9th Doctor Who fic (Long Way Around)
Curse you, Dee & Lizbet. This is all. Your. Fault! *mutters* Was supposed to be working on NCIS fic... Because I read HBP already and don't have my SciFriday tape yet, here ya go. Fic from my *other* obsession.
Genfic, PG-13 for innuendo (thanks, Jack (spoilers through "The Doctor Dances", no further), crossover with unspecified by easily recognizable fandom, unbeta'd. Comments welcome.
"The face is different, the voice is different, but you're still the Doctor. And you still owe me a drink."
Long Way Around
by Christina K
copyright 2005
The tall blue box was standing on a busy streetcorner in the middle of Ciudad Bayching, impossibly solid, impossibly there. Just like the last few times. The man shook his head and walked around it, reading with ease the POLICE BOX stamped across the top, despite how long it had been since he'd seen the written language.
Somewhere around here, a certain someone owed him a drink. But how to collect?
Ambush. Of course. It wasn't as if the box was going anywhere. Purchasing a camp chair and a sheet of newsplastic from the open market down the street, he settled in to wait.
"I still think we got cheated," Rose groused, counting over the coins she'd won at the slot machines. "'Everyone's a winner', ha! At the odds they were giving, we should've won a lot more. Especially with the Doctor's system."
"The Doctor's system is the only reason we walked out of there with anything more than we walked in with," Jack said, jingling the winnings in his jacket pocket. "Everybody knows the machines are rigged. So are the tables. So are the cards. This is Bayching, did you think it was built on the sand? No, no, no, naive little Rose. It's built on the gilt lost by people with less sense than us."
"Unlikely as that may seem," the Doctor added, stepping around a few chickens that had escaped from a nearby stall.
Rose stuck her tongue out at him, then turned around, almost skipping ahead. "So, where to next? I vote food, I'm starving."
From behind a sheet of newsplastic, a man's voice said, "I don't know about the food, but the local pub does a good beer and chips. And those onion snacks, if you like that kind of thing."
The trio stopped in surprise, mostly because the speaker had obnoxiously parked his canvas chair directly in front of the TARDIS, his feet outstretched into the sidewalk so people were having to step over his legs in order to get past. The Doctor cocked a wary eyebrow and exchanged a look with Jack, then shrugged at Rose before asking, "Oh really? What kind?"
The sheet of plastic dropped to reveal a sharp-featured man dressed in the local version of a business suit, or what Rose thought of as the "Mafia look" - light khaki jacket, loose trousers, white shirt with fedora, but with a flair of Yakuza in the styling. His grin was sharp enough to match the cheekbones and aquiline nose, and the blue eyes somehow reminded her of the Doctor. Which possibly wasn't a mistake, if the way the Doctor was gaping was any clue.
"Meth--" He shook his head in shock, cutting himself off from saying whatever name he'd been about to blurt out. "No, it can't be. You're-- you wouldn't have... How the hell did you get here?" he finally yelled, waving his arms to take in Bayching, the planet, and possibly the galaxy.
"Took the long way around. As usual. And still got here before you. As usual." The man folded his plastic and got to his feet, casually dusting off his trousers. He regarded the Doctor with the bemused tolerance of someone who had just won a bet that you are trying not to pay off when he knows where your wallet is hidden. "The face is different, the voice is different, but you're the still the Doctor. And you still owe me a drink."
The Doctor's face remained frozen in disbelief for two more seconds, then spread into one of the widest grins Rose could remember ever seeing from him. If it were possible to see the insides of his ears, she was sure she would've. Which would've been something, given those ears.
"Fantastic!"
The Doctor's friend introduced himself as Martin, but Jack was pretty certain that wasn't his real name. Largely because the Doctor kept forgetting it, and calling him "Adam" and once or twice slipping into "Ben." By the third drink, the man had given up and said, "Adam's fine, truly. The old man never did have much of a memory."
"I resent that. I remember every single one of the aliases you've used," the Doctor protested. "And possibly some of the ones you haven't used yet."
"There's the problem, then." Adam shook his head sadly, and shared a commiserating look with a giggling Rose. "Always mixing his eras up. Sad. Still, it's not his history, so I suppose we can forgive the incipient senility and absent-mindedness. Pity to see it in someone so young, though."
"Young?" Rose chortled, then stifled herself in another bottle of what had turned out to be high-quality strawberry beer. The pub could've been any one of a thousand places humans gathered-- shadowed and homey, with rotating ceiling fans and indirect sunlight moving in-- but the menu justified the prices. "Right."
