21. In which the Doctor meets someone old and Alice meets someone new.
Alice and the Doctor don't often spend a lot of time apart, but eventually everyone needs a bit of a break, a change in routine if you will. The Doctor has a sudden urge to traipse through the floating rain forests of Terrium, and while Alice fully supports his choice, she personally has no desire whatsoever to visit a planet where dragonflies are the size of pterodactyls.
"They're still beautiful!" the Doctor insists.
"They're still the size of small planes," Alice replies. "I've explained my policy on insects too large for me to squash."
The Doctor agrees to pick her up in four days provided she keeps her cell phone on her at all times. He watches her anxiously as she packs her bag and heads toward the doors of the TARDIS. Alice is reaching for the handle when he catches her hand, pulling her around to face him.
"Promise you'll be careful. Promise you'll call if anything, I mean the tiniest thing, seems out of sync or wrong even in the slightest."
"Doctor, I'll be fine. I'm sure nothing will happen. It's just a nice, relaxing, quiet mini-holiday. Nothing strange could possibly happen at all."
They manage to hold straight faces for nearly thirty seconds before the laughter bursts out. Alice drops her bag, grasping at a coral beam for support, while the Doctor clutches his stomach as he almost literally rolls in the floor.
He's still chuckling as he recovers most of his composure when he lifts her bag from the floor and hands it to her.
"Be safe, my Alice, and enjoy your solo adventure. Four days, this time, right here. You have your phone? Make sure to—"
She silences his list of instructions with her lips on his and then hugs him tightly.
"I'll see you in four days, Doctor. We've done this before. I love you, and you'll be fine."
Two hours later finds Alice checked in and settled into her hotel room. She wanders the winding streets of the quiet French village for most of the morning. Everything here is so peaceful, so different from what she's used to that she takes her first few hours in the town to simply re-acclimatize to a lifestyle of not running for her life.
People are friendly here, more than willing to help strangers and tourists with directions and suggestions, so by the time she remembers it would be a good idea to eat something, there's a wonderfully helpful person who reminds her a of a lovely little café she passed a few streets over.
After some wrong turns and a little backtracking, Alice happily seats herself at an empty table by the street and places her order without embarrassing herself. While she waits for her food, she settles back in her chair, quite content at her first morning in this new place. She's accomplished absolutely nothing of value to the universe, and it's a wonderful, lazy sort of feeling.
"Excuse me, miss, could I trouble you for a moment of your time?"
She's pulled from her wandering thoughts by a man at a nearby table. He's put down the newspaper he's been reading and is gazing intently at her. His messy brown hair flops over his forehead almost into his eyes as his unsettling gaze rests decidedly on her. Despite his quiet intensity, however, Alice doesn't feel nervous or threatened in any way.
On the contrary, this might be the most non-threatening, unassuming man Alice has ever laid eyes on from his Oxford professor-type clothing (seriously? A bow tie?) to his twelve-year-old "I'm too busy and excited to properly brush my hair" demeanor.
And because he instantly makes her feel so at ease, Alice is immediately put on her guard. Only one person has ever made her feel as safe and calm as she does now, and this is not that man. Her cell phone is in her hand before she fully forms the thought.
"You won't need your phone, Alice, I'll explain everything. Okay, that's a lie, I most likely won't explain everything as that would take ages. I could explain several things, but again with the time, so really let's just say I can totally explain who I am and why I'm here and why you don't need to use your phone. Well, okay, mostly."
She's dumbfounded. First, he can't even see her phone; it's still in her hand, which is currently in her pocket. Second, what? No, seriously, what?
He looks nervous, fiddling absentmindedly with his bow tie as if he could pull some courage from it.
