Doctor Who / Heroes: Invisible Words
Title: Invisible Words
Author's Name: pie_is_good
Recipient's Name: athousandwinds
Fandom: Heroes
Rating: PG
Character(s): Nine, Ten, Claude Rains, Noah Bennett
The Doctor’s hands moved swiftly across the console. He couldn’t bring himself to look down. Somehow, that would make it all feel more real, and it couldn’t be.
It just couldn’t be real.
Stepping back from the console, he glanced at the monitor one last time.
Gallifrey. Flashes of the orange skies and images of the silver trees glistening in the sunlight plagued his mind for a second, but he forced himself to take a deep breath, running a hand through his long hair.
This was it.
The Doctor stepped forward and took a deep breath. Slowly, delibrately, he pressed the final button. This would end it all. All of it. Gallifrey, the Time Lords, the Daleks. Himself.
Everything went dark.
The Time War was over.
~~*~~
The Doctor awoke.
He stood up quickly, tripping as he tried to stand. New legs were always a challenge.
New legs.
He must have regenerated.
Looking down, he realized his legs were much longer. His pants barely fit. He started to walk towards to wardrobe room when it all came back to him. He shouldn't have new legs.
He shouldn't even have legs.
He should have burned with the Daleks. With the Time Lords. With Gallifrey and Arcadia and Skaro.
He had to check. Rushing back to the console, he let himself hope. Maybe he’d done something wrong. Maybe he’d saved everything instead of destroying it. That’d be good. That would be like him. The Doctor, saving the universe.
The monitor showed empty space. He checked the coordinates. They were right.
Gallifrey was gone.
The Doctor collapsed to the floor, crying out for people that no longer existed.
It didn’t last long. With the Doctor, there’s only two ways of dealing with grief. Pretend it doesn’t exist, or run head first into more danger. Looking up, the Doctor saw something in the ceiling that caught his eye.
A way to run.
A way to run and never remember this life.
Rising just enough to reach the console controls he needed, he called something down to him from the tangled mess of the console room ceiling.
The Chameleon Arch.
~~*~~
Claude was a relatively ordinary man. He didn’t do anything spectacular. An odd dislike for humanity and a few remarks about things it was impossible to know, sure, but he was just an ordinary man. He had an office job. He watched football on the weekends and was known to knock back a few pints at a pub every now and then.
That is, until the day no one could see him.
He went in to a pub, nodding a friendly hello to the barmaid. He offered her a drink, but she didn't respond. He raised his voice - yelling at her, screaming at her. She still didn't respond.
No one ever responded. Not anymore.
He spent years in solitude, trying to control his invisiblilty, trying to live. He succeeded - for a few weeks, anyway.
There had been a knock at the door of his flat. A few minutes later, a man called Thompson and an organization known as the Company came into his life.
Nothing would be the same.
~~*~~
Claude worked with the Company for years. He never really complained. He didn’t agree with their methods, but he knew expressing it beyond a few sarcastic remarks would be deadly.
Well, maybe not deadly, exactly, but close enough. It would mean a life in a cell. The cells that no one ever left. The cells that made you wish you were dead.
At least Claude had been lucky enough to get a decent man by his side. Bennet. He had a little girl that was one of his kind, and he thought he knew Bennet well enough to know he’d never betray her.
Or him.
He was reminded of their first meeting as they ran away from the resulting explosion a botched capture attempt caused, startling Bennet as he abruptly became visible again. Things hadn't been so bad, back then.
Back when he thought their work might save the world.
He laughed bitterly at the thought now. Claude knew his time with the Company was coming to an end. There was too much tension. Everyone was scared. And when people get scared, they lash out - lash out at what they're scared of. At people they’re scared of.
People like him.
He snapped out of his reverie when he felt his coat snag on a stray length of barbed wire, ripping a hole in his left pocket. Several items clanged to the ground, and Bennet bent down to help him pick everything up before the police arrived.
“What’s this?” Bennet asked, picking up a gold fob watch and twirling it in his fingers.
