Finding A Way Home - Finding Verity
Title: Finding A Way Home - Finding Verity
Author: katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: The TARDIS is his to do as he chooses.
Word Count: 1,160 words.
Characters: The half-human Doctor and Verity.
A/N: Written for the 26th Travellers’ Tales with the prompt ‘new’.
The doors close behind the Time Lord and his family, and there is sudden peace in the console room.
“Have fun,” was the Doctor’s last directive and “Be careful” was Donna’s. The half-human Doctor takes a moment, as he wanders back to the controls, to consider whether they have to be mutually exclusive.
Trying desperately not to grin like an idiot, he sends the TARDIS into the vortex - and then stops short, suddenly realising the predicament he is in.
All he knows is her first name. He has no idea of where she lives or what she does or what hobbies she enjoys or any of those useful details that might let her find him. He puts in the details for the moment of the Time Lord’s fall, trying to set the TARDIS to materialise outside the cafe, but the co-ordinates scramble into nonsense and he realises that that event is now a fixed point in time, meaning it's not safe for him to try and re-enter it, even to find her.
Just as his spirits begin to fall, the TARDIS gives him a mental slap to the back of the head, so hard that he actually lifts his fingers to his scalp as if he felt it.
“Ow!” he complains. “What was that for?!”
Following the mental tug, as if the TARDIS has a hold of his tie and is dragging him around the console, he peers at the scanner. Numbers and letters chase each other across the screen, slowly forming words that make sense. Names. Places. Addresses. Times. Days. A - shopping list?
“Now you’re just showing off,” he tells the ship.
The TARDIS starts playing a cheesy track that sounds as if it was written by Phil Collins and should have something to do with blue skies and stars.
He hits the console with a mallet. Very hard. The speaker squawks and dies. Smiling in grim satisfaction, and ignoring the mechanical chuckle from the depths of the engine far below him, he begins setting the co-ordinates with which he has been provided.
The self-satisfied blue box materialises outside a supermarket where, every Saturday morning, Verity Newman does her shopping. The Doctor sidles out and closes the door behind him, easing his hands into the pockets of his trousers as he enters the store.
There are queues at all of the manned registers, but they aren’t long and he quickly spots the target of his search, her hair, gleaming in the light, flung back over one shoulders as she unpacks a basket for the cashier.
He slips into line behind her just as the person in front finishes paying and begins to collect their bags.
“You know,” he says quietly, “there is enough food on the TARDIS.”
“Doctor!”
Her face is one big grin as she turns and, to his surprise and delight, she throws her arms around him. He hugs her in return and can feel her heart pounding in reaction to the shock of his sudden appearance.
When he finally lets her go - and he notices that she doesn’t try to wriggle free, even though he holds her a second or so longer than he really should - she turns to the girl behind the cash register with an apologetic look.
“Um,” she begins rather reluctantly, “sorry, I don’t think...”
“You won’t be wanting them,” the cashier says in a rather bored voice, as if she witnesses a scene like this every day.
“No,” agrees Verity.
“Right then.” She sweeps the goods out of the way to make space for those of the next man in line, and the Doctor places a gentle hand on Verity’s back, guiding her past the register.
At the doorway she stops and waits for him to move up beside her.
“How did you find me?”
He quirks an eyebrow at her. “Stalking?” he suggests teasingly.
She laughs. “I refuse to believe you’re that unnoticeable,” she retorts. “You and that fancy blue box of yours.”
“That ‘fancy blue box’ is just outside the door,” he tells her. “Come and see how many people are taking any notice of it.”
If it was Donna here with him at this moment, he would take her hand, but somehow things are different with Verity. He does catch her fingers, but he slips them through the crook of his arm instead. Her fingers give his forearm a gentle squeeze as if she is happy with his actions and he catches her smile out of the corner of his eye.
It had been like this with Donna once, during their visit to the 1930s, but only because proper etiquette dictated that holding hands simply wasn’t done. Somehow, with Verity, this doesn’t feel like a repeat of that time. It feels like something very new and, he has to admit, rather nice.