"I've never done this sort of thing before, you see. Not really, at least, not to this extent. I mean, when I was young and full of mischievous pride maybe I got into some similar high jinks but nothing on this scale nor with someone quite as Alice as you. Only, I thought of all that mental training you'd had and did a little research of my own, and I came up with this brilliantly insane plan that just might work, though I'm not sure because I haven't finished talking yet. Then I remembered dropping you off here, and you said it was such a lovely, ordinary, uneventful trip, so I thought it would be the best time to try this out so I wouldn't change anything important that's supposed to happen. It's not a fixed point in time, you see, so I can muck about with it just a bit."
She gives him a moment so she can see if he's a) still breathing; and b) out of words.
"Do you feel better now?"
"Yes, thank you, it's probably your turn."
"Let's start with the obvious questions first, then: who are you, and how do you know me?"
"May I come sit with you?"
"What?" The question is so unexpected she almost doesn't process it correctly. "Why? And why won't you answer my questions?"
He sighs and sets his elbows on the table in front of him, resting his impressive chin on his upturned palms.
"I'd really like to come sit with you. Alice, if you just think and remember and think a little more, you'll know I've already answered your first question. Follow that line of logic, and you'll find the answer to your second question. I've just answered your third, we'll skip your fourth for now, so looking at your fifth, I think you'll find I've already answered your questions, except the fourth, which I've skipped."
He stands, moving slowly and deliberately so as not to alarm her until he's seated in the chair by her side. He leans forward, and his green eyes are old and sad, as incongruous on his young face as the fusty, stodgy clothing he's wearing. Alice has the strangest desire to tell him his eyes are just as lovely green as they are brown.
He places his hands gently on her cheeks, and she finds that she's lost the urge to use her cell phone. Also, it's just a little difficult to breathe. His voice is quiet, intense, and impossible to mistake for anyone else.
"And to answer your fourth and most important question, I want to sit next to you because you are my Alice, and I haven't seen you properly in such a very long time, and I've missed you so very much."
Then he kisses her, and Alice forgets most of her other questions. They are, of course, interrupted by the waiter, but this is France and, as they aren't being rude or lascivious, no one really cares.
She gazes at him for a long moment after the waiter has departed, then she can't help herself any longer.
"So the Doctor wears bow ties now?"
His fingers dance self-consciously along the edges of his tie again. "Of course, what else would I wear?"
"I suppose it's better than ruffles or question marks all over everything," she muses, recalling the images she's seen of some of his previous regenerations.
"Well, bow ties are cool. So…yeah. Bow tie."
As they eat, Alice silently studies this new Doctor, occasionally reaching up to touch a spot on his face or to move a strand of his hair to a different spot. He allows all this placidly, willingly, and once his eyes even close as a mixture of pleasure and melancholy crosses his face when her fingers brush through his hair.
He is finally the one to break the silence; she gets the feeling that this Doctor is not good at staying quiet for very long.
"You must have a million questions, or at least a hundred. If you're done eating, we could maybe wander about and talk. I always loved talking with you, though I was rubbish at it. Kept a lot of things shut up inside that I should've just said; you even told me that once, do you remember?"
They take care of the bill, and Alice allows herself to be led around the streets she's been wandering with the most familiar stranger she's ever met. But then, the Doctor never really felt like a stranger, even that very first night.
He glances at her out of the corner of his eye, his thoughts eerily in sync with hers. "I'm like something familiar that hasn't happened yet?"
If she was harboring any doubts, they're definitely gone now.
"I think I have fewer questions than you might think, Doctor." She hesitates over the name, even though she knows it's the right thing to call him; it's just a very bizarre situation.
He seems delighted and intrigued at the same time. "How so?"
"Well, I've narrowed down my list a bit, partially from deduction and partially because there are some things I don't need or want to know." She takes a slow, bracing breath as she knows they're about to cover several subjects she often tries very hard not to think about.
"At some point, you've obviously regenerated. I don't think I should know how or when in case I might be tempted to do something differently and end up mucking about with your current existence. Well, current for you personally."
He's truly quiet for the first time, listening anxiously as she goes through her points.
