The woman walks down the busy street with ease, the crowd seemingly parts but she knows.. it is only a trick of perception.. She is not fully there in the sea of people and umbrellas. She lifted her hand, wishing to touch the falling snow but it phases through her fingers.. just like she knows...
The lights of Neo Tokyo flash wildly, each trying to draw your attention as you pass, but the woman's destination is already set in her mind. There is a nice little cafe tucked around a nearby corner. Soft, warm, nostalgic.. Like something from a past time... a past life..
Back when her name was Setsuna...
When she fully emerges from the 4th dimension at the entrance of Moon Crown Cafe nobody notices. As she stands there, fully there, still nobody notices. She is a part of the background. Something your mind picks up on but does not know it.
The hostess does not even look up as Trista walks past...
He is right where Pluto had known he would be but the sight of him... Sitting there darkly in the corner, his fingers laced together and pressed up against his mouth as he watched over the rest of the cafe from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat... it made Trista clench her jaw and she began to reach into her coat.
He does not lift his gaze towards her when she stands beside his booth but for him it is not a lack of perceiving her. He knows. He knows that she is there. He knows why, too.
She threw the TARDIS blue envelope onto the table- her planetary symbol on the flap.
After a silent moment...
"Why?" She finally asked.
The Doctor sat back and flippantly waved his hand.
"Why don't you sit? Stay awhile?" He asked back. "I'll get us something to drink."
Trista did in fact sit down, but she knew the offer was hollow... Just like his voice..
"Oi! Waiter!" Trista blinked in surprise as The Doctor lifted his hand. A young man rushed to their booth. "Two of your strongest, right?"
"Um, w-we don't sell-"
"Two orange fizzies!" The Doctor said, his voice now a faux cheer. The waiter nodded and rushed off. "So how're things? You like my hat? It's a stetson. Not as cool as a fez but still very cool." The waiter was back, sliding the two drinks in front of them. "Right oh! Thank you."
He was pulling a straw out of his own coat.
"My special fizzy straw." The Doctor explained, as if she had asked, as if she had even wondered. The Doctor took a sip and then let out an exaggerated 'ah'. "Aaah."
"Remind me, which one are you now?"
Now... Here. Neo Tokyo. New Earth. Several years before the Great Disaster...
"Here I am Trista." She explained.
"Trissstaa. Not sure I like it, doesn't have the same ring to it. Not even a pun."
"It's only when I'm here." And not nowhere... The Doorway... "You have been causing quite a ruckus.."
"I'm always a ruckus."
"More of a ruckus. These... 200 years?"
"I was running."
"And searching."
"Right... and searching."
"And what did you find?" She asked. "To have sent me this."
The blue envelope stayed there between them...
"You know what I found.." The question. "And you didn't make it any easier to learn, now did you?"
"You did not ask."
Silence fell between them...
"Must have been some other Pluto." He finally grumbled.
More silence...
"So you're giving up." Trista acknowledged. The Doctor flicked the straw, letting it roll around the rim of the glass.
"No, just accepting the truth." The Doctor breathed in deeply. "But it catches up with us all, doesn't it? And won't you be happy? Finally rid of me." Trista shook her head.
"Doctor."
"You know... I ran so far and for so long.. All my life.. I never thought this was where it would lead though. Not to some.. lake. To some place in Utah of all places. Utah! But I guess it makes up for it in being a fixed point, right! Wowie. Fixed point! How ironic for the man who has just trounced on all of time giving you such a headache. Mr. Time Can Be Re-Written. But not this time. There's.. no smart plans, do overs, no escape... I can't believe myself out of this one." He paused... "... Will you do it?"
"... No." The Doctor looked up in genuine surprise.
"The Silence want me dead, it's not hard to think what they'll do if they get their hands on the TARDIS and you're the only one I can trust with that!"
"Give her to Dr. Song."
"... I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because then she'll know something is up and.. If our timelines are running together backwards.. She's never had her own TARDIS before."
"Perhaps you just didn't notice."
"What- no! That's impossible! Just- Why? Why won't you do it?"
"I asked you, first." Trista countered, taking her first sip of fizzy.
"What-"
"Why?" Trista repeated.
"... Why what?"
"Why are you giving up hope?"
"What?" The Doctor was shaking his head now. "What are you talking about? This is a fixed point. It can't be changed. I know! I just spent 200 years trying! What- Why are you asking this? I read it. It's happened. And now I know for certain because.. these letters!" He lifted hers up for emphasis. "I got mine. In the past. My family met me there and when I ran into them they looked at me like a ghost! It. Happened- Happens!" His voice was trembling. "The Doctor dies on that beach. Two minutes after five. Fixed. Point. And this nonsense coming from you-!"
