Morally
They ducked back into the TARDIS, Time Lords moving to the scanner.
"Okay," Bill said. "I have questions. You never said we could travel to parallel worlds!"
The Doctor shook his head. "Not a parallel world."
Bill pointed out the door. "But that's London."
Adelaide nodded. "Yes, our London. Our Thames. The TARDIS travels in time."
The Doctor spun Bill the screen. "Welcome to the last great Frost Fair. 1814, February the fourth."
"Hang on, why aren't we home? Can't you steer this thing?"
"As I just reminded you, you don't steer the TARDIS, you reason with it."
"How?"
Adelaide shrugged. "Unsuccessfully. Even I can't manage it, and I reason with everything."
The Doctor set the TARDIS to move again, bringing them somewhere a bit more away from the crowd. "She's a bad girl, this one. Always looking for trouble." He blinked. "The TARDIS, not Adelaide."
"I avoid trouble."
Bill raised her eyebrows, already moving back to the door as they settled. "Then why'd you end up with the Doctor?" Before Adelaide could respond, Bill looked out of the door again. "Whoa."
"Last day before the thaw," the Doctor said, moving to Bill's side. "Thought I'd better find a more reliable parking spot."
"Wait, you want to go out there?"
The Doctor grinned. "You don't?"
"It's 1814." Bill gestured at her face. "Melanin."
"Yes?"
"Slavery is still totally a thing."
"Yes, so it is."
Bill looked back at Adelaide. "It might be, like, dangerous out there."
She nodded. "Definitely dangerous."
"So, how do we stay out of trouble?"
"Be polite."
Bill raised her eyebrows. "Okay, when you go somewhere dangerous, what do you take?"
The Doctor nodded behind them. "First door on the left, second right, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on the left."
"What's there?"
"The wardrobe." He grinned. "Pick a dress."
"So the TARDIS has dresses and likes a bit of trouble?" Bill nodded. "Yeah, I think I'm low-key in love with her."
The Doctor patted the TARDIS's side. "Me too."
Bill moved back into the TARDIS but paused, turning to grab Adelaide's arm. "Can you help?"
Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "You're going to make me wear a gown as well, aren't you?"
Bill grinned. Adelaide sighed. The Doctor forced himself not to look at Adelaide, not to smile.
|C-S|
Somehow, Bill managed to also convince the Doctor to change his clothing to fit in more with the times. Granted, his change involved a top hat and coat, but it was something. More than he tended to do. Bill had embraced it fully, finding a fur-trimmed dress and a hat with an extremely large feather. Adelaide's resembled hers, even in a similar dark color palette, but was far less extravagant.
The Doctor was the first one out of the TARDIS and he held out a hand for both of the women, though only Bill actually took him up on the offer. Adelaide made a point of walking past him, looking down off the bridge to the crowd of people wandering the Thames.
"Doesn't anyone notice the TARDIS?" Bill asked, trying to ease the tension that had returned.
"Your species hardly notices anything." The Doctor joined Adelaide at the edge of the bridge, though he didn't touch her. "It's why Adelaide always has to remind people to use their eyes and notice everything." He turned away, moving down the bridge. Bill rushed after him. Adelaide was last.
Bill looked between the Time Lords. "So, what are the rules?"
The Doctor frowned. "Rules?"
"Yeah. Traveling to the past, there's got to be rules." Adelaide had to smile at that. "If I step on a butterfly, it could send ripples through time that mean I'm not even born in the first place and I could just disappear."
The Doctor nodded and Adelaide knew he was pretending at seriousness. "Definitely. I mean, that's what happened to Pete."
"Pete?"
"Your friend, Pete. He was standing there a moment ago, but he stepped on a butterfly and now you don't even remember him."
Bill crossed her arms. "Shut up! I'm being serious!"
"Yeah, so was Pete."
"You know what I mean. Every choice I make in this moment, here and now, could change the whole future."
Adelaide nodded, stepping up to Bill's side. "Yes, but for humanity, that is no different than normal. I recommend being careful, but time has ways of maintaining itself. It does not need protection from time-displaced humans."
"But it needs protection from a time-displaced Time Lord," the Doctor mumbled.
"Yes, Doctor, it does." She looked at Bill again. "Bill, you can stop worrying. The Doctor and I are the only ones who need to be concerned about something like that, and we have quite a lot of experience."
Bill eyed them. "Hmm...okay, if you say so."
