youknowthat (youknowthat) wrote in parabolical, @ 2008-05-11 19:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | adric, the doctor (five) |
WHO: The Fifth Doctor & Adric
WHAT: Adric & Five have a talk.
WHERE: The LA streets & then a cafe.
WHEN: May 11th
RATING: PG
STATUS: COMPLETE
Adric wasn't really sure where he was muchless how he ended up here. But he wasn't going to complain about it. This city was much nicer than the cybermen infested freighter that he had been on, and being in this city was proof that the Earth had survived. The Doctor was right. Earth was much more sturdy than many alien races gave it credit for. Slipping his hands into the pockets of his trousers, Adric was trying to ignore the stares that his clothing was getting. Or maybe it was the fact that he was barely sixteen and wandering the streets on his own. There didn't seem to be many other people his age out, and when he did see them, they were usually in groups. He had to say, though, that this was certainly an intriguing city. And these Americans had a very interesting way of talking. Was it typical to turn everything into a simile?
The Doctor had been reluctant to leave the TARDIS at first, but nobody would be able to get into her, and he was feeling restless. Earth had always been one of his favourite places, but this was... different. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but it seemed darker somehow.
Or perhaps that was just his mood. So many things had happened, in such a short time. Adric's death, Nyssa leaving to help the people of Terminus, Tegan leaving, Turlough rejoining his people... the Master's death. He'd watched as the Master burned. It had been fitting, considering the fate the Master had planned for the people of Sarn, but still...
The Doctor sighed, walking without really seeing where he was going, lost in thought.
Adric hadn't expected to see any familiar faces in this place, but a familiar gleam of white cotton caught in the sun, and Adric's attention was dragged back to the street. He could barely believe it. What were the odds? Unless the Doctor had been tracking him, they were astronomical. He certainly didn't seem to be looking for anyone specific, so that likelihood that he'd been tracked seemed very unlikely.
Shifting slowly back off the sidewalk, Adric leaned back against one of the palm trees that were planted every few meters and just waited to see how long it took the Doctor to notice him. If he did at all. If he didn't, there were a few things on the sidewalk that he could toss at him to get his attention. And if he didn't notice him, he deserved to have something tossed at the back of his head.
The Doctor nearly walked past him, but the brightness of his clothing caught his eye. He turned slowly, almost as though he was afraid to look, and stared.
"...Adric?"
His voice broke in the middle of the name.
Adric smiled, slowly, the grin spreading out across his face as the Doctor turned to look at him. It looked like he wasn't going to have to toss something at his head after all. The break in the Doctor's voice, however, wiped the smile off of his face almost automatically. That was...odd. He'd heard fear, distress, anger, annoyance, and a whole host of other emotions from the Doctor, but that...that was certainly one that he could recall hearing. It was almost like sadness but so much worse.
"Yeah?" Adric asked in a slight confusion. "What's wrong?"
It was Adric. The same as he'd always been, even before the Doctor had regenerated, that same slight cockiness to his manner that had been alternately infuriating and endearing.
It wasn't a trick this time.
He just kept staring. Adric was alive. The guilt, the sorrow, it had all been for... not for nothing, never that, but Adric was alive.
"...how long have I been gone?" Adric asked after a moment, a slight confusion and sheepishness seeping into his tone. Obviously it was longer than he'd thought. Much longer from the looks of it. And the Doctor just kept staring at him. It was unsettling. Adric shifted nervously, raising a hand to rub at the back of his neck. "Longer than the few hours that it's felt like, I guess?"
"Five months," the Doctor said hoarsely. "Five months and eleven days."
He remembered every departure. Every one. But Adric was one of the few companions he'd had who'd died. And he'd felt responsible. He was responsible.
Part of him wanted to tease, brush it off as nothing, ask if he knew it right down to the hour and second as well, but as insensitive as Adric was sometimes, he was smart enough not to poke at a sore spot. His expression softened after a moment as he stepped forward, settling a hand lightly on the Doctor's arm to reassuring that, yes, he was actually standing there and that he wasn't seeing things.
"I should have went with Scott and Briggs," Adric said. "I'm sorry. I was just so sure that I could stop it. And I couldn't not try."
"I put you in so much danger."
All of them. Nyssa had been kidnapped, had nearly died of Lazar's Disease. Tegan had been possessed by the Mara. He'd had to kill Kamelion, to end the android's suffering. And Adric had paid the ultimate price for being a friend of the Doctor.
Perhaps those who called him 'the oncoming storm' were right. Death followed in his wake.
"Adric, I'm so sorry."
"Hey, hey," Adric said, peering at the Doctor as he stepped closer to him, settling his other hand on the Doctor's other shoulder. "There's no need for that. I'm the one that insisted on staying behind. I'm the one that jumped back into the freighter when I could have left. You weren't the one that stuck me into those situations. I was."
He let out a soft laugh, closing his eyes for a moment.
"Always silver-tongued. I've missed you."
Adric smiled softly at the Doctor, "When you're less than robust in the strength department with a tendency to get yourself into trouble, you have to learn how to be silver-tongued or get used to being beaten up," He said with a soft laugh as he peered at the Doctor with a worried gaze. There was something...off. He couldn't put his finger on exactly what was wrong, but there was something about the Doctor's attitude that was just unlike him.
"I'd say I've missed you, too, but as far as I'm concerned, I really haven't been gone that long. I haven't exactly had the time," Adric said before gently moving to guide the Doctor down the street toward one of the small shops that lined it. "How about you catch me up on what I've missed?"
"A lot," he said, a little bleakly. "You've missed a lot."
He followed Adric, unwilling to let the boy out of his sight just yet. Not after so long.
