Zoe

888

Zoe leaned against the observation deck railing and looked over the crystal chasm. Shelves of quartz spreading downward to an almost imperceptible river below, like a waterfall captured in a single moment of time. The sunlight from the Canisian sun flickered and glinted across the quartz and in places where the crystals weren't so cloudy the light refracted creating rainbows that danced back and forth across the canyon below shifting as the star in the sky seemed to move from horizon to horizon. A few seconds later she perceived the presence of the Doctor beside her.

He handed her a small cup filled with frozen confection. She smiled at him as he turned his back to the canyon and leaned against the railing and dipped a small spoon into his own cup of confection and ate a small parcel of the pinkish material.

"It's beautiful." Zoe said as she looked across the canyon.

"Yes, the Canisian Crystal Waterfall will be one of the Great Wonders of the Universe." The Doctor said, not looking back at the falls but rather intently staring into the contents of his cup.

"Will be?" Zoe asked, turning to him.

"Yes, the Wonders commission won't ratify it as such for another century and a half, partially because of the Santine representation on the commission." The Doctor said, dipping into the confection. "There was a minor scuffle between the Canisian Empire and the Santine Republic, and things are still, tense."

"I see." Zoe said as she ate her desert. "My Doctor has been trying to get to the Eye of Harmony for a long time now, it seems. He keeps missing."

"Yes…" The Doctor nodded. He then seemed to fade slightly, looking more intently into the confection that he kept stirring and dipping his spoon into without actually taking any. "Harmony is hard to get to…"

"Back on Earth, you thought someone else had stopped the Terrible Zodin…" Zoe started, carefully. "You said it was a man…should I be keeping an eye out for him?"

"Hmm? No…I shouldn't think so." The Doctor said, placing his cup on the railing. He brushed his velveteen jacket slightly, and braced his hands against the railing. "Even if you could I doubt there's much that could stop him." He crossed his arms over his chest. He looked at Zoe. "Zoe Heriot, brilliant mind, brave heart forced to be dragged around by a silly old man like myself, how do you deal with it!?"

"Oh, you aren't that old…now." Zoe said with a blush.

"I'm older…" The Doctor said. He leaned his head back and looked upwards into the reddening skies above. "I'm older and more foolish than I was back then with you."

"I find that hard to believe…" Zoe replied.

The Doctor looked at her from the corner of his eyes. "Would you like to come with me?"

"I think I already have." Zoe said with a smile.

"I mean…on a more full-time basis." The Doctor said. "I have been alone for a while now."

"Why?" Zoe asked looking at him. "I noticed that when we first met. I never thought about it but since we have come to Alpha Canis…"

"Things have happened, the universe has grown up." The Doctor said quietly. He looked to Zoe. "I lost people, Zoe. I lost people I cared for. And then…and then the universe changed…at first I thought I could keep going on as I had…but the universe is a different place now. I can feel it changing around me, feel it changing me. I tried to hide, Zoe, but it found me and forced me back out there into it all."

"Doctor, you know that I can't…" Zoe said, looking down at the ground, feeling like she was dismissing an unsuccessful but charming suitor. "It would disrupt your time line, you'd change your own history…"

"I could have you hear the moment they arrive, they'd never have to know, we could go, you and me, I could show you the Wonders of the Universe, no more Cybermen, no more Ice Warriors, no more Quarks or Krotons or whatever else…" The Doctor said almost pleadingly. "I could provide for you a lifetime of wonders…"

"And then what?" Zoe asked, her eyebrows knitting in frustration. She looked to the younger, older Doctor. "I could never tell anyone about those things. I could never share them with Jamie or my Doctor, or anyone else, lest they bleed outwards and intersect with you before now…it's dangerous Doctor…it's wrong. My Doctor was very firm about how we must act when we encounter our pasts. What has happened to you that you've turned to breaking your own rules?"

The Doctor took a deep breath. "I'm afraid, Zoe. I'm afraid of what's happening to me, to the universe." He looked at her and sadness washed over his blue eyes and for a second Zoe thought she saw a remnant of her Doctor in this Doctor's face. "I need someone to be with me, to assure me that the decisions I'm making are the right ones…that I'm not just playing into the hands of…of…some grander scheme."

"In some ways we're all playing to a grander scheme…" Zoe said, she turned and looked to the crystal falls. "I mean look at those crystals. At a distance it looks chaotic, discordant, random, but if you look at it on a molecular level…the lattice structures are perfectly ordered, completely repetitive, each crystal recapitulating an inherent molecular interaction. In some ways our lives are like that, chaotic but also…tied to the greater web of history." She looked to the Doctor. "A history that is conserved in the very fabric of the universe."

