Chaos Theory on Dimensionally Stable Objects on Earth College Campuses (2/27-ish)
Title - Chaos Theory on Dimensionally Stable Objects on Earth College Campuses (2/27-ish)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, Jackie, OCs
Spoilers - None
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids. They're all mine.)
Summary - Brem goes to university.
Author's Notes - jlrpuck is my long-suffering beta, who really notices when I say "first floor" and mean "ground floor."
Many, many, many thanks to Kristin, for all the ideas. Thanks also to bouncy_castle79, who once again gave it the first outside-eyes read-through.
The gorgeous icon was created by swankkat for me, commissioned by jlrpuck for my birthday.
1
Chapter Two
To hear the Doctor tell it, there really wasn’t much of a possibility that Brem wouldn’t be accepted to Harvard, but Rose still insisted on a celebratory dinner when Jackie rang them with the news. Just because Brem was a remarkable Time Lord who always got everything right didn’t mean he shouldn’t still be praised for an accomplishment like getting accepted to an excellent university, pedestrian though it might seem.
And then the real adventure began, because Brem began packing. In nearly eighteen years of life, Brem had given lots of thought to outer space, but had never had to think about the inner space he inhabited. The concept of running out of space required him to use a piece of his brain previously left alone. When his belongings had grown too numerous, the TARDIS had enlarged his bedroom, or added a separate workshop or laboratory. Rose spent many hours with Brem, patiently explaining how the dorm room would not be big enough to accommodate the 317 books he considered absolutely indispensable to his existence. At every practical human point Rose made, the Doctor got frustrated and complained about the silliness of the whole endeavor. Brem merely attacked the fresh challenge with gusto, trimming his list of indispensable books, selecting a duvet that his mother insisted he tolerate for at least a year, getting a lesson on how to do laundry from his grandmother. The girls took part in everything, offering opinions and generally enjoying the idea of this strange, new lifestyle Brem was preparing for. When Brem had to register for classes, they clustered as a family unit around the computer they had recently purchased for Brem, debating the merits of various classes. The computer was a novelty in and of itself: The Doctor thought it an “archaic piece of machinery” to have in his TARDIS; Rose pointed out that the TARDIS itself was held together with shoelaces and bubble gum. The classes themselves were all too simple in the Doctor’s view, all endlessly fascinating in Brem’s view, all dark and mysterious in Fortuna’s view, and all rated on their chances of finding her hopeless brother a girlfriend in Athena’s view.
The Doctor took all of them to Harvard for the beginning of Brem’s university adventure, Jackie included. Jackie supervised the packing of the same-size-on-the-inside suitcases and bags, all of which perplexed the children. They watched their grandmother in amazement as she rolled articles of clothing into tiny balls and tucked them expertly into bursting suitcases. Brem was at least simple to pack for clothing-wise, as he wore the same uniform every day-jeans with a long-sleeved T-shirt topped by a short-sleeved T-shirt. The T-shirts themselves were surprisingly drab and dull, usually plain in unremarkable colors. When Brem wore a whimsical T-shirt, he was in a rare mood.
Brem’s one glimpse of Harvard, during the brief trip there, had not been enough for him to discern where the dorms were. For this reason, the TARDIS landed quite a walk away from the dormitory building Brem had been assigned to, and they had to carry Brem’s belongings through the crowded Harvard Yard. Rose was pleased-if a bit surprised-when the Doctor failed to grumble about this. But when she looked at him, he, eyes wide, was too busy taking everything in. Brem, meanwhile, was doing very little looking around, due to his nose being buried in the orientation packet. Fortuna, bouncing along beside them, kept asking questions, about the types of trees and whether they thought everyone there was human or a few might not be aliens. Athena kept self-consciously tossing her hair to assess how many stares she got in return. Jackie was enjoying everything, glancing around and making comments.
Rose smiled. To the casual passer-by, they probably looked like a completely normal family.
“This is the building,” said Brem, drawing to a halt in front of it. “I think it’s a ground-floor room.” Brem paused, and Rose realized he was far more nervous about this than he would ever let on.
“Well, let’s go see it, then,” said the Doctor, with a soothing cheerfulness she could have kissed him for.