“Just an old watch. Never opened it. Doesn’t work,” Claude said dismissively, more interested in his wallet and cheap pens and crumbled receipts than the watch.
“How do you know it doesn’t work if you’ve never opened it?” Bennet asked in that eerily emotionless voice Claude had grown to hate.
“I just do.” Claude snatched the watch out of his hands, giving it a much more curious stare than he ever had before. He shrugged, and put it in his other pocket.
~~*~~
“You’re just going to off me like nothing?”
“It's not nothing! We find these people. That's what we do. And you buried one. You acted against the interest of the company.”
“You ever stop to think what those interests are?” Claude looked down at the gun, full of disbelief that the man he’d called a friend for years was about to shoot him.
“Who is it?”
“And what if it was Claire? That's why you're so distant from her. You know you're going to turn her in. You're preparing for it.”
“You used to believe in what we do.”
“I used to believe in the tooth fairy,” Claude said, smirking at the gun. If he was going to go down, maybe at least he could get Bennet to think.
If not, he’d gone down with sarcasm.
“We made a promise -- both of us.”
“I will not hunt my own people. This isn't who you are. You have a choi-“
Claude was cut off by the sound of a gun firing, a bullet in his shoulder a split-second later. Withering on the ground, he looked up just in time to see the look of disbelief Bennet was giving his gun.
But before he could say another word, he heard Bennet speak. A gun fired.
A bullet through his chest.
Claude used the last of his strength to become invisible, just before he collapsed over the edge.
He looked up from the tall grass to see Bennet walk away. Something must have broken in the fall, but Claude knew he’d never find out. His brain couldn’t process that much pain.
And he knew he’d never have the strength to stand again.
Something made him reach into his pocket. Claude felt around, rubbing the cool metal of the watch Bennet had commented on just a few days before.
He’d never opened it.
And now was his last chance.
Claude clicked the watch open as he lost consciousness.
~~*~~
The Doctor awoke in a field.
For a moment, he couldn’t remember who he was. He’d thought he was Claude.
Claude was dead.
As his mind began to clear, he remembered. He remembered being Claude. He remembered being invisible. He remembered the Company.
He remembered getting shot.
He'd changed back into a Time Lord just in time. He'd nearly died. A human death. A final death.
That was a closer call than he was willing to think about.
The TARDIS. Where had he left her? Things were still a bit fuzzy. His biology may have been rewritten, but falling a hundred feet and getting shot several times still had their effects.
Sighing, he reached for the watch and popped off the back. He remembered the TARDIS key hidden there, but he couldn’t remember where the old girl was.
At least he remembered how to call her to him. It’d take some time, but it was better than nothing. He waited silently, fingering the key. The Doctor lay down in the grass, staring up into the sun.
He still remembered nothing.
~~*~~
He'd been back in the TARDIS for five minutes, and he already detected something wrong in London. The Nestene. They shouldn’t be there.
He sighed. The Doctor wasn’t sure how London had managed to survive without him.
As the ship flew through the Vortex towards London, he headed back to the wardrobe room. Time this body got some proper clothes.
He wasn't sure where the wardrobe room was, exactly. He couldn't remember anything, really. The only way he managed to find his way back was by instinct, as if he'd walked this way a thousand times before. Maybe he had. He didn't know.
He glanced over the things he'd worn before. A patchwork coat? Not for this body. Just as he’d turned his attention to a rather large box of knitted scarves, his memories came back - a flash of fire and burning in empty space.
Gallifrey. Daleks. The Time War.
He'd destroyed his own people. He wasn't just a Time Lord; he was the last of the Time Lords.
He closed his eyes, trying to make the memories fade. Gallifrey had burned, and it was his fault. He couldn't stomach picking out clothes anymore. Quickly, he changed into a simple jumper and jeans.
On his way out the door, a very worn black leather coat he’d never seen before caught his eye. He slid it on and headed out, stopping in another room for a vial of anti-plastic and some of Ace’s old explosives on the way.
If he couldn’t save Gallifrey, he’d damned well save the Earth for as long as it needed saving.
