Title - Something About Stars (4/20)
Author -
earlgreytea68 Rating - General
Characters - OCs
Spoilers - I've started to think I may reference events without thinking, so, to be safe: Through the specials.
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 - Four Time Lords and a Bad Wolf human, gallivanting through time and space. What could possibly go wrong?
Author's Notes - Huge thanks to Kristin and
chicklet73 , who talked through plot points. Special thanks to Kristin for coming up with the title. And even more thanks to
jlrpuck and c73, who so graciously beta'd.
The icon was created by
swankkat , commissioned by
jlrpuck for my birthday.
Prologue -
Ch 1 -
Ch 2 Chapter Three
Some days were better than others. When you were a doctor, the better days were separated from the worse days by a vast chasm measured in people’s lives, and even though you might know intellectually that you couldn’t save everyone, there were still days when you dragged yourself home and felt not the buoyancy of the saved lives, but the weight of the lost ones. And Matt, collapsed on his couch and realizing he was in danger of a bout of severely self-pitying guilt, called his best friend.
“Hello.” Brem’s voice was pleasant, and Matt thought maybe he’d caught him at a good time.
“What are you up to?” he asked.
“Not much. I was hoping that a serious, Earth-bound doctor would call me and suggest an adventure of some sort.”
Matt smiled in relief. The thing about Brem was that he was quite perceptive, even if he often pretended not to be. “Yes,” he said. “An adventure. Exactly what I was going to suggest.”
The words weren’t even out of his mouth before Brem’s TARDIS materialized in the corner of the living room. Brem opened the door and stuck his head out, and Matt closed his phone.
“Come on,” said Brem, and tipped his head toward the interior of his TARDIS, before ducking back inside.
Matt walked into Brem’s TARDIS and shut the door behind him. Brem was back at the controls, punching at buttons and flipping levers.
“Where d’you want to go?” he asked.
“Somewhere fun. Not run-for-our-lives fun, just…fun fun.” Matt sat in the captain’s chair. “I’m not really in a save-the-universe mood.”
“Wellllllll,” said Brem, dancing around the controls. “I’ll do my best.”
Matt watched Brem navigate the TARDIS. He had been on enough trips that he knew the basics of how to help, if he had to, but there were more variables at work than he could ever comprehend. Brem had told him not to feel badly about that, that it was beyond the comprehension of any merely human mind. Matt wasn’t really in the mood to help, though. He sat and watched Brem and tried to shake off his mood.
Brem was quiet, concentrating, until the TARDIS landed with a gentle bump. Brem prided himself on his landings.
“Alright.” Brem grabbed his coat from the coral strut where it was resting. “Let’s go paint the town cerulean.”
“Red,” corrected Matt, as he followed Brem out of the TARDIS.
Brem looked at him quizzically, adjusting the collar on his coat.
“The saying is ‘paint the town red,’” Matt explained.
“Oh.” Brem looked thoughtful. “It won’t be in a few centuries. Come on.”
Matt tagged along behind Brem, looking around him and trying to work up interest in what was around them. They were in the middle of a bustling city, at night, the lights bright from the tall buildings all around them. There were a variety of people and aliens pressing past each other on the sidewalks. It was loud with laughter, a festive party atmosphere, and Brem moved through it confidently. He clearly knew where he was going, but then, he always did.
“Where are we?”
“New New York.”
Somebody ran by them tossing confetti and shouting.
“I don’t remember New New York being this…exuberant,” commented Matt.
Brem grinned at him. “Because it’s New Year’s.”
“Oh, Brem.” Matt didn’t want to sound like he was whining, but, truthfully, maybe he was a bit. He’d wanted something more low-key than this.
“It’s New Year’s on New New York, and we have an invitation to the best party in the city. On the planet. Don’t you want to go?”
“Is it going to be…loud?”
“How old are you?” Brem demanded. “Stop sulking and come on. It’ll cheer you up.”
Sighing, Matt followed Brem into a building that was clearly some sort of hotel, which were instantly recognizable in all forms. There was a loud beat coming from a nightclub off to the left, where Brem immediately headed. He flashed the psychic paper to get them in, the alien with a face like a purple bulldog scowling at them as if he were somewhat suspicious but he’d let them in anyway.
The club was packed, and Matt thought it would have been easy to lose Brem in the throng, but Brem cut through it swiftly, not looking around him at all. Matt followed his lead, assuming Brem had a goal in mind.