"Have you been telling lies to this young lady?" Adam asked, shaking his finger at the Doctor. "Trying to impress her with your ancient wisdom and centuries of experience? For shame."
"I leave that to you, 'Adam.' How old's your current wife?" the Doctor snarked back, and Jack nearly choked on one of the onion straws in his mouth. "Sixteen? Twenty-six? Thirty-six? Ninety-one?"
"Are you calling me a cradle-robber?" Adam asked, looking wounded. "It's not as if I have a wide range of options, old man."
"Are you a Time Lord too?" Rose asked, then shot the Doctor an abashed look as he stopped smiling and took a careful sip of his beer. "Never mind. Stupid of me, of course you're not. But you seem, you're-- you're like the Doctor," she said, with the direct earnestness that always made Jack want to hug her and protect her and shake her at the same time. "I mean, you're not really human, are you?"
"Oh, she's a sharp one," Adam said admiringly, smiling even as his voice got quieter. "I can see why you like her."
"Adam's not a Time Lord. He just got out of the habit of dying," the Doctor informed her, good humor seemingly restored. "At least permanently."
"And impermanently, if I can help it. Wrinkles the suit."
"So how old are you?" Jack asked, putting a carefully provocative spin on the question. "'Cause I gotta say, if you're as old as the Doctor, you're lookin' good."
Adam quirked an eyebrow in amusement and nodded his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. "Gracias, Jack. And I prefer to not to be bound by petty conventions of mere mortal calculations--"
"Seven thousand two hundred, last time I checked," the Doctor interrupted, eyes gleaming. "Of course, I can only really swear to the last four thousand or so, but I used to have a diary of his written in hieroglyphics that went back at least a few more thousand than that."
"I wondered where that got to," Adam mused. "And I've told you and told you, we met in Egypt five hundred years earlier than that. You have a *lousy* memory for dates."
"Looking really good," Rose said, awestruck. "That's like, the same age as, as, mummies. Or The Mummy." At Jack's questioning look she said, "It's a movie, with Imhotep, and the Scorpion King, and-- I'm sure the TARDIS has a copy, we should watch it the next time we get stuck somewhere. But really!" She turned back to Adam, staring at him almost rudely, which Jack decided to blame on the fourth beer, even though the man looked nothing but amused. "I mean, you make the Doctor look like a youngster!"
"Thank you." The Doctor's grin was a little too smug, judging by the annoyed glance Adam shot him. "Good to know I'm not rated with the desiccated corpses."
"I'll give you corpse," Adam threatened, then stole onion straws off the Doctor's plate. "I've only got your word for it and no outside sources that you're not actually six times my age, for that matter. Although you've never become less annoying, so I'll assume you are still in your adolescence despite the occasional amnesia."
"How the hell is that possible?" Jack wondered, staring at Adam, then the words 'dying impermanently' came back to him and he smacked his forehead. "Oh, duh. As Rose would say. Immortals."
"Immortals? The what? And I never say duh."
"But you should," Jack told her, enjoying the way she squinched her eyes at him. "Immortals. Humans with a rare mutant gene disorder. Makes them immune to disease and aging and nearly impossible to kill. There was a war, about, oh, 3200 or so, I thought they all died in it," he said, directing the question at Adam. "So how are you here in 4253?"
"I won?" Adam shrugged.
"He skived off," the Doctor said, throwing a salt packet at him.
"Or that, yeah," Adam admitted. "Actually, most of us did a fade well before then. Saw the whole mess of a war coming and made for the outer planets as fast as our little lifeboats could carry us. Good thing, too. Human governments can be real creative when dealing with things they think they want, like the ability to live forever."
"You're never going to die," Rose said skeptically. "That can't be right."
Adam smiled sweetly. "It probably isn't right. It's just true." The Doctor hit Adam in the forehead with another salt packet, and Adam gave his friend the look of a disappointed pre-school teacher. "Unless I get blown up by a bomb or my body is dismembered or hit by a sonic ray gun or someone cuts off my head. Fine. Happy?"
"Ecstatic."
"It's always the little things that bring him joy," Adam informed them. "Honesty and truthfulness and home crafts and winning chariot races. And pretty blondes with lovely smiles," he added, batting his eyes at Rose, who giggled again. Definitely approaching drunk, Jack judged. "Can't say as I blame him for that."
"So when you said you took the long way around," Rose pondered out loud, "You meant you just... lived through all that time." She blinked. "Wow."
"Slow and steady wins the race."
