Today's Not Over Yet
by Camilla Sandman
Diclaimer: BBC's characters. My words.
Author's Note: For insaneizzi in the Easter Egg Fic Exchange.
II
After
II
Tomorrow, the world is ending, and today, he is happy.
He goes to London, May 1945, watching the people rejoice and the war be over. He snogs complete strangers. Complete strangers snog him. He sings all the wrong words to songs and no one cares. He dances with an old woman in the street to silent music, and she rests her head on his shoulder and sighs. Just once, just happy.
Tomorrow, she's going to die, he knows. But then, so is he.
He takes Leonardo DaVinci flying, and is miffed when Leonardo steals his design. He crashes into a field with the Wright brothers, but assures them they're on the right track and it'll work very soon, and by the way, have they ever considered police box design for flying?
He sees two turns of the millenium - one with drunk Englishmen in a sportsbar, one with drunk Vikings in a longhouse, or was it other way around? He wears a Viking helmet and finds it a bit boring, so he sticks horns on it.
Tomorrow, it's going to be a fashion high-point, he thinks. But then, so he's always been.
He dances at a ball with Queen Elizabeth, and she compliments him on his wig. He compliments her on her dress and wonders why she seems so keen on having him remove it later. He runs a bit because Queens aren't too fond of no, and a little more because guards are fond of Queens.
He runs into Lord Byron in a bar, and completes "Don Juan" for him, but unfortunately spills beer all over it. He doesn't feel too bummed. The rest of it was rather pants, he feels.
He crashes the Tzar train on the Trans-Siberian railway, but that's not his fault, they really shouldn't label any switches 'do not press under any circumstances'. Sadly, the Tzar doesn't quite see it like that, and he finds out just how cold Siberia is.
He goes to see Charley and tells her a lot of silly things because he doesn't want her to remember the important things when thinking of him. She tells him a lot of things he doesn't listen to, as habit has it, but her presence feels like a lull, and her voice holds a lullaby.
Tomorrow, she won't know he's dead. But then, he never expected to be mourned.
He has tea with the Brigadier in stunning sunshine and forgets that he feels cold. He watches children play cricket and wonders if he ever really grew up. Maybe he just grew old, and he's still no age at all. He bats a little with them when they ask, loses willingly until they mock his haircut and then he bats a century and marvel at how fast it goes.
He gets his hair cut by Alfophonic of 4678, and goes to see Grace to get her opinion. She just laughs, and he just laughs, and he snogs her a little for old times sake. He doesn't ask her to come with him again, and she doesn't refuse him again, and he can live with that.
He goes to London, 1964 and watches Susan cross the street, the sun bouncing off bright cars and onto her, and there's still not enough light on her, he thinks. She should shine even more, because she's his, and that's the brightest light of all. A Morris honks at her and he dares three words that she won't hear, but that he will still have said.
Tomorrow, she won't have a home, but then, he never did have one. Except maybe one place, and he goes back to it.
He sits in his TARDIS and listens to his ship, ever beautiful in its noise, ever faithful in its somewhat-unreliability, ever his. The message from Gallifrey still waits to be answered on the screen, and he knows it's almost time. The war is waiting, and the hammerstroke might be his.
But for now, he just wants to remember how it was to be the Doctor. No one else will, after all.
Tomorrow, the Doctor is sure he will die. But then, the Universe was always a bit of a rebel too.
Tomorrow, the world's ending and he's not.
II
Before
II
He goes to sit on a bench in London sometime in the 1990s for no other reason than it's there. He just sits, trying not to think, trying not to feel, trying to feel alive when death's already calling. He can feel the impatience of himself, wanting to answer the summons, wanting to go to his death, wanting to spring into action and do something.
But another part of him, the odd that has already analyzed the information from Gallifrey, the one who has narrowed down the choices and found them all horrifying, that part is howling.
He sits and sits, until he feels a hand on his knee, a young girl looking at him, her blonde hair bright in the sun.
"Are you sad?"
"Yes," he says, because he has no one else to say it to and the Universe can overwhelm you with silence. "What would you do if it was your last day on Earth?"
"Be happy."
He looks at her a little, astonished at the simplicity and the difficulty of her answer both.
"And get a red bike," she adds.
She walks away and he stands still, feeling the Earth turn underneath him, hurling through time and space without pause. Somewhere, a Dalek fleet is hurling towards Gallifrey, and Gallifrey is hurling towards silence. He can feel it, feel the waiting choice thunder in his mind. Wherever he goes, death always waits.
We're waiting for you, Time Lord.
Maybe there's a moment to be stolen still. Maybe there's a dance to be had. Maybe there's a plane to fly. Maybe there's happiness.
Tomorrow, the world's ending.
Today's not over yet.
II
FIN