Who:CaitLin Burns and Kai Polivander Where: The British Museum When: Afternoon, January 12, 2011 What: Lin's looking for perspective. Instead, he gets a huge surprise - a blast from the past. Or future, depending upon your point of view. Rating: ?? Probably PGish.
The benefits of having a TARDIS were endless. Lin was able to let his flat go, which not only saved money but also spared him the trouble of explaining his change in appearance to the landlady. Also, there were always enough hours in the day. Lin had taken to living them twice, since he'd gotten the time machine: one day at work, to take care of business and to establish a personal timeline, and a repeat of the same day for pleasure. As long as he was careful not to cross his own path, he was fine.
On days when he'd been away on business, Lin spent his second time through in the city. London usually had something going on, but his joie de vivre was a little faded since late November. It wasn't the new face, not really. It wasn't the gender swap. It wasn't that he'd avoided his father at Christmas for the first time in years, because he couldn't explain said gender-swap. It was the loss of Tyler; Caitlin had grown genuinely attached, and the loss hit hard. The Doctor had been surprisingly understanding. While Lin had done her - his - best impersonation of Ten, Eleven had slowly been tempting his human copilot back to normalcy. The Doctor hadn't said a word about any of Lin's mistakes. Instead? They'd gone adventuring.
Museums were a way of keeping score. In many ways, the Doctor was still very private, even with the human host who was going to be beside him until the end. However, since Tyler had died, the Doctor had taken to sharing stories. Lin didn't have to glean bits of the Doctor's past from his DVD sets; he'd started to get the tales firsthand from the source. They'd pick a museum, sometimes on Earth and sometimes out in the stars, and they'd wander. When they saw something they recognized, something relevant to the Doctor's life, he'd tell the story.
It made Lin feel less alone, less hollow inside, and the museum trips had become something of a special treat.
Today's was to the British Museum. Caitlin had seen it once before, when he was a very young she. Her father had brought her, when his work had stationed him in the UK, and she recalled vividly the Greek and Roman galleries. The Doctor was telling a complicated story about the first Olympics as Lin walked along slowly, hands clasped behind his back. To an outsider, it looked like he was taking his time and quietly surveying the artifacts. True, his nose sometimes got a bit close to the glass, but there was nothing to suggest that inside his head, the young man was talking to himself.
He looked normal. Proper human normal - no bow tie, no tweed, just a wool pullover and jeans. The only garment even slightly reminiscent of the Time Lord was the leather coat, and with the square military collar it was more 'biker' than 'Eccleston-era Doctor.'