for fandom_muses: Dead Wrong
I'm doing the best that I could.
Trying my best to be understood
Maybe I'm changing slowly
I get out, turn around if only I...
“This world. This universe. I’m not sure how you lot wrap your minds around it.”
Small talk in a small moment, that wasn’t very small. Trying to dismantle the security system in a possibly alien base.
He turns around and she’s looking at him. Arms crossed. Not at all impressed. Ginger hair and fair skin and freckles. Her personality is electric. He wonders if he likes her so much because of superficial things. Sometimes if he looks at her from the right angle in the right lighting he mistakes her for Donna.
She still isn’t saying a word, and he turns back around towards the circuitry.
“You’re not just going to stand there looking put out all day, are you?” he asks.
He can feel her by his side. He’s good at sensing other peoples presence. He’s not sure if that’s something that comes from the Doctor or Donna. Or both. Or neither.
“This world? This universe? You lot? You talk like you’re from some other world.”
“Well,” he says still focusing on the circuitry. He sticks out his hand back towards her. “Gum.”
He thinks of Rose handing him her gum. She’s young and has so many possibilities ahead of her. It’s all there for the taking. Someone once said everything seemed to be held together by chewing gum and a prayer. They were right.
He takes the gum, and moves around inside the circuitry again. He can still feel her beside him.
“Oh, I’m sure,” she says. “You look very green and scaly and alien. Not sure why I didn’t see it before. Where are you from then, Jupiter?”
“You’re supposed to say Mars,” he says under his breath.
“What?”
“I said,” he says, loudly this time, “Jupiter isn’t green or scaly. Besides I’m not even from Jupiter.”
Sparks fly and they both jump backwards.
“Damn it!” he yells.
He burned his hand. He shakes it once, then sticks the side of his thumb in his mouth. Cooling off the burn.
He hated when he swore. Even stupid ones that barely constituted swear words. They were beneath Him. Somehow they were part of his vocabulary.
“You all right?”
“Fine,” he hisses.
He nurses his hand for another second before moving back towards the circuitry.
He watches her out of the corner of his eye as she leans over his shoulder. Grinning like the cat who ate the canary.
“Why don’t you just use your intergalactic otherworldly powers?”
He pretends he doesn’t see her. He focuses more than necessary on the work in front of him.
“Very funny,” he says dryly.
“Don’t they have a sense of humour on Neptune?”
“Not from Neptune.”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, whatever galaxy you’re from.”
“And universe,” he corrects.
He’s surprised to find himself talking about this all so casually. She reminds him too much of Donna.
“Right. Universe. Can’t forget universe.”
He stops what he’s doing and turns around to face her.
“It’s not as if it’s beyond the realm of possibility.”
“I’m sure.”
She laughs and rolls her eyes again and thinks it’s all a joke. Except it’s not a joke. This is his life.
At this moment, he wants nothing more than to prove to her he’s more than just some human. He needs to prove that he’s the Doctor.
But he can’t point to his chest. He only has one heart. Just like all humans.
He can’t hop into His TARDIS and show off. Time is linear and he is on the slow path. Just like most humans.
He can’t walk her mind or connect beyond human means. Her thoughts are hers and his thought are all his own. Just like any human.
The desire to prove to her he’s more than just this world and this universe and this human life is so strong. There’s nothing else he wants or needs right now.
The Doctor wouldn’t want to prove anything. The Doctor wouldn’t have to prove anything.
“Human nature’s a funny thing, Martha.”
“Fill me in, alien boy.”
He laughs at that and it reminds him of someone else’s life.
“We always want to be something we’re not.”
She sobers up a bit, the smile fading. She opens her mouth to say something, but he won’t let her. He turns back around towards the circuitry and wires.
“Hair pin,” he says, holding out a hand.
He waits a moment and feels the weight of her hand in his.
He takes the hairpin and notices strands of ginger hair still tangled up with the wire. He remembers a Man who wanted nothing more than to be ginger. He remembers a woman who needed nothing more than to be special.
He remembers he’s both and neither and maybe something else entirely.
He remembers too late he needs to work around the blue wire first. He jumps backwards from more sparks and burns his hand again.
“Shit!” he yells, and for once he doesn’t think about how the words don’t sound like Him. The words are his, and right now that’s enough.