Someday You're Gonna Be Free
Summary: In which the Tenth Doctor, grieving for Rose after Journey's End, runs into Captain Jack, fire-breathing purple dinosaurs invade the earth, and the Seventh Doctor receives cryptic warnings from a mysterious blond.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, which, considering the piece of nonsense I've written, is probably a good thing. Nor do I own Torchwood, Barney the Dinosaur, any songs based on the works of Douglas Adams, a yacht, any Pledge cleaning products, the Thames or anything sunk therein, or David Bowie's pants. Or, apparently, any shred of sanity.
The title isn't mine either, it's from a Dan Auerbach song called "Mean Monsoon."
Author's Note: I've just been cleaning up this draft, and I have to admit even *I* don't know where this came from. Or what it is. I do know it ties in to a series I'm working on about Rose and 10.5 (which will appear in the fullness of time, if enough people are interested enough to review this piece of nonsense—hint, hint!) but stands alone. I expect that series to be far less silly. Most of the time. I hope.
Also, though I dabbled in fanfic as a kid, this is the first thing I've posted in possibly more than ten years. And it's … this. (Sigh.) Little nervous, but here goes. Unbeta'd—anyone care to?
1. The Morning After The Night Before
The first thing the Doctor was aware of was the pain. A horrible, crushing, throbbing pain that seemed to envelope his entire head, muddling his thoughts. Gaah. Even his eyeballs ached, from the light filtering through his lids. And there was a terrible taste in his mouth.
"Good morning, Handsome," drawled a voice in an American accent.
The Doctor turned his head to the right, towards the voice, and opened his eyes. He found himself looking at Captain Jack's smiling face. Jack was lying beside him on the bed (bed?) propped up on one elbow. His lower body was covered by the sheet. His upper body was covered by absolutely nothing.
"It's about time you woke up," said Jack, reaching out to caress the Doctor's face. "Helluva night, huh? I'll go and put some coffee on. I expect you two will want it."
He got up out of bed. The lower half of his body, as the Doctor had feared, was also unclothed. He stretched and sauntered out of the room, stark naked, making sure the Doctor got an eyeful.
*What the hell happened last night?* thought the Doctor. He found, to his increasing alarm, that he could recall absolutely nothing. And something Jack had said was slowly percolating through his fogged thoughts …
*You two …*
Slowly, carefully, the Doctor turned his aching head to the left.
A dark-haired young man, the sheet pulled up to his naked chest, was giving him a nervous smile. He looked vaguely familiar. "Sorry," he said softly, in a thick Welsh accent. "I tried to talk him out of it."
He gave the Doctor another uncertain smile and turned, fishing a pair of trousers off the floor and slipping them on under the sheet before getting out of bed. Ianto, that was his name. Ianto Jones.
"Your shoes are under the chair," he said, and beat a hasty retreat, snatching up a shirt on his way out.
*Shoes? Where are the rest of my clothes?*
The Doctor sat up with a groan and looked down at himself.
His jacket and tie had been removed and, yes—he wriggled his toes—his shoes. Apart from that he was fully clothed.
He took a deep breath. He knew this was going to hurt his head, but he did it anyway.
"JACK!!!"
2. The Night Before The Morning After
The coffee went some way towards soothing the Doctor's temper, and his headache. He couldn't take the proffered aspirin, but he still recovered far faster than a human would have.
He'd put his trainers, tie and jacket back on. The trainers had seaweed caught in the laces. He had no idea how that had got there. The jacket had a spatter of something that looked like pink blood and bits of purple felt across the front of it, and a faint scent of ginger and cleaning supplies. He had no idea how that got there, either.
"Never seen you hung over before," said Jack, lounging against the table.
"I am not hung over," said the Doctor, hunched in his chair, breathing the steam from his second cup of coffee. He gave Jack his patented "Oncoming Storm" glare, the look that had made Daleks and battle cruisers and BBC executives falter. It bounced off of Jack like reason off of Jackie Tyler.
"What, Time Lords don't get hangovers after a drunk?"
"We don't get drunk." Although sometimes they wished they could …
"Yeah, that's what you kept saying last night."
"Did I?"
"You did," confirmed Ianto. He looked slightly hung over himself.
The Doctor tried to remember. His mind was a bit clearer, but there were still a lot of blank spaces. The things he *did* recall didn't make much sense.
