OUROBORUS
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, at least as of yet. Nor am I making any money off of them.
AN - This was started on July 18th of 2006. P.S. Ouroborus is spelt wrong on purpose.
OUROBORUS
In the beginning…
Once upon a time…
He blinks.
His mouth agape ever so slightly, he blinks again.
It's when his jaw begins to open and close on its own, as if he has lost all control over it (just like the old gate that didn't work at the entrance Shireen's flats), that she realizes he's stumped. She worries about drool getting all over his leather jacket and thinks that he looks rather like a fish out of water.
"Look, all I'm sayin' is if time is not a definitive stream from beginning to end, how can you be so sure? I have my time stream, you have yours, Jack has his, and so on. We all connect but don't mesh, ya know? Like, people who live their lives simultaneous to us, we may meet in the middle, but we may be their past when it's our future. So that got me wonderin' how do the Daleks wipe out an entire planet and civilization from time and space completely? There's no alteration on the time stream, nowhere else they could be? Just like, after I watched them Star Wars movies again, the whole 'long time ago in a galaxy far away' I started thinkin', you may be over 900 years old, but have you even been born yet? Have you already died? Though I guess that's not important since your planet is gone. So, why are you still around when everyone else is not? Doctor?"
He does drool, just a little, and when he does, he closes his mouth and pretends that it never happened. She finds he's extremely good at that. He steps closer to her, with those blue eyes so intense and still has difficulty telling if he's angry or puzzled, or both.
She stands her ground, never lowering her gaze, unable to tell if she is suppose to or not, especially these days, days that melt together, days that have no beginning or end themselves. It's him who breaks before her.
"You're human, you wouldn't comprehend." He finally says before bowing his head and turning from her. She hates that excuse. It just reminds her of a parent who can't see past their child's adolescent naivety to trust them.
"Then explain it to me." She says, feeling completely justified in her youth to have him educate her.
"I can't!" He says, with a sort of exasperated sigh, throwing the wrench he had picked up a few seconds ago to fidget with down. It creates a tinkering sound against the grated floor. He then turns towards the console and begins to fiddle around with dials and baubles, because it helps calm him, something she has learned on their travels together.
"You can't because you're not sure." She replies, licking her teeth with a smugness that comes with naivety, a naivety that she doesn't realize she still has, one that she so fervently deny exists, but it's there nonetheless. It's this naivety that draws him in like a moth to a flame, one that rubs off on him if he allows it too. It doesn't work this time, because he misses it, he still has yet to look at her.
"I can't because it's not tangible, it doesn't work that. It's feelings, it's knowledge, it's a language unto its own." He mutters, continuing to work on the TARDIS with a new device. She walks over to him slowly, wanting to reach out to him.
"Teach me." She says, touching his arm lightly, hoping it will get a reaction out of him. Sometimes she feels as if she's creating a little movie, a little scene within a play. She tries to figure out what the dialogue is, so she can manipulate the situation the way she wants. It's a little melodramatic, but it's hers, and she knows that it's even harder game to play with him because he's so unpredictable.
Looking up at her, he is resigned. Those bright blue eyes stare right down into her and chill her as he says, "You'll never be ready." He then turns back to the TARDIS and she drops her hand from his arm, feeling as though she has been burned.
This is not how she expected him to respond, she expected anger, she expected some snippy ape comment. This is not how the story is supposed to go, this isn't her happily ever after, but she has learned to work with it, to mold it. She can show him.
"You're afraid." She says matter-of-factly. Yet, this time, she shows no sign of smugness or subtle teasing. She catalogues this as fact. She's human. He's alien. They're in a spaceship that travels through time and space, and he is afraid.
If her tone sparks anything within him, she doesn't see it and barely hears it when he replies with "Of what?" with a bravado that says so much more than his words. She can hear the condescending slight in his tone that tells her nothing and everything.
She is sure he is calling her a stupid ape.
And yet, what she says next, she has no idea where it comes from, but just like she knows he's afraid, she knows it to be truth.