"At some point…at some point, you lose me. I don't know why or how you do, and I know I shouldn't know that." Her throat closes for a moment, and she quickly dashes tears from her eyes, hoping he won't notice. "I thought I'd given you someone you could spend the rest of your life with at last. I'm so sorry, Doctor, for whatever it is I'm going to do wrong."
"Alice," he whispers, pain etched deep into the single word, but she stops him.
"No. I know better. The less said, the better off we'll be. Don't tempt me, don't tell me a thing, because I can promise you I will do anything in my power to keep you from being alone again."
They've reached a walking path that runs alongside the river next to the village. There's a small boat anchored in the middle where an old man and a young boy are fishing. Alice turns to the Doctor.
"What I'd like to know, or rather what I'm going to ask first, is why did you come back now in your personal timeline? Are you alone again?"
He holds her gaze for as long as he can before glancing away.
"Not all the time, no, but mostly. I lost two very good friends recently…I do still have a friend of sorts, but she can't stay with me all the time. So…like I said…mostly."
There's a bench nearby, and Alice leads him over to it. She finds that he is just as unable to sit still as his predecessor, but he makes a valiant effort.
"So, what am I supposed to do? About you, I mean? You can't erase my memory, so am I supposed to tell my other Doctor about you, about everything I've figured out just from you being here? I don't fancy lying to you, and I've had to do it once already."
"Well, here's the thing, Alice. Like I said earlier, you've had all that mental training ages ago. I did some research, and I found out that you can use it to suppress things, completely block out memories from yourself if you choose to. The revolutionaries figured it'd be a good idea in case the royals caught hold of any spies. Apparently, they had time to teach you but not to tell you they'd done so."
She let's this sink in before answering. "So you're saying you want me to spend this trip with you, knowing at the end that I'll have to force myself to completely forget about it—and you—and you'll go back miserable and alone to wherever you're supposed to be at the time?"
"Pretty much."
His poker face has definitely improved. If she didn't know any better, she'd say he really was as carefree and unbothered as he seems.
"You've never asked me to do anything like this before; you've never really asked me to do anything as a benefit to you, not on this scale with as many potential adverse consequences as this. Do you know what that tells me, Doctor?"
His relaxed affectation is completely gone now as he stands, miserably tugging his jacket straight. "You're right, Alice, of course you're right. It was horribly selfish of me to ask this of you. I can show you how to forget this bit if you like then I'll be on my way."
She catches his hand and pulls him back down to the bench. "Has anyone besides me ever informed you of how thick you really are for a certified genius? It tells me, idiot, that you must be really lonely to risk so much just to see me again. You lost someone really special, didn't you?"
Then his arms are around her, his face buried in her hair, and she can feel a trickle of moisture rolling down her shoulder.
"I've missed you so much, my Alice, you've no idea…I could never…so many…"
She holds him, lets him hold her until the sun has nearly set. They walk back to her hotel together, hand in hand, talking about absolutely nothing important whatsoever. They continue along this vein, and dinner is delightful with the Doctor telling Alice of all sorts of adventures he's had over the "Alice-less years," as he calls them. He speaks the most about a girl named Amy and her husband Rory, but Alice doesn't question him too closely.
Dessert is some sort of custard dish, and Alice gives him a look of utter disgust when he proclaims it would be better with fish.
They continue talking, spending the evening sitting in Alice's room until she nearly falls asleep sitting up. The question of sleeping arrangements becomes rather awkward, with Alice unsure if unconsciously lying in a bed with a man who is and isn't her Doctor constitutes unfaithfulness.
"You're him," she says finally, turning to the nervous, bow tie-twiddling alien. "How would you feel about it?"
He avoids answering her question, fidgeting nervously by the door to her room. "I could go back to the TARDIS for the night and meet you for breakfast, if you like."
Typical. Even now she still has to make the first move.
"Just get over here already. You know I only bite on request."