"I'll drink to that. Slow and steady is one of my favorite things," Jack said, batting his own eyes in imitation and invitation at Adam, who laughed.
"You're very pretty too, Jack, but my wife would kill me if I took you up on your offer without including her in on it." Rose spluttered beer all over the table, which Jack figured she'd only be doing for another week or so. Seriously, she'd known him almost a month now, and still got flustered by the flirting? Sweet kid.
"How old's your wife?"
"Oh, a mere babe in arms, as the Doctor guessed." Adam sighed theatrically, helping Rose mop up the beer she spilled. "Only three thousand. I should be shot."
Jack contemplated ten thousand years of experience in bed with him, and felt his mouth go dry. "Yowza."
Adam toasted him with his beer bottle. "And you haven't even met her yet."
"Three thousand-- oh, don't tell me."
"What?" Adam raised an eyebrow at the Doctor, who had covered his face with his hands.
"You married Amanda? Are you insane?" The Doctor sighed, and dropped his hands. "Never mind, I should be asking her that question."
"I think I'm insulted. And you shouldn't be throwing stones, especially considering the cultural innocence of the young lady you've shanghai'd right here," Adam said, cocking a thumb at Rose.
"I am not!" she objected, outraged. "I've had lots of cultural experiences, I just get embarassed when people talk about them unexpectedly. That's all."
Jack chuckled, earning him a kick under the table, and Adam grinned at the Doctor, who'd crossed his arms and was trying to look superior. "Rose has plenty of sophistication, Adam. And her experience has got nothing to do with you marrying Amanda. I still say that's insane."
"Hmmm. I'll bet I can place Rose's origin within a decade, as well as the geographic location. And if I'm right, there's no way she could expect half the things you're exposing her to, and you owe me another beer and an apology."
The Doctor's eyes narrowed, but Rose was the one who blurted, "You're on. Do your worst."
"Bwahahaha," Adam intoned, deadpan. "Jeans that went out of style a thousand years ago when lycra moldings were perfected." He leaned close, and Rose's eyes got very big until he smiled at her, and then she couldn't help smirking back. "Excellent teeth, but I think I see a few metal fillings in the back. Puts you within a very short 150 year range." He pulled on one blonde strand of hair. "Conditioned, not just bleached, narrows it down even finer. The accent's pure London, good to hear it again."
He leaned back and crossed his arms, intoning pompously. "The subject is a female in her late teens or early twenties, clearly born in London, probably sometime in the late nineteen sixties; most likely displaced from 1980 to 1990."
"Wrong!" The Doctor gloated. "Buy your own beer, and you don't get an utterly undeserved apology."
"Damn. How far off was I?"
"The Doctor offered me a lift in 2004," Rose said.
"I'll just bet he did." Rose whacked him on the arm, scowling, and Adam pouted and rubbed his arm. "Right, early 21st Century. How could I miss the attitude?" He sighed. "Good century, that. I miss it."
"You could come with us, the next time we visit," Rose offered, and Adam shot the Doctor a sharp glance.
"No. I'm not much one for visiting bygone days, actually. Already lived it." He shrugged. "Besides, I wouldn't want to mess up my own past. Too easy with me living so long. I could potentially obliterate my first meeting with the Doctor, and then we'd never be having this conversation, would we?"
Rose's eyes crossed for a second as she tried to parse that, and the Doctor got very quiet. Jack raised an eyebrow. "So how did you two kids meet anyway?"
"How else? He bought me a drink."
"In Rome," the Doctor told the bottom of his glass.
"In Thebes. After the chariot race which his team won. Since he owed me for training the horse." Adam was the one slinging salt packets this time. "Good lord, man. Keep a diary. How do you ever remember if there's a lynch mob after you somewhere if you don't remember where you've been?"
The Doctor's wry smile turned real as he spotted someone across the room. "I'd think you'd have more problems with that, given the company you keep."
"Hmm?" Adam followed his gaze, then smirked. "Ah, yes. The little woman. The ball and chain. The old lady. Ow," he added, pouting at Rose after she slapped his bicep again.
"A little respect for your wife would be good."
"Especially considering those boots," Jack said prayerfully, getting to his feet as one of his ideal women strode toward them. "Mama mia...."
"Not even close."
"Hello," Jack said to the reincarnation of Audrey Hepburn in front of him, ignoring Adam for the moment. "I'm Jack, and I'm really pleased to meet you."
"Goodness. Adam, you shouldn't have," she said, smiling delightedly and letting Jack kiss her hand. "It's not even my birthday."