The halls were filled with students and families moving in. Rose had never thought of Brem as shy before, but he seemed shy now. Out of his element, she realized. He was out of his element, a condition she’d never seen him in before. She could almost feel the speed at which his thoughts were racing to process everything and form an appropriate response.
Each of the doors they passed had two construction paper sailboats stuck to them, each containing a name. They were nearly to the end of the hallway when they found “Bremsstrahlung” squeezed onto a sailboat. Brem had spent a great deal of time convincing Harvard that his name was not the shortened “Bremsstrah” that fit on standardized test forms. He supposed he should have been proud that the sailboat contained his whole name, but he thought it looked slightly ridiculous now. Especially next to the simplicity of the name “Matthew” on the other sailboat. Maybe, he though, this was all going to be more than he could handle. The hallway suddenly seemed small and claustrophobic.
“Don’t you have a key?” Fortuna asked beside him, matter-of-factly, oblivious to her brother’s considerable inner turmoil.
He did. He was clutching it in his hand. It felt strange and uncomfortable, not fitting him the way the TARDIS key tucked in his pocket did. He swallowed and forced himself to stop being ridiculous, fitting the key in the lock and turning it.
The room was even smaller than he’d imagined it would be.
“Not bad, Brem, huh?” said Mum, walking by him and into the room. “All your stuff will fit easily.”
His roommate had already been there. There was a red-and-blue plaid duvet on one of the beds, and a computer and school supplies lined up neatly on one of the desks. But Matthew himself was nowhere to be seen.
Mum was being extremely pragmatic, which he appreciated. She enlisted him in unpacking his clothing, coaching him on how it ought to be organized. His grandmother and the girls were attacking the rest of his belongings, setting up the laptop and stacking the books he’d brought. Twenty-five, which his mother had set as the limit.
His father was running the sonic screwdriver over every one of Matthew’s possessions.
“What are you doing?” Mum asked him.
“Just checking.”
“Checking what?”
“Stuff.”
“Well, stop it. What if he walks in here?”
Impossibly, on this cue, they heard a key inserted into the door. His mother snatched the screwdriver out of his father’s hand, to his father’s stammering protest, as the door swung open on a person Brem assumed to be Matthew. Like Brem, he erred on the tall side, although he wasn’t quite as lanky as Brem-a feature Brem tried to disguise as much as possible by draping himself in layers. His hair was a very dark brown-much darker than Brem’s-and was cropped fairly short.
He looked at Brem and said, “You must be Bremmis-Bremstah-”
The accent was United States, Southern region, Brem registered, as he said, “It’s just Brem,” and shook the hand Matthew offered.
“Well, that’s a relief,” replied Matthew, cheerfully. “I’m just Matt. And these are my parents, Ted and Mary Beth.”
Matt’s parents were as cheerful and smiling as he was. He resembled his mother more than his father, although it was his father who was the tall one. Brem supposed he was supposed to introduce his family as well.
“This is…” He looked around at them. “Well, everyone,” he finished, lamely, because it was.
“I’m Rose,” said his mother, leaning forward to shake everyone’s hands. “And this is my mum, Jackie. Athena and Fortuna. And the Doctor.”
If Matt’s family thought there was anything weird about Brem’s father being introduced as “the Doctor,” they didn’t show it.
“Where are y’all from?” asked Ted.
“London,” answered Mum, which was the family’s standard reply to this question. Unless it was more appropriate to say Earth. Even in places where off-planet visitors were common, they never used the words “Gallifrey” or even “TARDIS” if they could help it. Those were words that always provoked off and unsettling reactions at the best of times, nearly fatal reactions at the worst.
“We’re from New Orleans,” said Mary Beth, then turned her kindly smile onto Brem. “Settling in, I see. We just came from buying Matt’s books.”
“Books?” echoed Brem, stupidly, thinking of the books he’d already packed, and which were currently taking up a great deal of the precious-and decidedly weird-limited amount of space.
“Yeah,” said Matt. “At the Coop. You know where it is, right?”
Brem was loathe to admit he had no idea what Matt was talking about, especially when Matt seemed to expect he did. A coop? Brem could think only of a chicken coop, which he knew couldn’t be right. Or babies slept in things called “coops” on V’ym, but that couldn’t be right, either. He was one of the universe’s last four Time Lords. He was sure he could figure it out. “Sure,” he lied. “Absolutely. Exactamundo.” He winced. “I won’t use that word again, I promise.”