"Besides, by traveling here with the TARDIS, you've already been established in the timeline. The ripples from your actions now have already had an impact on your present." The Doctor glanced back at Adelaide when she said that, his confusion from this entire conversation evident in the shape of his eyebrows.
They both knew that her statement was a lie. They both knew that even humans could make ripples if they were displaced, both knew that any time travel was dangerous to the established history – the Doctor acknowledge it, though he flouted it. And they both knew that Adelaide hated lying.
Yet here she was, lying to Bill. Lying to protect Bill. To keep her calm.
She felt like the Doctor. It was almost worrying, how quickly she'd fallen into that again.
"Chestnuts, sir?" a man asked as the Doctor passed, drawing his attention away from Adelaide. The Doctor took a bag.
A young girl stepped in Bill's path, holding out a flyer. "Come to the Frost Fair, miss. Only a sixpence, miss."
Bill's eyes were wide. "Oh my God."
"You're not stepping on a butterfly," the Doctor told her, "you're just taking a flyer." Bill took the flyer, the Doctor giving the young girl the chestnuts before putting his top hat on her head. "It's just time travel. Don't overthink it."
Bill smiled. "Is that what you said to Pete?"
"Who's Pete?"
They turned, moving down the steps to the iced surface of the river. The Doctor gave the men collecting payment two sixpences for him and Adelaide, letting Bill give the flyer. Though the Time Lords walked out onto the ice with ease, the human was slower, pausing at the edge to lift her skirts and step gingerly on, as though worried her singular weight would be enough to send the entire frost fair into the water.
"Yeah, no big deal," Bill said to herself. "Just walking on the Thames." She looked up to the Time Lords and grinned. "I hope you realize I'm going to try everything. Everything." She hurried past them into the collection of stalls.
The Time Lords moved behind her, walking side by side but both careful to keep their hands very clearly apart from one another.
"Tasty ox cheek, piping hot!"
"Lapland mutton! Lapland mutton, cooked right on the ice!"
"Get your sheep hearts here! Juicy, juicy sheep hearts!"
Bill made a face at the latest merchant, turning to Adelaide, as the Doctor had stepped away. "Yeah, maybe not everything."
The Doctor reappeared, a skewer of food in hand. "Oh, go on. Try this, at least." Bill's face was worse. "It's my favorite."
"Your favorite? You've been here before?"
The Doctor nodded. "Oh, yeah. A few times." He gestured at the crowd. "I don't even remember how many versions of Adelaide and I there are wandering around this place."
"I remember," Adelaide told him. "I also seem to remember Stevie Wonder being somewhere under the London Bridge." The Doctor mimed zipping his mouth closed. "That was originally your idea."
"You didn't fight it."
She almost smiled. "Even I can enjoy a few anachronisms." She turned, looking for Bill. "Must I be the one to keep track of your companion?"
"You were interested in her too."
"Perhaps, but she's only traveled in your ship." Adelaide did smile then. "Once she's tried mine, she can decide whose companion she wants to be, if any."
The Doctor turned, pointing. "Found her." The Time Lords made their way through the crowd to an area of performers, Bill turning from a sword swallower to two wrestlers.
"Get in!" Bill cheered.
"Of course, it's not really wrestling unless it's in zero gravity."
Bill turned to the Doctor. "Seriously?"
"With tentacles." The Doctor mimed it.
"Okay."
"And magic spells."
The crowd cheered the fight. The time travelers moved away, though Bill frowned at the crowd. "Interesting."
Adelaide glanced at her. "Interesting?"
"Regency England. Bit more black than they show in the movies."
The Doctor shrugged. "So was Jesus. History's a whitewash."
Adelaide's gaze drifted down to the ice, frowning at a small burst of bright green light.
|C-S|
After Bill won a skittles game that she convinced the Doctor to take part in – the Time Lord was annoyed when he lost, but Adelaide found him a new top hat to appease him. The sight of a pie seller's booth, a man that the Doctor remembered wanting to try from one of their many previous visits, also helped.
"Best fish pies on the ice," the man called, gesturing to the crowd. "Try your luck, ladies and gentlemen! Toss for a pie!"
Adelaide pushed Bill closer. "Give it a try."
"The lady wants to try her hand?" the man asked, holding out a hand. "Pay me a coin and we'll see how lady luck will treat you today." Bill handed it over. "Heads or tails?"
"Heads." The man flipped it, showing tails. "Argh!"
The man pocketed the coin. "Better luck next time, miss." He gave Bill a pie.
"And you're sure this isn't cow brains or sheep eyes or..."