Jack could see Rose's eyes getting big out of the edge of his vision, but he couldn't resist saying, "A lady like you deserves every un-birthday present she can get."
"What a beautiful philosophy."
"And I'd just like to say that we could discuss philosophy, or metaphysics, or possibly the physics of moving bodies, any time and place that you want," Jack offered. "And your husband can join us, of course."
"Kind of you to remember me."
"Jack!"
"Leave him alone, Rose. He doesn't want saving. Even if he needs it."
Amanda dropped her lashes demurely. "Maybe after I've had something to eat. I just finished shopping, and that always leaves me... ravenous."
Jack pulled out her chair, and she settled into like Queen Zenobia. Awesome dancer. Among other things.
Adam shot a sly grin across the table at his wife. "Amanda, do you remember the Doctor?"
"Of course. Horrid little man. He made me give back... well, it doesn't matter. But it was prettier than the Koh-i-Noor. He never believed me when I said I was just borrowing it." Amanda pouted, then smiled brightly at Rose and the Doctor. "Hello. I'm Amanda, even though my wretch of a husband hasn't introduced me." She turned to Rose. "What a charming shirt you're wearing, my dear. I think I have one just like it."
"Hello, Amanda," the Doctor said, his lips twitching. "You haven't changed a bit."
Amanda never did quite believe them after they told her who the Doctor was, but it didn't seem to matter. She and Rose hit it off immediately, and she promised to take Rose shoe shopping the next morning. After a few more beers and a few more hours of tall-tale-spinning and onion straws, Rose's stomach and aching head needed a break, and she begged off the round of pub crawling that Adam and Amanda offered to take them on. Somehow a still quite sober Doctor got voted to take her back to the TARDIS while Jack and the happy couple started their exploration of downtown Bayching.
"Do you think they'll wind up in a motel together?" Rose asked as she swayed down the street on his arm. "I mean, really? Because I didn't think marriage had changed that much over a couple thousand years."
"Immortals are different," the Doctor said. "'Til death do us part has a different meaning for them. Variety being the spice of life and all, they make a few exceptions to the vows."
"Ah." Best not to think of it too much. That way lay too many pretty pictures of Adam and Jack in her head, with herself substituted for Amanda. Or possibly, with Amanda there to give her tips.
Something else had been nagging at her all night, and now it was late enough that she could actually ask, and claim hangover forgetfulness tomorrow. "Doctor? Why does Adam remember you? I thought-- well, I thought no one could. That..." That the past was gone, that all his friends never existed now, or had forgotten him, like his family and planet, lost in the war. Silence from the Doctor, and she glanced up at his profile, clutching his arm a little tighter at the bleakness she saw there. "Doctor?"
"I'm not sure he does."
"What?" Rose stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, letting the passersby flow around them. "But, he does. And if he does, then, maybe, well...." Maybe all the other people you lost aren't utterly gone too. She couldn't say it, in case she was wrong. But she could hope for it, intensely, loudly, inside her head.
"No." He sighed, and put his arm around his shoulders. "The first time we met, it was in Rome. Not Thebes. I don't forget things like that."
She scowled. "Then why does he remember it differently?"
"Because it hasn't happened yet. For me, I mean." He looked down at her, and gave her one of those heart-breaking smiles. "Sometime in my future, which is his past, we'll meet up again. And I'll buy him a beer after a chariot race. And every time after that, it won't matter. Last time for me. First time for him. Back and forth. All those meetings I remember never happened for him. All the ones he remembers haven't happened yet. The timeline's changed."
"Oh." Rose held on to him for balance, and licked her lips, wishing she knew what to say. "But you're still friends, no matter what. Or will be. Going to be. Oh, you know what I mean. Isn't that a good thing, knowing that?" And that some things don't get erased forever, she thought, but didn't say.
He looked down at her for a moment, then broke into an eye-brightening grin and hugged her tight, spinning her around and off her feet.
"Ack! Doctor! 'M dizzy! Don't make me ralph!"
"Rose Rose Rose, there will be no ralphing. Let's get you back to the TARDIS and settled in with a nice pick-me-up so you can feel better and we can go back out on the town. I owe you a beer."
"You've got me confused with Adam," she said, laughing and still a little motion-sick.
"Impossible. Inconceivable." He smiled gently down at her. "Adam is Adam is Ben is Martin and will be Methos. But there's only one Rose."
