Open post, multiple threads welcome!

[teenguerrilla]

Ellie was seated in the dining room, in front of her a plate piled high with vegetables and steak. Both things she'd seriously missed in the past year. Despite everything, she rather enjoyed eating her fill. Again, something she hadn't much of a chance to do since the invasion

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[incorrigibledoc]

The Doctor had no such nutritious compunctions. His Gallifreyan metabolism allowed him to go without food for days at a time, so when he eventually decided to eat, he tended to reach for the high caloric content. And besides, he found that this incarnation had a peculiar predilection for chocolate...

Thus, juggling a rather hefty slab of chocolate cake and a glass of milk, the Doctor looked for a place to sit. Actually, since the enormous banquet hall was mostly empty, he was looking for someone to sit with.

"Hello there?" he said cheerily to the young lady at the table. "Just in for a snack and I do hate to sit alone. May I join you?"

[teenguerrilla]

Ellie looked up at the Doctor, so many people here. The only times she'd seen this many were whenever the soldiers were around, and that was never good news. "Hi..." she put her cutlery down, another novelty she'd rather gone without for months, "I...uhh...yeah. Sure." She looked at the man, brow furrowed as she tried to suss him out.

[incorrigibledoc]

The Doctor nodded amiably and took his seat across from the young lady, giving her ample amounts of space. He met her gaze, but was careful to keep it clear and non-invasive, hiding nothing. The Doctor had been in more war zones than he could count, even if he used all of his fingers, toes and teeth, and this poor girl had all of its brutal signs stamped across her. Rassilon, she can't be any older than sixteen. Sixteen! Why can't humans ever settle things for themselves? Why do they have to pull children into it?

Ignoring the cake for a moment, he casually rested his arms on the tabletop, body relaxed, both palms turned slightly upward. I am unarmed, I am not a threat. "I'm called the Doctor," he said cheerfully. "What's your name?"

[teenguerrilla]

Ellie visibly relaxed at the Doctor's body language, though her eyes were still wary and stayed trained on him. "Ellie. Ellie Linton." Her hands retreated into her lap, fidgeting unseen under the table. She blinked at him, attempting a smile but for who's benefit she had no idea.

[incorrigibledoc]

"Ellie," he echoed. "That's a lovely name. Is it short for Eleanor?"

As she relaxed, the Doctor reclaimed his cake, forcing himself to eat slowly out of deference to Ellie's precarious nerves rather than his digestion. "I'm afraid that I haven't seen you around the Hotel before. Of course, I don't get out very much, usually hemmed in with research and experiments. Have you been here for very long?"

[teenguerrilla]

She just shrugged and looked at her plate, severing the eye contact. Saying neither yay nor nay to the Doctor's question.

"Couple of days." She speared a piece of steak with her fork, eyes following it as she raised the piece of food to eye level. "Experiments? Thought you said you were a Doctor, not a scientist." She didn't mean to sound rude but then, she didn't mean to do a lot of things.

[incorrigibledoc]

"Ah, but you see, Ellie, I'm not a doctor. I'm the Doctor. The definite article, you might say." If this was added with a pleased and self-important little grin, that was surely no one's business but his own. "Doctor of most everything, really. Medicine, science, literature, philosophy, art..." His grin grew impossibly wider. "Just don't expect me to teach an anatomy class or direct a light opera."

[teenguerrilla]

Ellie blinked at the Doctor and frowned slightly, this man was surely mad. Her piece of steak hanging in the air forgotten, "what." She began, her brow furrowed even more so, "are you talking about?"

[incorrigibledoc]

The Doctor raised a rueful brow. "Not a Blackadder fan, then? No, hang on, maybe you've never seen it. What year are you from?"

[teenguerrilla]

Ellie shook her head, "I don't watch much tv. Even less lately." For the obvious reasons. "I haven't had access to a calendar for so long...but it was late '94 when it all started...I think."

[incorrigibledoc]

"It?" The Doctor ran the date through his mind, checking and cross-referencing. 1994? 2094? Can't be later than that, judging from the clothing. Earth, Australia, from the accent... Something clicked in his mind. Oh. Oh, I see. "That would be the Austro-Pacific War?" he asked softly. It wasn't much of a question. "A brief conflict, relatively speaking. Brief, but brutal. Oh, Ellie, I'm so sorry."

His eyes briefly closed in memory before snapping open again. "But you said it had been a long time since the start of the war... the treaty was signed in early 1996, peace was made. That means that you can't have much further to go, Ellie. By the time we leave this Hotel, the war may even be over!"

[teenguerrilla]

Now that took Ellie by surprise. No-one she knew of here had heard of the War, it helped her forget it ever happened. She did a double take and her fork dropped from her hand, hitting on the plate with a resounding clang. A look of relief on her face as this Doctor said that peace wasn't too far away. "We succeed? They didn't die for nothing?" They of course meaning her friends. "It just seemed like a dream...one that we'd tell to the Ferals to get them to sleep." One last tear for her friends at the corner of her eyes.

[incorrigibledoc]

Before he could think about things like body-language or personal space, the Doctor instinctively reached across the table, enfolding Ellie's too-thin hand in his own cool one. "No one ever dies for nothing, Ellie," he insisted, his voice low with emotion. "No one. Not even the briefest life is worthless, for even the slightest brush of life against life can cause ripples, catalysts of change. No, Ellie, your friends did not die for nothing."

He gave her hand a final, comforting squeeze and released it, sitting back. "Take it from me. I am, after all, something of an authority on changes through time."

[teenguerrilla]

Ellie's gaze shifted immediately to the hand that held one of her own. And after a moment of her heart beating precariously quickly she relaxed and took the moment for what it was. Comfort. "We gradually chose targets that were more challenging...apparently that last one was too big." She knew she was being vague, and that the man infront of her wouldn't understand...but...without Angela here, she needed to find someone to talk to...or at.

[incorrigibledoc]

It wasn't too difficult to piece together. Wars and targets meant conflict, and if a target was too big, then... "You were captured?" Eight asked quietly, toying with his unfinished cake, half-fearing the answer. He wasn't all that hungry anymore.

[teenguerrilla]

Ellie nodded, "twice so far. Homer and I were sentenced to execution the first time. The rest just got prison sentences. The second time...was only because I was shot, one of the captains thought he knew who I was, told me my friends were dead...gave myself another name and pretended I knew nothing." She picked up her fork and played with the remaining food on her plate.