Matt laughed at him. Brem tried to determine whether that was a good thing or not.
“Are those all your books?” asked Fortuna, indicating the bags Matt and his family were lugging around.
“Yeah,” said Matt.
“You’ll never fit all those books, Brem,” remarked Fortuna, “unless Mum lets you build a multi-dimensional bookcase.”
There was a moment of silence.
“She has quite the imagination,” Mum said, and then looked at him. “No multi-dimensional bookcases.”
“Maybe we should go buy my books,” suggested Brem.
“How long will y’all be in town for?” queried Ted. “Maybe we could have dinner. Somewhere in Harvard Square. We’re still exploring.”
“That would be lovely,” said Mum, warmly. “When we get back from buying Brem’s books.”
Together, they filed out of the room, back into Harvard Yard.
“They seem nice,” said Mum, sounding pleased. “I think you’ll get along.”
“They smile too much,” said Dad. “I don’t trust people who smile too much. Not since one of them turned into a giant slug and tried to eat Athena.”
“They’re just nice people,” said Grandma. “They’re not aliens.”
“Anyway,” contributed Athena, “Buffy’s smile was creepy. It made the hairs go up on the back of your neck. They’re not like that.”
“We’ll have all of dinner to figure out if Matt is going to turn into a giant slug and eat Brem,” Mum concluded, mildly.
Brem let them talk, peering at the map to locate this mysterious coop, which, he discovered, was back in Harvard Square. “This way,” he said, confidently, feeling like the Pied Piper as he led them.
It did take Brem an embarrassingly long period of time to figure out that he was supposed to be buying books in the student side of the bookstore, and not the general side of the bookstore. And then it took him an embarrassingly long period of time to realize that the books were organized according to class.
“So what classes are you taking?” asked Fortuna.
“Um,” said Brem. It had not even occurred to him that he ought to print out his schedule to get books. And he couldn’t imagine that it had not even occurred to him.
“You remember,” said Athena, and he knew that she knew she was saving him, and he decided he owed her. A lot. “You’re taking this Intro to Anthropology class here, remember?”
Brem calmed down a bit. He did remember his schedule. There was no reason to be surviving on the knife’s edge of panic the way he was doing. He could do this.
Even if it meant buying a ridiculous number of books that even he, with his limited experience at judging such things, recognized were not going to fit in his mono-dimensional bookcase, and then being slightly flummoxed by having to pay for the books with money, and not British money but American money. He was going to have to figure out how this money thing worked. There were an impossible number of things he was going to have to figure out.
Matt and his family were still at the dorm room when they got back. It seemed an unreasonable number of people to have in one place, all of them scrambling over each other. Mum liked Matt’s mother, Brem could tell from the chatty nature of their conversation. Mary Beth was telling stories about their trip so far-the hotel, and the people they’d met, and where the gym was located, and whether the food at the cafeteria was palatable. Matt seemed to be bearing the stories with good humor, while he was asking Brem’s input about where the television ought to go, and whether they ought to get a refrigerator to share. Brem was aware of his father in the background, doing something Mum would doubtlessly disapprove of with the sonic screwdriver. Ted started to ask a question about it, and Dad shushed him, and Brem knew he was hoping not to be discovered by Mum. He watched Matt connect the cable to the television and thought how he had no idea how to connect cable to a television. At least, not without a sonic screwdriver.
“What do you think?” said Matt, glancing at him.
“About?”
“The fridge.”
“Oh.” Brem forced himself to focus. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. I think it’s a good idea. Where can we get one?”
“They’re selling them on the Yard.”
“I’ll look into it,” said Brem, standing up.
Matt looked at him in mild surprise. “What, now?”
“Yeah. I’ve got time before dinner, don’t I?”
“I guess,” Matt agreed.
“Great. I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?” Mum asked, from where she was carefully arranging things in his wardrobe.
“To the Yard,” he said. “I’m investigating the possibility of refrigerators.”
Mum nodded, and Brem escaped with a bit of relief, into some fresh air, where there was a bit more space. He located where the refrigerators were being sold, and stuck his hands in his pockets and regarded the refrigerators. There was really nothing to decide here. There was only one type to buy, so he would pay the price and bring it back. But he stood there, pretending that he had some reason to be standing outside far longer than necessary.