"What happened last night?" he asked.
"You don't remember anything?" asked Jack.
"Well, I remember something about you driving a fire engine."
"Yeah. A stolen fire engine. That was fun. You hotwired it. You wanted to drive, but you were too drunk."
"Time Lords—"
"Don't get drunk, yeah."
"And I seem to recall a bunch of fire-breathing Barney the Dinosaurs rampaging through the street." He rubbed his temples. That couldn't be right.
"That happened too," said Jack.
The Doctor looked at him with bloodshot eyes. "Are you sure I was the one who was drunk?"
"Hey, Ianto and I didn't have anything stronger than water. Well, until after we met the Barneys …"
"I'd get your water tested, if I were you."
"Do you remember anything else?"
"Welllll … David Tennant in a pink tutu singing 'So Long And Thanks For All The Fish'?"
Jack and Ianto shook their heads. "Nope."
"Oh." The Doctor slumped a little deeper in his chair. "What was *I* drinking?"
"I'm not sure," said Ianto, "but it looked like furniture polish."
3. So Where's …?
"So where's Rose?" asked Jack. He was serious now, all kidding done, his voice gentle. Apparently he'd realized the answer couldn't be good. "And the other you? And what about Donna?"
"You got my message about Donna?" asked the Doctor. Ianto had gone, leaving them alone, for which he was grateful. It was going to be hard enough telling Jack.
"Yeah, I got your message. It was a little cryptic." Jack sounded a bit peeved. "'Don't contact Donna Noble, she doesn't remember anything, and that's the way it has to stay—for her sake.' You mind explaining that?"
"There's never been a Human-Time-Lord metacrisis before," said the Doctor. "Because there can't be. She had my memories, my thought patterns, imprinted on a purely human brain. It's like trying to run Windows on a pocket calculator."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Did you just call me a pocket calculator?"
"I had to erase her memories to save her," said the Doctor, forcing himself to meet the other man's eyes. "All of her memories of me. She was burning, Jack, burning inside, and if she ever for one second remembers anything about me, it'll all come back. It'll burn her alive."
Jack came over and rested a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said. "I liked Donna."
The Doctor took a deep, shuddering breath, calming himself. He realized he'd been expecting Jack to argue, to tell him he was wrong. To give him that same accusatory, betrayed look Donna had given him in her last moments.
He still thought of them as her last moments. As if she were dead. As if he had murdered her. His best friend.
"You did what you had to do," murmured Jack. "I know you. If there was another way, you'd have found it."
"Thank you, Jack." He'd told himself that already. Maybe someday, he'd believe it.
There was a long silence between them. "Is that what happened to the other Doctor?" asked Jack. The Doctor noticed he did not yet broach the subject of Rose. "The metacrisis went wrong somehow?"
"Oh, no," said the Doctor, with false cheer. "He's fine. I think he's fine. I left him with Rose. In the other universe."
The hand tightened on his shoulder. "Doctor, you said the universes were sealing themselves off again. That no one could travel between them anymore. Ever. Are you telling me—"
"That I left Rose behind? Forever?" snapped the Doctor. "Yes, Jack, that's what I'm telling you."
Jack pulled his hand away from the Doctor's shoulder, put it to his own forehead, turned and paced a few times round the tiny kitchen.
"Why?" he said finally, coming to a halt. "I mean, I'm assuming you had a reason."
The Doctor ran his hands through his hair. This was difficult. He'd never told anyone the full reasoning behind his actions. Not even Rose. He wondered if his other self had told her yet, the bits he knew, anyway …
"Dalek Caan kept saying that one would die," he said. "One of my companions."
"Donna?" said Jack. "No—not Rose? Doctor, you didn't leave her because a *Dalek* said she would die, did you?"
"No. Me. My other self." He took a deep breath. "Caan showed me … glimpses of the future. What would become of him."
He would not speak of those images, not even to Jack. Not to anyone, ever. Images of himself, holding a vicious-looking gun, backlit by flames, his gaunt face twisted by an insane, malevolent smile.
Of himself, hands in his pockets, face stony, watching himself falling into a pit, screaming.