~~*~~
The Doctor managed to thwart yet another alien attack on the human race with the help of a human female. He might be getting old, but some things never changed. He might not be Claude Rains anymore, but he was still the Doctor.
He set the TARDIS to drop off Rose and her boyfriend off near the Powell Estates, fully prepared to thank her and send her on her way. Before he knew what he was doing, the words started coming out his mouth. He shifted uncomfortably, trying not to look too eager.
“You could come with me.”
The Doctor looked down at Rose, and his hearts sunk. He could just tell she wouldn’t come. But once the Doctor asked something, he couldn’t give up after one try.
“This box isn't just a London hopper, you know,” the Doctor said, stroking the side of the TARDIS fondly. “It goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge.”
“Don't! He's an alien! He's a thing!”
“He's not invited,” the Doctor looked down at Mickey with a look of annoyance. If anyone made the phrase ‘stupid apes’ true, it had to be him.
“What do you think? You could stay here and fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go anywhere.”
“Is it always this dangerous?”
No point in lying to the girl.
“Yeah.” The Doctor watched in disgust as Mickey clung to Rose’s leg like a small child to its mother.
“Yeah, I can't. I’ve got to go and find my mum, and Mickey needs me."
The Doctor didn’t really know what to say. It wasn’t often people turned down time travel.
“See you around.”
The Doctor slipped back into the TARDIS, alone. He let the TARDIS dematerialize into the vortex, although he had no destination in mind. If Rose were here, he’d at least have someone to show the universe to. Someone to keep his mind off what he’d done.
He couldn’t face it yet. Not alone.
He needed to be somewhere safe.
The Doctor called the Chameleon Arch back to him.
Strapped into the machine once more, he felt the pain course through him.
~~*~~
Claude spent years on the streets of New York.
It was amazing how easily he could steal provisions when no one could see him. He lived on the roof of an apartment, and no one noticed. He didn't have to talk to anyone. He was completely and perfectly alone.
It was an easy life. Took care of pigeons. Swiped food off of plates in outdoor cafés during summer months. Ignored the outside world.
Peter Petrelli changed that, coming into his world and yelling at him.
It was all Claude could do not to roll his eyes. The next generation of the boy wonder, off to save the world.
Except that this one was convinced he was a bomb.
He'd gleefully pushed Peter over the edge of a building one night, watching him fall into a cab below. He winced when he realized a piece of glass had pierced right through Peter’s heart. Well, at least he wouldn’t go nuclear while he was dead. Taking his time, he headed down to inspect the body.
Claude just smiled when Peter sat up, gasping in pain.
Maybe there was hope for this one yet.
~~*~~
Claude felt a tranquilizer dart puncture his skin.
Bennet.
He never thought he’d see the day.
He knew little Claire had manifested powers, how Bennet was keeping her safe from the Company. Peter had told him all about Claire and her precious ‘homecoming'.
He’d thought Bennet loved his daughter too much to betray anyone else to the Company. Seen the error of his ways. That maybe, just maybe, the things he'd said to Bennet on the bridge had entered his thick skull.
Obviously not.
As Peter flew him away, Claude smiled. He hadn't done badly with this one.
He only wished that he could have done more for Bennet.
~~*~~
The Doctor stood in an alley outside Peter Petrelli’s apartment, watch open at his side. Last time, he knew that Bennet had convinced him to open the watch, although he wasn’t sure what made him do it this time.
Maybe Claude had known it was only a matter of time until the Company found him again.
His memories were clearer this time, at least. He remembered the TARDIS a few blocks away, and he began to walk.
As he stepped into the TARDIS, basking in the orange-and-green light, he looked down at the console. The TARDIS had a time and place set for him already.
Fifteen seconds after he’d left Rose Tyler.
That’d do.
If he couldn’t have a fantastic life anymore, the least he could would be to show Rose the universe.
She deserved it.
The TARDIS landed, and he opened the doors, peering outside.
“Did I mention it also travels in time?”
A few words later, and he watched a young blond girl run into the TARDIS.
A life changed forever by eight words.