They leave the supermarket and the Doctor waves his free hand at the TARDIS, which blocks half the pavement, but which people are walking past without reacting.
“You see?”
She stares at it in confusion. “But - how does it work? It’s...” he can almost hear her trying to come up with comparisons, and rather to his surprise, she finds a particularly apt one, “it’s like a Someone Else’s Problem field.”
He chuckles at this reference to one of his favourite books. “Something like that,” he admits. “Actually it’s a low-level perception filter. You see her because you know she’s here. So do I. But for anyone else, she simply doesn’t exist. Oh, and it doesn’t need a battery.”
Verity giggles, but as she glances again at the blue box, she becomes more serious. “Is that,” she asks, “why nobody said anything about it in the cafe after, you know, the other Doctor...”
“Exactly.” He covers the fingers resting on his arm with his free hand. “He’s fine,” he assures her, understanding the questions she is reluctant to ask. “He and Donna both. I left them in Chiswick four years ago to visit her family. With the twins,” he adds, and sees as the relief on her face gives way to delight.
“She’s had them then?” she asks eagerly. “And they’re fine, too? I’m so glad!”
“Absolutely perfect.” He smiles. “You can meet them soon, but they wanted to spend some time with Donna’s mum and grandfather, since they weren’t there when Sue and Geoff were born. And now,” he goes on, firmly bringing the subject back to the present, “I want to know why you were shopping.”
“I wasn’t sure,” she admits rather reluctantly, “how long you’d be.”
“Ah.” He smiles at her apologetically. “I wanted to get there as soon as possible - I even tried to be outside the cafe when you left - but there were a few tangles and this was the soonest I could manage it.” He casts a worried glance at her. “Was it really that long?”
“No.” She shakes her head and gives his arm a reassuring squeeze. “Only one day. But,” she adds with disarming honesty, “I’ve been waiting so long to find you that I’ve tried not to get my hopes up.” She pauses for a little before adding, “I’ve learned to be patient.”
He turns so that he’s facing her. “I promise,” he vows softly, “I’ll never make you wait for me ever again.”
Then he opens the door of the TARDIS and ushers her inside.
Next Part
Author: katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: The TARDIS is his to do as he chooses.
Word Count: 1,160 words.
Characters: The half-human Doctor and Verity.
A/N: Written for the 26th Travellers’ Tales with the prompt ‘new’.
The doors close behind the Time Lord and his family, and there is sudden peace in the console room.
“Have fun,” was the Doctor’s last directive and “Be careful” was Donna’s. The half-human Doctor takes a moment, as he wanders back to the controls, to consider whether they have to be mutually exclusive.
Trying desperately not to grin like an idiot, he sends the TARDIS into the vortex - and then stops short, suddenly realising the predicament he is in.
All he knows is her first name. He has no idea of where she lives or what she does or what hobbies she enjoys or any of those useful details that might let her find him. He puts in the details for the moment of the Time Lord’s fall, trying to set the TARDIS to materialise outside the cafe, but the co-ordinates scramble into nonsense and he realises that that event is now a fixed point in time, meaning it's not safe for him to try and re-enter it, even to find her.
Just as his spirits begin to fall, the TARDIS gives him a mental slap to the back of the head, so hard that he actually lifts his fingers to his scalp as if he felt it.
“Ow!” he complains. “What was that for?!”
Following the mental tug, as if the TARDIS has a hold of his tie and is dragging him around the console, he peers at the scanner. Numbers and letters chase each other across the screen, slowly forming words that make sense. Names. Places. Addresses. Times. Days. A - shopping list?
“Now you’re just showing off,” he tells the ship.
The TARDIS starts playing a cheesy track that sounds as if it was written by Phil Collins and should have something to do with blue skies and stars.
He hits the console with a mallet. Very hard. The speaker squawks and dies. Smiling in grim satisfaction, and ignoring the mechanical chuckle from the depths of the engine far below him, he begins setting the co-ordinates with which he has been provided.
The self-satisfied blue box materialises outside a supermarket where, every Saturday morning, Verity Newman does her shopping. The Doctor sidles out and closes the door behind him, easing his hands into the pockets of his trousers as he enters the store.