"He went mad, Jack. I don't know how or why. He went mad and I had to kill him to stop him." He picked up his coffee, not to drink it, just for the sake of the motion. His hands were shaking. "I didn't want to believe it. But then he destroyed the Daleks. He killed an entire race. They'd been stopped already, they could have been neutralized some other way, they were *helpless*—and he killed them."
"They were Daleks, Doctor. I know you don't want to hear this, but I'm not heartbroken over that." Jack folded his arms. "And I can't believe you'd do something this … this *stupid,* over them."
"No." The Doctor took a sip of coffee. "After we left the Crucible, I could see the timelines clearly enough to know it was true. I can't see the future clearly, Jack, not my own, anyway, it's too much in flux—but very strong possibilities, near-certain outcomes—those I can sense. I could see his future going down into the darkness. I couldn't let that happen. Too many people had died already that day. I couldn't—"
"You wanted to save yourself," said Jack, gently. Maybe he understood. They'd both suffered so much in life. If they could take some of that burden away, even by proxy … "But how could you leave him with Rose? If he's that dangerous?"
"Ohhh, he's me. He'll be all right with her." The Doctor smiled a bit. "I can't save myself, but she can."
"You saw that in the timelines?" Jack sounded skeptical, and the Doctor couldn't blame him. He'd been wrong before about timelines, failed to see things, misinterpreted things—which was why he didn't often rely on that sense.
"No. I just trust her."
"But—argh. You left her sealed off for eternity in another universe, with a man you said you would have had to kill in this one because he went mad. How could you *do* that? How could you possibly believe she'd be all right? And what did she have to say about this?"
"She's the one who told me to do it."
"She—" Jack stopped, for once completely lost for words. "No," he said at last. "I don't believe it. Even if you told her it was the only way—"
"I didn't tell her," said the Doctor. "She told me. And she knew, because for her, it had already happened."
"What?"
4. Lily
The yacht was called *Starlight.* The woman on the yacht said her name was Lily. She had dirty blond hair and a heart-shaped face, or she appeared to—she was wearing a bodymorph of some sort. It hid everything—her appearance, her scent, even touch could be fooled. The Doctor doubted she was even human under it, as he could sense some sort of temporal energy radiating from her, the one thing the morph couldn't disguise. He had no idea what species she was. Well, it was a parallel universe (this was back before the Time War, when travel between such universes was still possible) and she could be *anything.* She refused to take the morph off.
"You can't see my face," she told him. There was something sad in her green eyes.
"Oh? Why not?" he'd asked.
"Because when I meet you the first time, you don't recognize me."
He scowled at her to cover his discomfort. *She* had seemed to know him. She'd peered at him when they'd met, as if searching his face for something, and said, "Doctor?" in a sort of wondering tone. As if she was almost sure, and almost wanted him to be, and almost didn't. Perhaps she knew him in a future regeneration.
Rassilon, he hated when this happened.
"I very much doubt that," he said, rolling the 'r'. "You're giving off a good bit of temporal energy, you know. Quite distinctive. Unless I meet more of your race?"
She just gave him another smile, this one with a hint of mischief, and shook her head. "I missed you, you know. Talking to you like this, it's almost like—" But she wouldn't finish. She seemed to change her mind as some thought occurred to her. "But don't think I'm sittin' around pining after you or nothing. I'm happy. I want you to know that."
"Ah, well, that's always good," he replied awkwardly, not sure if he meant it.
She reached out to touch his face, and he pulled back a little, automatically. "Please?" she said.
He made himself be still. She touched his cheek, gently, and he wondered what history lay between them. Her hand was human-warm against his skin.
"There's so many things I wish I could say to you," she said. "Stuff I always swore I'd say if I had the chance. But I can't. Not now. It'd give too much away." She sighed. "Already said the one thing that really mattered, anyway. But I still wish I could say it again."
"You will tell me," he told her, a bit awkwardly. The emotion in her voice was far too genuine for him to ignore, whatever doubts he'd harbored. "In my future."
"There is that," she agreed. "But it ain't the same. Not for me."
They stood in silence for a while, Lily leaning on the scratched wooden rail and looking out at the deep blue of the tropical ocean, smelling the salt of the sea, squinting slightly against the sun. The Doctor leaned on his umbrella and watched her, wondering who she was, what she was under the morph. She appeared to be perfectly human, young, with a slight tan. She was in a dark pink bikini, patterned with paler pink roses, and moved with an unconscious lithe grace.