He helped her into the TARDIS, and gave her something blue and bubbly, and they did catch up to the others by dawn, when the Doctor was still buying her everything she asked for, no matter how expensive or silly it was.
FIN
I need a Who icon.
Genfic, PG-13 for innuendo (thanks, Jack (spoilers through "The Doctor Dances", no further), crossover with unspecified by easily recognizable fandom, unbeta'd. Comments welcome.
"The face is different, the voice is different, but you're still the Doctor. And you still owe me a drink."
Long Way Around
by Christina K
copyright 2005
The tall blue box was standing on a busy streetcorner in the middle of Ciudad Bayching, impossibly solid, impossibly there. Just like the last few times. The man shook his head and walked around it, reading with ease the POLICE BOX stamped across the top, despite how long it had been since he'd seen the written language.
Somewhere around here, a certain someone owed him a drink. But how to collect?
Ambush. Of course. It wasn't as if the box was going anywhere. Purchasing a camp chair and a sheet of newsplastic from the open market down the street, he settled in to wait.
"I still think we got cheated," Rose groused, counting over the coins she'd won at the slot machines. "'Everyone's a winner', ha! At the odds they were giving, we should've won a lot more. Especially with the Doctor's system."
"The Doctor's system is the only reason we walked out of there with anything more than we walked in with," Jack said, jingling the winnings in his jacket pocket. "Everybody knows the machines are rigged. So are the tables. So are the cards. This is Bayching, did you think it was built on the sand? No, no, no, naive little Rose. It's built on the gilt lost by people with less sense than us."
"Unlikely as that may seem," the Doctor added, stepping around a few chickens that had escaped from a nearby stall.
Rose stuck her tongue out at him, then turned around, almost skipping ahead. "So, where to next? I vote food, I'm starving."
From behind a sheet of newsplastic, a man's voice said, "I don't know about the food, but the local pub does a good beer and chips. And those onion snacks, if you like that kind of thing."
The trio stopped in surprise, mostly because the speaker had obnoxiously parked his canvas chair directly in front of the TARDIS, his feet outstretched into the sidewalk so people were having to step over his legs in order to get past. The Doctor cocked a wary eyebrow and exchanged a look with Jack, then shrugged at Rose before asking, "Oh really? What kind?"
The sheet of plastic dropped to reveal a sharp-featured man dressed in the local version of a business suit, or what Rose thought of as the "Mafia look" - light khaki jacket, loose trousers, white shirt with fedora, but with a flair of Yakuza in the styling. His grin was sharp enough to match the cheekbones and aquiline nose, and the blue eyes somehow reminded her of the Doctor. Which possibly wasn't a mistake, if the way the Doctor was gaping was any clue.
"Meth--" He shook his head in shock, cutting himself off from saying whatever name he'd been about to blurt out. "No, it can't be. You're-- you wouldn't have... How the hell did you get here?" he finally yelled, waving his arms to take in Bayching, the planet, and possibly the galaxy.
"Took the long way around. As usual. And still got here before you. As usual." The man folded his plastic and got to his feet, casually dusting off his trousers. He regarded the Doctor with the bemused tolerance of someone who had just won a bet that you are trying not to pay off when he knows where your wallet is hidden. "The face is different, the voice is different, but you're the still the Doctor. And you still owe me a drink."
The Doctor's face remained frozen in disbelief for two more seconds, then spread into one of the widest grins Rose could remember ever seeing from him. If it were possible to see the insides of his ears, she was sure she would've. Which would've been something, given those ears.
"Fantastic!"
The Doctor's friend introduced himself as Martin, but Jack was pretty certain that wasn't his real name. Largely because the Doctor kept forgetting it, and calling him "Adam" and once or twice slipping into "Ben." By the third drink, the man had given up and said, "Adam's fine, truly. The old man never did have much of a memory."
"I resent that. I remember every single one of the aliases you've used," the Doctor protested. "And possibly some of the ones you haven't used yet."
"There's the problem, then." Adam shook his head sadly, and shared a commiserating look with a giggling Rose. "Always mixing his eras up. Sad. Still, it's not his history, so I suppose we can forgive the incipient senility and absent-mindedness. Pity to see it in someone so young, though."
"Young?" Rose chortled, then stifled herself in another bottle of what had turned out to be high-quality strawberry beer. The pub could've been any one of a thousand places humans gathered-- shadowed and homey, with rotating ceiling fans and indirect sunlight moving in-- but the menu justified the prices. "Right."
"Have you been telling lies to this young lady?" Adam asked, shaking his finger at the Doctor. "Trying to impress her with your ancient wisdom and centuries of experience? For shame."
