Fic: For a branch, for a tree
For a branch, for a tree. Eleven. Amy. G. For this ficathon and goreplz's prompt Amy/Eleven, my love, the only one who can see the same scenery as i.
~
He's leaning against the railing, dimly aware of the metal against his back and the almost-usual TARDIS sounds and the almost-usual TARDIS lights and that remnants of some war are tapping at his attention - he doesn’t delve to see which.
He’s also dimly aware of something tugging at his collar, of the starched edge of it cutting into skin and momentarily jolting the flow of blood through one of his carotid arteries and he forces himself to concentrate - he’s old and his head is full and loud and so the thought he focuses on is yes, Amy’s awake.
She lets go of his shirt and spreads her arms; all red hair and skirt and undone bootlaces and... fluffy knit trailing-the-floor coat in shades of green that he dimly remembers buying as/for his second body. “Straighten up, Doctor,” she says. “Get time machine-ing. Found a coat, so we have to go someplace cold because that’s how it works.” She mimes something that is pulling levers, probably, and makes the coat slide further down one shoulder.
“Someplace cold?”
“Come on, I’m giving you opportunities here. You might even get to say we got where we were going.”
Now he’s thinking about eighteen different glaciers, and about the only snow festival of Korbs Four, about the Rising Statue of Lake Sleet ... and about the luxury of seeing through her eyes. Yes, the way she zeroed in on the very best thing every place, every time, had to offer; the things that would have been his favourites, once upon, when he could still pick them. Oh, the way she looked at things and touched them and smelt them; the way she committed every trip to memory; the way she talked about them afterwards. The girl who’d had the Universe thrust upon her, the girl who’d waited and waited for something besides the English village... and the would-be hermit who had dreamt of stars and seen too much. When she saw it, he saw it. The girl who’d cut him out of paper and inferred two thousand years of existence with her scissors: he would cut her silhouette from history, and he would do it with only ‘cold’ to go on, if he had to.
He pretends to roll his eyes only to realise halfway through that one can’t pretend to do that even if one is a Time Lord and he blinks instead and - oh, dear, now she thinks he’s winking at her. Again. He pretends to straighten his braces instead (one can definitely pretend to do that) and he looks forward to it, rather too much (so much, in fact, he might wink with intent) -
what would Amy Pond make of cold?
~
He's leaning against the railing, dimly aware of the metal against his back and the almost-usual TARDIS sounds and the almost-usual TARDIS lights and that remnants of some war are tapping at his attention - he doesn’t delve to see which.
He’s also dimly aware of something tugging at his collar, of the starched edge of it cutting into skin and momentarily jolting the flow of blood through one of his carotid arteries and he forces himself to concentrate - he’s old and his head is full and loud and so the thought he focuses on is yes, Amy’s awake.
She lets go of his shirt and spreads her arms; all red hair and skirt and undone bootlaces and... fluffy knit trailing-the-floor coat in shades of green that he dimly remembers buying as/for his second body. “Straighten up, Doctor,” she says. “Get time machine-ing. Found a coat, so we have to go someplace cold because that’s how it works.” She mimes something that is pulling levers, probably, and makes the coat slide further down one shoulder.
“Someplace cold?”
“Come on, I’m giving you opportunities here. You might even get to say we got where we were going.”
Now he’s thinking about eighteen different glaciers, and about the only snow festival of Korbs Four, about the Rising Statue of Lake Sleet ... and about the luxury of seeing through her eyes. Yes, the way she zeroed in on the very best thing every place, every time, had to offer; the things that would have been his favourites, once upon, when he could still pick them. Oh, the way she looked at things and touched them and smelt them; the way she committed every trip to memory; the way she talked about them afterwards. The girl who’d had the Universe thrust upon her, the girl who’d waited and waited for something besides the English village... and the would-be hermit who had dreamt of stars and seen too much. When she saw it, he saw it. The girl who’d cut him out of paper and inferred two thousand years of existence with her scissors: he would cut her silhouette from history, and he would do it with only ‘cold’ to go on, if he had to.
He pretends to roll his eyes only to realise halfway through that one can’t pretend to do that even if one is a Time Lord and he blinks instead and - oh, dear, now she thinks he’s winking at her. Again. He pretends to straighten his braces instead (one can definitely pretend to do that) and he looks forward to it, rather too much (so much, in fact, he might wink with intent) -
what would Amy Pond make of cold?