuck with idiots like Blythe.”
“Surely, though, you are involved with her in more than a professional manner,” Giac said.
“It’s complicated,” the Doctor said.
Carlisle snorted. “I’ve barely known the two of you an hour, but I have to agree with our handsome friend here. I was sure you must be shagging her.”
The Doctor shook his head.
“Why not?” Giac exclaimed.
The Doctor almost spluttered. “We don’t work that way,” he said. “There are factors involved - things you couldn’t begin to understand.” Carlisle raised his eyebrow. “I’m an alien,” he said, and nodded at Carlisle’s look of disbelief. “Yeah, I am. I’m 900 years old. And I will grow older. She’s not going to live that long. It won’t last,” he said. “It can’t - she’ll leave, or get hurt, or die, and I’ll be left behind. And I couldn’t take that.”
“This is all that’s bothering you?” Giac asked. “The possibility that you might get hurt? But that’s what love is about.”
The Doctor was silent. Giac pressed on. “Think of what will happen if what you predict does come true. You’ll still grieve for her, there will still be the pain of losing her, but you will not even have memories to comfort you. You will have nothing but regrets. And they are worse than any misery a woman can bring you.” His eyes shone with something that hinted he was speaking from experience.
Carlisle sighed. “I think he has a point,” he said quietly. “It’s too late to fight it, you poor bastard. You may as well give in. Have some fun while you can.”
“I can’t fall for a human,” the Doctor said. “I just can’t.”
Carlisle laughed, a hollow, mirthless laugh. “Believe me, talking like that doesn’t make the situation any different,” he said, taking a sip of his drink.
“Oh, and you’d know?” the Doctor challenged.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Carlisle replied.
It was the Doctor’s turn to snort. “It can’t have been the same.”
“Worse,” Carlisle said. “Alien falling for a human. Not that bad. I fell for the wife of the chief suspect in a murder case I was working on. Try that for a bit of ethical ambiguity.”
“Yeah, that’s bad,” the Doctor admitted. He sighed.
“And you, Giac?” Carlisle said. “Do you have a story about a woman you shouldn’t have fallen for?”
Giac peeled his eyes away from the miniskirt. “Which story do you want?” he asked, sipping his wine. “The one about the castrato, or the fiancée of a nobleman?”
All three of them laughed again. “’S not our fault, lads,” the Doctor said, looking around. “It’s this face. Can’t keep them at bay, eh?”
Giac grinned. “If you still don’t want to sleep with her,” he said, nodding towards Rose, “you could always give me a go.”
The Doctor glared at him again, but a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know why I’m even talking to you about this,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck in agitation.
“I’ll ask you a question a wise and wonderful woman once asked me,” Giac said, leaning across the table. “Do you love her?”
The Doctor focused intently at the table, head in his hands. He nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Then love her,” Giac said simply. “Coward, ” he added, a hint of sadness in his eye.
The Doctor mulled this over a bit, and then leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
“I like this place a lot,” Giac said, eyes drifting around the room again. “The clothes your women wear! Almost like Paris. You can’t beat the French.”
“They know how to party, I’ll give them that,” the Doctor agreed.
Giac looked at him closely. “No!” he said. “You travel through time?” he checked. The Doctor nodded. “That explains it!” The Doctor looked puzzled. “You’ve been to my time before. Paris, yeah? There I am, in court, minding my own business and she comes running up to me, shouting at me. She called me Doctor, now that I think about it. And then she came close and I said hello, and she burst into tears. The King had to lead her out.” Giac shook his head. “You’re the mysterious man that Madame de Pompadour was pining over. Fancy that. And they say I have a reputation for breaking hearts.”
The Doctor didn’t seem to have heard him. He was staring intently at Rose, who was waiting to be served at the bar. Without a word to either of his companions, he stood up abruptly. Carlisle quirked an eyebrow, and leaned across the table to get a better view.
“That’s it,” he muttered, as the Doctor approached Rose.
“Small of the back,” Giac said under his breath, grinning into his glass of wine. “Ooh, nicely done. See the way he’s moved it to her hip now? Very smooth.” He drained his glass. “Looks like he doesn’t need any more help from us.”
Rose was laughing now, gripping the Doctor’s arm. He led her back to the table.
“Right then, Giac,” he said, picking up his coat. Giac sighed, glancing back towards the girl in the miniskirt.
“No chance I could hang around here for a bit?” he asked hopefully. Rose giggled. The Doctor shook his head. Giac sighed. “Oh, alright then. One minute.” He sauntered over to the girl, leaned in to her, and whispered in her ear. She was giggling back within a few seconds, and Giac bent forward to kiss her.
“You know,” the Doctor said, as Rose helped him into his coat, “I’m very glad we aren’t still travelling with Jack. Our Jack, I mean. Could you imagine trying to keep an eye on the pair of them?”