~~*~~
Years later, the Doctor still remembered Bennet. He hadn’t followed the saga of superpowered humans at all since he'd become a Time Lord again. Claude wasn't the Doctor, and it would stay that way.
Still, when he bumped into a brown-haired girl in her early twenties during a trip to a corner store for a gallon of milk and watched her wounds from the fall heal, he knew that he had to do something. She looked terrified, trying to run as soon as she realized he recognized her powers for what they were.
He knew those powers, and he knew that face.
Claire.
She was the opposite of his Rose, blonde hair dyed brown, scared of the world.
It wasn’t right.
And so into the TARDIS he went, throwing his long brown overcoat over the railing as he walked back out the door into the blazing Texas summer.
“Mr. Bennet,” the Doctor said, grabbing his arm as the man began to step out of his car in a deserted parking lot. “I think we need to talk.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong man,” Bennet said smoothly. If anyone knew how to sound calm and collected while being anything but, it was Bennet.
“Oh, I think not. And I think it’s definitely time that you and I have a little chat about Claire.”
The Doctor watched in amusement as Bennet pulled open his jacket just enough for the Doctor to get a clear view of his gun.
“Do you love your daughter, Mr. Bennet?”
“I love my daughter more than anyone could ever know.”
“Enough that you’ll turn her in one day?”
This time Bennet reached into his jacket, hand grasping the gun handle.
“I don’t know what you know about Claire, but I advise you to leave this instant and forget anything you might know. You don’t want me doing anything you might regret.”
“You ever stop to think what’s more important? Your daughter or your job?”
The Doctor spun around on the heels of his off-white Converse and began to march off in the direction of the TARDIS. He hadn’t noticed Bennet looking at him curiously, almost as if he was beginning to recognize him.
After a few paces, he turned back towards Bennet with a smug look. “The life of your little girl. Just think about that, Noah.”
The Doctor turned around for good, not looking to see if his words had any affect. But he was the man who could feel the turn of the planet, and in that instant, he could almost hear the universe click into place. Just for a moment, one moment, everything was all right.
Sometimes, if he was very, very lucky, the Doctor could change the world with just a few small words.
He quite liked words.
Author's Name: pie_is_good
Recipient's Name: athousandwinds
Fandom: Heroes
Rating: PG
Character(s): Nine, Ten, Claude Rains, Noah Bennett
The Doctor’s hands moved swiftly across the console. He couldn’t bring himself to look down. Somehow, that would make it all feel more real, and it couldn’t be.
It just couldn’t be real.
Stepping back from the console, he glanced at the monitor one last time.
Gallifrey. Flashes of the orange skies and images of the silver trees glistening in the sunlight plagued his mind for a second, but he forced himself to take a deep breath, running a hand through his long hair.
This was it.
The Doctor stepped forward and took a deep breath. Slowly, delibrately, he pressed the final button. This would end it all. All of it. Gallifrey, the Time Lords, the Daleks. Himself.
Everything went dark.
The Time War was over.
~~*~~
The Doctor awoke.
He stood up quickly, tripping as he tried to stand. New legs were always a challenge.
New legs.
He must have regenerated.
Looking down, he realized his legs were much longer. His pants barely fit. He started to walk towards to wardrobe room when it all came back to him. He shouldn't have new legs.
He shouldn't even have legs.
He should have burned with the Daleks. With the Time Lords. With Gallifrey and Arcadia and Skaro.
He had to check. Rushing back to the console, he let himself hope. Maybe he’d done something wrong. Maybe he’d saved everything instead of destroying it. That’d be good. That would be like him. The Doctor, saving the universe.
The monitor showed empty space. He checked the coordinates. They were right.
Gallifrey was gone.
The Doctor collapsed to the floor, crying out for people that no longer existed.
It didn’t last long. With the Doctor, there’s only two ways of dealing with grief. Pretend it doesn’t exist, or run head first into more danger. Looking up, the Doctor saw something in the ceiling that caught his eye.
A way to run.
A way to run and never remember this life.
Rising just enough to reach the console controls he needed, he called something down to him from the tangled mess of the console room ceiling.
The Chameleon Arch.
