| Date: 18 February 2008
Characters: Theta Sigma, The Doctor Location: outside, ice-cream parlor Link to IJ: thread #65669 |
 Theta had left the Master and the Doctor and had been intending to find Koschei, really he had, but he ended up face pressed against an aquarium, staring at the fish with fascination. |
 This place really was quite interesting. The Doctor wandered through it with the intention of locating somebody she knew, though she was still debating with herself how much she actually wanted to anybody to see her like this - still, the fact of the matter was she wanted somebody else to bounce ideas off of, to work out all the mysteries surrounding her current existence. Given the nature of this place, that person would be her...well, him.
The internal debate made her dawdle, and she found herself alongside an aquarium. Crouching down slightly to peer into it, she saw something interesting through the waters. Not a fish, but a face. A very familiar little face. "Oh my." |
| He made a face at her through the aquarium, "Hello then." |
| "Hello." she replied, a little bemused.
After learning the nature of this place she had expected to run into herself..himself. She hadn't, however, expected this. "You're quite small." she observed. She didn't remember being that small. |
| "You're quite big," he said with a confused look. "Who are you?" |
| "I suppose I am." she agreed. Though this was definitely one of her shorter regenerations. Perils of the sex, she supposed. "I'm..." she stopped, considered it for a moment. Timelines were always important, but in this place all of that seemed to fly out of the window. "The Doctor." she finished, assuming he wouldn't know what that meant anyway, being as he was still Theta Sigma, by the looks of it. |
| "Doctor of what?" he asked curiously. |
| The Doctor was actually quite glad he asked that. Very glad, in fact, because it brought a whole new wave of amusement for those sorts of questions, and she didn't want to start getting tetchy with them just yet - now whenever someone else asked her that, she'd think of him asking herself... she really needed to get the hang of these pronouns, they were confusing her.
"Just the Doctor." she told him simply. |
| He stepped back, away from the aquarium to get a proper look at her before widening his eyes, "You're me." |
| "Smart." she complimented, nodding slightly. Of course he was smart, he was her.
He must have already met himself, or someone who knew him. |
| "Well of course," he said simply, before tilting his head at her, "Hullo." |
| "Yes." she nodded "Hello. Again."
People just weren't supposed to meet themselves as children, it was very unnerving. "How long have you been here?" she asked curiously. |
| "A few days," he held his hand out for hers automatically, "Koschei's been here longer." |
| She stilled, regarding him for a moment "The Ma...I mean, Koschei's here with you as well?" she asked, keeping her voice steady. It still wasn't all that long ago that she'd re-encountered the Master, and that was a meeting she'd remember for a while.
But a younger master, she remembered what he'd been like... she took Thete's hand with a faint smile of reminiscence. This was a good meeting, she was feeling a lot less irritable. |
| He squeezed her hand easily, "Of course Koschei's with me. Where else would he be? Where's yours?" |
| "He's...not here." she said quietly.
She remembered being him, understood the matter-of-factness about Koschei's whereabouts. It was a pity things had to change. |
| "He'll catch up with you," He said confidently, "Do you want ice cream?" |
| She nodded, not wanting to comment, and glad of the proferred distraction.
"Ice cream sounds like a very good idea." she smiled slightly. She wondered just how much it would mess up timelines to stay with the mini-her (him, whatever), because he really was doing wonders for her grouchiness. |
| He skipped a bit, happily. "What's your favorite kind? How old are you? Why are you a girl?" |
| She almost laughed. She actually almost laughed. This was very... she suddenly went cold. Oh god, this was feeling maternal, wasn't it?
She shuddered, pushed it from her mind and decided to answer his questions. "Strawberry. Very. And... my last regeneration went a bit...wrong." she supposed that was the best way to explain it. |
| "Wrong how? What did you do?" |
| "It wasn't me." she replied, affronted. "Mostly. There was this lab, and an explosion, something about the chemicals involved messed with the regeneration. I was just about to see what was left for me to analyse when I ended up here." |
| "So it just happened?" He paused before asking very seriously and a bit worried, "Did it hurt?" |
| She nodded at the first question, regarding him seriously for a moment. She wasn't going to lie to him "It does hurt, but it's not too bad."
Much. |
| "That time or all of them?" |
| "Well it depends how it happens, really." she explained "Sometimes it hurts more than others." |
| He nodded, "How many times?" |
| "This would be my..." she paused for a quick count "Tenth time, so, the eleventh me." |
| "Wow," he said with a bit of awe. |
| She smiled slightly awkwardly and shrugged "Well it's been a long, busy life. Lives." |
| "You must be really old." he sounded impressed. |
| Wasn't that the sort of thing girls were supposed to get offended at? She didn't really care, his tone amused her.
"I guess I am." she agreed. |
| He pulled her into the ice cream store, "That's great though!" |
| "I've had a lot of fun." she admitted softly.
"Have you had a lot of ice cream since you've been here?" she asked, smiling a little. |
| "No," he said immediately, "Only once." |
| "Really?" she raised an eyebrow. "Well. That's not good enough." she said sternly. |
| "I have seen the error of my ways," he said earnestly. |
| "I am glad." she intoned seriously. "But we must hurry, you have much to catch up on."
