A/N
Ugh, you guys... College... Need I say more?
SO, how are you all, what did I miss? Hope you're doing fantastic.
Meh... I feel like I've been absent for so long that I need to catch up on interacting with y'all and such. Like... I missed you guys D':
Okay so back to the story, what you guys came here for ha! Where will this crazytrain take us? Who knows?!
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Well I do... But that's irrelevant ;D
We'll be coming to an end in probably 5 or 6 chapters, just as a heads up!
Lots of loveee,
-A.
"Careful, be very careful, Evy…"
I swallow thickly, my hand wrapping tightly around the propane lighter, trying its best to light the fuse without shaking.
"Don't twitch, don't cough, don't speak, don't do anything but light that fuse, or all our hard work will be up in smoke…"
I slowly drag air in through my nose, not daring to take any breath deeper than that.
"Oh, no, you shouldn't hold it at an angle like that, you'll blow us up for sure!"
My eyes roll up to the ceiling before resting on him, and he holds his hands up in surrender.
"Right, right, I'll let you work…. Just three hours of blood, sweat, and tears down the drain if you do it wrong, no pressure." He says lightly, giving me a wink.
I turn my full attention back to the fuse, bringing the lighter closer to it, slowly, so very slow…
POP!
A sound like a cap-gun explodes the silence.
The Doctor's laughter rings in my ears as he wipes green frosting off of his face. A smile covered in sugary cake-like pudding spreads on my own lips.
"Well, I guess that's what we get for baking with volatile explosive fructose. The candles might have been asking for trouble, yeah?"
"Maybe a bit." I say, blinking quickly a few times to get the cake off my eyelashes, "But three hours of baking… Wasted."
"Not completely wasted! Been eons since I baked a Firebug's Delight cake, I forgot how much fun it was," He says, licking his fingers clean of the sticky substance, "Besides, it's not the end that matters, it's how you get there."
Right. The journey, not the journey's end.
The end.
I keep my mind carefully clean of emotion before he notices, which is unsurprisingly easy for me to do.
I've noticed something about myself in the past forty-five hours and twenty eight minutes I've spent reunited with the Doctor.
I'm a quick learner. Always have been. School was easy for me. Learning to control my migraine had even been easy for me. Figuring out how to run faster from my emotions than even the Doctor?
Easier still.
Observing him all these years, the way he 'moves past' things, as he calls it… Well, putting it into practice is nearly second nature now.
The trick is reaction time. Dexterity.
A stimulus occurs, something that reminds you of your impending doom by self-destruction, or of the billions of people you had been forced to murder, whichever happens to strike your particular fancy, and you allow yourself a millisecond, one infinitesimal moment to register it.
And then you must slaughter it, and quickly.
You kill the thought before it has a chance to live. You destroy any hope it has of developing, spreading like a disease in your mind.
Simple as that.
And the Doctor… Well, he's doing what he does best. So far, in just the two days since we've been back together, we've been to six planets, two intergalactic space stations, four ships on nearly opposite ends of both time and the universe, and one moon.
He's running as fast as his little Time Lord legs will carry him, because in his mind he has just murdered someone. He directly caused the death of someone he admired, poor Adelaide Brooke, and if he stops, even for just one second, then he has even more to hate himself for.
I'm dying. To him, I'm dying, every single moment I'm with him, for that very reason.
Because I'm with him, and if I stay with him, I will die, and he knows it.
But what can he do?
I see now why he does what he does, what he has always done, now that I'm the one who's cornered like a rabid dog. Running is so much easier when you have no way of avoiding the inevitable.
What else am I to do? Mope around and cry all day? Beg the Doctor to find a way to save me when I know he can't? Flee to the farthest reaches of the universe and avoid my own supposed destiny to save the universe for as long as it exists?
How long would it exist, would anything exist, if I run, if I refuse to do it?
A week, a day, a few hours?
My jaw clenches in frustration.
Yeah, no, I'll just avoid feeling anything, thanks.
The Doctor kisses me out of my darkened reverie, and I taste the sweetness on my lips through his mind. It's heavenly.
