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Fic: Trust Me (I'm a Lying Liar Who Lies). Chapter 9.
You were supposed to get this chapter much sooner than today, but a) RL has been way too busy this week and b) the Doctor and Mickey just wouldn't shut up! In the end I had to be absolutely ruthless and cut a ton of stuff which was just completely unnecessary. Still, if all goes to plan then there is now only one chapter left, and then the epilogue! *crosses fingers* (Un-beta'd. All mistakes mine.)
(Previous chapters here in my memories.)
Summary: In which River is enigmatic, Martha is frustrated, Mickey is intrigued and the Doctor... is a Pond.
Setting: Post-S6 (spoilers for everything aired so far, including First Night/Last Night and The Christmas Special).
Characters: Martha, Mickey, River, the Doctor (11), OCs. (More characters will probably turn up later.)
Word count (this chapter): 2400 words approx.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 9
Whether it was the tea, or just the action of getting everyone to sit down, the hostility began to recede, and the interrogation of the Doctor - as well as the plan to determine some kind of solution to the problem of the stolen dig - took a back seat as the current, the ancient past and the future all tried to get an understanding of each other.
Mickey noticed that the Doctor allowed himself to fade into the background, eventually choosing a seat near the tent opening with an overview of the people around the table, from whence he silently observed the discussions. It took Mickey a while to work out what it reminded him of, and then it hit him - it was like a parent, watching as the kids made new friends and keeping an eye on them just in case squabbles might break out. But then he was old, wasn't he? Rose had said 900, and he'd talked about a millennium earlier on...
This was something Mickey had never really considered in any sort of detail, as the question of age had usually been framed as 'I am old, so shut up, because I know best' (sounding just like his teachers from school). Not old old, in the way his grandma had been - somehow removed from the current world, watching life pass by from some indefinable vantage point, amused and entertained by the antics of the ‘young people’. (Except when he'd screwed up. She hadn't even needed to say anything then, she'd just looked. He had a feeling that this new, older Doctor had that disappointed look down to absolute perfection.)
Musing on this Mickey found himself drifting away from the conversations around him, although after a while he was unable to ignore another kind of distraction: the effects of three consecutive cups of tea were very insistent, and eventually he had to excuse himself.
When he walked off in search of the Portaloo, he realised that he’d not been keeping track of the time, as the sun was now almost setting and a low mist hung over the surrounding fields. But it wasn’t until he was heading back to the tent a little later that he stopped to admire the landscape. As he watched, the last sliver of sun dipped below the horizon, the sky awash with oranges and reds receding into dark blue, and the moon, already out, hung like a shining disk right above him. So near, and yet so far...
"Correct me if I'm wrong-" a voice said softly behind him, nearly making him jump out of his skin, "-but I don't think you've ever been to the moon?"
Turning on the spot, Mickey saw the Doctor leaning against the archaeologists' mini van, a finger across his lips as Mickey opened his mouth.
Mickey shook his head mutely, and the Doctor smiled.
"Would you like to go?"
Looking around, confused, Mickey frowned, but answered in the same soft whisper.
"Did River come back with the TARDIS? I didn't hear anything..."
It was the Doctor’s turn to shake his head, before he detached himself from the mini van and walked up to him, and Mickey could just about make out the way his eyes were lit up with... something very much resembling mischief.
"Well, I was thinking - there are two space suits in that tent over there, with inbuilt teleporters. Seems a shame not to make use of them."
Keeping his face and voice carefully neutral, Mickey raised an eyebrow.
"That's... a pretty radical idea. You sure that Professor Pond won’t mind?"
The Doctor shrugged, the familiar devil-may-care swagger now in full evidence.
"She can't mind what she doesn't know about... Rule 17: If the answer is going to be no - do it before anyone finds out."
Somewhere in Mickey's head the image of the Doctor paralleling his grandmother was turned upside down, and, heart suddenly beating with excitement, he followed the Doctor as they tiptoed towards the tent where the space suits had been put away.
"Seriously though?" he whispered, appreciation growing by the second, feeling like he was seven again and sneaking off with his mates illicitly. "In theory you'd just ‘borrow’ anything that's not nailed down?"
The Doctor, who was trying to insert himself through the tent flap without causing too much of the velcro to rip apart noisily (considering his gangliness he was surprisingly limber), stopped and beamed at him.
"Why not? After all, that's how it all started."
"What do you mean?" Mickey asked, following by the same route, and the Doctor, now busy inspecting the space suits, turned to him with a surprised frown.
"Surely I must have told you this? I stole the TARDIS - back when I first ran away from Gallifrey. I was fed up with all the stuffiness and the boring rules, and I wanted to see the universe... They caught up with me eventually of course, and the punishment was-"
He stopped abruptly, and Mickey dearly wished that the tent wasn't quite so dark, because he could barely make out the Doctor's face.
"Anyway, I got to keep her - and she me. My beautiful, magical box. Here - I think this one is closest to your size."