"I leave that to you, 'Adam.' How old's your current wife?" the Doctor snarked back, and Jack nearly choked on one of the onion straws in his mouth. "Sixteen? Twenty-six? Thirty-six? Ninety-one?"
"Are you calling me a cradle-robber?" Adam asked, looking wounded. "It's not as if I have a wide range of options, old man."
"Are you a Time Lord too?" Rose asked, then shot the Doctor an abashed look as he stopped smiling and took a careful sip of his beer. "Never mind. Stupid of me, of course you're not. But you seem, you're-- you're like the Doctor," she said, with the direct earnestness that always made Jack want to hug her and protect her and shake her at the same time. "I mean, you're not really human, are you?"
"Oh, she's a sharp one," Adam said admiringly, smiling even as his voice got quieter. "I can see why you like her."
"Adam's not a Time Lord. He just got out of the habit of dying," the Doctor informed her, good humor seemingly restored. "At least permanently."
"And impermanently, if I can help it. Wrinkles the suit."
"So how old are you?" Jack asked, putting a carefully provocative spin on the question. "'Cause I gotta say, if you're as old as the Doctor, you're lookin' good."
Adam quirked an eyebrow in amusement and nodded his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. "Gracias, Jack. And I prefer to not to be bound by petty conventions of mere mortal calculations--"
"Seven thousand two hundred, last time I checked," the Doctor interrupted, eyes gleaming. "Of course, I can only really swear to the last four thousand or so, but I used to have a diary of his written in hieroglyphics that went back at least a few more thousand than that."
"I wondered where that got to," Adam mused. "And I've told you and told you, we met in Egypt five hundred years earlier than that. You have a *lousy* memory for dates."
"Looking really good," Rose said, awestruck. "That's like, the same age as, as, mummies. Or The Mummy." At Jack's questioning look she said, "It's a movie, with Imhotep, and the Scorpion King, and-- I'm sure the TARDIS has a copy, we should watch it the next time we get stuck somewhere. But really!" She turned back to Adam, staring at him almost rudely, which Jack decided to blame on the fourth beer, even though the man looked nothing but amused. "I mean, you make the Doctor look like a youngster!"
"Thank you." The Doctor's grin was a little too smug, judging by the annoyed glance Adam shot him. "Good to know I'm not rated with the desiccated corpses."
"I'll give you corpse," Adam threatened, then stole onion straws off the Doctor's plate. "I've only got your word for it and no outside sources that you're not actually six times my age, for that matter. Although you've never become less annoying, so I'll assume you are still in your adolescence despite the occasional amnesia."
"How the hell is that possible?" Jack wondered, staring at Adam, then the words 'dying impermanently' came back to him and he smacked his forehead. "Oh, duh. As Rose would say. Immortals."
"Immortals? The what? And I never say duh."
"But you should," Jack told her, enjoying the way she squinched her eyes at him. "Immortals. Humans with a rare mutant gene disorder. Makes them immune to disease and aging and nearly impossible to kill. There was a war, about, oh, 3200 or so, I thought they all died in it," he said, directing the question at Adam. "So how are you here in 4253?"
"I won?" Adam shrugged.
"He skived off," the Doctor said, throwing a salt packet at him.
"Or that, yeah," Adam admitted. "Actually, most of us did a fade well before then. Saw the whole mess of a war coming and made for the outer planets as fast as our little lifeboats could carry us. Good thing, too. Human governments can be real creative when dealing with things they think they want, like the ability to live forever."
"You're never going to die," Rose said skeptically. "That can't be right."
Adam smiled sweetly. "It probably isn't right. It's just true." The Doctor hit Adam in the forehead with another salt packet, and Adam gave his friend the look of a disappointed pre-school teacher. "Unless I get blown up by a bomb or my body is dismembered or hit by a sonic ray gun or someone cuts off my head. Fine. Happy?"
"Ecstatic."
"It's always the little things that bring him joy," Adam informed them. "Honesty and truthfulness and home crafts and winning chariot races. And pretty blondes with lovely smiles," he added, batting his eyes at Rose, who giggled again. Definitely approaching drunk, Jack judged. "Can't say as I blame him for that."
"So when you said you took the long way around," Rose pondered out loud, "You meant you just... lived through all that time." She blinked. "Wow."
"Slow and steady wins the race."
"I'll drink to that. Slow and steady is one of my favorite things," Jack said, batting his own eyes in imitation and invitation at Adam, who laughed.