She was actually enjoying herself. When people told you to find your inner child, this probably wasn't what they meant, but it certainly worked. |
| "I have to bring some to Koschei too," he said out loud to remind himself before going to the counter and ordering from the serving android. |
| "That's a good idea." she agreed, "He'd like that."
She'd been a sweet child. Interesting how things turn out. |
| "Are you okay?" he asked, tilting his head back to study her. |
| "I'm fine." She reassured softly. "You best get your ice cream quickly, Koschei'll be waiting for you." |
| He grinned, getting two cones and offering one to her politely. |
| She smiled, taking the cone "Thank you." she nodded to him, taking a small bite.
"This is good ice cream." she affirmed. |
| "I was worried that I was ruined by the small sample size." |
| "This time you're lucky." she said, sternly again, "But in future you must remember to be thorough." |
| "Or I'll never be a scientist," he agreed, eyes wide and innocent and so completely being a brat. |
| "Nope." she nodded firmly, taking a bite of the ice cream to stop herself from laughing.
She hadn't had this much fun since... the Titanic, actually. Though even that had been coloured by Tragedy. This was the first time she'd had a completely danger-free (fingers crossed) good time for a long time. |
| "I'll make a chart." he said earnestly. |
| "Charts are very useful." she agreed, pushing the bad thoughts from her mind "And make sure you write up a thorough report. Of course you'll have to do a lot more tests." |
| "Experimentation is the hallmark of a good scientist." |
| "Absolutely, now you're learning." |
| He offered her his hand again. |
| She took his hand "Off to see the wizard..." she murmured to herself, amused. She had meant to ask 'off to see Koschei?' but the other phrase had popped into her head at the last minute. |
| "The what?" he asked curiously. |
| "The wizard." she repeated, then realised this was Theta, who'd yet to leave Gallifrey "It's from a book..film..musical.. from Earth, it's called the Wizard of Oz." |
| "..What's it about?" |
| "It's about a girl who gets swept up by a tornado and taken to a magical world called Oz, and she has to follow a yellow brick road to get to the Emerald City and find the wizard to get home. She meets people along the way who are looking for the wizard too." she explained, "Well, that's the basics anyway." |
| "What's a wizard?" |
| "It's a type of mythical human that can do magic," she tried to explain "Defy their phsyical laws." |
| "But humans are kind of. Unevolved." |
| She smiled slightly "They are, but trust me, they're fascinating." |
| "Why?" |
| "They're so varied, and their immaturity just makes them interesting, especially when they're one of those races that really has no idea they're so young, but..." she thought about it "You have to meet them to understand. And you will, you really will." |
| "I'll meet them or understand them?" |
| "Both." she assured "Definitely both." |
| "That'll be interesting." |
| "Yes, it will." she agreed, nodding "Just you, the TARDIS ...and a whole host of random ..friends..." she smiled slightly. That was probably the best way to describe all the people that had travelled with her over the years. |
| "Me, the Tardis, Koschei and friends," he corrected with a slight frown. |
| "Oh, yes." she agreed uneasily.
Well she didn't know, maybe he was from a world where Koschei would stay with him and not... Maybe. |
| "You can tell me if he's dead," Theta told her, oddly gently. |
| She stayed silent for a moment, then nodded slightly "He... he is."
She didn't want to believe it, the master was just too slippery to have given up like that, but all the evidence... |
| "I'm sorry," he said quietly, squeezing her hand a little protectively. |
| She offered him a faint smile of gratitude. "It's ok." she said quietly. |
| He led her to the park and to a bench, letting go of her hand to take a leaf off the bench before gesturing for her to sit. He was just. Far far too patronizing and fussy for an eight year old. |
| She sat down with a faintly bemused smile. He was certainly a strange child, she didn't remember being like that, but it was a long time ago. "It's ok." she repeated. |
| "I believe you," he lied, licking his ice cream cone, "Tell me about being a girl." |
| She nodded slightly, had she really been that grown up when she was little?
She took a few licks of her own cone while she thought. "It's strange, I'm still not used to it." she admitted "The body feels odd, odder than usual after a regeneration, the proportions are all different and the hormones, it's bizarre." |
| "Is it the gender itself or the change from the expected?" |
| She waved a hand thoughtfully "I think it's a mostly that I'm unused to it and it was unexpected. I'm assuming most women don't feel so strange in their own bodies, but I could be wrong." |
| "Did you feel out of place in any of the others?" |
| She thought about it "They were all a little odd right at first," she admitted "But none of them have felt this weird for this long..." |
| "How long?" he asked, frowning, "Did I ask that already?" |
| "No, I don't think so.. it's only been a few days, but I usually feel right as rain before the day's out, or at least much more comfortable than I do now." |
| "Can I do anything?" |
| She smiled. "No, I don't think so, but thank you for offering." |
| He sat comfortably with her, leaning slightly. |
| She finished off her ice cream in silence, contemplative.
Eventually, she said "Are you going to go look for Koschei? Do you know where you'll find him?" |
| "I'll find him," he said confidently, standing up. |
| "Are you.." she stopped. Of course he was sure, he always knew where to find Koschei. "Do you want some company while you look?" she offered. |
| He held his hand out again. |
| She smiled. He was certainly fond of physical contact.
She stood, taking his hand "Lead the way then." Follow the yellow brick road... Why was her brain so full of Wizard of Oz references today? |