“The fridge is a good idea,” said Athena, suddenly appearing next to him.
He started and looked at her. “Yeah.”
“You could probably get a better price somewhere else, though.”
“Yeah.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I should buy it,” he said.
“Yeah. How are we going to get it back to the dorm, though? You and I aren’t exactly known for our super-strength.”
“Good point,” he said. “It’s a good point.” And why hadn’t he thought of it? He felt more unlike himself than he would have thought possible.
“I’m jealous,” she said.
“Jealous?”
“I think it’s going to be fun.” He looked at her, and she smiled, tongue caught between her teeth. “I think you’re going to be having way more fun here than I am at home.”
“Probably,” he allowed, and he smiled back.
“You’re going to ring me all the time, though, right?”
“Well, I’ve got to,” he said. “I’m going to need to ask your advice about things.”
“Yeah, because you’re pretty hopeless when left to your own devices,” she grinned at him.
It was her constant refrain, and he suspected it had been since they had first learned how to talk. It might have been her first words, for all he knew. “I know.”
“Here’s the deal,” said Athena. “You need to do your job, right?”
“What’s my job?”
“Figuring all this out for me, so that you can tell me all about how to do it and I get to have an easy time of it when it’s my turn.”
“That’s my job, is it?”
“Uh-huh. You didn’t know that?”
“Welllllll, I suspected.”
“We should get back. It’s time for dinner. We’ll make Matt help with the refrigerator later, he looks a bit stronger than you.”
“If you gave me a few minutes with the sonic screwdriver, I could rig a device using a few tree limbs and a pulley system-“
“And Mum would kill you.”
“Not if somebody didn’t tell her.”
“Let’s do it the old-fashioned way, in honor of your new, old-fashioned life.”
“Spoilsport,” he said, but they turned as one to walk back to the dorm.
“You alright now?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m always alright,” he answered.
“Of course you are.”
“But I am alright.”
“Good. Not many guys with tentacles around here, are there?”
“Let’s not talk about this,” said Brem, and Athena laughed at him as they walked into the dorm together.
Which made him feel exactly like Bremsstrahlung Tyler. Which was exactly what he needed.
Next Chapter
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, Jackie, OCs
Spoilers - None
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids. They're all mine.)
Summary - Brem goes to university.
Author's Notes - jlrpuck is my long-suffering beta, who really notices when I say "first floor" and mean "ground floor."
Many, many, many thanks to Kristin, for all the ideas. Thanks also to bouncy_castle79, who once again gave it the first outside-eyes read-through.
The gorgeous icon was created by swankkat for me, commissioned by jlrpuck for my birthday.
1
Chapter Two
To hear the Doctor tell it, there really wasn’t much of a possibility that Brem wouldn’t be accepted to Harvard, but Rose still insisted on a celebratory dinner when Jackie rang them with the news. Just because Brem was a remarkable Time Lord who always got everything right didn’t mean he shouldn’t still be praised for an accomplishment like getting accepted to an excellent university, pedestrian though it might seem.
And then the real adventure began, because Brem began packing. In nearly eighteen years of life, Brem had given lots of thought to outer space, but had never had to think about the inner space he inhabited. The concept of running out of space required him to use a piece of his brain previously left alone. When his belongings had grown too numerous, the TARDIS had enlarged his bedroom, or added a separate workshop or laboratory. Rose spent many hours with Brem, patiently explaining how the dorm room would not be big enough to accommodate the 317 books he considered absolutely indispensable to his existence. At every practical human point Rose made, the Doctor got frustrated and complained about the silliness of the whole endeavor. Brem merely attacked the fresh challenge with gusto, trimming his list of indispensable books, selecting a duvet that his mother insisted he tolerate for at least a year, getting a lesson on how to do laundry from his grandmother. The girls took part in everything, offering opinions and generally enjoying the idea of this strange, new lifestyle Brem was preparing for. When Brem had to register for classes, they clustered as a family unit around the computer they had recently purchased for Brem, debating the merits of various classes. The computer was a novelty in and of itself: The Doctor thought it an “archaic piece of machinery” to have in his TARDIS; Rose pointed out that the TARDIS itself was held together with shoelaces and bubble gum. The classes themselves were all too simple in the Doctor’s view, all endlessly fascinating in Brem’s view, all dark and mysterious in Fortuna’s view, and all rated on their chances of finding her hopeless brother a girlfriend in Athena’s view.