There are queues at all of the manned registers, but they aren’t long and he quickly spots the target of his search, her hair, gleaming in the light, flung back over one shoulders as she unpacks a basket for the cashier.
He slips into line behind her just as the person in front finishes paying and begins to collect their bags.
“You know,” he says quietly, “there is enough food on the TARDIS.”
“Doctor!”
Her face is one big grin as she turns and, to his surprise and delight, she throws her arms around him. He hugs her in return and can feel her heart pounding in reaction to the shock of his sudden appearance.
When he finally lets her go - and he notices that she doesn’t try to wriggle free, even though he holds her a second or so longer than he really should - she turns to the girl behind the cash register with an apologetic look.
“Um,” she begins rather reluctantly, “sorry, I don’t think...”
“You won’t be wanting them,” the cashier says in a rather bored voice, as if she witnesses a scene like this every day.
“No,” agrees Verity.
“Right then.” She sweeps the goods out of the way to make space for those of the next man in line, and the Doctor places a gentle hand on Verity’s back, guiding her past the register.
At the doorway she stops and waits for him to move up beside her.
“How did you find me?”
He quirks an eyebrow at her. “Stalking?” he suggests teasingly.
She laughs. “I refuse to believe you’re that unnoticeable,” she retorts. “You and that fancy blue box of yours.”
“That ‘fancy blue box’ is just outside the door,” he tells her. “Come and see how many people are taking any notice of it.”
If it was Donna here with him at this moment, he would take her hand, but somehow things are different with Verity. He does catch her fingers, but he slips them through the crook of his arm instead. Her fingers give his forearm a gentle squeeze as if she is happy with his actions and he catches her smile out of the corner of his eye.
It had been like this with Donna once, during their visit to the 1930s, but only because proper etiquette dictated that holding hands simply wasn’t done. Somehow, with Verity, this doesn’t feel like a repeat of that time. It feels like something very new and, he has to admit, rather nice.
They leave the supermarket and the Doctor waves his free hand at the TARDIS, which blocks half the pavement, but which people are walking past without reacting.
“You see?”
She stares at it in confusion. “But - how does it work? It’s...” he can almost hear her trying to come up with comparisons, and rather to his surprise, she finds a particularly apt one, “it’s like a Someone Else’s Problem field.”
He chuckles at this reference to one of his favourite books. “Something like that,” he admits. “Actually it’s a low-level perception filter. You see her because you know she’s here. So do I. But for anyone else, she simply doesn’t exist. Oh, and it doesn’t need a battery.”
Verity giggles, but as she glances again at the blue box, she becomes more serious. “Is that,” she asks, “why nobody said anything about it in the cafe after, you know, the other Doctor...”
“Exactly.” He covers the fingers resting on his arm with his free hand. “He’s fine,” he assures her, understanding the questions she is reluctant to ask. “He and Donna both. I left them in Chiswick four years ago to visit her family. With the twins,” he adds, and sees as the relief on her face gives way to delight.
“She’s had them then?” she asks eagerly. “And they’re fine, too? I’m so glad!”
“Absolutely perfect.” He smiles. “You can meet them soon, but they wanted to spend some time with Donna’s mum and grandfather, since they weren’t there when Sue and Geoff were born. And now,” he goes on, firmly bringing the subject back to the present, “I want to know why you were shopping.”
“I wasn’t sure,” she admits rather reluctantly, “how long you’d be.”
“Ah.” He smiles at her apologetically. “I wanted to get there as soon as possible - I even tried to be outside the cafe when you left - but there were a few tangles and this was the soonest I could manage it.” He casts a worried glance at her. “Was it really that long?”
“No.” She shakes her head and gives his arm a reassuring squeeze. “Only one day. But,” she adds with disarming honesty, “I’ve been waiting so long to find you that I’ve tried not to get my hopes up.” She pauses for a little before adding, “I’ve learned to be patient.”
He turns so that he’s facing her. “I promise,” he vows softly, “I’ll never make you wait for me ever again.”
Then he opens the door of the TARDIS and ushers her inside.
Next Part