We are fools to make war on our brothers in arms

[doesntlooktired]

It rarely snowed in London, not proper snow anyway, at least not snow like Harriet remembered from her childhood growing up in Yorkshire. But even so when she though about snow it was never her youth in Flydale North that came to mind but London streets on Christmas Day only three years ago. Despite appearances though, it hadn’t really been snow

Comments

[sortofaman]

The dogs probably wouldn't have eaten it. Sycorax tasted a bit of sulfur.

The Doctor was riding, coat a contrast of dark against the light colour of Arthur, ready to keep going past, as he found that Harriet Jones seemed to think of him as a hindrance upon her, a nasty reminder of the past. But the horse caught the alien scent on the wind and slowed, and the Doctor paused with him, leaving light prints across the snow as they came towards her.

Sympathy was something the Doctor had tried to find, but wasn't certain of. Not yet.

[doesntlooktired]

It was obviously fitting that after having mostly avoided the Doctor he found her when she was holding the mask but Harriet couldn't say she appreciated the coincidence. She was in no mood to be judged by him.

Nothing about the Doctor could surprise her anymore so she made no comment on the horse as he rode towards where she had paused, still holding the mask in front of her.

"Doctor," she greeted and it came out harsher than she intended. There was no need to be rude, she told herself, she had been right and she had no need to feel defensive.

"Hello," she continued in a softer tone and she forced a smile to go with it.

[sortofaman]

The Doctor brought Arthur up short, now wishing the bloody horse hadn't been so damned nosy in the first place. He recognised what she was holding, of course, and now his mind was playing out a rather frantic battle between being a complete bastard and being kind. He wasn't certain which was more distasteful a compromise.

"Harriet Jones," he said in a greeting. "Christmas come early this year?"

Right, the bastard had won a parry.

[doesntlooktired]

"They do say history repeats itself as farce, Doctor," Harriet replied, pulling herself up straight so she didn't have to look so far up at him. "So instead of a whole warship, there's just a single mask. Something of an improvement."

[sortofaman]

"You going to burn it, then?" the Doctor asked, and then mentally kicked himself for going a little too far. "A warship would mean something interesting, at least. A microcosm, that's just teasing you."

[doesntlooktired]

"I'd still take being teased over being attacked any day of the week," Harriet replied steadily. "And if you imagine that comments like that will make me realise how wrong I was that Christmas then I'm sorry to tell you that you're mistaken. I stand by my decision as, I imagine, you stand by yours."

[sortofaman]

"I don't deal in forced regrets," the Doctor said, "because they're useless. Or even unforced ones. I can't replay history for my own advantage, even if I wanted to. But I don't expect you'd think I wouldn't make my continued opinion known."

Arthur had managed to find some sort of scrub grass under the snow and was nibbling at it, which was annoying. The Doctor would have liked to make a good exit.

[doesntlooktired]

"You made your opinion perfectly clear at the time, Doctor," Harriet replied.

The arrival of the mask had set her on edge and she was in no mood to deal politely with the Doctor if he would not do the same to her. She could not just leave the conversation at that, even though she knew that would be the wise thing to do.

"I told you that Earth needed to be strong enough to defend itself when you weren't there," she continued, allowing three years of buried anger to bubble up to the surface. "If you had listened to me then, if you had allowed me the time to try and accomplish that then maybe we wouldn't have had the problems that we did, later on."

[sortofaman]

The Doctor looked down at her with a settled gaze. "Hindsight always twenty/twenty, Ms Jones?" he asked. "If I'd done what, if I'd allowed you to keep playing dirty? Do you know how much retribution your planet would have called down on its head long before Harold Saxon even showed up?"

[doesntlooktired]

"With the greatest respect, Doctor, it wasn't your choice to make," Harriet replied. "Millions of people had chosen me to make those decisions and you decided that your opinion was more important than theirs."

"I am not proud of what I did to the Sycorax but they came to my planet intending to turn us into slaves. What had we done to deserve that? Or to deserve the Slitheen? Or the Sontarans, or the Daleks? If any of the other planets had proved they were willing to mete retribution against the guilty then I would welcome that. But if no-one else stopped the Sycorax then I doubt a planet which only acted in self defence could expect any different."

[sortofaman]

It was clear how she'd become the PM, really, and what that other him had seen in her at Ten Downing Street. But the Doctor wasn't quite prepared to concede, not when she was, frankly, still wrong.

"So that's the face of Britannia, then," he said. "That's those millions of people's idea of self-defence. Shooting a retreating enemy in the back with your 'bow of burning gold', your 'arrows of desire'? Is that it? Clearly I shouldn't have thought so damned highly of the human race!"

[doesntlooktired]

She had always been a good debater. That's why what the Doctor had done to her had been so devastating and, frankly, so effective. If he had done whats she had half expected he would and told the word what she had done then it would have been a hard blow to take but she would have had the chance to respond from it, to argue her case before the people. But against the rumours of ill health and the underlying opinions they inflamed no amount of eloquence would work as a defence

[sortofaman]

"You're the one who said you were representative," the Doctor noted, "not me. And my race is dead. He's dead." And, really, his methodology was something he regretted. It had to be done, and there was no way more effective, but it...never mind.

"You're not a monster," he said after a moment, and he tugged gently on Arthur's reins, getting the horse ready to go. "Just misguided. But sometimes that's all it takes."

[doesntlooktired]

She hadn't known that, that his race was dead, though in hindsight perhaps she should have done, and it took the wind out of her anger.

She wondered if she should apologise but she wasn't sure what she could say, given that she still stood by most of what she'd said, and so she didn't. She said nothing, in fact, as she watched him ride off.