(ง'̀-'́)ง (hairbender) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-10-28 22:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, asami sato, twelfth doctor |
No, definitely no plane
Who: Asami and Twelve
What: Mid-air collision
Where: Asami's airship
Status: complete
Rating: PG
In her dreams, the airship required some crew to keep it going. It could also have staff to cook food. In the waking world, she’d come up with some automated and compurized technology that let her take the airship up solo if she wished. She wouldn’t risk going across the country alone, but taking the airship around the county to show it off, that was something she could do alone.
She had the autopilot set for a lazy circle, careful to avoid the airspace of the airports, and was lounging on deck with a virgin drink, wearing a big hat, sunglasses, and a sundress. She kind of wish she’d invited Kit. She could certainly seduce her up here. But Asami preferred more adrenaline filled adventures for that kind of thing.
The Doctor was taking his TARDIS out for a spin. It had been a quick pop up to the Moon to test out some improvements he’d made to the navigation system. Which had seemed to work, then he popped back into Earth’s orbit. Though instead of landing somewhere, he was flying. Avoiding the airplane paths, but he still kept the TARDIS cloaked from radar. No need to alert the humans that some UFO was flying about.
He was busy fiddling with something when something crashed into the TARDIS. He stumbled his way into the console, managing to catch himself on it before he hit the floor.
“What?” He pulled himself up and quickly brought up the exterior camera. And there was suddenly a ship there. A ship that didn’t quite look like normal for this time period on Earth. Luckily nothing seemed to be seriously damaged on his TARDIS like it had been when the Titanic had crashed into it. He opened a communication link with the ship.
“Hey, how about you look where you’re going?” His Scottish accent drawled out.
A quick pop to the moon would make Asami’s year. If only… That was one of many dreams Asami had. Sometimes she thought she had too many things she wanted to do, to make, to improve on, and not enough hours in the day to do so. And not enough people in her life to remind her to take it easy.
The ship suddenly rocked and she was thrown to the deck. She picked herself up, and rushed to the bow. She could see some damage, but there was nothing there, and she couldn’t see any obvious signs of a crashed plane on the ground below. Which was a relief but what had she hit? She ducked into the control room and picked up the radio. “Who is this? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Don’t think I took much damage. Better than the time the Titanic crashed into me.” Perhaps he should specify the Titanic had crashed into him, it had been a spaceship called that, not the actual one. But he passed over that right now. It wasn’t important.
“The Titanic,” Asami said, only just a little disbelief in her voice. She’d hit some kind of invisible airship, so the Titanic was the least of her problems. “I can see how that might be a problem. I’m just relieved you weren’t a regular plane.” Whatever it was, it wasn’t a regular plane. She didn’t think she’d strayed into any airspace.
“No, definitely no plane. Just a police phone box. Actually, is there a space on your ship I might land? Gives me a chance to check the outside of my TARDIS better.” He could’ve just materialized inside her ship, but he didn’t know if any of the interior was large enough to encompass a police phone box.
What.
Asami pinched the bridge of her nose. “You can land on deck or in the cargo bay.” She gave the dimensions of the latter, which was pretty sizable. It could be outfitted as a luxury spa(and usually was). Her airship was huge, a true liner in the sky. “Let me lower the ramp.”
“I’ll land in the cargo bay. And no need to lower the ramp.” He swung around and hit a few controls on the counsel and suddenly the TARDIS sprang into life. It made a sound that almost sounded like gears grinding when they shouldn’t be. The TARDIS dematerialized from where it had been hovering in the air, and then it reappeared in the cargo hold. Once it finished materializing, the noise stopped. The Doctor cut the comm link considering they’d meet face-to-face shortly.
He went to the door of the TARDIS and pulled it open. Stepping outside of it, he started to inspect the outside of the blue police box. The door, however, was still open, revealing that it was way, way bigger on the inside.
