Summary: Wherein Sybilla behaves oddly, and Loren is insecure. "And it's a time machine, he said. You could go off and come back and I wouldn't have to know how long you were gone. You're saying that really isn't tempting?"
Notes: Bit of a quote from the Dies Irae in here. 'Dies Irae' is Latin and translates to 'Day of Wrath'. It's a part of the Catholic requiem mass, if I recall correctly. The lines quoted translate (very) roughly to, "Day of Wrath, That Day / When the world will dissolve into ashes / As witnessed by David and the Sibyl".
The Sibyls were ancient Greek priestesses who got high and made prophecies. I'm probably pushing it with that section, but I couldn't resist.
Rememer the bombshell Lyssa dropped on me a couple chapters back? It's finally revealed.
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Chapter Eleven: What's Behind the Curtain
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Lyssa was eating an amount of chocolate that was, frankly, worrying. But at least now she was savoring it a little, rather than stuffing it into her mouth with the strange desperation she'd had earlier. "You're gonna become diabetic, you know."
"Always a possibility, yeah." She put another piece into her mouth. "Can't do anything about that."
"Besides not eat so much sugar at once..."
"Oh, you mean adult-onset. I thought you meant something else, being, you know, nine hundred-years-old and all-knowing or whatever."
"I'm not all-knowing."
"Oh, that's a relief. It'd be really creepy if you were."
"Yeah, I agree." He blinked. Something was distinctly odd about this conversation.
"You got the vaccine ready yet?"
"Let me check, it should be finished in... yeah, I think I have enough to start with. Go get your boyfriend. Careful opening the door; you don't want him to fall through."
"What?" She opened the door; Loren yelped and grabbed the doorframe to steady himself.
"Fair warning," said the Doctor, seperating the vaccine out into doses.
"You were listening in!" Lyssa yelled. "What the hell was that for!"
Rose muttered something incoherent about damn neighbors who should just break up and go live with their boy-toys already, and clumsily pulled her pillow above her ears.
"So I want to know what's going on!" Loren defended. "What's so wrong with that!"
"He thinks you're gonna run off with me 'cos I'm not unattractive and I have a time machine," the Doctor explained, tapping a vial and examining it critically.
"You what!"
"In 'is d'fense, 's 'appen'd b'fore," Rose mumbled sleepily.
"Not often. I'm getting more attractive in my old age, heh." He grinned to himself.
"Really? Hell'd y'look like b'fore?"
"Remind me to hide all of the old photo albums."
"Tha' bad, 'uh? G'na haveta start lookin'."
"Don't you dare. Used to make the 1980s look like Victorian England."
"D'mn, now I HAVE t'look."
"The Tardis'll never let you find 'em. She likes me more than she likes you."
"Oh yeah? We'll see about tha'."
Lyssa raised an eyebrow at Loren pointedly.
"...But he still has a time machine," Loren said, flushing.
"Yeah, that is pretty cool," Lyssa admitted. "How d'you know he'd even let me on?"
"Actually, I might consider it," the Doctor said, fixing the vials of vaccine with a wary stare.
Lyssa blinked. "Seriously?"
He shrugged. "If I couldn't tell already you wouldn't accept, I probably would ask."
"And why do you think I wouldn't accept?"
He shot her a lopsided smile. "I've seen enough of love to know where your priorities always lie. I've seen enough of love to know you're in it. Tell him what happened these two days sometime; maybe that'll drive the point through his head. Tell him what losing him did to you. Tell him what you'd risk to bring him back. Don't blame the poor boy for being a bit paranoid; after all, I am frankly magnificent. But he's completely safe, and if he's as bright a lad as I assume he must be, he'll figure that out soon enough."
"All of space. All of time." Lyssa took his hands. "Never without you. You dumbass."
Loren laughed a little, nervously. "I mean, it's just-- working out this mess here, or-- or all of time and space-- you deserve that, you know. I don't want you to give that up."
"I'm not giving a damn thing up. If I didn't already have all of time and space, I'd've left you years ago. And I suggest you get that through your head really quick, 'cause I'm only gonna get more impatient as we go on here."
"Oi, Loren, roll up your sleeve, would you?"
Loren obeyed. The Doctor had been tempted to use his syringes, but, fortunately for his patients, he had been unable to locate them and had to use his more futuristic and painless models instead. "Now, you're gonna get a fever. It won't be as bad as Rose's, 'cos I've already given you a dose of antibiotics, but it is gonna be like a mild case of the flu. So, if you've got any unfinished business, I suggest you wrap it up now." He injected the vaccine into Loren's arm. "Now the only problem's making enough for everyone who was in there. You remember how many there were?"
"I..." She shook her head. "An awful lot of them ran off. I can't be sure."
