Oh dear, what has he got into now?
02
Dear Doctor
The Old Woman
"I'd better get in there before she gets lost."
"You do that, Doctor." Kate told him with an affectionate smile. "She's as likely to ask your ship as you and just disappear on you. She took the time to explain to me that this you is a lot shakier on your pins, as she put it, than most of you have been. Though, she said you're at least using your head again, which, after the last one, is a vast improvement...according to her."
"Oi."
"It's okay not to be okay, sometimes, you know?"
"Maybe. But, I'll need to be now, won't I?"
"Not really, old man." Came the old woman's voice out the door. "It's fine to just park this lady someplace for a while, so long as terms such as both 'the ground' and 'Earth' are combined with 'sea level' and 'a naturally well supplied island without worrisome predators, snakes or anything that thinks we look tasty living in the seawater there...and a good supply of good potable, tasty water, located in the tropical belt.'" Her voice faded a bit as she moved across the console room without him. "Cuz I know where you were going to park and that ain't gonna happen. This lady promised."
"Oi, so...where?" He complained as he entered his ship.
"South Pacfic...but no where near any volcanoes and before they get a human population. Some of those legends of the early humans from down there about folks on nearby islands, well, they sorta sounded like you anyway." She reached over and patted the back of one of his hands. "Warm and lush beats cold and foggy any day. And then too, I'm no more English than you are. Besides, I like going barefoot. I like being able to pick a snack dangling from a handy tree, too."
"True. American, Cooper?"
"And if you don't remember to either call me Myrna or add a 'Mrs.' to my surname, I'm going to start in making you very uncomfortable, very fast."
He swallowed. "Yes, Myrna."
"Good Doctor." She replied in a tone suitable for praising an unruly puppy which has suddenly decided to behave, then patted him.
"Oi."
"Yes. Now, as I was saying, you do need a bit of a vacation to just enjoy where you are and just be. It's not a crime to take some of the Time you have for yourself but with a few friends, and some live entertainment to get you smiling again. Solitude isn't good for you, ever. You just don't have the kind of personality to handle it and you never have, despite the putting yourself through three hundred years of misery as Eight, you don't have the skill set to do it now."
"It feels weird when you do that to me."
"Well, now you understand how other people feel when you do it to them."
"I suppose so."
"Then, when you do start to go a bit stir crazy, put the energy into a project...either that or go see Madge again. She's good for you. She did lose her husband, eventually, in the war. About about a year or so later...she didn't want to bother you when he was shot down. We can grab her and the children...and you can actually introduce yourself properly. There's going to be kids with us regardless, so two more...not a big deal."
"I will address those notions in a moment...what sort of project?"
"Locating and researching Earth's hidden places. I know of a few places in the Lower Forty-Eight, that, if you don't have exact instructions for how to enter, you can't. I'd be willing to tell the TARDIS how to get in...and then you can both research them together. But for now, warmth for my bones and wild bananas for you. And a shallow cove, I think, something we can get the TARDIS to drop rocks around at low tide to keep the sharks out later...safe swimming sound good?"
"Bananas...oh, safe swimming...yeah, that's sounds good too. What sort of places?"
She laughed, a joyous sound. "I'll only tell you when you start to go stir-crazy. I've told the TARDIS, she's got the instructions already and she's apparently done her research...she's a little irritated, I think. She had never spotted it."
"WHAT?"
"Stop that. You sound like Stripes...and I already told you why you don't really want me anywhere near that you. Look, you need to take a break and I want to take it easy, yes? Shorts, barefoot, tank top or no top, maybe a sunhat, learn to relax. I don't think you ever managed to quite get a knack for that. Not even that rest period when you were Seven."
"Will you stop that?"
She snorted at him but let it pass. "There is one stop to make, to pick up a lady called Clara, her charges and their father, plus three friends of your's...and then the group of us will spend a nice long vacation far out to sea in a tropical place where you can heal from your burnout in peace." The old woman handed him a overly sweet smile. "Already told your fine lady when, approximately, and which event...it's participants and such. Had to get permission, see...to edit something before the thing becomes an issue. The TARDIS is doing the rest simply because if you've ever won an argument with her, I know of several million people who know your lives quite well, which all still managed to miss it."