They reached the back of the club, where Brem flashed the psychic paper again, to another bouncer, who stepped aside to let them through. A pair of doors slid open for them, and Matt stepped onto what was obviously an elevator of some sort.
“Going up,” said Brem, and pressed the only button in the elevator.
“Where are we going?” Matt asked him.
He glanced at him. “I just told you. Up.”
“We should have stayed in New Orleans,” grumbled Matt.
“And watched Amor Caliente?” asked Brem, as the elevator dinged to a stop. “Look, here we are. Go on, after you.”
Matt walked out into a small vestibule, occupied only by a spiral staircase. Shrugging, Matt mounted it, and found himself on a sprawling roof deck, looking down over the city of New New York. There were other people up here, but much fewer. It was quiet and it was beautiful.
“See?” Brem walked past him. “I do wish you’d trust me more. Cynic.” Brem handed him a drink from a passing tray, taking one for himself. “This way.”
“Have you been here before?” Matt followed behind him.
“To this club, yes. Not on New Year’s.”
“Hi, Brem,” said a cocktail waitress as she walked by, and winked at him.
“How many times have you been here?”
“Just once,” replied Brem. “I’m memorable.”
“Yes, that’s one word for it.”
“Look, here’s our table.”
“What makes it ours?”
“It’s here and it’s empty. Sit, I’ll be right back with a surprise.”
Brem shouted for the cocktail waitress, jogging to catch up to her. She turned to him with a smile, and Matt sighed and settled into the chair at the table. It was absurdly comfortable. Whatever this place was, it was top of the line. He looked out over the lights of a city on a different planet, billions of years in his future, and wondered at the odd path of his life.
“Don’t ever say I don’t do anything for you,” said Brem, re-appearing and tossing something at him.
Matt caught it reflexively. “Wait, there was an actual surprise? I thought you were just going off to flirt.” He looked at the surprise, which looked like…a cigar. “What is it?”
“It’s the world’s best cigar.”
“These things will kill you, you know. Well, kill mortal people like me who don’t have thirteen lives.”
“Not New Earth cigars, Matt. Try it.”
Matt was turning it over in his hands and examining it suspiciously. “Is it some sort of drug?”
“Yes. A drug very similar to tobacco, only not cancerous. You don’t have to try it, I just thought it would be an interesting diversion.”
“And New Year’s Eve in New New York isn’t diversion enough? Have you got a lighter setting?” He stuck it in his mouth, deciding, What the hell.
“Of course.” Brem held out the sonic screwdriver, buzzing it, and Matt puffed on the cigar.
Surprised, he settled back in the chair. “It’s not bad.”
“It’s very good,” corrected Brem.
Matt blew smoke out over New New York.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Brem asked, after a long moment.
Matt shook his head.
“You can’t save everyone, you know.”
“Is this you not talking about it?”
“I’m not talking about it. I’m just remarking, in the abstract, that you can’t save everyone. I can’t do it, and I have all the knowledge of time and space at my disposal. You’re a twenty-first-century human. You do pretty damn good with what you have to work with. That’s all I’m saying.”
Matt puffed on the cigar for a second, then leaned over and knocked some ash off of it and said, “Thanks. Now can we really talk about something else?”
“Sure. Oh, I found a book for you that I thought you’d like. Picked it up on Fydibut-3. Remind me to give it to you before I drop you back off.”
“I will. Thank you. Digger e-mailed me the other day.”
Brem looked at him in surprise. “Digger from school?”
“Do you know other Diggers?”
Brem actually considered this question. “No,” he answered, slowly. “I don’t think I do. What did he have to say? Do you talk to him?”
“Haven’t spoken to him since we graduated. He tracked me down because he’s coming to New Orleans for a bachelor party. Wanted my recommendations as to what he should do. I think I’ll probably meet him for a drink while he’s down there, if you want to tag along.”
“Oh, I absolutely want to tag along. Ring me if I look like I’m going to miss it.”
“You could be 75 years old and not miss it, you have a time machine.”
“Yeah, but personal timelines…” Brem made a face and waved his hand about. “It gets all…”
“Timey-wimey,” Matt finished for him. He’d heard that a million times.
“Yeah.” Brem watched Matt blow more smoke off into the air. “Do you know how to blow smoke circles?”
Matt looked across at him. “No. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you do.”
“I can teach you.”