"Well," he qualifies her statement as he sheds his jacket and slips the red braces off his shoulders, "there was that one time…"
Grinning, she turns back the bedcovers and slides between the sheets. "Fine. Unless under the influence of a very rare, very specific alien-origin chemical, I only bite on request."
He toes his boots off, flings his bow tie to join his jacket, and settles next to her on the bed. She lays her head on his chest, which rises as he sticks his nose into her hair and inhales deeply.
"Do I smell the same as you remember?" she asks sleepily, already lulled halfway to unconsciousness by his dual heartbeats.
"Much better, much more Alice. Sleep now, I'll be right here when you wake up."
The next three days are a blur of small, sweet moments and dreadfully mundane fun. The nights consist of intimate dinners, romantic dancing, and long, quiet talks while the Doctor holds Alice until she falls asleep.
"Is this what a real vacation is supposed to be like?" the Doctor asks as they stroll through their third olive field of the week. They are on their second walk of the day, and Alice thinks to herself that at least she won't have to worry about falling behind on her exercise. He grasps Alice's hand in his, fingers laced, swinging their arms slowly back and forth between them.
"I wouldn't know," Alice replies. "I think this might be my first."
The Doctor shoots her a worried glance. "I'm not boring you, am I?"
"Very much so, and I adore every moment of it." She kisses him on the cheek and is startled into a yelp of surprise when he suddenly, literally sweeps her off her feet and kisses her soundly.
"You are still as perfect and breathtaking as ever, my Alice. Never forget that."
Their last night together is surprisingly painful for Alice. She doesn't quite know what to say to this impossible man who has now stolen her heart twice. She sits with him on her bed, listening intently as he explains the process of memory suppression.
"You'll need to do it tonight as you fall asleep," he says. "It takes at least five hours in an unconscious state of mind for the process to take full effect. And you'll need to come up with a false scenario to take the place of what you're pushing away. Easiest thing would be to simply remove me from what you remember of this week and picture yourself having lots of long, solitary walks."
She swallows hard, nodding, and turns away from him as a tear courses down her cheek. He gives her a moment before moving to her other side and gently brushing the moisture away.
"I can see you again, if you like. You can let yourself remember this again, you just need some sort of trigger phrase to bring back the memories."
"All that repeated suppression won't damage me?"
"No, on the contrary, it's like exercising a muscle; you get more strength and precision the more you use it."
"Then please come back when you can, Doctor. Please come see me again."
"There's so many things I want to tell you, so many things I never said to you that I should have, Alice."
The air has changed between them, the old tension Alice remembers from before the time the TARDIS stopped and the heat went out.
"Doctor, you should know that if you keep talking on this path tonight, one more thing's going to happen that I'll have to suppress."
He doesn't back down. "You told me often enough, you deserve to hear it, too, even if you won't remember it."
"Doctor, I'm serious. I won't—"
But he is determined. "I love you, Alice." She is on him almost before he can get the words out, and it is a long time before either of them says anything else coherent.
They lie tangled together afterwards, temporarily sated. Her back is to him, and he's taken to tracing his fingers over her various scars and tattoos. She smiles to herself, though it's tinged with sadness.
"You really do have to lose something to appreciate it, don't you?" she murmurs.
"I do appreciate you, my Alice, I mean your me. He does. We're just too much of an idiot to say it often enough and in the right timeline."
She turns to face him, taking his face between her hands. "But not anymore? Not now?"
He smiles sadly and leans forward to kiss her forehead. "No. I'm older and much more mature now. Grown up a bit, as it were."
"It's time, isn't it?"
The Doctor nods. "If you want to make your meeting with me in the morning, yes. You don't want to be late for that; as I recall, you were actually waiting rather eagerly for me."
"So your ego hasn't been damaged…"
He doesn't say anything. They both know she's stalling for time. Instead, he pulls her into a bone-crushing embrace.
