Another Arrival (open to all)
"5008. Not 2008, 5008." Missing a destination by a few years of a few miles was something he was well used to. Missing by three thousand years and most of a galaxy was strange even for him. No matter how many button he pushed or levers he tweaked nothing changed. His rubber mallet, unused for decades, didn't even do anything. Apparently he
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Susan had seen a lot of strange things, but she hadn't been expecting that one.
In fact, she'd barely even registered the appearance of yet another TARDIS, or the man who stepped out of it. After all, what was one more ship when the garden was full of them?
A wolf was new, though. A wolf was interesting.
Tentatively, she stepped closer to it, wondering if it would attack.
"Hello," she said, in what she hoped was a gentle voice. It was the sort of tone David had used, when dealing with unruly animals on the little farmstead they'd called home.
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The Doctor, for his part, stood frozen in the TARDIS doorway. She looked so much the same as she had, all those centuries ago when he had last seen her. His Susan, his granddaughter. He had the overwelming urge to wrap him arms around her and hold her tightly. He wasn't sure such affection would be welcomed. He wasn't sure he was even capable of such interactions anymore.
"Hello Susan."
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Nevertheless, she dropped to her knees to greet Sawyer properly, still beaming, and she was in that position when the man spoke.
A man standing in the TARDIS doorway, and looking at her in a way that had become worryingly familiar. It was the way later incarnations of her Grandfather - only later incarnations, though - looked at her. As if they couldn't quite believe she was real.
"Hello," she replied, before adding, as if addressing Sawyer: "Is he with you?"
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The Doctor stepped out of the doorway and locked the TARDIS behind him. He didn't move far, but stood with his hands in his pockets and watched the girl and the wolf. "He'll let you pet him, if you want. He's rather domestic for a wild animal."
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"Sawyer," she repeated. It wasn't the sort of name she'd been expecting for a wolf.
"I'm Susan," she added, again more for the benefit of Sawyer than anyone else. She looked up at the man she still assumed to be a version of the Doctor. "I...I think you know that, though, don't you?"
Of course, it would be a little awkward if she found out she was wrong, but the odds of that probably weren't very good.
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The Doctor crouched down and rested his hand on Sawyer's back. He tried to think of something to say, but this is one of those rare times when words fail him.
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Susan smiled broadly, drawing her eyes away from Sawyer to look at the man.
"Which regeneration are you?" she inquired. Fortunately, words rarely failed Susan, especially when she was talking to her Grandfather.
"Since arriving here I've met your second, third, fifth, eighth and tenth self," she added, in an attempt to explain her question, "Or versions of them, anyway. Sometimes more than one version. It's a little confusing."
She wished she could work it out without having to ask. The eyes were generally the best indicator of age, but trying to stare into them would feel far too rude.
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Eleven. He feels so very old. He is old, and tired, but maybe that's just seeing his granddaughter and remembering the man - the men - he'd been before.
"You look..." Young. Brilliant. Like all the best parts of Gallifrey rolled into one. "Good."
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Eleven regenerations. It seemed a phenomenal number. She hadn't regenerated even once, and wondered how long it had taken him in Earth years.
"Thank you," she said, smiling, and stroking Sawyer again, "Are you traveling with any humans in this regeneration? You seem to travel with a lot of humans."
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"It's just Sawyer and I now, but until recently we've been living in a castle, playing adviser to a King."
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There was the completely innocent optimism again. She continued to believe that Barbara would arrive any day now. The universe needed her just as much as Susan and Ian did.
"A castle?" she gasped, eyes wide, "In what era? What planet?"
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"Earth, but in a parallel universe." The pain of that place - the war, the death - was still too close, but for Susan he would speak of it. She would find amusement in his stories, he hoped. "I lived in a tall tower, and the people called me Merlin. They thought I was a wizard."
OOC: In your canon does Susan have two hearts?
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"Merlin," she repeated excitedly, thinking of the Arthurian legend. There hadn't been much time for fiction in the aftermath of the invasion, but she and David had often read to Barbara and Ian. She'd always been fascinated by how easy they found it to see wonders in their world, when adults often failed to see anything at all.
"You don't look much like the illustrations," she added with a giggle, mentally fitting him with a purple robe and a white beard.
OOC: Yep, she does.
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"The heart of the stories are true, though much has been filtered by time and space." He looked at her, trying to find out how much she's been affected by time. Despite the fact that she looks the same he knows time has passed for her.
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She wondered what the stories would be like if they hadn't been diluted. Probably considerably more frightening.
"What was Arthur like? King Arthur, I mean."
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"Arthur was..." He searched for the right words to describe the friend so recently lost. "Loyal. Brave. Brilliant. He reminded me of Ian, a little."
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