The Doctor took all of them to Harvard for the beginning of Brem’s university adventure, Jackie included. Jackie supervised the packing of the same-size-on-the-inside suitcases and bags, all of which perplexed the children. They watched their grandmother in amazement as she rolled articles of clothing into tiny balls and tucked them expertly into bursting suitcases. Brem was at least simple to pack for clothing-wise, as he wore the same uniform every day-jeans with a long-sleeved T-shirt topped by a short-sleeved T-shirt. The T-shirts themselves were surprisingly drab and dull, usually plain in unremarkable colors. When Brem wore a whimsical T-shirt, he was in a rare mood.
Brem’s one glimpse of Harvard, during the brief trip there, had not been enough for him to discern where the dorms were. For this reason, the TARDIS landed quite a walk away from the dormitory building Brem had been assigned to, and they had to carry Brem’s belongings through the crowded Harvard Yard. Rose was pleased-if a bit surprised-when the Doctor failed to grumble about this. But when she looked at him, he, eyes wide, was too busy taking everything in. Brem, meanwhile, was doing very little looking around, due to his nose being buried in the orientation packet. Fortuna, bouncing along beside them, kept asking questions, about the types of trees and whether they thought everyone there was human or a few might not be aliens. Athena kept self-consciously tossing her hair to assess how many stares she got in return. Jackie was enjoying everything, glancing around and making comments.
Rose smiled. To the casual passer-by, they probably looked like a completely normal family.
“This is the building,” said Brem, drawing to a halt in front of it. “I think it’s a ground-floor room.” Brem paused, and Rose realized he was far more nervous about this than he would ever let on.
“Well, let’s go see it, then,” said the Doctor, with a soothing cheerfulness she could have kissed him for.
The halls were filled with students and families moving in. Rose had never thought of Brem as shy before, but he seemed shy now. Out of his element, she realized. He was out of his element, a condition she’d never seen him in before. She could almost feel the speed at which his thoughts were racing to process everything and form an appropriate response.
Each of the doors they passed had two construction paper sailboats stuck to them, each containing a name. They were nearly to the end of the hallway when they found “Bremsstrahlung” squeezed onto a sailboat. Brem had spent a great deal of time convincing Harvard that his name was not the shortened “Bremsstrah” that fit on standardized test forms. He supposed he should have been proud that the sailboat contained his whole name, but he thought it looked slightly ridiculous now. Especially next to the simplicity of the name “Matthew” on the other sailboat. Maybe, he though, this was all going to be more than he could handle. The hallway suddenly seemed small and claustrophobic.
“Don’t you have a key?” Fortuna asked beside him, matter-of-factly, oblivious to her brother’s considerable inner turmoil.
He did. He was clutching it in his hand. It felt strange and uncomfortable, not fitting him the way the TARDIS key tucked in his pocket did. He swallowed and forced himself to stop being ridiculous, fitting the key in the lock and turning it.
The room was even smaller than he’d imagined it would be.
“Not bad, Brem, huh?” said Mum, walking by him and into the room. “All your stuff will fit easily.”
His roommate had already been there. There was a red-and-blue plaid duvet on one of the beds, and a computer and school supplies lined up neatly on one of the desks. But Matthew himself was nowhere to be seen.
Mum was being extremely pragmatic, which he appreciated. She enlisted him in unpacking his clothing, coaching him on how it ought to be organized. His grandmother and the girls were attacking the rest of his belongings, setting up the laptop and stacking the books he’d brought. Twenty-five, which his mother had set as the limit.
His father was running the sonic screwdriver over every one of Matthew’s possessions.
“What are you doing?” Mum asked him.
“Just checking.”
“Checking what?”
“Stuff.”
“Well, stop it. What if he walks in here?”
Impossibly, on this cue, they heard a key inserted into the door. His mother snatched the screwdriver out of his father’s hand, to his father’s stammering protest, as the door swung open on a person Brem assumed to be Matthew. Like Brem, he erred on the tall side, although he wasn’t quite as lanky as Brem-a feature Brem tried to disguise as much as possible by draping himself in layers. His hair was a very dark brown-much darker than Brem’s-and was cropped fairly short.