"Of it changin' me."
She sits on a swing that she has never sat on before, yet still knows all too well, as she looks up at the sky. Too many dirigibles here, that's the problem with this place, when she first saw it, she found it beautiful, but she now realizes that it was only because of the shock of it. Now they block the sky, making it practically impossible even on a clear night to see the stars. However, tonight is not one of those nights, in fact, she can see the stars quite clearly, which is why she just followed the second star to the right and ended up here. To say she had been just passing and nostalgia hit her would be a lie. She has deliberately sought this playground out, taking two tubes and a taxi just to get here. Half a block away, she can see a light on in the room that was hers, a long time ago, in a galaxy far away.
She slowly breathes out, the steam leaving her mouth, her hands wrapped around the freezing chain that holds her seat up. Leaning back she begins her journey of going forwards and backwards, higher and higher, as she pumps her legs. Higher and higher she flies, getting closer and closer to her goal, but always falling backwards away from it. She can't quite reach, though they shimmer brightly taunting her to grasp them in her fingers, beckoning her to come back and live among them. Tears stream freely down her cheeks as she feels herself getting closer to them and then being pulled away, a repetitive motion for a repetitive feeling. She lets her feet drag against the ground, kicking up gravel in her wake, slowly causing her to slow down. When she finally stops, her eyes are dry, and she embraces the numbing cold that is creeping into her cheeks and hands.
She will never come back here again.
They are running from a hoard of Anthaxphalthorians who are right on their heels, when it occurs to him it's a very good thing that they have tiny legs, the Anthaxphalthorians that is, because if he had short legs then they may be in quite a pickle. He also chooses now to make a mental note not to insult the king Anthaxphalthorians' mother the next time they come to visit. Though, he didn't realize at the time that she was his mother, or that a nod of his head was considered the deepest disrespect.
Live and learn.
Running away from them, he runs accidentally into a small redheaded girl in the market place. He looks back at her and apologizes with a laugh, as she stares at him in shock, but it's another girl's voice that draws him back to the situation.
"Doctor! Hurry!" she cries with a chuckle and he continues on his way, trying to catch up to her.
In less than two minutes they are around a corner and a significant distance away from trouble. It is there that they come to a halt. She bends down and places her hands on her knees while he cradles the small of his back in his old age, and both are gasping for air. No less than thirty seconds later, she stands back up, spry again. Her left brow lifts only a millimeter when she asks "Ready for another go?"
He breaks into a grin, a grin that would devour his entire face if it were genetically possible, and before he realizes it, she's already ahead of him and he has to push harder to catch up.
They are like the wind, and when he reaches for her hand, he barely notices the fit isn't quite right, that their shoulders bump and eventually they have to let go. Maybe it's the height difference, maybe it's that she's faster on her feet. He doesn't dwell on it. After all, he would go crazy if he did.
He doesn't deny her; she deserves her dance as well.
He mostly doesn't think of Rose.
Mostly.
He doesn't sleep.
He doesn't sleep and he doesn't dream.
Technically, he knows that this is not fact, but it's been so long since he has slept that he forgets that Time Lords do indeed need to regenerate their bodies through a process of rest. But it's like a hibernation period.
A very short and infrequent hibernation period.
So, when he does fall asleep, in front of the console with a book in his hand (Clemency Pogue: Fairy Killer), he doesn't realize it. He doesn't even realize he's dreaming as he runs through a pantomime of the day's events. The angry Anthaxphalthorians are there, and he is smiling and they are all running, hopping even, hop, hop hopping for their lives. He makes it to the part where he bumped into the little redheaded girl before he notices anything awry. Their eyes lock for the briefest of seconds and he sees hers glowing amber. A wolf howls and he turns back to run with his companion but it's then he notices she's nowhere to be found. Frantically, he turns back to the fiery girl only to find she has vanished from the market. He only wakes when the Anthaxphalthorians tackle him to the soft ground.
That is when it all began.