"You're very pretty too, Jack, but my wife would kill me if I took you up on your offer without including her in on it." Rose spluttered beer all over the table, which Jack figured she'd only be doing for another week or so. Seriously, she'd known him almost a month now, and still got flustered by the flirting? Sweet kid.
"How old's your wife?"
"Oh, a mere babe in arms, as the Doctor guessed." Adam sighed theatrically, helping Rose mop up the beer she spilled. "Only three thousand. I should be shot."
Jack contemplated ten thousand years of experience in bed with him, and felt his mouth go dry. "Yowza."
Adam toasted him with his beer bottle. "And you haven't even met her yet."
"Three thousand-- oh, don't tell me."
"What?" Adam raised an eyebrow at the Doctor, who had covered his face with his hands.
"You married Amanda? Are you insane?" The Doctor sighed, and dropped his hands. "Never mind, I should be asking her that question."
"I think I'm insulted. And you shouldn't be throwing stones, especially considering the cultural innocence of the young lady you've shanghai'd right here," Adam said, cocking a thumb at Rose.
"I am not!" she objected, outraged. "I've had lots of cultural experiences, I just get embarassed when people talk about them unexpectedly. That's all."
Jack chuckled, earning him a kick under the table, and Adam grinned at the Doctor, who'd crossed his arms and was trying to look superior. "Rose has plenty of sophistication, Adam. And her experience has got nothing to do with you marrying Amanda. I still say that's insane."
"Hmmm. I'll bet I can place Rose's origin within a decade, as well as the geographic location. And if I'm right, there's no way she could expect half the things you're exposing her to, and you owe me another beer and an apology."
The Doctor's eyes narrowed, but Rose was the one who blurted, "You're on. Do your worst."
"Bwahahaha," Adam intoned, deadpan. "Jeans that went out of style a thousand years ago when lycra moldings were perfected." He leaned close, and Rose's eyes got very big until he smiled at her, and then she couldn't help smirking back. "Excellent teeth, but I think I see a few metal fillings in the back. Puts you within a very short 150 year range." He pulled on one blonde strand of hair. "Conditioned, not just bleached, narrows it down even finer. The accent's pure London, good to hear it again."
He leaned back and crossed his arms, intoning pompously. "The subject is a female in her late teens or early twenties, clearly born in London, probably sometime in the late nineteen sixties; most likely displaced from 1980 to 1990."
"Wrong!" The Doctor gloated. "Buy your own beer, and you don't get an utterly undeserved apology."
"Damn. How far off was I?"
"The Doctor offered me a lift in 2004," Rose said.
"I'll just bet he did." Rose whacked him on the arm, scowling, and Adam pouted and rubbed his arm. "Right, early 21st Century. How could I miss the attitude?" He sighed. "Good century, that. I miss it."
"You could come with us, the next time we visit," Rose offered, and Adam shot the Doctor a sharp glance.
"No. I'm not much one for visiting bygone days, actually. Already lived it." He shrugged. "Besides, I wouldn't want to mess up my own past. Too easy with me living so long. I could potentially obliterate my first meeting with the Doctor, and then we'd never be having this conversation, would we?"
Rose's eyes crossed for a second as she tried to parse that, and the Doctor got very quiet. Jack raised an eyebrow. "So how did you two kids meet anyway?"
"How else? He bought me a drink."
"In Rome," the Doctor told the bottom of his glass.
"In Thebes. After the chariot race which his team won. Since he owed me for training the horse." Adam was the one slinging salt packets this time. "Good lord, man. Keep a diary. How do you ever remember if there's a lynch mob after you somewhere if you don't remember where you've been?"
The Doctor's wry smile turned real as he spotted someone across the room. "I'd think you'd have more problems with that, given the company you keep."
"Hmm?" Adam followed his gaze, then smirked. "Ah, yes. The little woman. The ball and chain. The old lady. Ow," he added, pouting at Rose after she slapped his bicep again.
"A little respect for your wife would be good."
"Especially considering those boots," Jack said prayerfully, getting to his feet as one of his ideal women strode toward them. "Mama mia...."
"Not even close."
"Hello," Jack said to the reincarnation of Audrey Hepburn in front of him, ignoring Adam for the moment. "I'm Jack, and I'm really pleased to meet you."
"Goodness. Adam, you shouldn't have," she said, smiling delightedly and letting Jack kiss her hand. "It's not even my birthday."
Jack could see Rose's eyes getting big out of the edge of his vision, but he couldn't resist saying, "A lady like you deserves every un-birthday present she can get."