~~*~~
Claude was a relatively ordinary man. He didn’t do anything spectacular. An odd dislike for humanity and a few remarks about things it was impossible to know, sure, but he was just an ordinary man. He had an office job. He watched football on the weekends and was known to knock back a few pints at a pub every now and then.
That is, until the day no one could see him.
He went in to a pub, nodding a friendly hello to the barmaid. He offered her a drink, but she didn't respond. He raised his voice - yelling at her, screaming at her. She still didn't respond.
No one ever responded. Not anymore.
He spent years in solitude, trying to control his invisiblilty, trying to live. He succeeded - for a few weeks, anyway.
There had been a knock at the door of his flat. A few minutes later, a man called Thompson and an organization known as the Company came into his life.
Nothing would be the same.
~~*~~
Claude worked with the Company for years. He never really complained. He didn’t agree with their methods, but he knew expressing it beyond a few sarcastic remarks would be deadly.
Well, maybe not deadly, exactly, but close enough. It would mean a life in a cell. The cells that no one ever left. The cells that made you wish you were dead.
At least Claude had been lucky enough to get a decent man by his side. Bennet. He had a little girl that was one of his kind, and he thought he knew Bennet well enough to know he’d never betray her.
Or him.
He was reminded of their first meeting as they ran away from the resulting explosion a botched capture attempt caused, startling Bennet as he abruptly became visible again. Things hadn't been so bad, back then.
Back when he thought their work might save the world.
He laughed bitterly at the thought now. Claude knew his time with the Company was coming to an end. There was too much tension. Everyone was scared. And when people get scared, they lash out - lash out at what they're scared of. At people they’re scared of.
People like him.
He snapped out of his reverie when he felt his coat snag on a stray length of barbed wire, ripping a hole in his left pocket. Several items clanged to the ground, and Bennet bent down to help him pick everything up before the police arrived.
“What’s this?” Bennet asked, picking up a gold fob watch and twirling it in his fingers.
“Just an old watch. Never opened it. Doesn’t work,” Claude said dismissively, more interested in his wallet and cheap pens and crumbled receipts than the watch.
“How do you know it doesn’t work if you’ve never opened it?” Bennet asked in that eerily emotionless voice Claude had grown to hate.
“I just do.” Claude snatched the watch out of his hands, giving it a much more curious stare than he ever had before. He shrugged, and put it in his other pocket.
~~*~~
“You’re just going to off me like nothing?”
“It's not nothing! We find these people. That's what we do. And you buried one. You acted against the interest of the company.”
“You ever stop to think what those interests are?” Claude looked down at the gun, full of disbelief that the man he’d called a friend for years was about to shoot him.
“Who is it?”
“And what if it was Claire? That's why you're so distant from her. You know you're going to turn her in. You're preparing for it.”
“You used to believe in what we do.”
“I used to believe in the tooth fairy,” Claude said, smirking at the gun. If he was going to go down, maybe at least he could get Bennet to think.
If not, he’d gone down with sarcasm.
“We made a promise -- both of us.”
“I will not hunt my own people. This isn't who you are. You have a choi-“
Claude was cut off by the sound of a gun firing, a bullet in his shoulder a split-second later. Withering on the ground, he looked up just in time to see the look of disbelief Bennet was giving his gun.
But before he could say another word, he heard Bennet speak. A gun fired.
A bullet through his chest.
Claude used the last of his strength to become invisible, just before he collapsed over the edge.
He looked up from the tall grass to see Bennet walk away. Something must have broken in the fall, but Claude knew he’d never find out. His brain couldn’t process that much pain.
And he knew he’d never have the strength to stand again.
Something made him reach into his pocket. Claude felt around, rubbing the cool metal of the watch Bennet had commented on just a few days before.
He’d never opened it.
And now was his last chance.
Claude clicked the watch open as he lost consciousness.
~~*~~
The Doctor awoke in a field.
For a moment, he couldn’t remember who he was. He’d thought he was Claude.
Claude was dead.
As his mind began to clear, he remembered. He remembered being Claude. He remembered being invisible. He remembered the Company.
