This is rated a little higher, for uses of racist slag and suggestive themes.

I own nothing of BBC's Doctor Who, or of any other fandom I might mention.

Stars and Smoke

Part One

She would catch him staring at the stars, he'd be on the stoop or at the nearest window staring at the stars. At least what he could see of them thanks to the light pollution of living in Boston and not out in the country.

He'd be smoking, a bad habit he's picked up since he's regenerated and it started by being around the people she associates with. Of course with the lungs he has now it didn't make much sense to chastise him about it, he'd only whine like a child if she said anything anyway.

Finally she'd call for him and hold out her hand and he would grin and take it. He would go on as he always does about how the moonlight made her hair gleam silver in the moonlight.

He would go on to how well her name fits her, deep green eyes and hair so pale blonde it was white. Ignoring the freckles on her skin and the compass tattoo that adorned her shoulder. He didn't love her for her looks, and neither did she love him for his.

If they were in public at the time he'd plaster on that mega watt smile he had and play along with everyone for the night while she worked the bar and made sure he didn't do anything stupid. He didn't like drinking at all but the few times he'd been goaded into drinking contests she'd notice he'd never gotten drunk. Although he'd pretend, just for her sake.

These times, she felt bad for him for it was never truly clear on what he wanted out of life. He knew he wanted to be there for her, and had invested into her life to the point of helping her at the tiny Irish Pub she'd inherited from her ailing Uncle.

"Why do you drink and pretend when you can't get drunk?" she asks him once after a particular St. Paddy's day, he's nursing a black eye from some drunkards misplaced fist.

"I want to be accepted, normal, like you are."

"I'm hardly normal David."

He smiles "You're right Cal, I'm not."

At home in their bed he'd cling to her like she was the only thing keeping him there. He couldn't sleep much at night and had told her it was apart of the change. She'd lay awake with him, her head cradled to his chest so her ear was over his heart. Singular. Breathing in his unique smell of cloves, sulphur, and some kind of spice one would find in a cup of Earl Grey.

"How long are you going to stay with me?" he asks before he goes to sleep, brown eyes opened wide with something akin to fear.

She smiles "for as long as I am able to continue breathing."

She thinks he misses the life he had, before it'd been taken from him. He'd been left behind by the people he'd loved, and was scared she was going to do the same to him. So yes, he was a tad bit clingy. Her fiancé or soon to be husband did not deal well with goodbyes, or being left alone for days.

She wishes that it'd never happened to him, that he didn't grow up angry at the people that once loved him. But then the selfish part of her whispers that then he'd never be here with her and that she'd either be alone or dating some Man that made her parents back in Ireland happy but not herself.

Last time they came to visit her mother couldn't stand that he wasn't a good old Irish Catholic Boy, her Da disliked him cause of his "shifting eyes" and the could of bad luck he could sense being around him. Also there was a comment thrown in that "Being a photographer apparently was not a real mans job" that had poor David heartbroken for a spell. Eventually he came around, after she explained that they only wanted best for her, and that she loved him for the way he was. He'd been smug for the rest of the week her parents had visited.

She wonders what they'd think if they knew what her lover did, and not the hobby he'd taken up and used as his main source of income. They'd never seen him scale walls with ease or pick the locks of some Mafia-dons home, nor had they heard him speak in more languages then there were people on the planet. He was the Shadow Operations for many secret operations, gathering information and then covered their tracks with ease. In one instance he single-handedly broke into the best prison she'd ever heard of in the U.S. And walking, literally walking out with them, whistling smiling at guards as he did so.

He was part Gallefreyan and his father was the Last of the Time Lords, his mother was a human who fell for the lonely roving Angel. Together they were The Oncoming Storm and the Bad Wolf, Time and her champion, Goddess of Time and her Thief. (She'd heard these names from his older sister who too fell for a human and lived in Washington with her family.)

Not pretentious at all huh? He followed in his families 'business' in his own way, being an unnamed hero and thief with his fathers famous wanderlust. The skills he'd learned along the way had gained him some friends in very high and very low places, making it impossible for anyone to catch him. And if they did, it wasn't for very damn long.

But now he's home, with her, standing next to the window, twiddling an unlit cigarette in his fingers as he stares at the stars...eyes reflecting the tiny pinpricks of the dying lights of thousands of stars...She wonders if he's actually here at all.

she asks...

"Do you miss it?"

Part II coming soon.