"I prefer my Firebug's Delight served this way, anyway." He murmurs, and I smile genuinely at that, the heaviness in my hearts lifting just enough to allow it.
He hums appreciatively, a grateful rumble deep in his chest, when I press my lips to his once again, running a hand up his cake-spattered front to his tie.
"Doctor," I murmur when we part, sighing deeply, "Do you believe in destiny?"
His mouth becomes a tight line.
"Depends on what you mean by destiny."
"Well, you know… Our fates are fixed. Kind of like what you said. It's not the end that matters, but how you get there. Is that because you can only change the journey, but not the journey's end?"
He looks up to the ceiling of the T.A.R.D.I.S's kitchen, mouth open, the words hesitating on his tongue.
"Sometimes that's true. Fixed points in time will always occur…" His eyes become hard, his voice bitter, and I know he's thinking of what he's managed to avoid for the past two days, just like me, "No matter how hard you try to change them. But there are some things, important things, that can be rearranged, so…"
He blinks a few times, and I taste surprise in his mind.
"I suppose I don't know if I believe in fate." He says, saying it as if he can hardly believe it, the Doctor, not knowing, "Being a Time Lord… Well, it's not exactly practical to believe in that sort of thing sometimes."
You mean when you sometimes forget that you're not a God of Fate yourself?
"Yeah… I guess I don't know either. I was just wondering, you know… Pondering." I say dismissively, waving my hand as if fanning the thought away, and grabbing an orange towel off the counter.
I hand it to him, and he uses it to wipe the rest of the gooey cake off of his face.
"Love it when you ponder." He says, grinning, and hands the towel to me. I can't help but laugh at that, snatching the towel from his hand and cleaning up my own face, "So, what do you say? One more before bed?"
"Yes." I say immediately, and he smirks, holding out his hand to me.
Hell, I could go for the next 200 years straight if my body would let me. I never want it to end, and I'd keep running with him for all eternity if it meant I'd never have to face my fate…
I open the doors slowly, peeking an eye through the opening first, then the rest of my face, finally my body. The Doctor brushes past me, taking my hand as he goes, and tugs me into the apparent ship we've landed on.
I keep my footsteps as muted as possible on the metal floor, listening for any signs or clues as to what we're up against.
Who knows whose ship this is? Could be hijacked by space pirates, or Daleks, or-
"Oh!" the Doctor shouts, turning to give me a manically gigantic grin, "You didn't ask where we were this time, I'm proud of you!"
So much for stealth…
"Yeah, right, because asking has never been a good idea... 'Have a sense of adventure, Evy! What's the worst that can happen, Evy?'" I say, mimicking his accent, and he squeezes my hand a bit, opening his mouth to reply, "And if you repeat either one of those sentiments, I swear I will turn right back around, march into that T.A.R.D.I.S, and leave you to whatever creatures are flying this hunk of junk."
He exhales, barely containing the snort of incredulous laughter.
"Bit cranky! Tired humans, there's no reasoning with you lot." He says, and simply leads me further into the metal room we've found ourselves in.
"I'm not human." I grumble under my breath, running my free hand over one of the gigantic wooden crates that surround us, which actually causes the T.A.R.D.I.S to blend in a bit, quite nicely, too.
"Looks like a…" He pauses, to lick one of the wooden crates, "Yep, this is probably some kind of cargo carrier, mid 7000's in your time..."
Ugh… Who knows what alien microbes are slithering all over that thing…
"Was the licking really necessary? What more can you possibly learn from constantly licking things?"
"Oh, lots, what can't you learn from licking something? There's the trace radioactive elements, hints of the previous environment, skin oils left from organisms to touch it, tanginess of the dust buildup tells how long it's been sitting… I wouldn't expect your sense of taste to be up to the job, though." He says, giving me a wink, and its then that a noise causes us to turn our heads.
Kind of like… scraping? Something being dragged?
The Doctor pulls out the sonic, his hand leaving mine to gently push me behind him, his brows furrowing into attack formation.
The scraping occurs once again, and we inch towards it, coming from around the corner of one particular gigantic wooden crate. It gets louder, and the Doctor gives me a nod, which I return, ready for anything.
