As Time Goes By – Chapter 7

The Doctor felt a bit guilty for interrupting the young woman's solitude. The way she positioned her chair toward the pavement to watch the people walking by, rather than keeping it straight to face him in the chair opposite hers, was likely a sign that she had only allowed him to sit with her out of kindness and a sense of obligation. He should have just waited the two hours that the hostess had estimated it would take to get a table or left and found an American burger chain at which he could have eaten instantly. But he was already there, and he was determined to stay.

He had been waiting at the bar when he saw her. He had only gotten a glimpse of the woman when he was in the watch and jewelry shop, but he knew it was the same face he had seen earlier. The hat sitting on the table with the new hat pin stuck through it confirmed this. Funny—for some reason he hadn't expected her to have black hair. (And he was pretty certain it was not possible, but it seemed as if he had seen her face before in a dream or some misty memory.) When he noticed her, the young woman had been looking at her menu and chewing on her bottom lip as if she were in deep thought over her menu choices. Though he knew nothing about her (other than the fact that she had hawked a rather expensive bracelet just to get a hat pin), he felt certain that there was something about her that set her apart from everyone else in the busy café.

The Doctor planned to leave immediately after having his meal. He would put the Tardis into the vortex and allow himself to fully recover from his recent regeneration before keeping his promise to make amends for his actions. And since this was that last time he would focus on his own happiness, he had made the bold move to order the intriguing woman a drink and hope she would invite him to sit down. He was about to face a virtual eternity of solitude. He thought somehow that an evening in her company would make that reality easier to bear.

But now her eyes searched for something out in the distance while he was all but ignored. The Doctor got the attention of a waiter named Julien and placed his order. He would try small talk just to break the silence until the meal arrived, and if she did not desire to talk to him, he would respect that.

"So, what brings you to Paris?" he asked the raven-haired woman. She kept her head turned toward the street, so the Doctor fixed his gaze on her profile. "Business or personal reasons?"

"Both I suppose," she said, not divulging more. Both her voice and her accent wavered.

The Doctor nodded, though he doubted she saw his nonverbal response.

"Paris is a good city for both pursuits," the Doctor said. It was a stupid remark. He hated small talk.

The woman nodded, then looked down at her watch. The Doctor got a sense that, like him, she was carrying a burden that caused her great pain.

"Are you travelling alone?" he asked her. Maybe she was lonely. He sure was. There wasn't a voice in his mind, and the silence was hard to bear.

"For now," she said. It seemed to the Doctor that it took considerable effort for her to keep her voice light. She turned her chair forward, but did not look directly at him. She sat without speaking or barely moving for fifty-eight seconds. Then she raised her head to look at him. "How about you?" she asked with a measure of forced cheerfulness. "What brings you to Paris?"

The Doctor debated how to answer. To say that his ship had brought him here against his will would make him appear rather unstable. (Then, again, maybe he was unstable.) He was also beginning to wonder if there was something else—something from his past or his future—that had drawn his Tardis to this particular place and time. The Doctor settled on "just passing through" and hoped she wouldn't press for more information.

"Yeah me too," she said with a smile that seemed genuine. Her Received Pronunciation accent was conspicuously missing. "I'm sort of jumping from place to place myself." She smiled again, and this time it even seemed as if it were the start of a laugh. Whoever this dark-haired young woman was, and wherever she had come from, she appeared to be less formal and proper than the image she was trying so hard to present. He wondered what caused her to put on an act, because it was the substance beyond the surface—that honest voice that mentioned that he had been overcharged and admonished him to be more careful—that had intrigued him.

The Doctor wanted to say more and keep the conversation going. Not only did it keep his mind off the destruction that plagued him, he also believed that she needed the company as badly as she did. However, he was at a loss for what to talk about. Even for the sake of his peace or to see the woman smile again, he could not bring himself to comment on the weather or make mindless remarks about the beauty of their surroundings. So he waited for his food to arrive, and found himself watching the parade of pedestrians beyond the terrace.