Asami didn’t even have a chance to utter any kind of protest. She rushed through the luxury gathering room and opened the door to the cargo bay. She stared at the...literal police box sitting there, that appeared to open up into another dimension entirely. If her best friend in her dreams hadn’t been the Avatar she probably would have had a harder time accepting this. Instead, she switched into questioning mode. “How did you do that?”
There was some minor damage to the exterior of the TARDIS, nothing that couldn’t be easily fixed. She was certainly a sturdy girl, and he was more than happy to have her. Turning towards, Asami, he suddenly grinned. “Oh I’m so glad you asked!” He exclaimed. Clearly he enjoyed explaining this. “This is not simply a spaceship. It’s also a time machine. Brilliant technology developed by my people. The TARDIS is her name. Stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space.”
“I guess that would explain how you can Mary Poppins the interior versus the exterior,” Asami said. Did that make Mary Poppins a Time Lord? “So it’s a space ship, and also a time ship?” She was a little jealous. The best her dreams gave her were the first airplanes.
“Mary Poppins?” He was equal parts confused and almost insulted. This was Time Lord technology, thousands of years in the making! It was a sensitive button for him, and no one had really hit it better than Leela. “But yes it is both. It can go anywhere in time and space. Almost anywhere, there are rules of course.” Otherwise the history of the universe would be quite a bit more messy than it actually was.
“She had that bag, bigger on the inside than the outside,” Asami clarified. Maybe that was something he wasn’t familiar with, though she thought most people would have gotten the reference. “I’d hope so. It would be easy to go back and change something. Even on accident.”
Suddenly things clicked into place. He thought that Clara had made him watch that movie at some point. Anyways, it was unimportant at the moment. “There are things that can be changed or influenced, but there are things that cannot be changed. It’s not always easy to walk away, and it’s even harder when one has to cause the moment in history to happen.” Like when he and Donna had to cause Vesuvius to erupt and bury Pompeii.
That hadn’t occurred to Asami, though it made some sense. She gave him a compassionate smile. “That definitely can’t be easy. Would you like some tea? I also have some little cakes but there isn’t much else on board as I hadn’t planned for visitors.”
The Doctor’s face grew solemn, his shoulders slumping just slightly. It was the way someone looked when they held a lot of pain and loss from such situations. “No, it isn’t.” He briefly remembered the things he’d said to Kate and Zygella in the Black Archive about that pain. But his demeanor quickly changed, a more jovial expression taking its place. “Tea would be excellent, thank you. Good for you on appreciating tea. So many people like coffee these days, it’s rather obnoxious and difficult to find a good cup of tea.”
Asami caught the change. In a weird way the stranger reminded her of Bolin, always hiding behind jokes and a smile. She had to let Bolin open up, and she didn’t know the doctor well enough to really offer a shoulder for. “I do a lot of business with Japanese investors. It pays to have an appreciation for tea. But I remember when I was little and my mom would serve some to my dad while we were working on inventions together.”
She was sure she had family in Japan. She really should look them up.
For all the protesting of not needing a shoulder he tended to do, the Doctor did sometimes need one. However, there were only a select few people he would open up to. As in it was next to none. He kept his pains to himself, and he told himself ‘No one else’ meaning that no one else should have to feel the pain he felt or to live and think the way he does. “Ah yes, that is certainly a good way to gain an appreciation for tea. And I really should visit Japan more often.”
“My father was born in Osaka,” Asami explained, leading the Doctor to the lounge. “Oh! I’m Asami Sato. It’s nice to meet you, but the situation could probably be a little better.” The damage didn’t look too bad, honestly. She could repair it. She’d repaired worse.
“I’m the Doctor. Though in this world I’m Duncan Fletcher.” He answered to both names, really. Some days he felt more like the Doctor, and others he felt more like Duncan. Today was one of the Doctor days. “Perhaps it could have, but there are worse ways to meet.”