We practically leap around the corner, the Doctor brandishing the sonic, and a ferocious little yell rips through my teeth.
"OH SWEET MERCIFUL LORDS OF LANGORIA!" Someone screeches, higher than even I might be able to.
My battle cry fizzles into a sort of apologetic mumble at the sight of the person cowering before me.
A reptilian creature, about our height, with scaly skin the color of obsidian. It's wearing the most ridiculous looking jump-suit, made of a tie-dye cloth that's gathered at the waist and turtle-neck, all bright yellows and blues and reds and greens. It contrasts drastically with its pitch black skin.
Its eyes are pitch black as well, and they dart from the Doctor to me quickly, so rapidly it seems unnatural to me. With its hands held over its head, crouching to the ground, tail flapping about nervously, I know for sure that it can't be a threat.
It's not even armed.
"What- P-Please! Don't shoot!" It stammers, then its eyes rest on the sonic screwdriver.
"Is that… Oh! You must be the mechanic! Just a mechanic, the one we sent for! The mechanic!" It says, letting out a few raspy breaths, and its rather long tail stops its mad writhing, "Well, why didn't you tell anyone that they beamed you in? Playing pranks in such a situation, are you insane?"
The tail… That must have been the ominous scraping sound we reacted so strongly to… Oops.
"Yes, sorry, that's me, the mechanic. Silly old mechanic." He says, twirling the sonic in his fingers and giving me a look. I bite back my smile, "What seems to be the problem?"
"You mean, they didn't tell you?" It says, black eyes widening, tongue slithering out fretfully a few times between its sharpened teeth.
Well, this is sounding better and better by the second.
"Course they told me, I've just got a slippery mind, must have slipped my slippery mind. Would you maybe remind me?" The Doctor says, and the creature stares at him for a moment, dumbfounded.
Then a toothy grin spreads on its snout.
"Oh, you are a silly mechanic, you're joking aren't you?" It says, playfully smacking the Doctor's arm and letting out a hiccuping hiss, which I think might actually be its laugh, "Very funny. C'mon, follow me, I'll show you the, ah… leak."
Oh, good, a leak, in a spaceship, in space, which is a vacuum. Shouldn't be a problem.
The black lizard leads us out of the gigantic room of crates, which takes about fifteen minutes to do so, and then some corridors. They're lined with doors that seem to open with key-cards, each having something that looks like a credit card swipe next to it.
"So, what's your name?" The Doctor asks after a bit.
"It's Rickoraxiconanoporanthrade but everyone calls me Rick." He replies, adjusting his tie-dye turtle neck
"Rick. Lovely. I'm the Doctor, this is Evy."
"Evy, what's that short for, Evyraxiconanoporanthrade?" Rick asks, and I smirk, shaking my head.
"No, it's just a nickname, for Evelyn."
"How strange..." Rick says without commenting further, though he throws a rather dubious look over his shoulder at us.
What?! Evelyn is a normal name! Evyraxiconanoporanthrade is not!
"Evy!" The Doctor says, rather loudly, so I turn to him with a start.
"What?"
"What about what?" He says, raising a brow.
"I don't know, you said my name, you tell me what about what!"
"I didn't say anything..." He says, his voice low.
"He didn't, you know." Rick says, and I wipe the confused grimace off my face before the Doctor starts snooping around my mind too much, out of concern, or curiosity...
I heard him say my name, I know I did. I know it.
"It's in the Pod, that's what they called the control room." Rick says, bringing out a card from a pocket in his rainbow jumpsuit. It has a picture on it, but not of Rick...
It's got a picture of some kind of blue, slimy creature with a tuft of black hair jutting out of the top of its head, and tusks coming from the middle of its facial area.
"Who's they, exactly?" The Doctor says, his eyes resting upon the card, and Rick clears his throat, his tail flopping about a bit.
"Oh, ah... The pilots, yes, the pilots. You know how they have their own jargon and all." He says, and the door opens immediately when he swipes the card.
I put my hands in the air slowly, and the Doctor follows suit, when we find ourselves staring down the barrels of four very large, very loaded pulse rifles.
Our favorite. Guns!