"The first time you recognize me will be the last day we see each other," she said. "Do what you have to do. Trust me, it's for the best, and it'll all work out. A lot more people than you think are gonna die if you don't. Okay?"
"You know, I dislike getting cryptic warnings from the future."
"No, you don't. Not in this regeneration, anyway. Told me so yourself."
"Oh, very well," he grumbled. "I suppose a stitch in time can save lives. Anything else?" He let a note of sarcasm creep into his voice.
"Yeah, as a matter of fact," she said. "Three things. First, don't let Caan escape. Second, when get a message from Aelon, don't answer it. That one's not for you," she added. "Not exactly."
"Who—"
"Never mind. It'll make sense later. And third—if you see a big red glowy crystal ball sort of thing, RUN. Don't stop, don't look, don't ask questions, just run." She paused, thought for a moment, and added, "And don't be afraid to give your heart away."
"I'll keep that in mind." He found himself relaxing a little. Apparently this woman didn't know him all that well, if she wasn't familiar with his binary cardiovascular system.
She sighed. "You're gonna mess it up. You already have. All except the last one, anyway. But I'll forgive ya."
"Do I need forgiveness?" he asked, concerned despite himself.
"Yeah." She shook her head ruefully. "You can make it up to me by getting me a kitten for Christmas. Get the little black one from the animal shelter, the one with the white mustache—you'll know it when you see it. I'll be surprised. Oh—and one more thing."
"What?"
"You're the regeneration that plays the spoons, yeah?"
"Yes …"
"Don't."
"Why? Will it have terrible consequences, plunge the universe into darkness?"
"No, it's just really annoying."
5. Rose
"It was Rose," said Jack, guessing. "Bad Wolf."
"More Bad Wolf than you know," agreed the Doctor. "Somewhere between when I lost her the first time and meeting her for the last time, something happened. The energy didn't come all the way back, but enough of it did. I didn't notice it until after the aborted regeneration. I was hoping that it wouldn't have to be … I was hoping I was wrong. Hoping that it had already happened for her, and she could stay with me. But I asked her if she remembered meeting a man with a Scottish accent and a hideous question-mark sweater who played the spoons, she just looked at me like I'd lost my mind."
"Gee, Doc, I wonder why."
"Hm," said the Doctor. He was thinking of his seventh self, wishing the fool had loosened up a little with Rose, let himself trust her. Spent just a little more time with her, so that he could have those memories now. It seemed like such a waste. But of course, he hadn't known.
"But that's still a bit of a stretch, isn't it?" Jack insisted. He was calmer, but he still sounded a bit pissed off. Not quite convinced. "I mean, there could have been someone else emitting temporal energy, couldn't there? And some of what she said sounded kinda cryptic. Did any of that even happen? The stuff she told you not to do?"
"Well, I suppose in a way I did give my heart away. My one heart. Caan … wellll …" The Doctor winced. "There was a time I ran into him in New York, with a bunch of mutant pig-slave hybrids—"
"Oh, you were involved in that?"
"Yeah. But I had Caan trapped, or, um, thought he was trapped. Tried to give him a second chance, but it turned out he still had the power for an emergency temporal shift."
Jack just shook his head. "Okay, so what about the rest?"
"Haven't seen a big red glowing crystal ball yet—"
"Y'know, I used to know a guy with one of those."
"And I don't even know an Aelon," finished the Doctor, ignoring him with the ease of long practice. "I reckon that's for my other self."
"But seriously, Doctor, the ball," said Jack. "If that's in your future, and that was Rose, how did she know about it?"
"I don't know," said the Doctor, irritably. "Maybe she met someone from my future. But it was Rose, Jack. And I did what I had to do."
"Are you sure of that? Or was it just easier for you to let her go, so you wouldn't have to face losing her later? So you wouldn't have to be afraid of getting too close to her?"
The Doctor gave Jack a hard look, although some of that had hit a little too close to the mark for comfort. Hadn't he felt a bit of relief under all the pain as he'd left Rose, grateful that he could just turn and run away and never look back?
Jack looked away first, dismissing the question with a wave of his hand. Not surrendering, but letting the Doctor off. Maybe he knew that feeling a little too well himself. "How did Rose react?"