Finally, the waiter came carrying two plates. Since both dishes had been prepared to be ready at the same time, the waiter must have assumed that he and the young woman were a party of two that had intended to dine together rather than two strangers sharing a table. That was fine with him. However, the Doctor still didn't enjoy small talk, and Julien the waiter seemed intent on engaging in it.

"Where are the two of you from?" the waiter asked in French.

The young woman furrowed her brow and leaned forward as if these actions would help her understand what Julien had said. It was clear to the Doctor that she spoke little French.

"I'm pretty far from home," the Doctor said in French. "But I have been traveling for so long that there's really no place I call home." He hoped that was enough of an answer, because he didn't think he could manage to say more. He noticed that the woman's smile had faded after he spoke. He wasn't sure how much she understood, but she must have detected some of the darker sentiment hiding behind his words.

"Je suis de l'Angleterre," she told Julien. So she did know some French. She probably learned it in an elite public school but forgot most of it after exams.

"How long will the two of you be on holiday?" Julien asked in French, looking from the Doctor to the young woman.

"I cannot speak for the mademoiselle, but I'm just passing through," the Doctor told him in French.

The young woman looked confused and shrugged, flashing the waiter an apologetic smile.

"I asked how long you and your companion were on holiday," Julien said in heavily-accented English.

"Oh," said the woman, as her cheeks turned pink. "He's not my…" she began, clearly agitated. "I mean, I'm not his com—" The woman sighed and tried again. "We didn't come to Paris together."

A bright smile spread across Julien's face and his eyes twinkled. "Then the legend holds true."

"What legend?" she asked.

"There is a legend that if you sit long enough at one of the tables on the Terasse, you are destined to encounter someone that you know," Julien said. "Café de La Paix is where old friends reunite."

The young woman's mouth dropped open, and she shifted her gaze from the waiter to the Doctor. She seemed amazed at the waiter's claim.

The Doctor chuckled. "Running into a stranger twice in a day may not quite count as validation of the legend," he said. "Still, it is quite the coincidence."

"Perhaps a wine to celebrate the chance encounter," Julien said in French, turning his attention to the Doctor. The waiter opened the wine menu and suggested a few of the more expensive bottles.

The Doctor answered him in French, "I am afraid our meal does not hold that much meaning. We are simply sharing a table." He looked at the prices and shook his head. "For that reason," he said, "Deux cent cinquante Euros est trop à passer." Two hundred and fifty Euros was too much to spend, and he did not want to mislead the young lady, whose company he was glad to keep for the evening.

"Pardon me for correcting you," said the waiter in English. "But I believe you mean to say 'Deux cent cinquante Euros est trop à dépenser.' 'Passer' is used to spend time, not money." Julien stood the wine list on the table between the Doctor and the young woman. "I will leave the list for your convenience," he said in English. Then he made a slight bow and left the pair to enjoy their dinner.

"Did he just correct your French?" asked the woman with a small laugh as she watched the waiter walk away.

The Doctor nodded and chuckled. "It's not a proper visit to Paris until you use the wrong verbs once or twice."

"Better you than me," she answered back. There was a twinkle in her eye that the Doctor hoped would remain for the rest of the meal.


Author's Notes: The legend that you will meet a friend or acquaintance at Café de La Paix is well known, and has made it into reviews and even people's travel blogs. It makes me want to go to Paris and see who I meet.

The verbs the Doctor confuses are some of the top verbs confused by non-native speakers, at least according to what I researched. I used more than one site to translate the sentence, so blame the translation-bots if it is not correct. It is a bit farfetched that the Doctor would make such a simple mistake, but it was on my list of things that had to happen. We can pretend it was because he was mesmerized by the beautiful stranger at his table. :)

Purple Guest: Yep, the song referenced in the title was not an accident. And I suppose it is the Doctor's first date with her. Of course they could argue later about what constitutes a date. They aren't really good at defining things like that, though.

Also, lets make a deal that I post every other day FOR SURE, with daily postings being a bonus. Shirking other important duties to write fanfiction is apparently frowned upon.