"I'll see you again before you know it, literally," he murmurs into her hair. "I love you, my Alice. Now you must forget that."
"Can you stay with me until I fall asleep?" She's holding back the tears, but only just. She doesn't want this to be any harder on him than it already is.
"Yes, my Alice. Always." He's quiet for a while, but just as she's falling asleep he asks, "Do you have your trigger yet? If I could ask…"
She murmurs it sleepily in his ear, and he laughs aloud, pulling her closer and kissing the top of her head.
"Quite right, Alice. Quite right."
Breakfast is a boring, relaxed affair that Alice mostly enjoys. She is packed and ready to go well before check-out time. She has thoroughly enjoyed her mundane, dull vacation, but she is ready to be back on the TARDIS with her Doctor.
Before the arranged meeting time arrives, however, Alice decides she would like to return to the lovely outdoor café from her first day in town. She sips her tea, watching people pass by, and allows herself a bit of daydreaming. Once, she looks around to see a handsome, boyish sort of man glancing at her over his newspaper. He smiles, embarrassed to have been caught staring, and ducks back behind the paper.
She grins and returns to her tea, but when she looks back at him a moment later, he's already gone and only his folded newspaper remains.
The agree-upon time arrives, and the Doctor finds Alice waiting on a bench across the street from where he lands the TARDIS. She feels as if her smile is in danger of leaping off her face, and she runs to him, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him soundly.
He returns her kiss eagerly, surprising her by lifting Alice right off the ground and actually spinning them in a circle.
"Pathetic, the two of us," she giggles as he sets her on her feet. He retrieves her bag and holds the TARDIS door open for her. "Apart for four days, and you'd think we hadn't seen each other in years."
He immediately goes into an excited, long-winded description of all the trouble he got into on Terrium without her, and she almost—almost—regrets not going with him.
"You're hopeless without me, you know." She shrugs off the nagging little twinge of melancholy that flits through her stomach at the offhand statement. They don't have to worry about that anymore. But there is something she needs to tell him, if only she could remember.
"So how was your week? Any adventures?"
"Nope. Just a lovely, ordinary, uneventful trip. Blissful and blessedly dull, really. I wandered around all week and looked at things and thought about things and did absolutely nothing productive or active."
He fails to hide his grimace of distaste. "Sounds…lovely."
"Oh, shut up. I know you'd have been bored stiff, but I did want to tell you something." Think, Alice; what was it?
"Yes?"
"It's okay, you know. That you don't say it aloud. I love you, and I know you mean it. I say it enough for both of us." That isn't quite what she was trying to remember, but she feels deep down that maybe it's close enough.
He looks up at her from where he's typing on the console, and his voice is a bit concerned.
"What brought that on?"
She's not quite sure, but she has a vague memory. "I met someone, a nice young man staying at the hotel. He lost someone a while back, and he said he regretted not telling her more often that he loved her. I just…I thought of you, and I wanted you to know that it's okay that you don't say it. I love you, and I know you mean it."
"You know Alice," the Doctor remarks, regarding her gravely over the console, "I could travel another thousand years or so and never find anyone quite as breathtakingly Alice as you."
It's the first time he's used her name in that way, but it feels wonderfully right and achingly familiar. Of course, that's the same general feeling she has about the Doctor all the time, so she shrugs it off and settles herself into the jump seat.
"Where to now?"
"Maybe another fancy dress party? I'm in the mood for some proper dancing, and I've a sudden fancy to see you in a bow tie."
Author's Note: I had to do this one, it was inevitable. It wouldn't leave me alone until I'd done it, either. I'm planning on working Eleven into another chapter in a round-about way. The downside to this chapter is that we're on the downward slope of the story. Unless people have some suggestions or ideas, I've maybe got us up to thirty chapters, and only twenty-seven of those are actually written; the rest are just ideas. As always, thank you for taking the time to read. Please take just another moment or so and leave a review.