He remembered getting shot.
He'd changed back into a Time Lord just in time. He'd nearly died. A human death. A final death.
That was a closer call than he was willing to think about.
The TARDIS. Where had he left her? Things were still a bit fuzzy. His biology may have been rewritten, but falling a hundred feet and getting shot several times still had their effects.
Sighing, he reached for the watch and popped off the back. He remembered the TARDIS key hidden there, but he couldn’t remember where the old girl was.
At least he remembered how to call her to him. It’d take some time, but it was better than nothing. He waited silently, fingering the key. The Doctor lay down in the grass, staring up into the sun.
He still remembered nothing.
~~*~~
He'd been back in the TARDIS for five minutes, and he already detected something wrong in London. The Nestene. They shouldn’t be there.
He sighed. The Doctor wasn’t sure how London had managed to survive without him.
As the ship flew through the Vortex towards London, he headed back to the wardrobe room. Time this body got some proper clothes.
He wasn't sure where the wardrobe room was, exactly. He couldn't remember anything, really. The only way he managed to find his way back was by instinct, as if he'd walked this way a thousand times before. Maybe he had. He didn't know.
He glanced over the things he'd worn before. A patchwork coat? Not for this body. Just as he’d turned his attention to a rather large box of knitted scarves, his memories came back - a flash of fire and burning in empty space.
Gallifrey. Daleks. The Time War.
He'd destroyed his own people. He wasn't just a Time Lord; he was the last of the Time Lords.
He closed his eyes, trying to make the memories fade. Gallifrey had burned, and it was his fault. He couldn't stomach picking out clothes anymore. Quickly, he changed into a simple jumper and jeans.
On his way out the door, a very worn black leather coat he’d never seen before caught his eye. He slid it on and headed out, stopping in another room for a vial of anti-plastic and some of Ace’s old explosives on the way.
If he couldn’t save Gallifrey, he’d damned well save the Earth for as long as it needed saving.
~~*~~
The Doctor managed to thwart yet another alien attack on the human race with the help of a human female. He might be getting old, but some things never changed. He might not be Claude Rains anymore, but he was still the Doctor.
He set the TARDIS to drop off Rose and her boyfriend off near the Powell Estates, fully prepared to thank her and send her on her way. Before he knew what he was doing, the words started coming out his mouth. He shifted uncomfortably, trying not to look too eager.
“You could come with me.”
The Doctor looked down at Rose, and his hearts sunk. He could just tell she wouldn’t come. But once the Doctor asked something, he couldn’t give up after one try.
“This box isn't just a London hopper, you know,” the Doctor said, stroking the side of the TARDIS fondly. “It goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge.”
“Don't! He's an alien! He's a thing!”
“He's not invited,” the Doctor looked down at Mickey with a look of annoyance. If anyone made the phrase ‘stupid apes’ true, it had to be him.
“What do you think? You could stay here and fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go anywhere.”
“Is it always this dangerous?”
No point in lying to the girl.
“Yeah.” The Doctor watched in disgust as Mickey clung to Rose’s leg like a small child to its mother.
“Yeah, I can't. I’ve got to go and find my mum, and Mickey needs me."
The Doctor didn’t really know what to say. It wasn’t often people turned down time travel.
“See you around.”
The Doctor slipped back into the TARDIS, alone. He let the TARDIS dematerialize into the vortex, although he had no destination in mind. If Rose were here, he’d at least have someone to show the universe to. Someone to keep his mind off what he’d done.
He couldn’t face it yet. Not alone.
He needed to be somewhere safe.
The Doctor called the Chameleon Arch back to him.
Strapped into the machine once more, he felt the pain course through him.
~~*~~
Claude spent years on the streets of New York.
It was amazing how easily he could steal provisions when no one could see him. He lived on the roof of an apartment, and no one noticed. He didn't have to talk to anyone. He was completely and perfectly alone.
It was an easy life. Took care of pigeons. Swiped food off of plates in outdoor cafés during summer months. Ignored the outside world.
Peter Petrelli changed that, coming into his world and yelling at him.