He looked at Brem and said, “You must be Bremmis-Bremstah-”
The accent was United States, Southern region, Brem registered, as he said, “It’s just Brem,” and shook the hand Matthew offered.
“Well, that’s a relief,” replied Matthew, cheerfully. “I’m just Matt. And these are my parents, Ted and Mary Beth.”
Matt’s parents were as cheerful and smiling as he was. He resembled his mother more than his father, although it was his father who was the tall one. Brem supposed he was supposed to introduce his family as well.
“This is…” He looked around at them. “Well, everyone,” he finished, lamely, because it was.
“I’m Rose,” said his mother, leaning forward to shake everyone’s hands. “And this is my mum, Jackie. Athena and Fortuna. And the Doctor.”
If Matt’s family thought there was anything weird about Brem’s father being introduced as “the Doctor,” they didn’t show it.
“Where are y’all from?” asked Ted.
“London,” answered Mum, which was the family’s standard reply to this question. Unless it was more appropriate to say Earth. Even in places where off-planet visitors were common, they never used the words “Gallifrey” or even “TARDIS” if they could help it. Those were words that always provoked off and unsettling reactions at the best of times, nearly fatal reactions at the worst.
“We’re from New Orleans,” said Mary Beth, then turned her kindly smile onto Brem. “Settling in, I see. We just came from buying Matt’s books.”
“Books?” echoed Brem, stupidly, thinking of the books he’d already packed, and which were currently taking up a great deal of the precious-and decidedly weird-limited amount of space.
“Yeah,” said Matt. “At the Coop. You know where it is, right?”
Brem was loathe to admit he had no idea what Matt was talking about, especially when Matt seemed to expect he did. A coop? Brem could think only of a chicken coop, which he knew couldn’t be right. Or babies slept in things called “coops” on V’ym, but that couldn’t be right, either. He was one of the universe’s last four Time Lords. He was sure he could figure it out. “Sure,” he lied. “Absolutely. Exactamundo.” He winced. “I won’t use that word again, I promise.”
Matt laughed at him. Brem tried to determine whether that was a good thing or not.
“Are those all your books?” asked Fortuna, indicating the bags Matt and his family were lugging around.
“Yeah,” said Matt.
“You’ll never fit all those books, Brem,” remarked Fortuna, “unless Mum lets you build a multi-dimensional bookcase.”
There was a moment of silence.
“She has quite the imagination,” Mum said, and then looked at him. “No multi-dimensional bookcases.”
“Maybe we should go buy my books,” suggested Brem.
“How long will y’all be in town for?” queried Ted. “Maybe we could have dinner. Somewhere in Harvard Square. We’re still exploring.”
“That would be lovely,” said Mum, warmly. “When we get back from buying Brem’s books.”
Together, they filed out of the room, back into Harvard Yard.
“They seem nice,” said Mum, sounding pleased. “I think you’ll get along.”
“They smile too much,” said Dad. “I don’t trust people who smile too much. Not since one of them turned into a giant slug and tried to eat Athena.”
“They’re just nice people,” said Grandma. “They’re not aliens.”
“Anyway,” contributed Athena, “Buffy’s smile was creepy. It made the hairs go up on the back of your neck. They’re not like that.”
“We’ll have all of dinner to figure out if Matt is going to turn into a giant slug and eat Brem,” Mum concluded, mildly.
Brem let them talk, peering at the map to locate this mysterious coop, which, he discovered, was back in Harvard Square. “This way,” he said, confidently, feeling like the Pied Piper as he led them.
It did take Brem an embarrassingly long period of time to figure out that he was supposed to be buying books in the student side of the bookstore, and not the general side of the bookstore. And then it took him an embarrassingly long period of time to realize that the books were organized according to class.
“So what classes are you taking?” asked Fortuna.
“Um,” said Brem. It had not even occurred to him that he ought to print out his schedule to get books. And he couldn’t imagine that it had not even occurred to him.
“You remember,” said Athena, and he knew that she knew she was saving him, and he decided he owed her. A lot. “You’re taking this Intro to Anthropology class here, remember?”
Brem calmed down a bit. He did remember his schedule. There was no reason to be surviving on the knife’s edge of panic the way he was doing. He could do this.