There seemed to be an emphasis on the ‘the’ there, which was odd. But then people called Korra ‘The Avatar’ all the time, so it wasn’t that far a stretch. Their dream worlds seemed to be vastly different, but Asami found there were always similarities and points of comparison.
“You wouldn’t be the first person I’ve run into,” she joked. “I met an ex that way once. Ended up dating his girlfriend.”
The Doctor wasn’t his actual name, but no one knew his real name. He’d given himself the title of Doctor long ago. Sometimes he didn’t live up to it, but it was something he tried to aspire to. Saving people. That’s what he liked to do.
“That seems to be a strange way to meet someone. Though I suppose if it works, one cannot complain much.”
“Happy accidents.” Smiling, she brought a cup of tea to the Doctor. “I hope this is to your liking. I haven’t made anything but instant tea in months. Never enough hours in the day. I was trying to take a nice relaxing cruise for the day.”
Though it helped that it brought attention to her brand.
“I suppose this simply goes to show that anything can happen at any moment.” That was the excitement of his travels. The Doctor never knew what he would find himself in or who he would meet. He may be more crotchety in this regeneration, but he still maintained the belief that he never met anyone who wasn’t important. “So long as it is not instant tea. Really, what Americans call tea is barely drinkable.” He took the offered cup of tea. Tea wasn’t supposed to be in bags. It was supposed to be loose leaf and steeped.
“That’s true.” Asami had her tastes, and she wasn’t above microwaving the water (really hot water was hot water and she was an engineer and a scientist so she appreciated the science behind it, but despite that she still preferred tea the old fashioned way.
He sipped the tea, not disapproving of it. “So many these days have little time to appreciate life. Sometimes slowing down and taking time to make tea the old fashioned way is worth it.” So said the man who hated standing still. He hated taking time in its proper second-by-second, mundane passing. He preferred being in the middle of some crisis or puzzle he had to figure out.
Asami understood that. She remembered, very clearly, all those weeks helping care for Korra after her injury. But Korra’s healing hadn’t gone fast enough. Asami was just glad that Korra had reached her own sort of equilibrium. “I’m usually looking to the future, but I can appreciate slowing down. A good game of Pai Sho, or Chess, or Go.” Not that she had any opponents for Pai Sho. She’s made up sets of the game for herself, but no one else knew it existed.
Maybe she should try selling it.
“Having the ability to travel across time and space, staying in one place and taking life day by day is not my favorite thing. I need things to do and people to save.” Though she caught his attention with the mention of Pai Sho. That wasn’t something he knew about. “What’s Pai Sho?” He liked learning new things, it was why he traveled so much.
Asami perked a little, and took a sip of her tea. "It's a board game from my dream world. It's a game of both strategy and chance. It has some resemblance with Go and Chinese Checkers. I'm an expert in it. I prefer the slower, methodical style, and a friend liked to play seat of the pants."
She always beat Bolin.
“I rather enjoy games of strategy.” He wouldn’t mention the fact that he frequently (meaning always) lost games of chess to a robotic dog. But he did enjoy such games. At the very least, it was a focus for his mind and tended to free up room for other parts of his brain to work on other problems.
“I could teach you how to play?” She missed games with her father. Pai Sho had been a Sato house standard in her dreams, and Go and Chess had been the same while awake. She hadn’t moved to the forgiveness stage just yet though. No games on visiting her father in jail. No visiting her father at all, honestly. Asami tried not to sound too eager at the idea.
“I would like that. I always enjoy learning new things.” He responded with a smile. He and Clara had their own father-daughter things they did. But perhaps he could surprise Clara again and make a new friend he could play games with. “Just don’t let K-9 get wind of this. He likes games, too.” And he’d probably be insufferable about playing it.
“It can be our little secret.” Whoever K-9 was, that would be up to the Doctor to tell. Asami was just glad to have someone she could teach the game to and play with. Who knows, maybe he’d pick it up well enough to beat her!