The man shook his head. "I caught the fish myself, miss. Made it right here in the old..." he was interrupted by the Doctor moving forward, the Time Lord's brows furrowed. The man had slipped away from Adelaide before she could grab him and stop him. "Hey! What are you about?"
"Do that again. Toss the coin."
The man shrugged. "Pay me another coin and I will."
The Doctor handed over a coin. "Forget about the pie, I don't want a pie. I just want to see how you cheated."
"Cheated?!"
"Adelaide," Bill called, making the Time Lady turn. Part of her wanted to stay to try and appease the Doctor and the pie seller, but there was only so much trouble even the Time Lord could get into in 1814.
"Yes?"
Bill pointed. "There are lights."
"Don't look at me like that," the Doctor tried. "I'm saying you're a very good con-man."
"I'm a what?"
Bill and Adelaide left the shop, following the lights.
"A trickster. A swindler. You see, I'm a bit of a thief myself. I bet that I could steal anything from your shop."
"Get out!" there was a thud as the Doctor was tossed out of the stall.
"In theory!" the Doctor called back. "I could steal anything in theory!"
"Leave the theories to me," Adelaide mumbled, frowning at the ice. She hadn't noticed anything strange about it the previous times, but she hadn't been paying attention to the ice.
The Doctor rolled his shoulders. "Honestly, some people." He held out a pie. "More pie?"
Bill just looked at Adelaide. "Are there side-effects to time travel? Like, physical symptoms?"
"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," the Doctor said, waving a hand. "Sometimes you see lights under the ice."
Bill disposed of the rest of her pies. "Okay, so you've seen the lights."
The Doctor nodded. "Of course."
"Well, why didn't you say something?"
"Well, you're enjoying yourself. I assumed we'd get to work eventually."
Adelaide crossed her arms. "Theories. Are the lights electric or organic?"
"Organic lights?"
"Bioluminescence. Fireflies. Glow-worms."
The Doctor turned as a young girl wrapped in a shawl pulled on his coat. She held up a dog collar and lead. "Please, sir. Have you seen my dog? He was right here, but then I looked away and he..." her lip quivered.
Bill stepped forward. "It's okay, we'll help. Um, what does he look like?"
"He's small and brown and ever so soft."
The Doctor frowned. "Are you sure of that? That collar's for a big dog. With long white hair. Nice con, though. Respect." He spun as a child grabbed his sonic from behind, grabbing the boy's wrist. They struggled for a moment, but it was quickly ended by the young girl kicking the Doctor in the shins.
"Run!" the girl ordered and both children ran off. Adelaide may have not gone off in chase, but the boy had still ended up with the Doctor's sonic screwdriver in hand. Even in the hands of a poor child, leaving the sonic had unknowable ripples.
But they lost the children as a troupe of acrobats crossed their path, forcing the time travelers to stop.
"What happened to the girl?" the Doctor asked, turning around.
"Does it matter? The boy's the one with your magic wand."
"Sonic screwdriver," Adelaide corrected.
Bill frowned. "How is that a screwdriver?"
She smiled. "In a very broad sense."
"All right, how's it sonic?"
"It makes a noise," the Doctor said, before pointing at Adelaide. "She has a sonic pen!"
"And there are the children," Adelaide nodded towards the two children as they ducked out of a tent.
They chased the children around the frost fair, finally managing to get close to them at the edge of the frost fair, though that was only because the boy had stopped to stare at the ice.
"The lights," the Doctor said. "He's seen the lights."
They rushed forward, but the ice below the boy began to crack. "Kitty?" the boy said, looking up. But no one had the chance to do anything before he fell through the ice.
The only thing left of him was his arm, sticking up through the ice and holding up the Doctor's sonic.
"Stay back!" the Doctor began to edge forward as the boy continued to sink. He reached for the boy's hand, trying to grab him, but only managed to get the sonic. The ice sealed itself. The boy was gone.
Bill turned to Adelaide. "Save him."
Adelaide shook her head. "We can't. He's gone."
Bill looked to the Doctor. "Do something and save him."
The Time Lord only looked to the young girl. "I'm sorry about your friend, but the danger isn't over yet. There must be more of you living rough here. Tell me where."
The girl adjusted her shawl. "So, you can take us to the Magistrate?"
"No, of course not. We're not here to arrest you, we're here to help. And if you show me where you live, we can do that."
"We? One of you has already gone!"
