(Spontaneously inspired by rewatching the TNotD prequel & a creative name for a lipstick shade I bought & tested recently. It makes sense in context. )
[Ruminations]
When he pictures her in his mind's eye, he imagines her with a challenging smile, the sort she wears when she's about to try out something new and potentially frightening, sometimes all bold, sometimes with vestiges of nerves tugging at the corners, that inexplicably haunting Mona Lisa smile that kept him whacking his brains at night, disclosing mostly elation, but intermingled with traces of something else, always holding something back.
There is that twinkle he can't make sense of, is that the light of salvation that glimmers in her lively youthful gaze, or the cartoonist evil gleam that's too obvious for him not to miss?
That's a serious concern, after the new Paradigm Daleks, the Pandorica and the trap at Demon's Run – it grates him to know, but the forces out there know how he things and all this smells too badly of someone's handwriting.
And then there's how she doesn't know how he knows the intricacies of her smell and taste, a provocative sweetness with just a sting of fresh sourness, a sprinkle of geraniol, a blossoming universe extending from Dragon Fruit to Pomegranate, from Poppy to something broader, deeper like Orange Oil, or how inconvenient that is when he's not sure if he can even trust her, and slowly finds her holding more and more of him in the firm grasp of her small, deceptively delicate fingers, hands that he's since seen used to do wonders, wield power, and broker peace –
It was one thing with she burst in completely unexplained, defying his ideas of feasibility and leaving him wanting like some stray beam of rainbows and pixie dust, but now, he'd learned her reasons, he'd found out what made her the person that caught his eye, witnessed the crimson flower spring from a soil of stories and kindness, the unique meetings and deeds of two parents and four grandparents, from tragedy, happenstance and firm decisions made in spite of them, he'd gone and measured that particular marigold, and contrary to popular belief, that hadn't led him to disappointed disillusionment, but to wish he could physically kiss the Fibonacci-Numbers he'd found in its leaves and petals, in the intricate arrangement of those minuscule blossom-chalices in its center; You see, what looked like one flower was, in fact, an extravagant home to many of them, and what, at first lance, looked like a mature, presentable if somewhat clumsy girl contained much more facets within her than eyes could hope to discern.
Somewhere beyond those large, soft brown eyes, passion flows like a river of blood, Dionysus and Apollo find themselves locked in eternal battle, and there's a silver gate hiding a garden of fanciful flowers that very few have tread in, and if that glimmer in her eyes is how that gets to manifest, he could almost live with it, even delight in the privilege of seeing the bits and pieces she shows no one else, but he's lost too much, too often, and unexplained facts he cannot ignore grant a perfect pretext to his long-held certainty that he cannot, does not deserve, there needs to be some kind of catch somewhere, some price he'll have to pay.
He still can't put the pieces together, and every gap, every nook and cranny, leaves room for the worst, any number of worsts, and he's almost sure than when he finds out, he will have to part with her –
When he was at her side, when they were running, laughing today, it was more or less possible to put that aside, to let it slide, to force himself to stay within the moment and let himself experience for as long as it lasted – But he hope that she would never know of the feverish, festering madness that followed when she left him to his thoughts, his endless staring, clicking through pictures that had no business being related, this being just one issue, one part, one more thing cementing his lack of excuse for the bewitchment he'd let himself be overcome by, and he was neither naive nor foolish enough to confuse his own pathetic longing for something she'd be actively doing to him – And in that sense, he had nothing for which to fault that mysterious smile of hers –
He, too, concealed from her, and he hoped that she would never find out how much – He didn't need to see her horrified reaction to 1200 years worth of filth to know that the did not want to know.
(And here's another thing about marigolds and popular belief: In Science, some of the more significant advancements & exciting discoveries can happen exactly when your theories are proven wrong. )
When she thinks of him, she imagines him with that brooding, somber expression he often wears when he thinks she's not looking, his frown so dark not even his silly bow tie finds a way to mitigate it, something about him binging to mind that stretched, vacuous heat imediately before a summer tempest.
She supposes that a part of her likes it, gets a kick, a fix even, out of being needed by some tortured, melancholy hero who looks miserable when his wet, dark hair sticks to his face in the summer rain, but in the end, she's a sensible girl and knows to enjoy what she has rather than to expect the impossible; She can't let herself cause them both undue embarassment, or allow her mind to slip on the obvious question at hand, on what he could possibly be thinking, hiding behind those big sad eyes of his - his presence at her mother's funeral, the sudden shift in his demeanor after those usuncessful attempts to get her to 'bond' with his ship and all those little half-mentions, unfinished setences that didn't add up, seemed to form puzzle pieces, shards of ancient vases that no archeologist could put together before they'd excavated some other parts-
Perhaps she'd simply have to wait until the next clue came her way, and until then, stay focussed and cautious in here, in more ways than one -
By now, he should have realized that she o all people would never be satisfied with just dropping out of his life without ever knowing his thoughts.
(Someday, when these days are long past, and these doubts long resolved, she will wake up from a long dream and remember that he smells like the warm, cozy atmosphere of an old house equipped with rivolous christmas decorations and rooms funished like small, family-owned antique shops, that his taste spans everything from the frish crisp of lemon to vanilla and gingerbread, from fond memories of peppermint drops to the sweet balmy summer air when it's been cleansed by a storm. )