(Untitled)

[thedoctorwho]

One of the slogans for Milliways once upon a time was "If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways?" The Doctor's not sure he's accomplished six today, but he figures it's close enough for a drink. So before the Clerics arrive to collect River, he leads her and Amy through the TARDIS hallways

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[ostro_goth]

Teja is sitting by the fireplace, brooding over a mug of tea (even Goths adapt to some modern things here), and looks up when he notices the interrupted entrance.

"Greetings," he says, getting up. "It is not supposed to do that."

He touches the door.

[thedoctorwho]

The Doctor looks back at the door. "Oh, I'm sure it's nothing. Amy's just had a tough day."

[ostro_goth]

"That is no reason for the door not to let her pass," Teja says, peering at the door. "Things have been odd lately, I fear."

[thedoctorwho]

"More odd than things usually are, you mean?"

[ostro_goth]

"There were explosions," Teja says, "that green -- yellow, now -- crystal appeared over the bar, there's a crack in the wall, rumours of a crack in the Window, it has grown fearfully cold and snowy outside, a building has appeared that tries shooting on people, and there are fears that the time loop somebody once said this place is on, might finally collapse, so we would no longer be pulled around time and again from the very brink."

[thedoctorwho]

There's a crack in the wall.

The Doctor's blood freezes, and nothing that Teja says after that point registers at all. He starts looking around, but he doesn't see it -- or more accurately, it doesn't want him to see it.

"Show me the crack."

[ostro_goth]

"It is there," Teja says, pointing at the out-of-the-way crack in the wall behind the bar, high up.

"It is small, and seems so unimportant," Teja says. "But I pay attention to all in this place; as part of Security, that is my duty. More worrisome, though, I find the purported crack in the Window."

[thedoctorwho]

Once you see it, you can't not see it. The Doctor keeps his eyes focused on it. It doesn't just look like Amy's crack, it's the same exact one. He can feel it.

"The window's cracked before," he says absently. "This is far more dangerous. If the window breaks, all it can do is kill you."

[ostro_goth]

"Indeed?" Teja says. "Oh, how harmless, as I died three times already. Four, if you count the Battlefield World."

He shrugs, raising an eyebrow at the stranger.

"And what fate-worse-than-death will that mere crack in the plaster bestow upon me?"

[thedoctorwho]

He still doesn't turn around; his attention is consumed by the crack. "Not the crack itself, but the light that's likely to start coming in from behind it if it gets any wider. If that hits you, you're erased. Your existence is removed from history, as though you were never born."

[ostro_goth]

"That would be very, very bad," Teja says, grimly. "I was needed by my people in their most dire hour; were I erased, then all would have gone wrong much earlier, and in far worse a manner."

[thedoctorwho]

"My suggestion? Stay out of the light. Don't even look at it."

[ostro_goth]

"I shall," Teja says, "for the sake of my people."

As he has always done.

[thedoctorwho]

"And in the meantime, I'm going to see what I can do about closing it."

[ostro_goth]

"Thank you," Teja says. "Then, only a perceived 143 modes of doom would remain, instead of 144."

[thedoctorwho]

"One thing at a time."