Both Time Lords turned around at that. Bill had already vanished, which Adelaide mostly blamed herself for.
|C-S|
It proved far easier to find Bill than it had been to find the children. The Time Lords approached her carefully.
"How did you find me?" Bill asked, rubbing her eyes.
"Get used to that question."
"Oh, clever. Yeah, very clever."
"Adelaide's the clever one." The Doctor frowned at her. "What's wrong?"
Bill turned to him, eyes narrowed. "What's wrong? Seriously, what's wrong? I've never seen anyone die before."
Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "A few hours ago, we could have been rained on by dead people."
"That was different."
"How, exactly?"
"They were dead already."
"Morally and practically, there is no difference."
The Doctor pointed at Bill. "Unlearn it."
Bill crossed her arms. "Don't tell me what to think."
"I'm your teacher. Telling you things is what I do."
Bill nodded. "Yeah? Tell me this. You've both seen people die before, yeah?"
"Of course."
"You still care?"
The Doctor nodded. "Of course I care." Adelaide was silent.
"How many?"
"How many what?"
"If you care so much, tell me how many people you've seen die? Each of you."
Adelaide stayed silent. Let Bill think the Doctor spoke for both of them. It was easier than admitting Adelaide's truth, a fact she was suddenly ashamed of.
"I don't know." The Doctor looked to Adelaide. "We don't know."
"Okay. How many before you lost count?"
Adelaide was still quiet.
"We care, Bill, but we move on." It was almost impressive how well the Doctor was lying. Any other time, Adelaide would have criticized the Doctor for speaking for her, but she was self-aware enough to know that she couldn't tell her truth now.
She knew she couldn't tell Bill that for the majority of her lives, she did not care about the people she saw die. She'd just moved on. Continued working.
"Yeah? How quickly?"
The Doctor frowned at Bill. "It's not me or Adelaide you're angry with."
"Have you ever killed anyone?" Bill looked between them. "Either of you? There's a look in both of your eyes sometimes that makes me wonder. Have you?"
The Doctor swallowed. "There are situations when the choices available are limited."
"Not what I asked."
"Sometimes the choices are very..."
"That's not what I asked!"
"Yes," Adelaide answered.
"How many?" That time, both Time Lords were silent. "Don't tell me. You've moved on."
The Doctor stepped forward. "You know what happens if I, if we, don't move on? More people die. There are kids living rough near here. They may well be next on the menu. Do you want to help us? Do you want to stand here stamping your foot? Because let me tell you something. I'm two thousand years old, and I have never had the time for the luxury of outrage."
Adelaide wished that could be true. She may have found it easier to admit she still loved him if it was.
Bill looked still near tears, but her gaze fell to a point behind the Doctor. Noticing that, both Time Lords turned.
It was the girl, Kitty. "What do you mean, on the menu?"
|C-S|
Bill was the main one responsible for convincing Kitty to let the trio of time travelers come to where the children lived on the frost fairs. The human was the first one in after the child. "Is this where you live?" Bill asked, looking around the small, dark, dirty room.
"For now."
"But there's no one here."
Kitty, surprising them all, grinned. "Good work!" Children popped out of various hiding places around the room. "Except you, Dot." Kitty pointed towards one of them. "I can see your shoes."
The young girl crossed her arms. She was the one the Doctor had gifted his original top hat. "They're too big, that's why!"
The Doctor nodded. "Oh, I see! I get it. You lure people to the fair and then you rob them. Very good. Very enterprising."
Dot stepped closer to Kitty, hiding her face in the older girl's shawl. Kitty wrapped an arm around her. "They're all right, Dot. Strange. But all right. And that's not how it is."
"Oh, what? You don't rob people?"
Kitty shrugged. "Course we do. But bringing people to the fair, that's by-the-by. On the side, like."
"Why?"
"Why? For coin, of course. Why else?"
The Doctor nodded. "Someone pays you to promote the fair, get people onto the ice?" Kitty nodded. "Who? Who pays you?"
Before the girl could answer, another child drew her attention. "Kitty, where's Spider?"
"Spider is...he..."
"Who's hungry?" the Doctor interrupted, putting on a large grin and reaching into his bigger on the inside pockets. "I'm hungry. Food! Bill, food!" he gave Bill some of the fish pies. "Food is always useful." Together, the Time Lord and the human handed out the food. "Now, I know what you're thinking, but don't worry. These are stolen!" He held up a finger. "But don't tell Adelaide!" He grinned again when a few of the children giggled. "Well, eat up." He looked to Kitty. "Ah, with your permission, of course."