"Guuuuuuuuuyyyys!" The doors of the cafe were bursting open and a whirlwind of a young blond came through, frantic. The cafe workers barely gave her their attention, only a small glance before turning back to their chores- obviously familiar with the scene.
"Serena!" A stark brunette cried out when the blond reached her friends' booth. "You're late! Again!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" The blond cried, clasping her hands and bowing.
"We're going to stop waiting for you." The blond looked up, tears in her eyes.
"Really?"
"Of course not." A girl with blue hair interjected more nervously.
"Aaammmmyy." The blond scooted her way into the booth beside her-
Their laughter was loud, contagious...
The Doctor watched them, his expression dark again.
Because the real 'why' he wants to ask...
"Not everything works out like it does for you Senshi..."
For Serenity.
"... Why does she get to change it?"
Trista bites her tongue because she knows.. he's going through a hard time... but to say it.. as if they don't suffer.
"You know what happens here." Trista countered as evenly as possible. "She does not change it... and neither can I."
Because she had looked.
She had awoken here. Remembering. And in her moment of weakness, she had fled to the doorway. She'd had to know. Did they get to live their normal lives?
Only to see...
A plague that spreads across the planet. The suffering. The pain.
And Serenity...
"She will watch people collapsing, dying. Her awakening will be the most brutal she has ever faced..."
Her crystal shining. Spreading.
"Yes, she saves a third of the planet.."
Covering it in crystal. Fast. Saving. Putting them all to sleep. Healing..
"But you know I cannot tell her how to change it. No matter how much I-"
"History said everyone died."
"The people of New New York didn't die."
The Doctor was silent.
"This is... the thing about fixed points." Trista continued. "They cannot be rewritten. They say New Earth is wiped out, and for awhile this appears true. It is true. But then... we wake up. New New York rises from the depths. In a sense... New Earth is reborn. A fixed point, New Earth dying, stayed true.. but it was never as it seemed. Fixed points are just moments in written history, but Doctor... whose to say you have all of the pieces? That you even have a reliable narrator?"
"... What are you saying?" The Doctor asked, his voice curious, his mind working, starting to form a shadow of understanding. It is slowed, though, but his inability to truly understand that it was Pluto who was saying it to him. Her she had come to last knowing, or thinking he knew, that she would tell him like all the rest. That it was fixed. That there was no other way...
"A Doctor was on the beach. A Doctor did die. History will write it."
"But...?"
Trista was silent... then... she stood up...
The Doctor watched her, still curious..
"You know.." She said... "after all we've been through would it have been so hard for you to have at least deliver the letter yourself."
"... But then I wouldn't have had to-"
It hits him. Smacks him right upside the head. He was springing to his feet, the table moving a bit as he did.
"You!" He breathed. "You! You! You!" He laughed- So happy he could kiss- Trista's fingers were against his lips, stopping him, but her eyes were sharp... as mischievous as he's ever saw them!
"... Go give me a headache."
He pulled away from her.
Trista watched him go, a smile still in her eyes and softly there on her face.
And somewhere... in another time.. another place... A Doctor is leaving a tavern, a crew of miniaturized men watching him go-
"Is there nothing else we can do?"
And he is leaving...
Only for another Doctor to come storming in, hours later but in no time at all, beaming-
"Actually! There is!"
Shrill laughter came from the booth across the room and Trista turned to watch them... The five huddled, teasing girls...
When the waiter comes back to The Doctor's table, nobody is there. Only the credits and tip...
Trista walked through the streets of Neo Tokyo as the snow continued to fall. This time, she is fully there, it lands and gathers against her hair and coat. But still... the crowd parts for her... It does not consciously realize that she is there.
It is the price she pays...
And one day... The Doctor will pay his.
Trista closed her eyes, she feels so cold but she knows that this is better than Nothing. This is better... knowing that she is alive. Living.
And that is all they can keep on doing. Loving. Living. Keeping hope alive...
In any little way they can.
Even in this cycle of life and death.. and rebirth..
Where we all learn how to accept what we can change and what we cannot..
...
...
..
End.
Author's Note: I am so, so sorry at how long this took and have no excuse. But thank you for reading. Thank you for putting up with me if you did. I probably won't dwell much on questions if they are asked. This, them being in New Earth... there were other ideas linked to that for a potential sequel that will never happen.
We are all honest with ourselves. It won't happen.
Won't.
But again, thank you so much for your patience. And honest critic. All valid and I agree with critic.
Thanks.