Yes, that was definitely something off. He'd missed a lot, and Adric was almost afraid to ask for details with the way that the Doctor's attitude had seemed to have sunken since he'd seen him last, "Tea?" Adric asked. "We can have a chat. And I promise I won't act like a prat this time."
"Tea would be lovely," the Doctor admitted. "I'm afraid I've let the TARDIS's reserves run rather low lately."
Luckily, Earth didn't seem to have any shortage of tea or coffee for that matter. There seemed to be a shop selling it every few blocks and guiding the Doctor into one of them, Adric found them a table near the back that they could talk at without being overheard.
The Doctor sat down, giving the waitress a weary smile, and raked his hair back off his face. How long had he been walking?
Adric slipped into the seat across from the Doctor and looked over at him intently, a worried expression sliding over his face, "All right. What's wrong? It can't just be me."
"Nothing." He shook his head, offering Adric a smile. "I'm just tired, that's all. It's been a trying few months."
"Bull," Adric said, lifting an eyebrow at the Doctor. "This is not just tired. I know what tired looks and sounds like. This isn't tired."
"Not just physically, perhaps," the Doctor admitted. "As I said, it's been a trying few months. I've not had the luxury of space to process things."
"Well... This place certainly seems rather...spacious," Adric said, glancing out the window. "Even if maybe a little busy."
"Personal space," he clarified. "The TARDIS has as much space as I need, but things just kept happening. It was difficult to get away and have a few moments' peace."
"Oh," Adric said softly, understanding clicking far faster than it used to as he nodded to the Doctor, a soft frown on his face. "I'm sorry."
He laughed softly, shaking his head.
"It's hardly your fault, Adric."
"If you can apologize for something that wasn't yours, I can apologize for something that wasn't mine," Adric said, smiling slightly.
"Should I even bother trying to argue with you?" the Doctor teased, smiling tiredly.
"Has it ever done any good before?"
"Very rarely, as I recall."
"Then I think that tells you just how effective it would be now," Adric said as he smiled over at the Doctor, his expression turning just a bit sad. "Nyssa and Tegan are all right, aren't they?"
Nyssa and Tegan.
"Nyssa's working to help cure an illness, on a space station," the Doctor said quietly, looking down. The table had the most interesting pattern in the woodgrain. Or at least, that was his excuse. "She wanted to stay. Tegan... Tegan left."
Tegan was afraid of what traveling with him would do. It was too dangerous, wasn't that what she'd said? That she couldn't take the death anymore.
"Well... Tegan always was so eager to leave," Adric said with a soft frown. There seemed to be far more to it than that. "Throwing a warbler over Heathrow all the time and all."
"We came across the Daleks again," he said softly. "She couldn't handle all the death anymore. Not that I can blame her."
Adric blinked a few times. Dalek? What was a Dalek? It certainly wasn't a word that he'd heard before, and he was sure that he'd remember something like that, especially if it had ended in death. He wasn't about the forget the Cybermen anytime soon. "No, certainly not..." Adric said. "Can I ask you something?"
The Doctor looked up, blinking, and smiled a little.
"Of course."
"Do you blame yourself for all of us leaving, or are you actually smart enough not to put something on yourself that you don't have any control over?"
"Of course I don't. Nyssa did what she thought was right, and I was very proud of her for doing so. I still am. And of course I'm pleased that Turlough was able to return to his people after so long."
It was just.. lonely. Everyone left, in the end, but he would never really get used to it. He didn't want to. Going down that route was becoming too much like the Master, seeing 'lesser races' as somehow, well, less.
"You probably would have gotten sick of me," Adric said with a slight smile. "If I'd actually been able to stick around. "Probably would have dumped me off on some deserted planet just to have some peace for awhile."
"No," the Doctor said fiercely. "You tried my patience sometimes, but I never--"
He stopped abruptly. He didn't abandon companions, not since Susan. And that, perhaps, was the worst.
"Did I ever tell you about my granddaughter?"
The force behind the words was surprising, but the abrupt change of subject as well as the subject that was being brought up was even more so. Adric blinked a few times at the Doctor, trying not to seem as taken back as he was before shaking his head.
"I didn't even know you had a family."
"She traveled with me, for a time. Years ago," he said, looking down at the tabletop and absently tracing Gallifreyan symbols on the Formica. "I was... different, back then. I thought I knew what was best for everyone. She fell in love, and I... decided it would be best to leave her on Earth, with her man. I didn't give her the choice, I just left her. It was a mistake, a dreadful mistake, and one I've come to regret terribly. I don't abandon my friends anymore."
"One of the flaws of youth, I suppose. Thinking that you know everything," Adric said, a slight smile gracing his face as he looked across at the Doctor. "Did she hold it against you?"
The Doctor went by Earth a lot, after all. Adric couldn't see him not going to visit family.
"I wouldn't blame her if she did," he said, sighing. "But she's here, the same way you and I and everyone else seems to have come here, and she seems... happy. I'm glad of that, at least."
"Seems?" Adric asked. "You don't know for sure?"
"We haven't had the chance to properly talk yet. Everything has been so hectic here."
"Hectic how? What's been so distracting that you haven't been able to make the time?"
"The TARDIS can't hear anything. I wanted to find out why."
It was a weak excuse, and he knew it. Seeing Susan again was at once something he desperately wanted and something he deeply feared. She'd always known him better than anyone else.
"Well, then. I'll take over that task while you go about getting yourself reacquainted with your family," Adric said, a tone in his voice that made it clear there was no room for any argument.
After a pause, the Doctor looked up at Adric.
"Thank you."
"It's what I'm here for," Adric said, smiling at the Doctor.