TITLE: For Want of a Hat TIME/DAY: Evening / May 7th TAKES PLACE AFTER:The Black & The White CHARACTERS: Open, especially to those whom Five hasn't met yet. But not Donna, for obvious reasons. :) WARNINGS: It's Five. You'd be lucky to get a "Blast!" from him.
The wind was gusting across the bay this evening, chasing some of the crowd off the piers. Five braved the sometime squall, but for the most cowardly of reasons: he feared going back into the Hub. Well, perhaps "feared" was too strong a word, but over the past week, he certainly had very little reason to stay. With the revelation of his own (future) hand in the destruction of Gallifrey, nearly getting his son blown apart, and the encounter with an insane future incarnation, the Doctor once again had the urge to run away.
Even the sight of his TARDIS, sometimes the only thing that lifted his spirits, didn't help. She seemed just as sullen as he felt, frustrated and angered that she was mired in one single spot for month after month. She wanted freedom about as much as he did, but he couldn't plot a new course for her, and she couldn't carry him away from this wretched city with its wretched Rift and its wretched problems. He found it difficult to linger too long near the Heart of the TARDIS without becoming affected by her dark mood.
He needed the Zero Room back.
But in lieu of that, he decided to go for a walk, among the humans he inexplicably loved so much. He peeked over the side of the railing, pensively watching the sea roil against the shore, his mind burdened and spilling out thoughts at such speed as only another Time Lord could fully comprehend. And to add the proverbial insult to a slew of past injuries, the wind whipped his hat off. He spun around to give chase, arms outstretched to grab at the hat. Again and again, his hat slipped just out of reach. Five looked rather comical in his brightly-striped trousers and cream-colored coat scuttling after the hat.