| Date: 16 December 2007
Characters: Adric, The Tenth Doctor Location: outside Link to IJ: thread #11320 |
 There was definitely more to this place. It seemed distressingly normal. There was nothing grand or spectacular about it. And he didn't see Varsh anywhere. Or anyone else that he'd known that had died either. He was starting to think that this wasn't where he thought it was. But that line of thought left him at an impasse. There was nowhere else that this could logically be. Maybe, someone else would have a better idea of what was going on. It wouldn't hurt to ask around.
"Excuse me?" Adric called to the first person that he happened to spot. "Do you have any idea where we are?" |
 He opened his mouth to answer, but when he spotted the boy he went wide eyed, started to take a step back and then instead took one forward. "Adric!" Grabbed the kid around the waist, picked him up and spun him in a circle.
|
| Adric didn't even have time to yelp properly when he was snagged. That was not the reaction that he was expecting, especially not from a stranger. And he was stunned silent for a moment before he came enough to his senses to violently shove himself away from his assailant.
"What was that about?" Adric exclaimed, fear, annoyance, and distress coating his tone. "I don't even know you!" |
| "What? Of course you." He stopped. "Oh, right. I'm the Doctor, you're Adric, and this is a funny little island in time. How'd you get in?" |
| That Doctor? No. That can't be right. Adric stared up at the individual for a long moment before deciding it was easier to just answer his question rather than figure out how he could have regenerated again so soon after he already had, "The cargo ship exploded," He said, his tone even. |
| He nodded. "Yes, I know," he admitted, very slowly. He couldn't even make himself say 'I'm sorry' to Adric, because he'd said those words so often they were. Well, they weren't meaningless to him, but they weren't enough. "You were right." |
| "No. I wasn't," Adric protested at the last statement, the words stabbing him in both the stomach and the heart. "I couldn't stop it, no matter how hard I tried. I failed." |
| "It was a lot more complimcated than that," he said, almost absently because he realized, suddenly, that if Adric 'fell out' and back to his own time, he was going back to the moment and method of his death. |
| "How so? They won," Adric said simply. "The ship did what the Cybermen wanted it to. It exploded on the Earth. Because I couldn't get that damn control jammer off in time." |
| He rubbed his face and his hand through his hair. "Adric, let it go before my eyeballs explode." |
| Adric's teeth gritted together, his expression hardening at the command, "All right then. Definitely the Doctor," He said. "Bossing me around just as much as ever," He said, pivoting on his heel to storm away. Unfamiliar face, same attitude. Adric wasn't in the mood to argue with him, not right now, and that seemed to be the way that it was heading. He was far too confused and...afraid right now to deal with petty bickering. |
| He grabbed Adric gently by the arm and pulled him back around. Not rough, just solid. "I told you to let it go, not go away!" He really couldn't believe he was- No, wait, yes he could. "Adric. There's. I. Oh, bother it all." |
| "Am I just supposed to forget about it, then?" Adric asked, a rough edge in his voice as he blinked his eyes frantically to keep from crying. He wasn't going to cry. He'd promised himself after the Master that he wasn't going to allow anything else that happened to bring him to tear again. "Forget that I screwed up again, when it mattered the most?" |
| Oh, dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. He raked his hand through his hair, paced himself in a circle and then dropped down to one knee and said, "Adric, come here." |
| Adric continued to blink as he swallowed roughly over the lump that had formed in his throat. "I tried," Adric said, his voice cracking ever so slightly. "I tried." |
| He leaned forward, grabbed Adric by the wrist and pulled him into a hug, with or without his cooperation. "I know. I'm sorry. I know." Because what else did he have? |
| "I know I should have stayed with Briggs and Scott..." Adric said weakly, not expecting the hug, but not having any strength (or desire) to protest against it. "But I couldn't just... I couldn't let it... I couldn't just walk away." |
| "I know." He said, again, and just held onto Adric, stronger and more solid than he looked and he really, desperately, completely, wanted to keep him. He was losing his mind, he realized with that thought. Didn't stop him having it and wanting to stash Adric somewhere on the TARDIS, somewhere safe. Even realizing the Master was in his TARDIS didn't quite do it. "I'm sorry. You did everything right, Adric. You did." |