"I didn't have time to explain to her," he said. He was trying not to think of the betrayal in her eyes when he'd brought her back to that damned beach again. Had he betrayed everyone that day? "I told her he was dangerous, too dangerous to be left on his own, that he someone to make him better. I couldn't lie to her about that. He told her he was half-human, that he could grow old along with her."
"She accepted that?"
The Doctor shook his head. "The walls of the universe were closing. We only had a moment left. She asked us both what we would have said to her, the first time I said goodbye. I let him tell her."
"Tell her what?"
"Oh, you know," said the Doctor, waving a hand as if the words floated in the air, and he could demonstrate them with a gesture. Those ones, there. "That I … How I felt about her."
Jack was giving him a look of mingled exasperation and pity. "That you love her, you mean?"
The Doctor responded with a vague noise, not meeting his eyes.
"You *let* him tell her? You would have told her, if he hadn't been there?" Now there was disbelief.
"Yes, of course I would!" the Doctor shot back. "Of course. I'm sure of it."
"You're pathetic," said Jack, not unkindly. "But he told her? And she told you she wanted to stay with him?"
"Wellll … more or less."
6. No Goodbyes
He saw the hardness in her eyes, and the hurt, and the anger, as she turned to the other. The man in the blue suit. "And you, *Doctor*?"
She said his name as a challenge to the other, as a barbed thrust at him.
He exchanged a look with the other, saying, 'You're me, get it right for us both,' and, 'Go on. It's all right. You do it.'
The other stepped close to her, wind ruffling his hair. Was that what he really looked like in a blue suit? Blimey, wasn't like it was in the mirror.
He leaned in, murmured in her ear. It was too soft for the humans to hear, and even the Doctor couldn't make out the words from this distance. But he knew. Oh, he knew.
The other stepped back. For the second that seemed like eternity, they only looked at each other, he and Rose.
And then she was grabbing his jacket, pulling him in, kissing him almost violently. He'd lowered his head to meet her lips, and placed his hands on her waist. Her eyes were closed, and their arms slid around each other.
The Doctor stood to the side, rejected, forgotten. Now he was the broken copy of himself, the one who wasn't good enough. He watched his other self kiss her so easily, and he knew that not only he never would, now, but that he never could—never could have given himself to her in that way.
He had wanted to say so much more to her before he left. Now more than ever. But there was no time, and nothing left to say, and no point. Best to go now, while she was preoccupied.
He couldn't have said it again anyway. No more goodbyes. If he didn't say goodbye, he could pretend that it wasn't—that perhaps someday he would meet her by accident walking down the street, or that (sweeter still, and more painful by far) he was his human self, who would be spending his days and nights with her, until he had no more days or nights, and all his life was spent.
He turned and walked to the TARDIS, swiftly, before he could lose his nerve, and dematerialized without looking at the scanner to see if she'd noticed he'd gone.
7. Not Really Goodbye, Anyway
"She wouldn't say it either," said the Doctor. "On the yacht."
"Did she look happy?" asked Jack. He seemed to have accepted Rose's decision, if not the Doctor's.
"Well … she said she was. She seemed a bit sad, seeing me again. But … contented, I suppose. At peace. She looked healthy, anyway, though that could have been the morph. Wellll, I suppose she had to be healthy, to throw the harpoon like that. And all the running and swimming and whatnot. And she certainly clobbered that Mage like nobody's business. Not that I approve of violence, but sometimes you just don't have any choice but to beat someone unconscious with a trans-dimensional communications hyper-crystal."
"I'm sensing a story here."
"Some other time."
They sat for a moment in silence, both thinking of Rose, wondering what she was doing now, what adventures she was having with her Doctor. The Doctor wondered if this was her revenge—leaving him cryptic messages he would never be able to decipher. No, it wasn't. It was a warning to his other self, who'd inherited the memory.
"So what did she say? Instead of goodbye?" Jack leaned forward, all suppressed eagerness. The Doctor was jolted by the realization that he was not alone in missing her, that the former Time Agent wanted a goodbye, as well, or whatever substitute he could get. But letting them say goodbye would have meant telling Rose where they were going. And that would have meant more arguments from her, and he couldn't have taken that.
