black tin box
((i brought you a black tin box; something to put your jewelry in))
-miike snow, "black tin box"
He remembers his past selves; fragments, shards of the same broken mirror, but all interconnected pieces which eventually translate into the whole, the man. He runs his fingers along the same hands, calloused or smooth, thick or thin flesh, nails waxing crescents on pink moons of keratin. He breathes the smell of her hair, sunflowers and wheatfields, red lips and pearl teeth.
The TARDIS touches down, shuddering before emerging completely, solid and substantial once more. He opens the door, pushes it out, steps onto the grassy fields of a planet he doesn't remember being on. In the distance, suns. Behind him, endless stretches of grayscale, oceans and animals and miles and miles of stone and metal, blazing sunflares gathered into beams of devastating power. Columnal energy.
His machine hums pleasantly, a sound of affirmation. He pats the TARDIS, runs his hand longingly over the patches of flaking blue paint.
"We'll have to fix this, won't we?" he murmurs.
He begins to walk.
She spilled her tears into him, poured her happiness from watering cans and her laughter from saltshakers; black pepper was the loneliness and she always smelled sweet, like vanilla and caramels and a greenhouse full of reds and pinks and oranges in creamy, daydreaming hues.
He's wanted to be ginger for the longest time but there's something magnetic about the waterfall of flaxen blonde. He scrutinizes her, one eyebrow quirked comically above the other, and she laughs until her eyes crinkle at the edges like folded paper envelopes and he laughs, too. Laughter is arbitrary and if anything else, they are a study in spontaneity with their extemporaneous adventures navigated only by a pastel-blue police box adrift in time and space.
He loves the curve of her lips, he loves the bridge of her nose, he loves her brashness and boldness and the way she is so defiantly unafraid of the universe's darkest corners and the way she fits in his arms, against the mountain-brown of his trenchcoat, her warmth mixing with his, and it's just them amidst all those levers and gears and contraptions and it's perfect.
A ring, diamonds and gold, fitted around her finger. She beams.
"It's gorgeous," she breathes, kisses him, sends them falling into their own fantasyland and not even he wants to pull them back into rationality, not even he can analyze the situation with precision and clarity because this is more real than anything that has ever happened before, this is more real than a millennial voyage, this is more real than planets and galaxies and unfathomable possibilities because this is here and now and this is tangible; if he wanted to, he could trace the contours of her face, brush her eyelashes, hold her against him a little bit longer and pretend for a little bit longer and love for a little bit longer.
Their footprints are everywhere, anywhere, all over the universe in little bits. Indentations, impressions of something else, memories and recollections he can't psychometrically divulge but which are, essentially, still living and breathing where they ran with their hair flying in from a strong wind and their hands linked. Planets and histories too numerous to count, to comprehend.
We've all touched time our own little ways, he notes.
Yes, he adds, but she's left her footprints, too.
He knows, and that's enough; the semantics are semantics, the specifics are redundant, this is all.
Once, a paradox, an impossibility.
"Had a bit too much to drink?"
Her voice snaps him out of his stupor, jars him into reality with thundering force. Slowly, he emerges from his hiding-place in the shadows, squints, sees her smiling at him in her winter clothes, her hair held in place by a cap, that same smile he loves burning bright.
"Yeah," he answers, after a pause. "Something like that."
"You need some help?"
"No. No," he says, with the barest shake of his head, "I'll be fine. Thank you, though."
"Have a happy New Year!" she shouts, calling it over her shoulder, tossing it at him like a ball, and he catches it and the last of her face before she disappears around a corner and he thinks, I love you.
His hands (old hands, hands that have destroyed) smooth the dirt, gathering the soil into a singular black mound. The earth is warm and it responds, stirring from its winter slumber, waking in time with the spring. He's no gardener, but this is one project he must try, if only for himself.
The seeds tumble into the opening, spilling from his hands like miniature comets. He observes their path of descent and the way they automatically group together at the bottom, little clusters of potential simply waiting for guidance. He shrugs, shakes his head, grabs the green can and pours water in, as careful and with as much attention to detail as a pharmacist preparing a dosage. When he's sure that enough water has been added, he carefully smooths the soil back, covering the cylindrical lake and brushing grass off his coat. His pants are stained green, his nails are dirty, but that's of no consequence.
Turning around, he walks to a rubbish bin and drops a torn brightly-colored packet in before leaving, footsteps pattering on the walkway.
Roses, the packet reads.