Kitty granted it and the children devoured the food. The Doctor stepped back to Adelaide's side to watch.
|C-S|
Adelaide wasn't certain how the Doctor had been convinced to read the orphans a story, but somehow they had managed it. He sat by the fire with the children surrounding them. "Don't suck your thumbs while I'm away. The great tall tailor always comes to little boys who suck their thumbs. Ere they dream what he's about he takes his great sharp scissors out and cuts their thumbs clean off and then..."
As the Doctor read, Bill and Adelaide stood to the side, though they both took note of Kitty ducking to the side, her fish pie half-eaten. To her credit, the child spotted them watching. "You done staring yet?"
Bill smiled. "We're going to find out what those things are, okay? They're not going to hurt anyone else, I promise." Bill nodded. "I promise. The Doctor...and Adelaide, they help people. That's what they do."
Adelaide opened her mouth to refute that claim, but Kitty spoke for her. "You weren't doing much helping."
"That is because I do not," Adelaide said, speaking firmer than she might have usually, for Bill's sake. "The Doctor may help, the Doctor may save, but I do not. You deserve to know the truth, Kitty."
The girl nodded. "And you?" she asked Bill. "What do you do, apart from shout at him?"
"We were fighting. It happens."
"Are you still fighting now?"
Bill didn't look at the Time Lords. "No. I moved on."
"Good." Adelaide's statement made Bill turn. "Moving on is necessary, Bill."
"You are not someone I would expect to be telling me that," Bill said. "Or have you and the Doctor moved on from whatever happened between you?"
"That's different."
"How?"
Adelaide glanced at the Doctor. The Time Lord was focused on the children, but she knew he could hear their conversation. "Not here, Bill. Not now."
"I thought the Doctor was a stranger, but now I know who really is."
Adelaide hated how much she agreed. "Regardless of what you may think of me, even I will not deny that the Doctor saves more than he harms." She looked at Kitty. "You can trust him, Kitty."
"Okay," the Doctor's voice was intentionally loud enough to draw their attention. "I'm wondering why the Frost Fair's on this part of the river. I bet that at least one of you knows who paid Kitty to take people out on the ice."
"It was a bad man, with a ship," Dot said, earning her an arm slap from another girl.
"Dottie!"
"A ship?" the Doctor pressed. "What, do you mean a merchant?"
"Not that kind of ship," a young boy said.
"Perry!"
"What?"
Kitty moved forward. "It's all right. You can tell him."
"It's a drawing," Dot said. "Here. On his hand." She pointed at the spot.
"So, this guy, where would we find him?" Bill asked.
"He finds us."
"But a tattoo on his hand, I mean, we could ask around?"
The Doctor waved a hand. "Boring! I know something that's much easier to find." He stood, gesturing for Bill and Adelaide to follow him.
"Where are we going?"
"All right." He stopped in the doorway, turning back to the children. "You guys, hang tight! Laters." With a grin, he ducked out. Adelaide was quick to follow him. As conflicting as it might be, she preferred the Doctor's company over Bill's at that moment. At least she and the Doctor had an established history of ignoring their issues. Bill had established herself as the opposite. "I was being all 'down with the kids' there, did you notice?"
"Yeah, my hair was cringing."
He grinned. "Awesome." He knew what the conversation between the Time Lady and human had been, but it was so much easier to pretend it wasn't happening now. Adelaide was thankful for that, in her own way.
"Please stop." They moved closer to the wharf. "So, what's easier to find?"
The Doctor, instead of speaking, looked to Adelaide, and she had to smile. "Conjecture," she said. "There's something frozen under the Thames eating people and generating green lights. Proposal. We need to get a closer look at it."
The Doctor pointed at her. "Adelaide's best at theories."
"And the Doctor is best at..."
"Plan," the Doctor finished. "Let's get eaten."
Bill frowned at Adelaide. "Do you really let him do things like that?"
"Remember how the Doctor wins at chess?"
"He kicks over the board."
Adelaide nodded. "I set up the pieces. He upturns the board." The Doctor moved ahead of both the women, finding a cart ahead of them. "It's how we worked."
"Worked? Past tense?"
"Yes." Adelaide swallowed. "Past. As I hope you understand now, we have yet to determine how we will be moving forward."
They stopped in front of the cart the Doctor had found, watching the Time Lord unload the equipment inside. "Is this stuff safe?" Bill asked.
"Potentially."
"Potentially? What does potentially mean?"