Author:
buckbeakbabie
Fandom(s): Casanova/Blackpool/Doctor Who crossover. Yep, you read that right.
Characters/Pairings: Giacomo Casanova, DI Carlisle, Tenth Doctor/Rose.
Rating: PG 13, just to be safe. Giac is in it. ;)
Summary: Based on this picture, for the
whooligan contest.
There followed a round of confused shouting, during which time the Doctor had whipped out his sonic screwdriver and attempted to analyse the Scottish bloke, who turned out to be a police officer, by the name of DI Carlisle. Carlisle swatted his hand away angrily, and produced his badge, but the Italian man, Giacomo, had co-operated more, and had barely flinched when an intrigued Doctor licked his forehead.
Rose had fallen to the sand laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Author's note: Thanks to
aibhinn for the beta. And I apologise in advance. This is pure, 100%, unadultered crack!fic. It was insanely fun to write. Carlisle and Giac insisted on giving the Doctor some love advice. :) This is cross posted to a few comms, apologies if you get it a few times.
“Right,” the Doctor said. “This is the place.”
Rose stepped out of the TARDIS after him. “Blackpool?”
The Doctor nodded. “Yup. 2006, April, I think,” he said, glancing around. “Seems to be some disturbance in time. Thought we should come and check it out.”
Rose glanced around. “Well, nothing looks out of the ordinary to me,” she said, nodding towards two men on the beach shouting at each other.
“Ah, Blackpool,” he said. “Haven’t been here in ages, but not much has changed.”
“So what is this disturbance?” Rose asked. “Is it like another rift? Like in Cardiff?”
“Nah, more of a hiccup,” he said. “Though, I think someone may have fallen through it. Can you see anyone who looks out of place?”
Rose’s eyes were drawn back to the men on the beach. “Doctor,” she said, pointing at them. “What’s he wearing?”
One man wore a trench coat, but the man he was attempting to fend off sported an elaborate red jacket. The Doctor leaned on the railing and stared at the two men. “A very nice jacket,” the Doctor said. “Looks like eighteenth century to me. And since it’s not Panto season, I reckon we’ve found our disturbance. Well done,” he said, grinning at her. He grabbed her hand and they ran down to the beach.
As they neared the fracas, Rose thought there was something very familiar-looking about the back of the nearest man’s head. She caught a glimpse of the other man, and gasped. “Doctor!” she said, pointing at him. His hair was long, and unkempt, but his face looked startlingly familiar. The Doctor had noticed too, and was looking very shocked.
Rose hurried forward, and the wind carried the men’s voices to them.
“Look, I’m not going to hurt you, if you could just calm down-” the short-haired man was saying in a Scottish accent.
“This is wrong!” the other man said, gesticulating wildly. “You - you cannot be real.” Rose thought he sounded Italian.
“Hello hello hello,” the Doctor breezed as they reached the men. “What do we have here, then?”
“It’s okay, sir, I’ve got this under control,” the Scottish man said, not looking back. The Italian was staring at the Doctor. “Now, sir, I can help you but you need to calm down. This is unsettling for me too.”
“This is impossible,” the Italian breathed, pointing at the Doctor. The Doctor stared back, intrigued. The Scottish man turned around, and did a double take. Rose gasped again.
They all looked exactly the same.
****
There followed a round of confused shouting, during which time the Doctor had whipped out his sonic screwdriver and attempted to analyse the Scottish bloke, who turned out to be a police officer, by the name of DI Carlisle. Carlisle swatted his hand away angrily, and produced his badge, but the Italian man, Giacomo, had co-operated more, and had barely flinched when an intrigued Doctor licked his forehead.
Rose had fallen to the sand laughing at the absurdity of it all. She looked up to see all three men staring at her. Giacomo was smiling at her, Carlisle was looking at her with a raised eyebrow, and the Doctor was rolling his eyes.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s get to the bottom of this.”
“Excuse me, but who is the police officer around here?” Carlisle asked. “Who do you think you are?”
The Doctor ignored him, focusing his attention on Giacomo
“Where is this place?” Giacomo asked. “I’d heard England was strange, but this?”
“I’ve told you, you’re in England,” Carlisle said wearily. “Blackpool.”
The Doctor shook his head. “How did you come to be here?” he asked.
“I was in a carriage - travelling north from London,” Giacomo said. “With this woman, Clara…” He drifted off. “Anyway, it was storming. Very atmospheric. There was something on the road, so the horseman stopped. I got out, was hit on the head by something, and woke up not far outside this place.”
“He’s making sense all of a sudden,” Carlisle said. “Before, he was speaking in fragments - sounded a bit like Italian, though he knew some English. But now, it’s perfect. How did that happen?”