It was all Claude could do not to roll his eyes. The next generation of the boy wonder, off to save the world.
Except that this one was convinced he was a bomb.
He'd gleefully pushed Peter over the edge of a building one night, watching him fall into a cab below. He winced when he realized a piece of glass had pierced right through Peter’s heart. Well, at least he wouldn’t go nuclear while he was dead. Taking his time, he headed down to inspect the body.
Claude just smiled when Peter sat up, gasping in pain.
Maybe there was hope for this one yet.
~~*~~
Claude felt a tranquilizer dart puncture his skin.
Bennet.
He never thought he’d see the day.
He knew little Claire had manifested powers, how Bennet was keeping her safe from the Company. Peter had told him all about Claire and her precious ‘homecoming'.
He’d thought Bennet loved his daughter too much to betray anyone else to the Company. Seen the error of his ways. That maybe, just maybe, the things he'd said to Bennet on the bridge had entered his thick skull.
Obviously not.
As Peter flew him away, Claude smiled. He hadn't done badly with this one.
He only wished that he could have done more for Bennet.
~~*~~
The Doctor stood in an alley outside Peter Petrelli’s apartment, watch open at his side. Last time, he knew that Bennet had convinced him to open the watch, although he wasn’t sure what made him do it this time.
Maybe Claude had known it was only a matter of time until the Company found him again.
His memories were clearer this time, at least. He remembered the TARDIS a few blocks away, and he began to walk.
As he stepped into the TARDIS, basking in the orange-and-green light, he looked down at the console. The TARDIS had a time and place set for him already.
Fifteen seconds after he’d left Rose Tyler.
That’d do.
If he couldn’t have a fantastic life anymore, the least he could would be to show Rose the universe.
She deserved it.
The TARDIS landed, and he opened the doors, peering outside.
“Did I mention it also travels in time?”
A few words later, and he watched a young blond girl run into the TARDIS.
A life changed forever by eight words.
~~*~~
Years later, the Doctor still remembered Bennet. He hadn’t followed the saga of superpowered humans at all since he'd become a Time Lord again. Claude wasn't the Doctor, and it would stay that way.
Still, when he bumped into a brown-haired girl in her early twenties during a trip to a corner store for a gallon of milk and watched her wounds from the fall heal, he knew that he had to do something. She looked terrified, trying to run as soon as she realized he recognized her powers for what they were.
He knew those powers, and he knew that face.
Claire.
She was the opposite of his Rose, blonde hair dyed brown, scared of the world.
It wasn’t right.
And so into the TARDIS he went, throwing his long brown overcoat over the railing as he walked back out the door into the blazing Texas summer.
“Mr. Bennet,” the Doctor said, grabbing his arm as the man began to step out of his car in a deserted parking lot. “I think we need to talk.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong man,” Bennet said smoothly. If anyone knew how to sound calm and collected while being anything but, it was Bennet.
“Oh, I think not. And I think it’s definitely time that you and I have a little chat about Claire.”
The Doctor watched in amusement as Bennet pulled open his jacket just enough for the Doctor to get a clear view of his gun.
“Do you love your daughter, Mr. Bennet?”
“I love my daughter more than anyone could ever know.”
“Enough that you’ll turn her in one day?”
This time Bennet reached into his jacket, hand grasping the gun handle.
“I don’t know what you know about Claire, but I advise you to leave this instant and forget anything you might know. You don’t want me doing anything you might regret.”
“You ever stop to think what’s more important? Your daughter or your job?”
The Doctor spun around on the heels of his off-white Converse and began to march off in the direction of the TARDIS. He hadn’t noticed Bennet looking at him curiously, almost as if he was beginning to recognize him.
After a few paces, he turned back towards Bennet with a smug look. “The life of your little girl. Just think about that, Noah.”
The Doctor turned around for good, not looking to see if his words had any affect. But he was the man who could feel the turn of the planet, and in that instant, he could almost hear the universe click into place. Just for a moment, one moment, everything was all right.
Sometimes, if he was very, very lucky, the Doctor could change the world with just a few small words.
He quite liked words.