"What a beautiful philosophy."
"And I'd just like to say that we could discuss philosophy, or metaphysics, or possibly the physics of moving bodies, any time and place that you want," Jack offered. "And your husband can join us, of course."
"Kind of you to remember me."
"Jack!"
"Leave him alone, Rose. He doesn't want saving. Even if he needs it."
Amanda dropped her lashes demurely. "Maybe after I've had something to eat. I just finished shopping, and that always leaves me... ravenous."
Jack pulled out her chair, and she settled into like Queen Zenobia. Awesome dancer. Among other things.
Adam shot a sly grin across the table at his wife. "Amanda, do you remember the Doctor?"
"Of course. Horrid little man. He made me give back... well, it doesn't matter. But it was prettier than the Koh-i-Noor. He never believed me when I said I was just borrowing it." Amanda pouted, then smiled brightly at Rose and the Doctor. "Hello. I'm Amanda, even though my wretch of a husband hasn't introduced me." She turned to Rose. "What a charming shirt you're wearing, my dear. I think I have one just like it."
"Hello, Amanda," the Doctor said, his lips twitching. "You haven't changed a bit."
Amanda never did quite believe them after they told her who the Doctor was, but it didn't seem to matter. She and Rose hit it off immediately, and she promised to take Rose shoe shopping the next morning. After a few more beers and a few more hours of tall-tale-spinning and onion straws, Rose's stomach and aching head needed a break, and she begged off the round of pub crawling that Adam and Amanda offered to take them on. Somehow a still quite sober Doctor got voted to take her back to the TARDIS while Jack and the happy couple started their exploration of downtown Bayching.
"Do you think they'll wind up in a motel together?" Rose asked as she swayed down the street on his arm. "I mean, really? Because I didn't think marriage had changed that much over a couple thousand years."
"Immortals are different," the Doctor said. "'Til death do us part has a different meaning for them. Variety being the spice of life and all, they make a few exceptions to the vows."
"Ah." Best not to think of it too much. That way lay too many pretty pictures of Adam and Jack in her head, with herself substituted for Amanda. Or possibly, with Amanda there to give her tips.
Something else had been nagging at her all night, and now it was late enough that she could actually ask, and claim hangover forgetfulness tomorrow. "Doctor? Why does Adam remember you? I thought-- well, I thought no one could. That..." That the past was gone, that all his friends never existed now, or had forgotten him, like his family and planet, lost in the war. Silence from the Doctor, and she glanced up at his profile, clutching his arm a little tighter at the bleakness she saw there. "Doctor?"
"I'm not sure he does."
"What?" Rose stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, letting the passersby flow around them. "But, he does. And if he does, then, maybe, well...." Maybe all the other people you lost aren't utterly gone too. She couldn't say it, in case she was wrong. But she could hope for it, intensely, loudly, inside her head.
"No." He sighed, and put his arm around his shoulders. "The first time we met, it was in Rome. Not Thebes. I don't forget things like that."
She scowled. "Then why does he remember it differently?"
"Because it hasn't happened yet. For me, I mean." He looked down at her, and gave her one of those heart-breaking smiles. "Sometime in my future, which is his past, we'll meet up again. And I'll buy him a beer after a chariot race. And every time after that, it won't matter. Last time for me. First time for him. Back and forth. All those meetings I remember never happened for him. All the ones he remembers haven't happened yet. The timeline's changed."
"Oh." Rose held on to him for balance, and licked her lips, wishing she knew what to say. "But you're still friends, no matter what. Or will be. Going to be. Oh, you know what I mean. Isn't that a good thing, knowing that?" And that some things don't get erased forever, she thought, but didn't say.
He looked down at her for a moment, then broke into an eye-brightening grin and hugged her tight, spinning her around and off her feet.
"Ack! Doctor! 'M dizzy! Don't make me ralph!"
"Rose Rose Rose, there will be no ralphing. Let's get you back to the TARDIS and settled in with a nice pick-me-up so you can feel better and we can go back out on the town. I owe you a beer."
"You've got me confused with Adam," she said, laughing and still a little motion-sick.
"Impossible. Inconceivable." He smiled gently down at her. "Adam is Adam is Ben is Martin and will be Methos. But there's only one Rose."
He helped her into the TARDIS, and gave her something blue and bubbly, and they did catch up to the others by dawn, when the Doctor was still buying her everything she asked for, no matter how expensive or silly it was.
FIN
I need a Who icon.