| Date: 29 February 2008
Characters: John Smith, The Doctor Location: outside, a tea shop Link to IJ: thread #70729 |
 The Doctor spent most of his morning in the room he'd arrived in, walking in and out of the wardrobe in the hope that it might send him back home.
Eventually, he gave up in disgust, went downstairs, picked up an apple from the dining room and wandered out into the street, munching. He hadn't got far before he saw a very familiar face coming towards him. "Ah! You must be the elusive other me!" he exclaimed jovially, ambling forwards. |
 "Oh, not again," he said, both annoyed and resigned, before he'd gotten a proper look at the face. Then he did. His mouth dropped and his eyes narrowed as he walked forward. "How very, very peculiar." |
| "It is, isn't it? Always strange to see yourself face to face like this! I bumped into the other one of us yesterday, too. So weird!" |
| "...How many are there?" He asked, looking more like a bewildered puppy than anything - right down to the wrinkled forehead and head cock. |
| "Of this body? Um..." The Doctor took another bite of his apple while he thought. He still had his mouth full when he answered. "Three, that I know of. And one version of us who's a woman." |
| He blinked a couple of times, then cocked his head in the other direction. "I'd say that doesn't make any sense, but nothing here does." |
| "Well, no, not a lot of it, I admit." He frowned slightly. "Which bit in particular, though?" |
| "If not a lot of it makes sense, even to you, why do I need to give you an example?" |
| He shrugged. "I was just wondering. You know, making conversation. You don't have to do anything."
He paused, munching again, and studying the man who looked so much like him with a slight furrow between his brows. "Something feels off about you." |
| "...Something feels off about me. Right then. You're not eating the seeds in that thing are you?" |
| "What? Why?" he asked, momentarily distracted from trying to work out what felt wrong. |
| "Because they're poisonous." |
| He looked completely bewildered. "No they're not." |
| "Yes, they are." |
| "Only if you're... Oh!." He stared, mouth open. "Oh my. You're human!" |
| "Well, what else would I be? A dog?" In this place, you never knew. |
| "Of course, you wouldn't know! If I used the chameleon arch, you'd be human and you wouldn't know any different. You wouldn't remember..."
The Doctor circled the man who looked like him but felt, smelt, sounded (one heart not two) different, intrigued and excited. "I wonder when I did it - do it - oh hell, tenses are so complicated in this place. Could be any time. Could even be an alternative universe." He stopped finally, and took another bite out of his apple. "Who do you think you are?" he asked curiously. |
| He managed to develop a pounding headache by the time the Doctor stopped circling like a vulture, pressed against his eyes. "Really annoyed," he snapped.
Yes, what, not who. Not that he was fussed with details like that. |
| "Why? What's the matter?" He was completely oblivious. "And that's not a proper answer. I said who, not what." |
| "Nothing's the matter, and I don't have to give you a proper answer when you're not asking proper questions!" |
| "Why isn't 'Who do you think you are?' a proper question? It's a perfectly good question."
The Doctor ran a hand abstractedly through his hair. "All right. Let's try a different tack. Hello! I'm the Doctor! What's your name?" |
| He started to point out 'who do you think you are' was an absolutely ridiculous question, but stopped when the Doctor corrected himself. "John Smith." |
| Of course. Who else? He really should start using different names occasionally. John Smith had cropped up far too often.
"Pleased to meet you, John Smith!" He stuck out the hand that wasn't holding the remains of his apple. "Er - when are you from?" |
| "1913," he said, flatly. Very, very, flatly. |
| "Hmmm. Why would I be hiding out in 1913? Not that you'd remember anyway." He withdrew his hand, since it obviously wasn't going to be taken, and leaned forward curiously. "What's it like, being human?" |
| He hadn't quite noticed that the hand had been extended, thanks to the steadily increasing headache.
"Painful," he snapped, and that snap, at least, was Doctor-like. |
| "Painful?" That was worrying. "Has something gone wrong with the transformation?" |
| "...The what?" |
| "From Time Lord to human."
The Doctor stared at him for a long moment, waiting for him to get it, before realising and smacking himself on the forehead. "Oh, of course. Sorry. You don't remember. I keep forgetting." |
| "Next time you want to do that, let me know and I'll do it for you," he growled, and wandered off to sit down on a bench and press his hands against his eyes. |
| "Do what?"
He went after his lookalike and hovered anxiously. "What's the matter? What hurts?" |
| "Smack yourself," he mumbled before he looked up and snarled, "My head, you idiot." |
| "I'm not an idiot, I'm a genius," the Doctor said mildly, moving round to sit on the bench beside him.