8. I Know
"I know you hate goodbyes," she said. "So I won't say it. S'pose I've gotten to hate them, too. Anyway, it's not really goodbye. Cos you're gonna meet me again, and I … well, you'll know. And I promise I'll never forget you. That means you'll never really be alone, cos I'll be out here, somewhere, thinking of you."
He found that oddly comforting, though he didn't yet know why. He doffed his hat, unsure of how to reply. "Well, I suppose I can't say goodbye, now. Au revoir, perhaps?"
"That'll do."
He turned to go, trying to write it off as just another odd episode in the general weirdness of his life and almost succeeding. But she called him back.
"One last thing." She gave him a fond smile, slightly exasperated. "Yeah, it did need saying, you idiot. But yeah, I know. Doctor."
She pulled him into a hug and kissed him on the cheek. Fortunately, Ace was too busy leaning over the rail and waving goodbye to the alien squid she'd befriended to notice. The Doctor gave Lily a nervous nod and slipped into the TARDIS, calling for his companion to follow him.
"That was well weird, Professor," she told him. "I mean, *really* weird. Is she really somebody you're gonna know?"
"So she claims," he said, noncommittally.
"Sounds like some strange stuff is gonna happen."
"The future is a foreign country," he replied. "They do things differently there."
9. Trust Her
"What do you think happened to them?" asked Jack.
"I don't know," said the Doctor. "I'll never know. But if there's one person in the universe, in either universe, that I trust, it's her. She said it was for the best, and I believe her. I have to."
Jack came over and slipped his arms around the Doctor, who, after a brief hesitation, returned the embrace. Jack's mere presence was an ache, a fixed point in time that shouldn't possibly exist, but the Doctor had grown used to it. Even found it a comfort. One friend who wouldn't grow old before him.
Jack kissed the top of the Time Lord's head before stepping back. "I trust her, too, Doctor."
10. And What Were *They* Drinking?
"Is that why you went on your Pledge bender last night?"
"No it isn't," said the Doctor. In all honesty, he couldn't remember that part of the night before, but he wasn't about to admit to that. He changed the subject. "I don't suppose you'd care to explain the Barneys?"
"Oh, the usual. Bunch of nuts from Ursunas who decided to invade the Earth and tried to disguise themselves as local deities but got a bit mixed up watching TV …"
"What, *again*?" The Doctor tutted. "Blimey, the number of aliens who do that … When will they learn?"
"Yeah, tell me about it. That's the third time this year. Hey, were you around a few decades back, that thing with the Brady Bunch?"
"Oh, yes, I remember. That was a bad one."
"Uh-huh. Anyway, Gwen's on vacation, so Ianto and I took the call and got to the scene just in time to get zapped with the alien mind control. First time that's happened to *me* in a while. There were a few times I shook it off just enough to wonder what I was doing marching down the street after a purple dinosaur with a thousand other people and singing "I love you, you love me," but I just couldn't break free."
"Ah, well, happens to the best of us now and then. Well, not the purple dinosaur and the singing, necessarily, but you know what I mean."
"Yeah. So then you show up, three sheets to the Time Winds, and yank me into a dark alleyway before the Ursunans know what's happening, and pour a couple of banana daiquiris down my throat. All the sudden I can think clearly—well, apart from being a little tipsy. Both of us went and grabbed Ianto—you almost got yourself flame-broiled, by the way, and our guns weren't having much effect."
"Well, no, not against Ursunans."
"It took a few more drinks to snap him out of it. You said they were using stolen Relchen technology for the mind-control, and the alcohol would interfere with it. Why banana daiquiris, by the way?"
"Ahhh … potassium?"
"Uh-huh. Then you said the only thing that could stop them was ginger beer."
"Inhibits their enzymes. Not fatal except after prolonged exposure, but certainly an effective deterrent."
"What about the dancing?"
"What?"
"You said we all had to dance. The Funky Chicken, as I recall."
"Did I?" Blimey, that was embarrassing.
"Yes, you did."
"Oh. I suppose that was the Pledge talking. Er. Sorry."
"Anyway … they'd zapped the van with some sort of engine-stalling device, which you blew up with your sonic. Then they rode off on these sort of hover-skateboards."
"Is that when we hijacked the fire engine?"
"Yeah. You wanted to take the ice-cream truck. It had a giant plastic banana split on the roof. But we talked you out of it."
"And we chased them off?"