Even if it meant buying a ridiculous number of books that even he, with his limited experience at judging such things, recognized were not going to fit in his mono-dimensional bookcase, and then being slightly flummoxed by having to pay for the books with money, and not British money but American money. He was going to have to figure out how this money thing worked. There were an impossible number of things he was going to have to figure out.
Matt and his family were still at the dorm room when they got back. It seemed an unreasonable number of people to have in one place, all of them scrambling over each other. Mum liked Matt’s mother, Brem could tell from the chatty nature of their conversation. Mary Beth was telling stories about their trip so far-the hotel, and the people they’d met, and where the gym was located, and whether the food at the cafeteria was palatable. Matt seemed to be bearing the stories with good humor, while he was asking Brem’s input about where the television ought to go, and whether they ought to get a refrigerator to share. Brem was aware of his father in the background, doing something Mum would doubtlessly disapprove of with the sonic screwdriver. Ted started to ask a question about it, and Dad shushed him, and Brem knew he was hoping not to be discovered by Mum. He watched Matt connect the cable to the television and thought how he had no idea how to connect cable to a television. At least, not without a sonic screwdriver.
“What do you think?” said Matt, glancing at him.
“About?”
“The fridge.”
“Oh.” Brem forced himself to focus. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. I think it’s a good idea. Where can we get one?”
“They’re selling them on the Yard.”
“I’ll look into it,” said Brem, standing up.
Matt looked at him in mild surprise. “What, now?”
“Yeah. I’ve got time before dinner, don’t I?”
“I guess,” Matt agreed.
“Great. I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?” Mum asked, from where she was carefully arranging things in his wardrobe.
“To the Yard,” he said. “I’m investigating the possibility of refrigerators.”
Mum nodded, and Brem escaped with a bit of relief, into some fresh air, where there was a bit more space. He located where the refrigerators were being sold, and stuck his hands in his pockets and regarded the refrigerators. There was really nothing to decide here. There was only one type to buy, so he would pay the price and bring it back. But he stood there, pretending that he had some reason to be standing outside far longer than necessary.
“The fridge is a good idea,” said Athena, suddenly appearing next to him.
He started and looked at her. “Yeah.”
“You could probably get a better price somewhere else, though.”
“Yeah.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I should buy it,” he said.
“Yeah. How are we going to get it back to the dorm, though? You and I aren’t exactly known for our super-strength.”
“Good point,” he said. “It’s a good point.” And why hadn’t he thought of it? He felt more unlike himself than he would have thought possible.
“I’m jealous,” she said.
“Jealous?”
“I think it’s going to be fun.” He looked at her, and she smiled, tongue caught between her teeth. “I think you’re going to be having way more fun here than I am at home.”
“Probably,” he allowed, and he smiled back.
“You’re going to ring me all the time, though, right?”
“Well, I’ve got to,” he said. “I’m going to need to ask your advice about things.”
“Yeah, because you’re pretty hopeless when left to your own devices,” she grinned at him.
It was her constant refrain, and he suspected it had been since they had first learned how to talk. It might have been her first words, for all he knew. “I know.”
“Here’s the deal,” said Athena. “You need to do your job, right?”
“What’s my job?”
“Figuring all this out for me, so that you can tell me all about how to do it and I get to have an easy time of it when it’s my turn.”
“That’s my job, is it?”
“Uh-huh. You didn’t know that?”
“Welllllll, I suspected.”
“We should get back. It’s time for dinner. We’ll make Matt help with the refrigerator later, he looks a bit stronger than you.”
“If you gave me a few minutes with the sonic screwdriver, I could rig a device using a few tree limbs and a pulley system-“
“And Mum would kill you.”
“Not if somebody didn’t tell her.”
“Let’s do it the old-fashioned way, in honor of your new, old-fashioned life.”
“Spoilsport,” he said, but they turned as one to walk back to the dorm.
“You alright now?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m always alright,” he answered.
“Of course you are.”
“But I am alright.”
“Good. Not many guys with tentacles around here, are there?”
“Let’s not talk about this,” said Brem, and Athena laughed at him as they walked into the dorm together.
Which made him feel exactly like Bremsstrahlung Tyler. Which was exactly what he needed.
Next Chapter