“He’s fallen through a ripple in time,” the Doctor explained. Carlisle snorted. “I can sense these things. Came here to check it out. And the language is being translated by my ship.”
“Listen, mate,” Carlisle said. “I have no time for your jokes. Or yours,” he added to Giacomo. “You could be arrested for wasting police time. Pretending you couldn’t understand me.”
“It’s the truth,” the Doctor said.
“Time travel?” Carlisle snorted. “Pull the other one.”
“Come on,” the Doctor said. “Look at us. We all look the same. You’re telling me that you can explain this without some fantastical concept like time travel? And his clothes, his hair, his mannerisms. He doesn’t come from this time.” Carlisle looked at Giacomo carefully.
“I need a drink,” he said eventually, rubbing the side of his nose roughly.
“Good idea,” the Doctor said. “Let’s get this sorted out.”
In the pub, the Doctor sent Rose to the bar to buy a round, much to her chagrin. “Get me some peanuts!” Carlisle called after her.
“Right, Giacomo,” the Doctor said, “where do you come from?”
“The Republic of Venice,” he answered, “and please, call me Giac.” He smiled winningly.
“Ah,” the Doctor said. “And when do you come from?” he asked. “Giac?” he prodded, as Giac was staring at a young girl at the bar. Giac turned around. “What year was it where you are from?” the Doctor repeated.
“1760,” he said. “What year is it here?”
Rose came up behind him, placing his glass of wine on the table. “2006,” she said with a smile, setting the other drinks down and shrugging off her jacket. Giac’s eyes fell on her string top.
“I think I like this year,” he said.
“Oi, watch it, Casanova,” the Doctor said. Giac stared at him, taken aback. “Oh, god, you are bloody Casanova, aren’t you?” he sighed. Giac nodded. The Doctor rolled his eyes as Giac stared at a woman in a miniskirt who had just walked in the door. “Well, I suppose it makes sense. Knew he had to be a looker.” He grinned at Rose, who rolled her eyes back at him, but was smiling excitedly.
“Seriously?” she said. “You’re the Casanova?”
Giac winked at her. “What do you think?” he said, with a coy smile.
Rose giggled. “Wow,” she said. “Fancy that. The real Casanova. In Blackpool.” The Doctor was looking at her carefully. Rose nudged him. “Tell you what, he doesn’t look like Heath Ledger at all.”
“’Course not,” the Doctor said, appalled. “Far better looking.” She grinned at him.
“Excuse me,” Carlisle put in, ripping the peanuts open. “What do you mean, he’s from 1760?”
“Sorry, yes, you,” the Doctor said, turning back to Carlisle. “How did you get here?”
“I live here,” he said through a mouthful of peanuts. “And last I knew, I was the only one around here with this face.”
“Well, you are, usually,” the Doctor said. “Like I said, he fell through a blip in time, which my time-travelling ship picked up, and I came to check it out. I’ll get him back, no problem.”
“So that’s what you do, travel around time?” Carlisle asked.
“And space,” the Doctor added with a grin. “You’re a Detective Inspector. Sort of the same. Well, kind of. Not really. Less paperwork, for one. And I don’t have any superiors. And I don’t get stuck in places like Blackpool. But then again, I’d imagine there’s more danger in my field.”
“And running,” Rose supplied, grinning at the Doctor. He grinned back, pinching one of her crisps.
“Excuse me,” Carlisle said. “I want to get this straight. I’ll accept the time travel, and the ship that can translate languages, and all that. But why do we all look the same?”
“No idea,” the Doctor answered, sipping his banana daiquiri. “Coincidence? Luck? It’s not a bad face, though, is it? Haven’t had it as long as you have, mind, but I like it. The teeth are a bit strange, aren’t they? Oh, do you have a mole?”
Carlisle took a long drink of his beer and another handful of peanuts, choosing not to answer.
“What, that’s all?” Rose said. “No alien cloning plans, no plots to take over the world?”
The Doctor shook his head, grabbing a stray peanut. “Not that I can see,” he said, taking out the screwdriver again. Carlisle raised his eyebrow, but let the Doctor scan him. “We are genetically different. Just look an awful lot alike,” he said after a few minutes, returning to his drink.
Rose laughed. “This is unreal, though!” she said, looking over the three men. Giac turned back to her, and flashed her a smile. She giggled. “That is one hell of a jacket you have there,” she said.
“Chinese silk,” he replied proudly, holding out an arm. She fingered it appreciatively.
The Doctor drained his drink in one, and handed her the glass. “Rose, get us another, will you?” he asked. Rose huffed, but she stood up and went to the bar nonetheless.
“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” Giac said. “You have a very beautiful woman, Doctor.”
“She’s not my woman,” the Doctor replied. “She’s my… assistant.”
“Lucky you,” Carlisle muttered. “I get stuck with idiots like Blythe.”