"Oi! I'll win one, sooner or later. Might not be this one, but I will. Maybe."
She only grinned up at him. "There's a massive betting pool out there where I'm from, that is still waiting for somone in those many millions of human participants in that pool, to win it. The bet is, 'Someday, the Doctor will win a single, seriously important argument with the TARDIS'. Sadly, after fifty linear years of Doctor Who, noone has ever collected. And on that little, outdated computer of mine, is Season Eight... Season Eight is next you. Sorry...no one collected during this you's tenure, either."
"Oi." He groaned, hearing Kate's chuckles get louder as she stuck her head in the door.
"I suppose I should update UNIT's betting pool information on that particular issue, too, now. She's got most of the series and as far as we can tell, it's the real deal, dead on. Body to body, to body, event, after event, after event. So, updating our betting pool is on the 'to do' list."
"Probably wise. I gave the rest of my copies to this lady here...and told her to make sure you didn't get to review the ones you stole...or remember anything you shouldn't, if you already had. Sorry, but you grew up on Doctor stories, young Katie...you know better."
Kate Stuart flushed and looked away just as the Doctor yelled in frustration.
"ARGH!" He shouted, before calming himself "As this seems to be 'Pick on the Doctor Day, we'll be going, so I only have one person doing it instead of the whole of UNIT...I'll see you later, Kate Stuart."
"Until next time, Doctor." She replied, still grinning broadly as she withdrew.
He turned toward the console and stopped dead. "What? How...?"
"Oh, not much. Just asked her a non-motion related question. I said, 'Wouldn't it be more comfortable for him if he had a comfy, supported seat and banks of controls all within easy reach?" She gestured at the changed console. "She even added a five point harness for when we know it's going to be rough and an air supported seat for me and each of the others. We'll be fetching them straight from home, two houses, no stopping to ask permission. Six of them you know you know, one of them you don't know that you know, that you know, yet and three more you've never met."
He grinned at her as the timeship moved, shuddered to a quick stop and then began to move again, this time with Madge, Ceril and Lily added to the room with them. "Madge. I heard, so we decided just pick you and the children up and take you off somewhere pleasant. We do have a stop to make in the past first...Regency era." And he began to explain the ship and himself...and explained about the weeping angels and losing the Ponds. He also introduced them to old Myrna, who shooed him off down the corridor to find a nursery for the kids and a bedroom for Madge near them. She wanted to stay there with them, for the time being and he simply gave her a hug and returned to Myrna to take up the threads of their interrupted conversation.
"Wow. That one person sounds complicated."
"She is. The thing is, future this you, will be coming to fetch her, about...maybe five or six years linear from now. Snd if you really want to know why, set a loop first for the duration that you can close it's over, then ask your TARDIS."
He blinked at her. "A loop? Why? "
"Seriously? Otherwise, the information is a great huge reaper attractant. And since I can't tell if you followed through and set it up...and she can...ask her. All I can safely say is that it involves an unauthorized living visit to Trenzalore."
"Oh. Yeah, good reason. Really good reason. Oh wow, that's intense." He concentrated, first to set up that loop the old woman had mentioned, then listened to his ship's explanation about Clara. There were tears in his eyes when she finished.
"Oh."
"Yeah. And she stayed. She's with next you now, for now, you didn't learn as much from screwing up with Rose as you should have. It still needs saying with Clara...mostly because she isn't and never has been, quite who you think she is."
"Please tell me I'm not still that stupid?"
"..."
"Shit."
"In a word, yes. I think you're learning then, in that you's now, though...pretty fast too. You do have the option to say it to Clara yourself, then prevent next you from being an old idiot. That's part of the sticky bit I needed get permission...and then set and let Idris handle it."
"Oi, didn't I ask you not to do that to me?" He flapped a hand at her, "Nevermind that. How?"
"Tell her your name, stupid." She told him, "As soon as you get in the position to be forced into making that unauthorized trip...before you even touch the console...do it then. Or sooner. Sooner is better, really...for many reasons. Most of them, Clara is not conciously aware of and won't be for a good while...until someone else 'calls' her on it."
"Um." He sighed as he opened the door and saw Jenny, Vestra and Straxx. "In you come. We've a few more people to pick up and then we're going for a vacation."
"Is it safe?" Jenny asked, worriedly.
