Disclaimer: Just borrowing. Post Doomsday.
Drink to the Days
"Get up and drink to the days that are gone in the shortest while." – Simon Fowler
He could travel anywhere in the universe, but all he wanted was a drink. Not any drink, mind you. No, no, no, a specific drink, specific in name and taste and the way her smile warmed your stomach like a quick shot of brandy. And brandy, of course, would always be the base of his specific, marvelous drink. Yes, he has something very peculiarly her, a taste he can't get out of his mouth, and he spends all his days trying to find something to compliment it.
On a (mostly) harmless whim, he masquerades as an instructor for the IBA in Torquay during its first official training session. It's only 1952, so the bar is fairly empty in the middle of the afternoon. Later, sitting with the regulars and swapping recipes will give him reassurance.
"Nine parts dry vermouth, three parts kirsch, and two parts cherry brandy," he tells the students, frantically looking for one of them to get it right. "Pour all the parts you're your mixing glass. Don't forget the ice! Now stir, stir, stir, ducklings." They follow orders well, but their inspiration is missing. He tries to give them images, but falling short is almost inevitable.
"Strain it all into chilled cocktail glass. Now, garnish with one of those delicious maraschino cherries you lot favour so much. Garnishes are the spice of your drink, what will really catch the eye. One tiny cherry doesn't seem like much, but underestimate the triflings and you'll get bit in the arse." He speaks from experience. Life showed him its secrets, but she taught him better, fighting for his attention, holding his hand like a wayward child the entire way.
"Made poorly they can be sickly sweet," he warns them, thinking of when she was surrounded by her old life, before him. "You must give all the parts attention. This isn't just a drink, it's a love." Love of the perfect combination, he adds silently as he grabs the nearest sample. It goes down adequately, but he can tell the poor bloke has never tasted the ecstasy of this drink before. He'll soon fix that problem.
The Bermuda variation of his drink comes decent, but he's never favored gin, and they always go heavy on the gin. He has yet to figure why; his fingers itch at any puzzle these days. His innards moan louder for another drink. Here on Zonama, lack of drinks is always an issue but never a problem. Full of fugitives, and even the rock itself has no gravitational mother. First of its kind discovered, he would tell his companion, if he had one, if she cared. A rogue planet for a renegade alien, oh how he likes to hyperbolize when he is more liquor than Gallifreyan.
"The perfect combination," he slurs to the slumped man next to him, "might only come around once in a lifetime. They say you can't step into the same river twice. How about stepping into the same drink, eh, eh mate? They never say anything about that." He sighs. "I've got the next round." The old wino finally perks up, but the man who sounded so sullen is already gone.
The doors of the old box swing open to reveal 1806 rural New York at dusk. He has no idea what to do with himself, so he strolls towards the nearest open restaurant. A newspaper already occupies in his chair, but he's a good sharer, and tenderly cradles the journal as he orders eggs benedict with Tabasco sauce and (putting on his irresistible face) sends an order back for a drink he thinks he found on one of the Chthonian planets. Poor girl, she turns and comes back to check the list; he must admit, she's probably never heard of such a blend. Neither had he, which was why he loved it so.
"Cherry brandy, white cream de cacao, and heavy cream?" she asks, almost incredulous but determined to hold onto her world-weary demeanor. After his murmur of agreement, she finally leaves him in peace. That odd, creamy combination, making the drink a dusty pink, reminds him of the moments she caught him off guard. At times, one of her quirky phrases would fall into the last lock of a pretty problem, making his head ring. More so, it was the piercing of her eyes through his guilty soul. Those eyes kept him honest like he could never admit he needed. Humility, he found, did not necessarily come with age.
And then, he knows why his TARDIS brought him here: an article tucked away behind the obituaries and town gossip, a politician rambling about a new kind of drink called the "cocktail." Of course that sort of talk he's heard before—prohibition was just dandy for a good adventure—but one phrase rings true. Disturbed, he puts the paper down as she carries in his drink. He almost offers to buy her one, just so she can taste its uniqueness, share in the flavor (maybe see if she could hold her own), but bites his tongue. He's not ready.
When he finally tumbles in, he falls asleep on the floor—not before scribbling the line on the wall next to her empty bed. It's still there in the morning, barely legible, still aching with certainty: "It renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head."
He wants so badly to get shickered on the drink that shares both their names (odd coincidence, if he believed in coincidence, but he doesn't, he believes in destiny), a drink he discovers on Mu Arae—apple brandy, lemon juice, and that lovely grenadine syrup they developed at some drunken point over the years, hell, he would just lap up the syrup if he got drunk enough—but the two of them together were such a whirlwind he doesn't think any amount of alcohol could compete. The ol' Captain's smirk and his girl's ringing laugh chasing away the shadows of memory, oh, how could anything ever compare again? And yet he looks for replacements in the bottom of cocktail glasses. This one cooling his hand now is balanced well, not cloying like too many bad jokes about his propensity to fiddle with the controls or how he looked when he danced.
His first of the Mexican variety he downs in a dive on Gliese. Awful Mexican theme, too, although he loved the free sombrero (he keeps near his full-length mirror, just in case he ever finds an outfit to match, you never know when something like that comes in handy). They made Mexicans and Westerns, but he goes for a Mexican because he's never tried one with milk before and that sounds daring. Tequila, strawberry schnapps, milk, grenadine—it will either be perfect or an utter disaster. But then, isn't that what he first thought when he invited her? And his gut knew what was right, that it would be perfect. After all, didn't he come back a second time? When the drink is set down in front of him, the scarlet of the grenadine and the white of the milk blend to the bright red of a New New York sunset. A grin tickles his face at fantastic memories, then fades when the warmth from the first sip fades. He was so afraid to lose her; the least he can do now is drink to her memory.
Somehow, the TARDIS sets him again in London, sometime in the twenty-first century. Without much consideration, he ends up in her favorite pub. He's been here before, he'll come back again. At times, he considers the pull of the universe too strong even for him. He'll need to fortify himself against it if he's ever to make it home alive, and so he invites the man behind the bar closer.
"I'd like a cocktail, if you please."
"Well, sir, you're going to have to narrow it down." And so he recites the three ingredients he's had memorized since he happened upon her in that department store basement.
"Oh," the barkeep nods in recognition, "you mean you want a rose?"
"Yes," is all he can reply. He wants a rose. He wants one so badly he can already taste her.
A/N: In order, the drinks (all of them cocktails) referenced are: a rose, Bermuda rose, dusty rose, jack rose, Mexican rose, and a western rose. All the recipes for the drinks are from The quote about cocktails is from the Wiki article on the cocktail.