| "Nyssa... Tegan. Did you all get out all right?" Adric asked after a moment. Honestly, if he couldn't get himself out, knowing that they were all fine, that they were all still alive. That was enough. He couldn't... He couldn't bear knowing he'd lost someone else. |
| "We all got out all right," he promised, still holding onto Adric and petting his hair, treating him like a child in a way entirely differently than he had when he'd. When he'd really been alive and with him. |
| Adric laughed a bit, a mixture of relief and amusement at the Doctor being...oddly motherly, "That's all that matters," He said softly. "That's all that matters." |
| He really was cracked, and knew it, but it didn't stop him. "It's not all that matters. Might be what matters most to you but it's not all that counts, Adric." |
| "What else is there?" |
| "You," he said firmly and a little cranky about it at the same time. |
| "I'm dead," Adric said vaguely, the statement still seeming foreign, no matter how much he could feel it was true. "There isn't anything that could have been done about me. Or it would have already been done." |
| "You're not dead now,' He said, as much to himself as Adric. "Maybe you just stay here forever." |
| "Where is here anyway?" Adric asked. |
| "Little island between universes and time." He wanted to add 'I think', but he wasn't about to open himself up to being wrong by admitting it. Even to himself. |
| "Between time?" Adric asked, blinking a few times. Between universes he could understand. E-Space, N-Space, alternative realities. He could understand how they could all intersect. But in the absence of time? "How is that possible?" |
| "Maybe it's not. Maybe it's magic. Maybe it's like a rock standing still in a river. Maybe it's a bubble floating on the surface. Maybe time's passing normally and it somehow just spits people out where they belong. Maybe people are lying. Maybe the TARDIS is malfunctioning. Maybe it's a hallucination. " |
| "The malfunctioning thing seems the most likely. Maybe you just let the TARDIS instruments go for too long without servicing them again, and they're throwing out the wrong readings," Adric said with a slightly annoyed sigh. |
| "I did no such thing!" He protested, but had to amend, "Though she's had a bit of a rough time, lately. Had to be almost completely rebuilt not long ago." |
| "Completely rebuilt?" Adric exclaimed in utter surprise and worry. "What in the world happened to her?" |
| "Oh, someone turned her into a paradox machine and a little machine gun fire." |
| "Oh my..." Adric said, a look of utter shock and worry crossing his face. "Need a second opinion? I could look her over...see if you happened to miss anything." |
| "I would love a second opinion, especially if it's yours!" He made himself let go of Adric, and stood. Then he stopped. "Ah. The Master's in the TARDIS." |
| Adric opened his mouth for a moment to respond to that second statement before the Doctor continued and left him gapping, "...why?" |
| "It's a really long story," he sighed. "A really long story." |
| Adric just smiled a bit, "I think I've got the time to hear it," Adric said as he nodded a bit. "Either way... I think I can deal with him." |
| "I don't know where to start," he apologized, and led the way. "But I know you can handle him. He's little and cute and absolutely less smart and sane than you are." He meant that, too. |
| "He's changed again, too, then?" Adric asked, peering up at the Doctor curiously. "At least you don't seem...that different this time." |
| He nodded. "He's changed again, too. No beard, either." He looked down at Adric, and led the way. "Oh, I always loved cricket." |
| "It just manifested itself in a more overt way the last time, then?" Adric asked with a teasing smile as he walked next to the Doctor. This was still going to take some getting used to. But hopefully they wouldn't bicker as much this time. |
| The Doctor was going to be hard pressed not to cling to Adric like a barnacle. There might be bickering but it probably wouldn't be the same sort. "I was very subtle," he lied, as he led Adric to the TARDIS. |
| "Yeah. Very subtle. And the celery on the lapel didn't make you look insane, at all," Adric said, the words would have been reassuring if the tone they had come out in wasn't quite as patronizing as it was. |
| He shot Adric a look. "There's nothing wrong with celery! And I'll have you know I wasn't anywhere close to insane." |
| Adric just shot the Doctor a Look right back. Not anywhere close to insane? Well, maybe that regeneration was sane, but... "Of course. My mistake. You were more insane when you were wearing the scarf." |