"Destiny…" The Doctor breathed slightly in derision and slightly in acceptance. He looked at Zoe. "But I'm not bound by causality, I'm a time traveler. I come from a species of time travelers...history can't hold a breath to me." He looked across the observation deck towards the small stand he'd bought the confection. "I have been here before. I was here the first time the Canisians invaded the Santine Republic…but I've been here again and again, different iterations, fractured across a multiverse…sometimes when I help the Santine I do so effectively and it all goes rather smoothly and a peace treaty is signed and everything goes well and I go on with my life, but sometimes…sometimes it's much worse." He pursed his lips. "Sometimes death comes to time…and I am part of the final days of my people, Zoe….sometimes everyone dies…and now, now I don't know which one of these iterations is playing out. Am I supposed to be just a pawn in the destiny of the universe, just a weapon to a greater power? Or am I free to fight against the chains of destiny and save the universe from itself? I take companions with me, not because I'm lonely, but because I don't know…I don't know who I am sometimes and when you're me, not knowing when you've gone too far, when you've broken your own promises to yourself and the rest of the reality can have radical and horrific consequences."

Zoe put her hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "You are the Doctor. A man who taught me that sometimes logic means you can be wrong with certainty. A man who showed me a universe that was so far beyond my analytical boundaries that I was forced to change my mind…and be better than I was. You don't need me, or anyone else to show you who you are…you can see it in the faces of the people you touch, whether they continue to travel with you or not. I know my Doctor, and I see him in you. You're never cruel or cowardly, you never give up, you never give in…you save every life you can against impossible odds."

The Doctor looked to Zoe. "You are brilliant…he's really taught you quite a bit." The Doctor reached up and gently tweaked Zoe's tiny nose. "And you know what?"

Zoe shook her head.

"You taught me quite a bit as well…" The Doctor said with a smile.

In the distance a wheezing noise was fading into existence. Zoe jumped forward and smiled as she watched a blue box materialize on the far side of the observation deck.

"Och, I'm tellin' ya Doctor, I distinctly remember there bein' two ov ya! One was a right big beastie! And that jacket!" came the familiar Scottish voice of Jamie as TARDIS doors opened.

"Oh, Jamie, do stop going on about this dream of yours," The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, grumbling. "It is patently nonsense! Now we have to recoordinate and try and get back to….ZOE!"

"DOCTOR!" Zoe ran across the observation deck and grabbed her Doctor and hugged him tightly. "I didn't know if I would ever see you again!"

"I'm quite surprised to see you here, myself! You're several centuries and many light years from where we…where Jamie left you!" The Doctor said, quickly correcting himself.

"Oi! It wasn't me! I'm tellin' ya that fellow in the black robes..." Jamie started. "and then you…"

"Oh, no no no no! Jamie, there was no fellow, you fiddled with the switches, which I specifically told you not to do while I was recalibrating the mercury links…you set off the dematerialization circuit, we're very lucky we landed somewhere friendly." The Doctor said as he looked around himself. "Alpha Canis the Crystal waterfalls, couldn't be much friendlier." He looked across the observation deck. Zoe looked in the direction her Doctor was looking, and saw the other Doctor, the one in the green velveteen jacket, standing, leaning against the railing. Her Doctor nodded slightly to himself, and patted Zoe on the back, leading her away, his oversized black jacket wafting in the breeze. "Yes, couldn't have gotten luckier, I say…"

"Doctor, isn't that…" Jamie started as the Doctor herded Zoe past him.

"Yes, now, come along, Jamie…we've places to be." The Doctor said quietly as he gently snatched the young man's hand and dragged him along behind.

Zoe looked back at the other Doctor. He was still there as her Doctor gently ushered her into the TARDIS .

The Doctor watched the TARDIS depart. He looked up into the sky. The fires still burned, the war was still going on. He was a part of it. He took a deep breath and looked down at his shoes.

"These shoes…" The Doctor started, "…are starting to wear a bit thin…I feel that soon they will need to be changed, but not today." He pushed off of the railing and wandered away from the observation deck, down the path and to a lonely blue box, standing on the edge of a forest clearing. He gently laid his hand on the wood paneling. "What do you think, 'old girl'?" The surface of the box hummed with a life belying the nature of its interior. "Yes, me too, I can be part of this, but on my terms…I will help where I can…"