"Ex Memoria"

3. A Weekend Outing

Chicago, Illinois – in the year 2021

They had never known when it would come, or if it would come, though they had been betting on it for years, but that morning it had all changed. That morning, when Mike had gone out to get the mail, there had been the handwritten note, telling them both to come by the museum at a specific time. They had known right away who it had to be coming from, and Tina had practically been on the verge of leaving the house right then and there, but Mike had convinced her they needed to wait until the time indicated on the message. So they waited, and finally they went.

They hadn't known exactly what to expect, but then they'd have to know it when they saw it, right?

They ended up starting to make their way through the exhibit, for lack of a better thing to do. Maybe this would be where they came up on whatever it was they had to find. After a while, they were almost losing themselves into the various paintings on display and forgetting why they were actually there, which made it all the more startling when they came across a familiar face.

"Gemma?" Tina had blurted out the woman's name before turning to her husband with a silent question. He only shook his head, shrugged.

So they went up to her, sitting on a nearby bench and staring at them with a strange sort of smile. She got up, and after they'd stood there in the middle of the museum, staring at one another for a minute, Mike had been the one to break the ice and moved forward to hug the woman who'd once pretended to be a teacher at their school. Gemma had returned the embrace, and soon she'd parted from one Chang only to be taken in by the other.

"I didn't know it would be… well, you," Tina looked at her, at a loss for words.

"Is the Doctor…" Mike started to ask, pausing and looking around, now wondering if this was the best place to bring it up. But Gemma shook her head before he could go on.

"Not mine, but yours, the one you met in Ohio, he's here, with companions Amy and Rory."

"What about…" Tina started now, again cut off.

"This version of the Doctor is from before McKinley," Gemma revealed. "He won't know you, and it might be best not to mention how you already know him and why."

"Can't you tell him… something?" Tina asked.

"I can't," Gemma shook her head. "And that's part of the reason why I'm here now. I had to tell you, I won't be able to come back, not here, so you're on your own right now. Please… be careful."

"Okay, but what are we supposed to do?"

"You're in a museum," Gemma looked around, again with her strange smile. "Enjoy the art," she said.

They'd only just turned for a moment, following the sweep of her arm, but when they looked back to where she'd been standing, she was gone.

It took a couple of minutes before they could decide what they would do, but finally it just seemed like there was nothing else to do but to follow Gemma's instructions. They were supposed to go around and 'see the art,' so they would do that.

"John Smith?" Tina read off a sign, with a chuckle. It just sounded a bit fake.

"Look at this one," Mike walked her to another painting, showing a couple running in the rain.

There were a few others already standing by, staring dreamily at the piece, and as strange as it almost was, before long they were standing same as the others were, looking at the canvas with a fixed faraway look for what might have been minutes. When they moved away, it was with a blink, and if they chanced to look at their watches, they would show surprise at how much time had gone by.

Maybe it was that they knew somehow they had to be on the verge of running into the Doctor, but something about it all had felt strange to both of them, and though they didn't know what it was, they knew maybe there would be a reason for that. Something in this room was doing something it shouldn't be doing, and they had a good idea which one it was. They decided to sit, and wait, and see.

In sitting as they did, they were made able to reach some definite conclusions. It was natural that anyone who wandered through the exhibit would at the very least stop and take a look at each one of the items. That look may have lasted a few seconds, or a minute, but every one of them got their allotted time, so there had to be something else to differentiate any one from the rest. And there was.

Everyone who stopped in front of the painting of the couple in the rain had the same reaction, in almost freakishly synchronized sequence. It wasn't that the painting was anything particular, now that they looked at it from a distance. But those who went and stood before the painting would wander up, and they would look at it, and they would stop to stand in front of it, unmoving, for an entire nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds; Mike had clocked it.

They must have been sitting there, observing the passersby, for nearly an hour now, and they still couldn't get over it.

"What do you think it is?" Mike asked his wife.

"No idea," Tina admitted, but then smiled. "You know what this reminds me of?" He shook his head. "Remember that time Angela lost her keys at soccer practice? It rained so hard she was soaked to the bone by the time the neighbors let her in," she chuckled lightly. Mike frowned.

"Who's Angela?" he asked, having no idea who or what she was talking about. Tina stared at him for a moment, thinking, looking around.

"Angela?" she shook her head.

"You were just saying…"

"But she's…" Tina sat scouring her mind. In her head she could remember the event, clear as day, but as hard as she thought, she couldn't call up a single other recollection of the girl called Angela in her soccer uniform and blond ponytail. The strange thing was there were others around the room now, too, who were stopped in place with confusion in their eyes.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)