He reached into his pocket for his sonic screwdriver. "Mind if I take a look?" |
| "It's entirely possible to be both and take a look at what?" |
| "Your head," the Doctor said absently, fiddling with the settings. |
| He stood up and moved.
"No." |
| The Doctor looked hurt. "I only want to scan it. Make sure it's all normal." |
| "You're not pointing that thing at my head." It was registering with him as some kind of weapon. Not clearly, no clear idea why, but it was. |
| "It won't hurt you. Honestly. You won't even feel it." |
| "OH, like that makes me feel better!" |
| "Well, doesn't it?" he asked, puzzled. "It should!" |
| "You won't feel a thing is not reassuring." |
| "Well, tell me what would be reassuring and I'll say it." |
| He snorted. "Doesn't work that way. You're impulsive and reckless and get people killed and can just keep your screwdriver to yourself."
He blinked. He had no idea where that came from. |
| The Doctor blinked too. "How do you know that? Oh! You've met another version of me here?"
Hang on. "And I don't get people killed. Not usually. Well, not all the time." |
| He opened his mouth to say 'give yourself time'. Nothing came out, though. He just looked confused and annoyed. "I'm leaving now. You're not following me and you can keep that thing to yourself." |
| "No." The Doctor's voice deepened as he stood up and put a hand on John Smith's arm. "I want to make sure you're all right. You're obviously experiencing some problems with the being human thing. It's made you really grumpy, for a start." |
| He shrugged the hand off. "Being told I'm not human has made me grumpy. I'm human. I'm as human as they come. Always have been. Always will be. " |
| "All right then. What's the first thing you remember?" |
| "Being born," he said, flatly. He didn't, but he was so not going to be psychoanalyzed by a lunatic. Or anyone else. It was that protecting his humanity thing |
| "Really? Well, that is unusual! Sounds like the process did malfunction a bit." |
| He lifted both his eyebrows and smiled, unpleasantly. |
| "Maybe a lot." |
| "Maybe. Could be. Could be that you're the one who's crazy. Doesn't matter, because you're not pointing that thing at me" |
| "And just how, exactly, are you going to stop me?" the Doctor asked, one eyebrow raised, taking a quick scan anyway from down by his hip and frowning slightly at the results. |
| He turned on his heel and started walking away. Where he was going, he didn't know. |
| The Doctor ran after him, distinctly annoyed. "Will you stop walking away from me! For what it's worth, you're definitely human, at the moment. Doesn't seem to be anything wrong. I don't know why you're getting headaches. I'm sorry I can't help." |
| He stopped walking. "Good! Thank you! I'm glad I know that. I need tea. Do you want tea? Tea' sgood." |
| The Doctor grinned, pocketing his screwdriver. Ah, that felt more familiar! "Tea's always good," he agreed. "I - er - believe there's a very good teashop a short way in that direction. Shall we?" |
| "Lead the way," he agreed, pleasantly. The Doctor dropping the issue meant his hackles went down pretty immediately and he was more than willing to have tea. |
| He was still confused and dying to know how his other self - his future self - had got to the point where he'd hidden as a human, but the lure of a good cup of tea was enough to make him drop it for the moment.
"So, what do you do in 1913?" he asked curiously, as he ambled towards the teashop." |
| He followed along, without really looking like he was following. He didn't know exactly where they were going but he got 'down the street' easily enough.
"I'm a professor." |
| "A professor? Really? Where do you teach? What do you teach?"
Astrophysics, maybe? |
| "Well, school teacher, really. And I teach history." |
| "History? Well, that's unexpected," he mused, leading the way into the teashop. "Well, I suppose in 1913 there wasn't so much choice of subjects. Not much call for science and so on." |
| He followed behind. "Why don't you just stop talking and get me a cup of tea." |
| "Oh dear, that headache still troubling you?" the Doctor asked dryly, after a quick, amused glance at him.
He led the way to a nice table by the window. "I'm not getting you a cup of tea. They generally serve the tea to you here." |
| "Whatever works," he said, with a dismissive handwave and flop into his chair. |
| The Doctor sat down opposite him, planted his chin in his hands and gave him a long look. "You know, I've been told I'm rude quite often. But you really take the biscuit." |
| "Yes, well, people are bloody annoying idiots, aren't they?" |
| The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "What, all of them?"
That seemed like a rather morose view of the world. |
| "No, just the ones I keep meeting here." |
| "Who else have you met?" |
| "A couple of annoying women." |
| "What was annoying about them?"
The tea arrived at that moment, for which the Doctor was extremely grateful. |