"Safer than it would be if he planned it. To avoid those kinds of problems, I asked the TARDIS to look after the details and only told him after that. He a sweethearts, but I'll trust her judgment over his any day."
"OI!"
"Probably wise." Vestra smiled. "Bit older of a companion than I would have expected...age is wisdom."
"Except where the Doctor is concerned. You realize, I think it's just a gender thing with him...when all is said and done, he's still male, after all."
Vestra blinked, visibly startled. "You could be right, it could just be that simple."
"OI!"
"Well, he does have a few things, aside from gender, in common with Straxx."
"True. He does." Jenny nodded, grinning at both males shamelessly.
"But, I'm not a companion, I'm his dependent. He's gotten a bit domesticated since last you saw him."
"Domesticated?"
"Yes, for a human she is, as you said older, she has joint issues and issues with softer tissues around her joints and she is from a different reality. UNIT alerted me to her presence. With her disabilities, the only relatively safe home for her is in here. So, she is a full time resident, rather than a companion."
"Now, we're to pick up a family of three, plus the governess of two of them." Cooper told them. "Those two are children, both a good age to teach acceptence and tolerance to, Madam."
"Thank you. I'll do that. Where are we vacationing, by the way?"
"South Pacific, tropics. TARDIS selected for a distinct lack of Earthquakes, volcanoes, prior residents, any critter that would consider any of us tasty or vegetation that is otherwise either predatory or poisonous. I told her as close to resort grade as possible without anyone but Nature in charge of developing or maintaining it. And as 'child-safe' as possible, as well. I thought that perhaps the warmth would be more welcome than London's fog."
"Indeed."
A few moments later, four new people, one shocked and frightened man, two excited children and one very startled governess, found themselves on the TARDIS, minus one homicidal ice-ghost-thingie. His timeline, that she had taken upon herself to repair, had just edited itself suddenly and sharply. That had never happened before.
This was the last bit and as she wondered what to do now, an older woman with bad hips and so leaning on a cane tottered over to her and said quietly, "Your him will be coming to fetch you soon. Okay? I managed to get the TARDIS to edit this bit before it went critical, since we're going to be in the tropic-belt, in 100F + temperatures, I doubt miss homicidal ice-thingie is going to be much of an issue. The TARDIS pulled a fast one and dropped her in the south pacifc just off shore of the Hawaiian islands as she passed. She'll be water long before she manages to get to a shoreline of any kind. That water is nice and warm and salty. Salt plays merry hel with ice."
Clara burst out laughing. "Sure, tossing table salt on her would have worked. Salting the fountain pond, too, I think. Melt it all into salty water."
"This him, is under a time loop so the ship could tell him what's going on with you and because the younger this him knows, so will the elder one. So, just enjoy yourself and eventually he'll pick you up. Your charges and their father however, will believe themselves shipwrecked. Their father will believe his wife lost in a storm at sea...and that is what your charges also believe. You will be able to wander off into the back corridors of the TARDIS and they'll never know you're gone until you are."
"Sounds workable."
"One other thing needs addressing. Which is that I know very well who was hitching a ride on that leaf with you...as well as who you are, so you tell him. The TARDIS knows you're here, Rose, in a new life but I don't think he understands how human lives actually work. Got Handy in your pocket?"
She swallowed, startled and just stared at the granny aged woman. "Um, yes, actually."
"Slip him into the Doctor's pocket, he can get back inside himself on his own."
She bit her lip, hesitating and the older woman's eyes grew mischief-filled.
"He's behind me, isn't he?"
"Sure is. And he was well within his version of earshot when you admitted it. So you go get what you've needed for so long, give him what he needs from you and make sure he doesn't get stupid a second time."
"More like, um, fifth or sixth, time."
"Yeah, but those were last him. Gotta reset the counting on the Stupid List."
She stilled as his hands appeared on her shoulders, then began to tremble. "He kept sending me away, but he liked me as Clara more. He...he doesn't want me, you know?"
The older woman closed her eyes, hurting for the girl, opened them and looked up at the Doctor's tear filled eyes. "Tell her, or I'll show you what else a cane is good for. I'm almost certain you won't like it at all...and if you do, I'll work on my technique until you don't, even if I have to break it over that stubborn backside of your's. You are hurting her."
~TBC~