"Not exactly. *You* managed to spill the ginger beer, and they turned around and started chasing *us* before we could get more. And then a squad of Judoon showed up and blasted them all to kingdom come, along with a sizable chunk of street … hell of a mess. I'm thinking, forget the Retcon, just start a rumor about a chemical leak contaminating the water supply with hallucinogenics … you know, the usual standby."
"You know, one of these days, you're gonna have to come up with a new story. That one's getting a bit old."
"Oh, nobody ever really believes it, anyway. So tell me … you used to play the spoons?"
"Yup. Seventh incarnation. Horrible pullover …"
"Seriously? No, wait, Doctor, you don't have to demonstrate!"
Jack tried to stop him before he reached the cutlery drawer, but it was too late.
11. Drive You To Drink
"You know, if you ever need somebody to talk to …" said Jack, becoming serious as the Doctor prepared to leave.
"I'm fine, Jack," said the Doctor. "You know me. I'm always fine."
"Yeah, I do know you," said Jack, folding his arms. "And I've never seen you drunk before."
"Time Lords—"
"Don't get drunk."
"Well, not on alcohol. Anyway, that was to fight the mind control."
"Really? So if you needed to be drunk to fight the mind control, how did you get close enough to the Ursunans to even figure out what technology they were using?"
"Ah, well, Time Lords are more resistant to that sort of thing than humans."
"Which explains why you had to be even more wasted than we were?"
"It's difficult to calculate the amount of furniture polish needed," said the Doctor stiffly. "And I wanted to err on the side of caution."
"Right. Okay. So, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're telling me you had nothing to drink *before* you landed the TARDIS."
"Of course I didn't," lied the Doctor. "Ah … you wouldn't happen to know where I parked, would you?"
12. Dude, Where's My TARDIS?
"What do you mean, it's at the bottom of the Thames?"
"Well, that's what you told me."
"Oh, blimey. Well, that explains the seaweed. But … how am I going to get it out?"
"That's your problem, Doctor."
13. Someday You're Gonna Be Free
He stripped off the scuba gear (must make sure to return that to Jack) and pulled a bit of seaweed from the controls. He wished he'd told Jack which *part* of the Thames. It would have saved ever so much time.
He flicked a few switches. Right. Drop off the scuba gear, then he'd be off. He thought he'd take some time away from Earth. Too many memories right now, too many ghosts.
He remembered.
What had possessed him to visit the memorial, he didn't know. Not his sort of thing at all. Well, he went to more memorials than funerals, anyway. You could be alone at a memorial.
He'd gotten the dates wrong.
He'd landed in the park where the plaque for local victims of the Battle of Canary Wharf (including those from the Powell Estate) would be set up. But it wasn't there.
It wasn't until he heard her laugh that he realized his mistake.
He slipped behind a tree, into the shadows cast by the westering sun, and peered out as two girls strolled by, one blond and one dark, eating chips.
"It's a silly movie," says the dark-haired one. "Kid's stuff. Mind you, those trousers …"
"I don't care," says the blonde, tossing her hair. "If it's kid's stuff, I mean. Care very much about the trousers, ta!"
They both laugh. The blonde's laugh is louder, sweeter, her grin wider than anything. Her eyes are dancing.
"I wish a prince would take me away to another world," she says. "I'd never come back. Never ever."
And they walk off into the gold of the dying day, the dark-haired girl saying it would never happen to people like them, the blonde saying, yeah, probably not, but you never know … and anyway, a girl can wish.
Never ever.
Sometimes, wishes come true.
But not for the Doctor.
He'd gone off to a bar out by Arcturus, where few of the clientele were remotely humanoid. His memory of that petered out into a haze, but evidently they'd served *something* there that could impair Gallifreyan synapses. When he'd got back into the TARDIS, or when he'd started on the furniture polish, he wasn't sure.
Yes, it would be good to get away from Earth for a while. No more memories, not now.
Someday, he knew, it would stop hurting quite so badly. He'd be able to remember the good times and smile. He was no stranger to grief; he knew how it went.
And this time he had something he never had before.
He knew that somewhere out there, there *was* a Doctor who had gotten his wish. Maybe there was hope even for him.
Maybe, if she was with his other self, in some weird way she was right.
He would never quite be alone.
Maybe someday he could bring himself to believe that.
The End