"No worries; someone'll know. If not, I'll just wing it like always." He smiled reassuringly.
Lyssa blinked at him, the way people usually did when he tried to be reassuring. "Right. This virus, is it gonna be contagious?"
"This should eradicate it from his system in a few months, but I'd still get tested before you take any chances of infecting anybody. There is a standard test for it though, if I recall correctly. Shouldn't be any problem. I'll give you all the information you need before I drop you off."
"Lyssa..." Loren took her shoulders. "I know I'll seem paranoid, but I just want to make sure you don't-- don't make the wrong choice and start hating me forever and all that. I read. I watched my mother's soap for fifteen years. This isn't the sort of issue you want to have. And it's a time machine, he said. You could go off and come back and I wouldn't have to know how long you were gone. You're saying that really isn't tempting?"
Lyssa rolled her eyes. "Damn, Loren, it's starting to be. Hello! Message for Loren! Your wife loves you! Get over it! Seriously, it could be cute, but you're really starting to push it."
"Sorry." Loren coughed, embarassed. "It's just, I think I have a duty to stay here and fix this, and I don't want to tie you to--"
"Hello! Message for Loren! Your wife loves you! Get over it! NOW!"
"Um. Sorry." He coughed again. "Great! Right. That's great. If you're sure."
Lyssa raised her eyes to the ceiling of the Tardis, as if beseeching it for answers. The Doctor wondered if it might not give her any. "Yes, Loren, I am sure. Do you need a reason you can believe? I will give you a reason you can believe. My reason is, it would be damned hard to collect child support from a million years and two galaxies away. All right?"
Loren blinked. "What?"
"That's what I was missing about that diabetes conversation!" the Doctor realized, delighted. "You were pretending I'd figured it out and meant gestational when I really meant adult-onset. And I should've figured it out, too. Clever!"
"Thanks," Lyssa said, giving the Doctor a smile. "Yeah, I've probably been moody as hell. Sorry."
"Completely understandable, even before I knew about this. Congratulations!"
"Thanks."
"What?" Loren said, dazed.
The Doctor beamed at her. "Let's hope the kid gets his mum's brain. I'm gonna go vaccinate the others. You stay here an' make sure he doesn't hurt himself when he falls over in shock."
"...You're... you're pregnant?" Loren blinked at her, rather pathetically.
"Yeah."
"Since... since when?"
"Learned about a week ago. Hadn't gotten around to mentioning it yet."
"You're pregnant."
"Yes," Lyssa said patiently.
"...YES!" Loren let out a whoop of joy and swung her around, laughing in pure delight.
Rose muttered something incoherent about damn neighbors and their noisy make-up shagging.
Nobody noticed.
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"You truly believe it will help?" Sybilla said, blinking up at him with tired owlish eyes.
"Can't hurt, that's for sure."
"But it won't help."
"...It's probably progressed too far to help much, yes. But if you don't chuck yourself off any cliffs, you ought to live a good long while yet."
"Or if I bump into something. These bones are fragile, easy to break. With caution, I will live a little while. That is more than I could have expected of fate yesterday. It will suffice."
"Yeah, you've got plenty of years left." He beamed at her and got up.
"But everything is doomed to death. You most of everyone know this."
He looked at her, warily. She looked back, calmly.
"Wisdom does not limit itself to the old. In fact, the oldest become most foolish if they do not defend against it. This too you have learned. You have learned so many things. The difficulty now becomes remembering it. And knowing what is true when. When to fight, when to make peace. When to live, when to die. Everything dies, but everything is born. Everything dies, and yet life persists. Do you think it is a fluke, a cruelty of nature? Or have you yet realized how life links itself with death? Everything will die. But everything has lived, and may yet live again. Have you yet remembered that life and space and time birth themselves in explosions? Or is that to come later?"
He blinked at her, unnerved. "I--"
"Do not worry. I really am crazy." She smiled faintly up at him. "But you begin to notice it. How space and time converge to bring you wherever something is wrong. With the right pebble in the right place, any river may be diverted. Have you yet realized you are the pebble? For you are many things, have been many things, will be many more. Never may you fully realize them all. But 'ware, pebble. Your destiny is bigger and more perilous than you yet dream. But... I think you will be safe. After all, something you should always remember: you are loved."
There was far too much truth in what she was saying. "Ma'am--"
"Don't worry about it." She sneezed. "Delerium. Blame it on the retrovirals. I mean it; please do." She laid down on the cot. "I will rest now."
"...Right." The Doctor left.
Sibylla... the Sibyls... Dies irae, dies illa, solvum saeclet in favilla, teste David cum Sibylla...
Yeah, that's a coincidence. Got to be.
He put it out of his mind and strode cheerily back to the console room.
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