“Surely, though, you are involved with her in more than a professional manner,” Giac said.
“It’s complicated,” the Doctor said.
Carlisle snorted. “I’ve barely known the two of you an hour, but I have to agree with our handsome friend here. I was sure you must be shagging her.”
The Doctor shook his head.
“Why not?” Giac exclaimed.
The Doctor almost spluttered. “We don’t work that way,” he said. “There are factors involved - things you couldn’t begin to understand.” Carlisle raised his eyebrow. “I’m an alien,” he said, and nodded at Carlisle’s look of disbelief. “Yeah, I am. I’m 900 years old. And I will grow older. She’s not going to live that long. It won’t last,” he said. “It can’t - she’ll leave, or get hurt, or die, and I’ll be left behind. And I couldn’t take that.”
“This is all that’s bothering you?” Giac asked. “The possibility that you might get hurt? But that’s what love is about.”
The Doctor was silent. Giac pressed on. “Think of what will happen if what you predict does come true. You’ll still grieve for her, there will still be the pain of losing her, but you will not even have memories to comfort you. You will have nothing but regrets. And they are worse than any misery a woman can bring you.” His eyes shone with something that hinted he was speaking from experience.
Carlisle sighed. “I think he has a point,” he said quietly. “It’s too late to fight it, you poor bastard. You may as well give in. Have some fun while you can.”
“I can’t fall for a human,” the Doctor said. “I just can’t.”
Carlisle laughed, a hollow, mirthless laugh. “Believe me, talking like that doesn’t make the situation any different,” he said, taking a sip of his drink.
“Oh, and you’d know?” the Doctor challenged.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Carlisle replied.
It was the Doctor’s turn to snort. “It can’t have been the same.”
“Worse,” Carlisle said. “Alien falling for a human. Not that bad. I fell for the wife of the chief suspect in a murder case I was working on. Try that for a bit of ethical ambiguity.”
“Yeah, that’s bad,” the Doctor admitted. He sighed.
“And you, Giac?” Carlisle said. “Do you have a story about a woman you shouldn’t have fallen for?”
Giac peeled his eyes away from the miniskirt. “Which story do you want?” he asked, sipping his wine. “The one about the castrato, or the fiancée of a nobleman?”
All three of them laughed again. “’S not our fault, lads,” the Doctor said, looking around. “It’s this face. Can’t keep them at bay, eh?”
Giac grinned. “If you still don’t want to sleep with her,” he said, nodding towards Rose, “you could always give me a go.”
The Doctor glared at him again, but a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know why I’m even talking to you about this,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck in agitation.
“I’ll ask you a question a wise and wonderful woman once asked me,” Giac said, leaning across the table. “Do you love her?”
The Doctor focused intently at the table, head in his hands. He nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Then love her,” Giac said simply. “Coward, ” he added, a hint of sadness in his eye.
The Doctor mulled this over a bit, and then leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
“I like this place a lot,” Giac said, eyes drifting around the room again. “The clothes your women wear! Almost like Paris. You can’t beat the French.”
“They know how to party, I’ll give them that,” the Doctor agreed.
Giac looked at him closely. “No!” he said. “You travel through time?” he checked. The Doctor nodded. “That explains it!” The Doctor looked puzzled. “You’ve been to my time before. Paris, yeah? There I am, in court, minding my own business and she comes running up to me, shouting at me. She called me Doctor, now that I think about it. And then she came close and I said hello, and she burst into tears. The King had to lead her out.” Giac shook his head. “You’re the mysterious man that Madame de Pompadour was pining over. Fancy that. And they say I have a reputation for breaking hearts.”
The Doctor didn’t seem to have heard him. He was staring intently at Rose, who was waiting to be served at the bar. Without a word to either of his companions, he stood up abruptly. Carlisle quirked an eyebrow, and leaned across the table to get a better view.
“That’s it,” he muttered, as the Doctor approached Rose.
“Small of the back,” Giac said under his breath, grinning into his glass of wine. “Ooh, nicely done. See the way he’s moved it to her hip now? Very smooth.” He drained his glass. “Looks like he doesn’t need any more help from us.”
Rose was laughing now, gripping the Doctor’s arm. He led her back to the table.
“Right then, Giac,” he said, picking up his coat. Giac sighed, glancing back towards the girl in the miniskirt.
“No chance I could hang around here for a bit?” he asked hopefully. Rose giggled. The Doctor shook his head. Giac sighed. “Oh, alright then. One minute.” He sauntered over to the girl, leaned in to her, and whispered in her ear. She was giggling back within a few seconds, and Giac bent forward to kiss her.
“You know,” the Doctor said, as Rose helped him into his coat, “I’m very glad we aren’t still travelling with Jack. Our Jack, I mean. Could you imagine trying to keep an eye on the pair of them?”