“Some other time I’m smoking a non-cancerous cigar on New New York.” Matt took another puff off the cigar and thought about timey-wimey-ness. He turned abruptly toward Brem. “What about Athena’s time skips?”
Brem looked at him, obviously surprised. “What?”
“Athena told me that time’s skipping around her. She told me that she told you, too. She told me you didn’t seem that concerned. I don’t believe you’re not concerned. So tell me about the time skips.”
Brem’s eyes were sharp on him. “When did Athena tell you about the time skips?”
“A few weeks ago,” Matt said. “She dropped by for ice cream, she was visibly shaken. She’s terrified of them, Brem. I actually examined her a bit, just to try to calm her down.”
“And how was she?”
“She seemed perfectly healthy to me, but you’re aliens, so who the hell knows? I told her she needed to tell your father. You both do.”
“A few weeks ago. This was after she and I met at your place? The time you fell asleep and she made you lasagna?”
“Yeah.”
“So that means time’s still skipping around her.” Brem said a word that Matt was sure was a curse of some sort and ruffled at his hair, looking out over New New York with unmistakable worry in his eyes.
“What does it mean, the time skipping? I don’t understand what it means.”
“Neither do I,” he sighed. “I’ve done calculation after calculation, read book after book. I have no clue what it means. And it only seems to be happening to her. My TARDIS has been…queasy, but time’s not skipping. Athena seems to keep running into them, and I can’t figure out why.”
“Are they dangerous? Are they going to…hurt her?”
Brem met his eyes and shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Matt repeated, incredulously. “And you don’t think this is something you should talk to your father about?”
“I was trying not to worry him,” Brem admitted. “Athena hasn’t said anything else to me about the time skips, I thought maybe they’d stopped. Little did I know she was busy telling you everything.” Brem took a sip of his drink. “You should have called me as soon as she told you about the time skips.”
“I didn’t know that she wasn’t telling you,” Matt pointed out, slightly annoyed. “I told her to tell you. I’m not acting as the go-between for all the secrets y’all keep from each other.”
“We don’t keep secrets, we just…tell selective truths.”
A sudden thought occurred to Matt. “Don’t tell Theenie that I told you.”
“Why not?”
“Because she didn’t tell you herself. Maybe she trusted me not to tell you, and if you tell her that I told you, then she’ll know that I betrayed her confidence.” Matt paused. “Or maybe she told me hoping that I would tell you.” He knitted his brows together in thought. “Oh, who knows? She is way more trouble than strictly necessary.”
Brem laughed.
Matt looked at him. “Why is that funny?”
“Matt, you think Athena is just the right amount of trouble,” Brem replied, with deep amusement.
Matt straightened slowly on his chair. “And what does that mean?”
Brem opened his mouth, then closed it. Matt narrowed his eyes at him. “Nothing,” he said, eventually.
“I’m seeing someone,” Matt said, abruptly, trusting Brem not to acknowledge out loud the logical leap connecting the two conversations.
“Are you?” Brem sounded completely disinterested. “Is she nice?”
“She is,” said Matt, harshly, with way more force than the statement really warranted. “She’s very nice.”
“Well, that’s excellent, then,” said Brem, and took another sip of his drink.
He looked so damn smug that Matt asked, scathingly, “How’s Kate? Have you heard from her lately?”
“Let’s not play this game, hmm?” Brem responded, firmly. “I’m sorry I brought up Athena. You’ve had a terrible day, and you need another drink.” Brem stood and walked away from the table.
Matt sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. Brem was right: It had been a long day, and he was exhausted and he was edgy and he’d also been out-of-line. Brem came back after a few minutes, placing another drink in front of him. “Sorry,” Matt said. “And thanks.”
“I didn’t bring up Athena. You brought up Athena,” said Brem.
“Yes. You’re right. As usual.”
Brem sat down. “I only say that because we didn’t close the loop on why you brought her up.” He looked at him seriously. “I’ll talk to my father about the time skipping. We’ll figure it out and we’ll fix it.”
“Good,” said Matt. Fireworks exploded over the sky, startling him. He turned his head to gaze out at them. “I guess it’s a new year here on New New York?”
“Happy New Year, Matt,” said Brem, and clinked his glass against his.
Matt took a sip of his drink, musing at the fireworks for a second. Then he said, “What year is it?”
Brem considered, then shrugged. “No idea.”
Next Chapter