A/N this is warinbabylon's fault. She suggested a scene with Eight and Five sipping margaritas while the world falls apart around them, and it would not get out of my head. So I wrote it down. And, because I wrote it down, it's got some Faction Paradox stuff in it too (references to, not really spoilers for, The Eleven Day Empire/Shadow Play). So there.
Watching the Fireworks
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A roar from behind him disturbed the very relaxed man on the canvas beach chair. The chair was set up with a tray of drinks and snacks beside it, on a hillside overlooking a burning city. Most of the roaring was coming from the city in front of him, so the man turned lazily to see what was making this new noise. To his great surprise, two blue police boxes stood there, and a beige-clad man stepped out of one of them. The newcomer looked at the scene of destruction before him, then at the beach chair, then at its occupant. "You..." he said, "what are you doing here?"
"Just watching the show." He raised his glass. "Look! The Sontarans are about to destroy the -" He was interrupted by a tremendous blast from the city center as the invasion fleet lasered more buildings to smithereens. "Yessss!" he hooted with glee. "Take that!"
The pale stranger looked befuddled, but then, he looked befuddled most of the time. "It may be rude of me to ask, but... aren't you me?"
"Yes!" the man jumped from his chair, grinned like a madman, and began pumping the newcomer's hand. "My memory isn't good for much at the best of times -- and this is hardly the best of times -- but I distinctly remember you. Being you, that is. You're number... six? No, five! Yes, of course! Five! So nice to meet me! I'm..." he looked skyward, slapped his forehead, cursed his dodgy memory, and finally announced, "Eight! I'm the Eighth Doctor!"
He'd said all that without taking a breath, but the Fifth Doctor was unimpressed. "Well, if you're me, why aren't you helping? The Sontarans are invading London; there are people dying down there! I should be -- we should be -- repelling the invasion. Risking our lives, getting captured and brutalized, escaping, and saving the city. Maybe saving the whole world." He gave his counterpart his sternest look -- which wasn't very stern -- and said "It's what we do."
"London?" Eight replied as he wrestled another beach chair out of his TARDIS and, after a lengthy battle and a few curse words, got it set up for Five. "Oh, I suppose it does look a bit like London. If you ignore the blood-red skies and all the hideous winged beasts soaring through the air."
"Those things live here? I thought the Sontarans brought them."
No, they were here even before this city was. And no, it's not London. This is what will soon no longer be the Eleven-Day Empire. And believe me, its inhabitants deserve everything the Sontarans are giving them.
Five looked at the blasted city before him, and then at the inviting beach chair. No contest. He poured himself a frozen margarita from the pitcher on the tray beside Eight's chair and went to sit down. "You're sure about this?"
"Absolutely! They've got it coming and then some. So I'll not have you racing off to rescue any of them. With all the torment the NAs put us through --not to mention the fic writers -- we deserve a break, don't you think?"
Five agreed and sipped his jumbo margarita. As they watched the spreading chaos Eight began describing just why the people of this city deserved their horrible fate, while Five told him about all the indignities that fic-writing fangirls subjected him to. Yes, they agreed, they'd earned this little respite.
Their reminiscences were interrupted as a Tharil strode purposefully past holding a petite blonde by the hand. The two of them almost knocked over the tray of drinks, and Eight had to grab it to prevent it falling over. He almost fell out of his beach chair as he did so. "Hey!" he shouted after them.
The blonde turned around abruptly. "Doctor?" she asked. "Biroc, hold up! Doctors? What are you doing here?"
Eight sprang from his chair and very nearly tripped over his feet in his excitement at seeing his old friend. "Romana!" he exclaimed, his smile growing even wider. "It's so good to see you!" Before she knew what was happening he'd thrown his arms around her and given her a gigantic bear hug and a kiss on the lips
"Have you lost your mind Doctor? No, don't answer that." She extricated herself from his grasp and wiped her mouth daintily with the back of her hand. "I swear, sometimes you act like you're half human or something."
Eight blushed and quickly excused himself to get two more beach chairs while Five poured more margaritas from the pitcher that miraculously never ran out.
"So," Five asked, "did you come by to repel the invasion too?"
"Heavens, no. Especially seeing as a later version of me ordered it."
"Oh dear." Five looked nervous, as he usually did when he wasn't looking befuddled. He fortified himself with another big sip. "So you're working for the Sontarans now?"
She gave him a look that would have caused a lesser Time Lord to regenerate on the spot. "No I'm not working for the Sontarans.," she announced sternly. I am -- or rather, I will be -- the President of the High Council of Time Lords of Gallifrey. They are working for me. The Sontarans couldn't so much as find the Empire without Gallifrey's help, to say nothing of invading it. I had them brought in as shock troops, to soften up the Faction for the real invasion to follow oh thank you." She took the frozen beverage and sipped. "They sometimes steal time technology from us -- usually end up regressing themselves to infancy when they try to use it; do you have any idea how ugly a baby Sontaran is? -- but unlike the Faction they're really just a nuisance. And I guess my later self decided to turn this nuisance into a tool. Clever, don't you think?"
Five didn't know what to think -- or, truthfully, how to think -- as he had finished his fifth margarita already. "Preshident, are you? Congrashulashuns! Better you than me!" He slurped the dregs of his drink and shakily poured another one.
Eight returned with the folding chairs, Biroc sat on one and crushed it to splinters, then announced he was leaving. He didn't like margaritas, and as Romana had wanted to get back to n-space anyway, this seemed as good a time as any for them to part ways. "One of these Doctors can get you back to n-space" he told her, then added in a whisper, "I'd recommend the velvety one. The blonde one seems to have had too much to drink."
"The velvety one? The kissing velvety one? No thank you. I'll take my chances with the blonde."
Biroc said his farewells, and for the next hour or so the three Gallifreyans drank margaritas and watched appreciatively as the Sontarans pounded the Eleven-Day Empire to rubble. Romana hinted that there might be a fusion-bomb finale to the evening's fireworks, but it soon became clear that it was not to be. And Five had fallen asleep anyway. Romana hoisted him to his feet and took his key. "Friends don't let friends time-travel drunk," she said.
"It's been great seeing you again, Romana," Eight purred. He waggled his eyebrows at her. "You sure you don't want to -"
"Not a chance, lover-boy. Remember what I said about the real invasion that's coming?" Romana said. "I wouldn't stick around for that if I were you. It's going to be messy." With that she loaded Five into his TARDIS, which soon dematerialized with a thunderous roar.
"Oh, that doesn't sound good at all," Eight said of the awful sound. "Sure was nice of Romana to fix the temporal buffers while I was, er, yes." He grew wistful (this particular incarnation being very good at wistful) and mused "Ah, Romana, you were wonderful."