OOC: The Sky Calls To Us; for thedoctorjones
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It's only a brief respite, really. Peri is often uncomfortable in the Eye of Orion, and has this time requested a visit to the Buckingham Gardens so she can 'find out for herself what all the fuss is about in England.' Very nice girl, but all the same, the Doctor is glad of her overnight absence from the TARDIS. Her recent affections have become somewhat cloying, if not outright intimidating, and he isn't at all comfortable with the way she continuously asks about his time as the Supremo.
He stands at a precarious perch on the rail of the Tower Bridge, watching the bright young sun descend beyond the water. He pays no mind to the passersby with their bemused and disapproving looks, far more interested in nature's ritual. This star has always reminded him of the major species it warms: arrogant, impetuous, opinionated, and full of hope and potential. Where many suns he's seen have petered out in resigned novae, this boasts its potential for immortality, given the proper resources. Confidence, and hope, and thirst for progress.
...Perhaps, rather than young humanity, it shows him a reflection of himself.
"Mister?" The small voice tugs him gently from his reverie, hours after the sun has bowed its way off stage. He glances down to find a small girl sitting on the rail next to him, bereft of fear over the distance down to the Thames. Her dark eyes glitter with the attentions of the further stars, and her dark skin reflects the ghostly glow flitting over the water. She seems almost an apparition, but that her voice rings with solidity.
"Yes?" he inquires gently.
"You've been standing there an awfully long time, sir, but you haven't jumped off the bridge. Were you talking to the sky?"
He can't help the smile. Children of all species manage to earn his respect in the smallest of ways. "I suppose I must have been, if gravity forgot about me," he muses, balancing himself down to sit next to her. "You look as if you have some quite interesting conversations of your own. Perhaps we'll forge one for both our collections. How d'you do? I'm the Doctor." And there's a hand for shaking, which she takes delicately.
"Martha, sir. Doctor. Martha Jones. I'll be a doctor too, someday. What're you a doctor of?"
"The sky," is his immediate response, "and the Earth too, I suppose. What do you plan to be a doctor of?"
"That's rubbish," she informs him matter-of-factly. "The sky can't be sick. It isn't alive. There's bits of rocks and gas- those aren't alive. I'm going to be a doctor for LIVING people."
"Oh? Well, I suppose there must be something wrong with me, then- I happen to think the sky is all sorts of alive, just like we are." He grins at her incredulous expression and stands easily, hopping off the rail and onto the bridge proper. "Never say never, Miss Jones, except to say that you never know what's out there unless you find it. You lot will never get to the moon, for instance, otherwise." With that, he tips his hat, gives a respectful bow and turns to head back to the TARDIS, hidden in a niche within the nearby tower.
"Hey! Mister!" They're never satisfied to let him have the last word, it seems- perhaps that really is a universal indication of a certain level of sentience. He doesn't stop walking, but he still looks over his shoulder to show her he's listening. She hops down and chases after him with an air of correction. "I bet there really is something wrong with you, mister- people have already been to the moon!"
"So they have," he agrees jovially, patting himself down for the TARDIS key and hunching over the door to unlock it, "and I think it's just occurred to me that I'd like to turn my ship around and ask them what they think of the sky. I'll come back and let you know what they tell me, all right?"
"What?" she demands, hands on her hips. "Stop talking nonsense. They're all old or dead. What are you-" She stops and glances over her shoulder as a woman's voice drifts over the bridge, carrying her name.
The Doctor sighs and turns around, giving her a very serious expression and placing his hands on her shoulders for a moment. "Then I shall go and ask them before they get old. The Universe is a very nonsense sort of place- someday, perhaps you'll agree, and while you're fixing people, other people will go and fix the sky so that you and your children after you can go and look at it. And when you've got a clinic of your own, Doctor Jones, then I'll come to you to see about being fixed as well, all right?" The somber look breaks into a gentle smile, and he steps back, slipping through the door. "Go when you're called," he advises, before closing it.
Martha Jones stares at the police box indignantly, upset that a weird old nutter is going to find her someday wanting to be fixed. Well, she isn't going to fix nutters, she decides. She turns on her heel to go to her mother, but nearly trips over her feet when a strange, ethereal grinding sound heaves through the air behind her. She turns to look, and quite forgets she's being called, as the police box the nutter closed himself up in shimmers into nothing, leaving a drab niche behind.
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