"Safe, with a frisson of excitement."
Bill eyed the equipment. "Right, but we're not going to be like completely defenseless down there, though?"
The Doctor waved a hand. "No, no, no, no. Well, yes. But don't worry about it."
"Why not? What have you got up your sleeve?" Bill's eyes widened. "Oh, my God! Have you been holding out on me? Do you two have, like, magical, alien powers?" Instead of answering, the Doctor held up a diving helmet and breathed on it, polishing the front. "What, was that an impolite question?"
"Take a guess," Adelaide said.
The Doctor pointed at Bill. "Always be polite. Adelaide likes you when you're polite, and you want Adelaide to like you."
|C-S|
The Doctor made a point of pulling Adelaide to the side, apart from Bill, to speak to her before night fell and they went to be eaten by the thing in the river. They didn't have much time, as it had taken time to get the diving suits up to working order, but they did have a few minutes.
There were hundreds of things the Time Lords needed to discuss, but what the Doctor chose to focus on, what he chose to be sure Adelaide knew, was that she didn't have to do this.
Adelaide was brave. She was strong. She could do anything she set her mind to.
But this was darkness. This was water. This was submersion.
And he would not make her do it if she did not want to. He would not do that to her.
After all, as much as he could sometimes hate her, as much as he could sometimes wish for her to be anyone but herself, on his good days he did still love her. He still did care about her. He still did not want to put her in a situation like this.
Thankfully, this was a good day.
Adelaide did not fight the Doctor when he pulled her aside. He was glad of that too.
"You don't have to do this," the Doctor told her, one hand hovering over her arm. "Bill and I can go into the river, I can report back to you. You don't have to do it to yourself."
Adelaide was quiet for a moment. She was searching his gaze. He wondered if she was looking for a lie. Looking for an ulterior motive. Looking for some sign of the man she'd hated.
Though, he supposed the man she hated was the man who cared most. He wondered if she hated him now.
"You'll stay safe?" her voice was so quiet that the Doctor barely heard her. Even when he did, he wondered if he'd heard her correctly.
It didn't seem like question Adelaide would ask, especially to him. Especially after everything.
"I will."
She took out her sonic pen and twisted it, pulling it in half. She gave one half, the one without the tip, to him. "So I can find you after, in case you end up somewhere strange. Or swallowed." He remembered the shark with Kazran Sardick.
He nodded. "Do you still have a TARDIS key?"
Adelaide reached for a pocket that no longer existed. "Not anymore. I believe it's sitting in my desk drawer."
He reached into his jacket pocket and handed her his key. "Be careful."
"I'm always careful."
"Stay off the ice."
She smiled. "Take notes."
He nearly laughed and, in a moment of what most would consider a lax of judgment, he took her hand and squeezed.
Adelaide did not fight it and he was so glad.
When he returned to Bill, the human looked shocked that Adelaide hadn't come back with him. "Wait, is she not coming?"
"Adelaide is...she dislikes submersion in the dark."
"She's afraid of the dark?"
The Doctor gripped his half of Adelaide's sonic. "Yes. Everyone is afraid of the dark." He remembered the Vashta Nerada and the Library, monsters hiding in the dark that Caroline had been terrified of, though she'd attempted to hide it from the strangers. He didn't like to remember the Library often.
How had he missed that Caroline wasn't just human? Donna had fit just fine into the computer, but Caroline had broken it. Why hadn't he put it together?
Even now, centuries after he'd run through the universe refusing to let go of a quiet woman he thought human, he wondered how he'd missed it. He wondered what would have been different if he never had.
"Are you afraid of the dark?" Bill asked him, drawing his attention again.
"A clever man would be." The Doctor turned to face the ice. "I'm not clever."
"Yes, you are," Bill said.
He shook his head. "I'm a foolish man, with a box, hopping around the universe with a screwdriver. Adelaide is the clever one."
He looked back to where Adelaide waited. She'd moved off of the ice, returning to where they'd found the cart of the diving suits, and looked down with her hands resting on the stone wall. If she could hear their conversation – they were just within Time Lord hearing range – she gave no reaction.
The Doctor was glad of that. He couldn't decide if she would have thanked him or cursed him for revealing her fear to Bill.
He would have to ask her later. When they had a chance to talk, properly.
When they had a chance to determine exactly how they were going to negotiate the future.
A/N: It's in episodes like this where I really see similarities between Bill and Donna. No wonder she's having such a role in making our Time Lords realize how much they care about each other ;)
