Lucie Miller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lucie_bleeding_miller) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ten_fwd2015-05-14 09:15 am
lucie_bleeding_miller) wrote in ten_fwd2015-05-14 09:15 am
Entry tags:
On the Hunt (Open):
This was seriously starting to bother her. Ever since she and the Doctor had arrived here, she'd barely seen him.
He looked different since they'd arrived. He wore different clothes -- no more of the poncy coat he'd been wearing in their previous adventures, and more of a... darker look. Shorter hair, too. And his attitude was... different. He was from somewhere in her future; he'd experienced things she hadn't yet.
And he was avoiding her. She was sure of it now. Whenever she thought she found him, he found some excuse to leave and ditch her, sometimes before she even showed up.
And as soon as she found him, she was going to kick his time-traveling tail almost as hard as she'd kick Q's if she saw him.
So she traveled the various portions of the Enterprise where she was allowed, peering in dark corners, trying to find her best friend: the infuriating ponce who kept avoiding her right now. Sure, both she and the Doctor tended to treat "forbidden" areas as "gentle suggestions" more than laws as a general rule, but she liked Picard so far, and was willing to obey his edicts for the time being. But if she couldn't find the Doctor soon, she'd start poking around wherever she could get to.
He looked different since they'd arrived. He wore different clothes -- no more of the poncy coat he'd been wearing in their previous adventures, and more of a... darker look. Shorter hair, too. And his attitude was... different. He was from somewhere in her future; he'd experienced things she hadn't yet.
And he was avoiding her. She was sure of it now. Whenever she thought she found him, he found some excuse to leave and ditch her, sometimes before she even showed up.
And as soon as she found him, she was going to kick his time-traveling tail almost as hard as she'd kick Q's if she saw him.
So she traveled the various portions of the Enterprise where she was allowed, peering in dark corners, trying to find her best friend: the infuriating ponce who kept avoiding her right now. Sure, both she and the Doctor tended to treat "forbidden" areas as "gentle suggestions" more than laws as a general rule, but she liked Picard so far, and was willing to obey his edicts for the time being. But if she couldn't find the Doctor soon, she'd start poking around wherever she could get to.
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The schoolroom was mostly absent of children as the older man was messing with the various educational computers, attacking them the way a starving man attacked a banquet meal. He had his sonic screwdriver out, occasionally poking at the machines until they gave some kind of satisfactory answer. He didn't even notice Lucie stalking in, so engrossed he was with what he was doing.
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She made the single word into an accusation.
And then she waited, an impatient expression etched onto her face.
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"Hello Lucie. Don't mind me, I'm just reviewing how their universe works. Did you know they have no real equivalent to the Time Vortex?, Well, at least not one I can tell. But their technology is a good deal behind the Time Lords. Still, remarkable stuff. Faster than Light Drive just eighty years after your time!"
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The Doctor sighed a bit. He had been avoiding this moment. Ever since they arrived here, meeting the other form of himself, his future companions, and his subsequent meetings with people like Guinan and Trunks...he's been avoiding his best friend.
His dead best friend. Who hadn't even witnessed the beginning of the end of their friendship. She didn't know about what the Daleks did to her planet. She didn't know about Susan and Alex. She didn't know about Auntie Pat.
And yet here she was. Alive again. With the worst memories still hanging about her like miasma.
"I think it's safe to assume this is no mere 'heya Doctor, howya been' meeting."
He didn't mean to let some menace and coldness slip into his voice. Honest.
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"One? Never try my accent again. You're bleeding terrible at it." She raised a finger at him.
"Two? You want to tell me why you're avoiding me? I thought we were friends, Doctor!"
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Like you piloting a Dalek saucer to your death by nuclear detonation.
"I don't mean to be avoiding you, Lucie, but right now, it's better. Because you are my friend. And I'd rather not see you harmed by something you aren't supposed to know."
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Her expression grew concerned. "I didn't... say something to you in my future, did I? Something really daft, and that's why you're avoiding me?"
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All that anger that he was summoning to push her away, to stay away from his fool self before he let her know what happened? All that despair and fear and anger that he had stored away trying to make his best friend see that she made a poor choice in trusting him? It all evaporated with the words there. That she thought it could have been somehow *her*.
And then he began to chuckle.
"No, no, not at all, Lucie. It's more...I come from a later point in your timeline, and if I say anything it'll affect your personal timeline."
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She stepped closer. "I know it's bad, okay? But here's what I know: when the going gets tough, the tough gets the hell out of the way of the Doctor and Lucie Bleeding Miller. When we work together, we can save the world. You and me? We can save all of time. Maybe even let the other 'you' help just a little."
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"Perhaps we can. Get the other Doctors help, I mean. Also, the gentleman who is the friend of the other me. I tend to collect a very high caliber of acquiantences and friends, perhaps we can do this. Possibly give Q a proper tongue lashing about the temporal ethics of bringing the same Time Lord into a single place during multiple lives."
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She's not crying, dammit. She's not going to cry.
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Not this.
He had only seen her cry twice before.
The first time was when his secret, his betrayal of her was revealed. She left him, running back to Earth and into the hands of the Meddling Monk.
The second time was when she sacrificed herself. Knowing that there was no way to save herself, she took that saucer and destroyed the Dalek Time Controllers device.
And here she was, crying for only the third time he was aware of. Because he had been avoiding her. This only stabbed that pain he felt, that part of him that he had thought he had put away and compartmentalized just like every other friends death he has had to suffer in his long and eventful life. But this brings the pain back up again, raw and harsh in a manner he's not known in a long time...if not ever.
"Oh no you don't, Lucie Miller. You keep those right where they are," he said, ignoring that his own eyes were burning and wishing for release.
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She knows they could fix whatever was set wrong. She was there when all of reality was rewritten by Morbius. She was there when the Doctor almost died to set it all right.
And the memory of almost losing the Doctor sets her emotions to jag again, realizing that she must have lost him again in the future, and she holds back another sob.
Which she covers with another (mostly gentle, really) kick to the shin. "Doctor, tell me what I did wrong! I want to be your friend again!"
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After all, it took one moment to leave him just as raw as her death had. Just a small showing of tears.
"I can't say much, but I can say this: you did nothing wrong, Lucie Miller. I'm just older. You can forgive an old man for being cranky, can't you?"
So much left out. So much that can't be said.
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But she wipes the tears back. At least he's trying, even if he's still keeping a secret. "Well, you are pretty old," she admitted with an attempt at a chuckle. She moved to his side to gently bump against him with her shoulder.
"Look, Doctor... tell me this, at least. You've never kept a secret from me before, really. This time... it's important, right? And you'll tell me eventually?"
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But it's now that the weight of seven previous lives worth of experience weighed in on him. In particular, the schemer. The life that he most resented. And yet, for this moment, he needed that conniving. Because he couldn't trust himself now otherwise.
"Yes. I will tell you eventually."
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"Thanks, Doctor. I knew I could count on you."
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He uses the hug, which he returns with gusto, to hide his face from her. It is just a moment, a single moment of looking away, but his face is now hard, pain and anger show on his face.
But before the hug breaks, he's back to his smiling older self.