Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, Star Trek: The Next Generation, or any of the characters in either series.
To Absent Friends
There wasn't anything remarkable about the bar that the Doctor had just sauntered into. It was exactly like a thousand other bars scattered across the universe: dim lighting, generic background music, an assortment of men and women (not to mention a few plants) engaged in drinking, chatting, and flirting. Ordinarily, he would have walked right by the entrance, not giving the place a second glance. But something about this particular establishment had drawn him in, and now he found himself negotiating a winding path between beings in various stages of inebriation as he tried to make his way to the bar itself.
The bar counter was made of glossy black stone, and a seemingly endless array of liquors was displayed on the wall behind it. The bartender was female, and the Doctor found it impossible to place her age. She had dark skin, and was wearing a hat that resembled the stereotypical UFO as depicted by popular media on twentieth-century Earth.
"Welcome to the Empty Pitcher Bar," the bartender greeted him in a voice like velvet. "What can I get for you?"
The Doctor surveyed the rows of bottles, then shrugged. "Surprise me."
"Hmm, a customer who enjoys living dangerously. I like that." She pulled three different bottles off the wall behind her, and produced a tall glass from under the bar. "So, what brings you to this neck of the woods?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Oh, you know, I just like to get out and about once in a while. No point staying cooped up on the same old planet all the time, is there?"
The bartender expertly poured liquids from the three bottles she'd selected into the glass. One liquor was red, one orange, and one yellow. None of the three seemed particularly keen on dissolving with the other two, so they formed a trio of distinct layers, like the bands of sedimentary rock. The red liquor, which formed the bottom layer, seemed to be effervescing. As the tiny bubbles it gave off rose through the upper two layers, they pulled small amounts of the previous layer's liquid behind them, so that thin stripes of red and orange snaked upward through the drink.
"Here you go," the bartender said, pushing the glass towards him. "One Slemme Ulv."
"Down the hatch, then!" The Doctor tilted the glass to his lips and swallowed. The first mouthful of the drink was purely the yellow liquor, which tasted like mango. After that, the different beverages in the drink began to mix, creating a rather unique taste of mingled mango, butterscotch, and cinnamon.
"Well!" exclaimed the Doctor. "That was refreshing! Where's it from?"
"I came up with it myself," the bartender told him.
"Really? Have you been doing this for long?"
The bartender shrugged. "For a while." She took the Doctor's empty glass and began wiping down the countertop with a cloth. "And what about you? What do you do?"
"Oh, a little of this, a little of that. I'm a jack of all trades, really. Say, could I get another one of those?"
"Coming right up." The bartender expertly made another Slemme Ulv and handed it to the Doctor. This time, he sipped the drink slowly, savoring the different combination of flavors in each mouthful. "So, what's your name?"
"Me? You can call me the Doctor."
The bartender didn't have eyebrows, but the ridges of muscle above her eyes flexed in a way that would have raised her eyebrows if she'd had them. "So you're a doctor? I thought you were just a jack of all trades."
"Well, doctor's a trade, isn't it? Besides, I said 'the Doctor' is my name, not my profession. What about you? What's your name?"
"I'm called Guinan."
"Guinan, eh? That's a pretty name. And where are you from, Guinan the bartender?"
Guinan looked down for a few moments, seeming to contemplate the surface of the bar. Then she raised her eyes to meet the Doctor's gaze. "I was born on El-Auria."
The Doctor had raised his glass to his lips for another drink, but now he lowered it slowly to the countertop. "I'm sorry," was all he said.
Guinan didn't reply, and the Doctor quickly added, "Look, I know it's got to feel like no one else can possibly understand what it's like to be among the last of your race, and whenever someone tells you they're sorry, it must sound incredibly hollow, but-"
"No," Guinan interrupted him. "It doesn't sound hollow at all. Not coming from you."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Doctor, I may not have the resources of my people to call on, but I still have my own senses. I felt the ripples that the end of the Time War sent through existence."
There was a long silence, during which the Doctor finished his second drink and laid a credit strip on the counter. "So," he finally said, "what are you doing tending bar?"
"So many voices were snuffed out when El-Auria was assimilated. So many people whose stories would be forgotten. Now, I listen to people's stories, to preserve them."
The Doctor finished his second drink, then sat for a few minutes staring into the empty glass. Guinan didn't disturb him, instead moving around to put bottles back in their proper places or get drinks for other customers. When she came back to him, he suddenly looked up at her, clapped his hands, and said, "So! I've got to be off, no time to waste! Thank you very much for the excellent drinks." Hopping off the stool, he strode away through the crowd. Halfway to the door, he wheeled around and began walking back.
Guinan was adding the Doctor's empty glass to the dirty glassware bin when he approached and placed his hands flat on the countertop. "Say, I was thinking, how'd you like to travel with me for a bit? I mean, what you said about collecting stories, there's no better way to accumulate stories than wandering here and there about the galaxy, right? You'd get to meet all sorts of interesting people. What do you say?"
Guinan regarded the Doctor with an expression he couldn't quite decipher, then shook her head. "Thank you for the offer, Doctor, but I'm done running."
The Doctor blinked in apparent confusion. "Running?"
"I spent the first few decades after the destruction of my people moving from star system to star system, as if I could outrun the memory of what had happened. But memory is something you carry with you, so the only way to outrun it is to lose yourself, and the price of that is too high. So I decided to stop running. That's not to say I don't travel. I worked in a bar on the edges of the Andorian Empire before I came here, and I've made no promises to stay here forever. But there's a difference between traveling and running. I may move around occasionally, but I'm not running from anything anymore. But you, Doctor? You're still running."
The enthusiastic smile that had graced the Doctor's face when he invited Guinan to travel with him slowly faded. "Maybe you're right. But after what I've done, I-" He broke off abruptly. "Well. That's neither here nor there, I suppose. Anyway. I ought to be going." Once more, he turned away and began to push his way through the assembly of beings between him and the door.
"Doctor!" Guinan called, and he paused, looking back over one shoulder. "I'm sorry."
The Doctor nodded slowly and retreated through the crowd. Once outside, he took a right and followed a winding path through back streets until he came to the obscure corner where he'd hidden the TARDIS. He unlocked the vehicle, then paused with his hand on the door.
"But you, Doctor? You're still running."
He shook himself briefly, then pushed open the door. He smiled at the sight of the familiar, welcoming space within. "Well!" he said, his cheerfulness restored. "Off to Earth, then!"
A/N: I was rewatching the "I, Borg" episode of TNG recently, and the scenes with Guinan made me think it would be interesting if she met up with the Doctor. This is my first foray into Doctor Who fanfic, so I hope the Doctor's characterization came out okay.
This is meant to be pre-series in both cases: Guinan hasn't joined the Enterprise crew yet, and the Ninth Doctor is just about to leave for Earth prior to the first episode of the new series.
"Slemme Ulv" is Danish for "bad wolf." (Thanks to PisOgPapir from the NF forums for the translation.)
Thanks for reading!