Shaking himself to break up his thoughts, the Doctor reaches for the tea. "Sooooo, tea. I will make you a cup of tea. I guess you don't know how you take it, so let's try it plain first."
The Doctor hands the Sphynx a cup and makes himself one. She watches him carefully, taking a sip when he does. He nearly snorts tea from his nose at the look on her face. Apparently black tea alone is not a preference, he thinks as he starts to giggle at her, and then can't stop. He laughs long and hard. Every time he tries to stop and glances at her confused face with the tea cup hovering between her mouth and the saucer, he falls into another fit.
/Should I be worried, my Child? Is he…unwell?/ Her query to the TARDIS is met with laughter as well.
#no/fine/needed release/good for him/try tea like this#
With the new skill shown her by the Child, she adds milk and sugar to her tea. The Doctor, who is clutching his sides and gasping in his chair with a smile still hovering around his lips, watches her fix her tea. Abruptly, he sits up straight and the smile slides from his face as he watches her make her tea exactly like Rose did. He stares transfixed as she tastes it. The delighted smile on her face is almost more than he can take, but before he can decide what to say the Sphynx gets there first.
"The Child suggested I try the tea this way. I like it. I like...tasting." She peers at the Time Lord over her teacup, and hopes the man will relax so they can finally get to work.
The Doctor blinks at her and decides to let the tea thing go. No point in freaking out. /Rose's way, really?/ The TARDIS just mentally rolls her eye at him. /Fine. Childish, I get it./ He manages to squeak out a, "Me, too," before the Sphynx began speaking again.
Setting the tea aside, the Sphynx decides to begin answering his questions, and he has asked quite a few in the past hours. "To begin, Doctor, the Child told me of Rose and how you both feel about her. Where Rose is concerned, I know everything that has happened, from 'Run!' to the Wall, but I would like to answer some of your other questions before we continue. It is more important you understand me first." The Doctor had just opened his mouth which he now clicks shut. All vestiges of his earlier mirth is gone, but she can feel his curiosity through their link when she focuses on it.
"Alright, I'm listening." He sounds a touch petulant even to himself. I am an idiot. There's an Eternal in MY Library, and she's about to volunteer information. This will never happen again. Take what you can get, moron! he chides himself. Clutching his tea he allows his face to relax into the look of curiosity he's actually feeling.
"Your first questions were about my origins and purpose. I do not know the correct answer. I have always been here in this Universe. I feel the anomalies and desires in the fabric of reality and I help to repair or encourage them. While I can be everywhere at once, I am not always aware of all of myself unless I focus. This is how I became aware of Rassilon. He was using his machinery and equations to manipulate the fabric of space and eventually, Time. A portion of me became aware of the ripples his tinkering created, and I was curious. I did not often interact with ephemerals, but what he was doing was so, interesting. May I give/share these experiences with you the way the Child and I shared them?" She asks him tentatively, not wanting to anger him again.
The Doctor has been listening amazed as the many thoughts and ideas poured through his mind at her revelations. All the times that he's thought he noticed purposeful manipulations to star systems and galaxies. Had that been her work? He has met false gods before, but the Sphynx might actually qualify. Blimey, that's humbling, he thinks.
At the sharing question, he recognises that she's giving him a choice. She wants him to know. Part of his mind screams at him to say no, but the greater portion, the portion that made him steal the TARDIS in the first place, that need to find out part, makes him narrow his eyes at her, but he replies, "Oh, yes."
About 3.36 seconds later he thinks he might regret that decision. The flow of images and experiences is nearly overwhelming. Just relax. You know how this works, it's just been awhile, he inwardly tells himself.
He lets himself take it all in, cataloguing the flow for more in depth perusal later. The images of Rassilon. The sensations of how his experiments impact Reality. Their conversations/ theTears/ theCoral/ theSinging/ theFirstTARDIS/ theCreationoftheEYE/ galaxies/nebulae/ Stars/ expanding...coalescing...TIME...24 minutes and 6 seconds later...
"Stop! STOP!" Gasping, the Doctor is clutching the arms of his chair looking pale; the sweat standing on his skin and running down his face. Taking a shaking breath, the Doctor pulls a handkerchief from a pocket and wipes his face. "I...I'm out of practice for that intense a transfer, and SO much TIME has passed. I had no idea, no thought to how, or why...I know what we were taught, but there was so much more. Why did Rassilon never mention your help? You helped! You showed me such pivotal moments in our development...Blimey, and so beautiful. STARS! I think I know what you did with the Star outside now, weeelll, I mean I felt how you have manipulated other stars, and assume it is similar. I can't even really comprehend how I would do it. I'm brilliant, and I have no idea." The Doctor knows he must look like a moon-struck fool, but he can't help the pervasive feelings of intense wonder and…awe that he's experiencing. His perspective on so many integral pieces of his own and the Time Lords history has just changed.
"So we understand each other now? I apologise for giving so much, but it is so much faster, and I require you to understand me, my motives, our purpose," she states.
"Yes, yes. I feel I have an idea about you now. I feel... I can" taking a deep breath, "...trust you. You don't usually work this way...so decisively. Why now, and you left out the part about why you care about Rose and I. How is she important, what plan, and what did the TARDIS start that didn't get finished when Rose was...lost? I need to know. There will be no plan, if I don't know what's going on."
Just as the Sphynx is about to answer there's a beeping from the Console room. The Doctor jumps up and runs out of the Library. This gives the TARDIS and the Sphynx a moment together.
#the wave has reached its destination/building/soon/hope plan works/must finish explanation#
/Yes, my Daughter, I will finish the explanation. I know we will succeed. I have very few concerns. It is...complicated. You are certain that Rose was bonded with the Vortex long enough in this Universe? It is the only thing that would guarantee her survival in the other./
#certain/ready/only required event/frightened/sadness/excited/hope#
She's going to give her Time Lord and her Child more than hope, and he isn't going to stop her. Never boring, this mortal. If she makes it through all of this intact, she may have to visit more often.
Taking another sip of tea, she settles herself more comfortably in her chair and continues refining the inner-workings of the Plan with her Child
