Marginal man, counting the stars;
Whenever it's twilight,
He starts to think of
those he can't forget.
- 'Marginal Man', Garnet Crow
Aurora borealis is a natural phenomenon only visible in the northern sky from the surface of the planet Earth. It is seen as a swirling of colored lights backdropped against the night sky. In reality, it is caused by the collision of charged particles in Earth's magnetosphere and upper atmosphere, emitting their energy as florescent light.
It had the honor of being viewed from a grassy knoll in the south of France by a man and his penguin - and the penguin was two seconds away from strangling the man to death, regenerating alien or not.
"You gotta ruin everything with that scientific talk, don't you Doc?" Frobisher managed to form what passed for a frown with his beak.
The Doctor turned his head and frowned back, twisting his neck in the process just to look at the penguin lying next to him. "I am merely explaining what goes on during an aurora borealis," he huffed. "That is very useful information - and last I checked, you were business of collecting information, mister private dick." He turned back to watching the stars shift above their heads.
"No, Doc, you totally ruined it, see? This isn't about gases and particles and whatever the hell else, it's about - um - er - something else." Frobisher wasn't used to talk about such abstract things, and it showed in his reluctance to elaborate.
A heavy silence hung over the two men. The sky continued to silently twist and turn into a spectrum of colors in the absence of speech.
The Doctor, typically, was the first to talk. "Well, after that last place, isn't it nice to just relax for a bit?"
"Hunh. Going to Jaconda was your idea, not mine. You just failed to mention the coup being waged against their government and that they all knew your face and name!" He gave his companion a quick glance before continuing. "And who's Peri, anyway? I never met her and---"
"Past companion, was with me the first time," the Doctor said, sounding a little irritated. "Not like it's any of your concern. You've never asked me before about that kind of thing?"
"That kind of thing, eh? None of my concern, eh?" The Doctor, in his haste to put the past aside and concentrate on the starry spectacle before them, forgot a very important trait of his shape-shifting friend: once he sniffs out something interesting, it takes an impossible amount of willpower to shake him loose. And at the moment that willpower was something the Doctor was sorely missing. Here came the conversation he knew he'd dread ever since Frobisher snuck into the TARDIS over a year ago: those who came before.
There was Peri and Mel and Evelyn, for starters. Tegan came back once for a rather silly trip. Those chaps from Top Gear came in once, let him drive the reasonably-priced car and everything. He saved Rab and Ryan from a group of Cybermats in Edinburgh, and they ended up wheedling him into appearing at one of their award ceremonies. There was Susan and Grant and a yellow-haired youth in a vibrantly orange jumpsuit.
"So, where does that leave me?" Frobisher remarked after it was all said. The Doctor gave him an odd look. "Here I am, Frobisher P.I., looking like a bird in a tuxedo. I need spectacles to read and I haven't had a girlfriend in ages. How in all hell am I going to measure up to a line-up like those kids?"
"Not that I, well, care or anything," he added quickly before rolling onto his side, away from the Doctor.
Frobisher was surprised to hear laughter well up from behind him. He rolled around rather quick for a penguin of his girth to see the Doctor grinning and giggling like a small child.
The giggling subsided after a few manic seconds, leaving the Time Lord to answer with, "The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for."
"And who said that one?" Frobisher asked.
"Homer. Grecian poet with a curly beard."
"So, ah - all of them? You'd die for them?"
A snort. "But of course."
"Even me, Doc?"
"I suppose, if it came to it . . . yes, young friend, I surely would."
Frobisher gulped. "That's a tall order to follow there."
The Doctor smirked and returned his gaze to the sky. "Don't count me out so soon, Frobisher. I'm not done with the world yet!"
Frobisher rolled his eyes, and together they watched a miracle.