Realising he'd unexpectedly hit a tender nerve, Mickey got on with the business of getting the suit on (a far more difficult task than he'd anticipated), silently musing on what a Time Lord punishment could have been like, as well as the fact that it had been necessary... The marvellous, wonderful Doctor - not so much shining hero and authority figure, as trouble-making tearaway with a rap sheet. Why hadn’t he known this before? Although it certainly explained his attraction to River...
Finally, however, the Doctor attached his helmet to the rest of the outfit, and stepped back, surveying him.
"Mickey Smith, space man," he said, with great satisfaction, before carefully checking that the suits were properly done up and then programmed the teleports.
"Ready?" he asked, and before Mickey had time to nod the world went to whiteout.
And then...
Then he was standing on the moon.
For a moment he could only stare around in silence.
"I'm on the moon," he said finally, stupidly, as a wide grin broke out on his face. "Holy... This is amazing!"
A soft chuckle from the Doctor.
"Happy to help. You know, I once had a badge that said that - wish I’d kept it. Anyway, it seemed especially apropos as the moon was your lovely wife's first proper adventure, and we went back... oh so very many times. Seems only fair that you should get a taste of it too."
“Thank you,” he replied, with feeling, before taking a step, unable to stop himself from saying: “One small step for man...” in a terrible American accent.
The Doctor started to say: “You know, I once started a revolution with Neil Armstrong’s foot-”, but Mickey just shook his head and happily ignored him, as he experimented with walking in the low gravity, and the Doctor took the hint and shut up. (Neil Armstrong's foot - yeah right.)
He wasn’t quite sure how long he spent fooling around, but after a while he became aware of the Doctor watching him. Suddenly self-conscious, he carefully turned around, doing his best to aim for nonchalant.
“Sorry, this must be kinda boring for you...”
The Doctor looked distinctly puzzled.
“Why would I be bored?”
“Well... you must have been to the moon about a million times.”
“But I’ve never been to the moon with you,” the Doctor replied, as if this was the most logical thing ever, and it stopped Mickey in his tracks.
“Doctor-” he began, unsure how to formulate the question, but knowing that suddenly he really cared about the answer. “Why does River kill you?”
The Doctor studied him silently for a moment, then turned to watch the endless blackness above them.
"Oh Mickey. You always knew the answer to that.”
For a second Mickey thought that this enigmatic non-answer was all the explanation he was going to get, but then the Doctor continued, voice oddly quiet.
“'You look deep enough on the Internet... and in the history books, and there's my name. Followed by a list of the dead.' Doesn't just go for Earth of course. There are places out there, where the word ‘Doctor’ means ‘Mighty Warrior’. And people noticed. People with followers and armies and lots of good reasons for wishing me dead."
“So they hired River?” Mickey asked cautiously, trying not to show how shocked he was that the Doctor not only remembered his words, but acknowledged the truth in them. Except he wasn’t so sure about his own conclusions anymore...
The Doctor’s reaction to his question wasn't what he'd expected, as the Time Lord closed his eyes and bowed his head. His face seemed ghostly; pale angular features outlined against the blackness behind them and the reflection of the moonscape arched across the helmet’s curve. Eventually he opened his eyes again, speaking slowly and quietly, his gaze on the distant stars.
“Oh, if only it had been that simple. You once accused me of ruining your life - and if I was harsh with you then, it was only because I knew how much worse it could be. Still... I never saw River coming.”
Finally looking Mickey in the eyes, he smiled the most bitter smile Mickey had ever seen.
“You see - she was born to kill me.”
A brief pause, then he retracted.
“No, that isn’t right. She was born Melody Pond, the beloved daughter of my best friends. And then she was stolen. Not even a month old, they literally tore her out of her mother’s arms, and I couldn’t get her back. They hid her away with monsters, and they turned her into a weapon - the perfect killing machine, just for me. Not just physically able, but they manipulated time itself, and she and I are now forever caught in the web of time, unable to escape. My death is a fixed point, and she... She never got a choice about the role she plays.”
The Doctor fell silent again, as Mickey tried to let this information sink in. He (still), very vividly, remembered Jackie’s pain and distress when Rose had gone missing... But losing a baby? He thought of Martha’s new little niece, barely a month old - recalled Leo’s ecstatic phone call at 3 in the morning to tell them the news that she’d been born, and the love and attention lavished on her from everyone ever since. He couldn't begin to imagine the devastation if they lost her. And to have been the cause of such pain - oh the transformation made sense now... The happenings of the afternoon, and River’s attitude, were rearranging themselves inside his mind, and everything now fitted, like jigsaw pieces. River had talked about the collateral damage, and knowing her place in the Doctor’s story - damn. The woman was a saint. No, that wasn’t right. She was... How had the Doctor put it? ‘A walking, talking, bluntly precise reminder’. River was that very thing - a tangible, constant reminder of what the Doctor clearly considered his worst sin. And he’d married her. Obviously there were still great swathes of backstory that Mickey didn’t know, but some things spoke for themselves - most especially the fact that the Doctor wasn’t trying to make any excuses for himself. (And River probably wouldn't let him anyway.)
Then the Doctor interrupted his thoughts.
“I'm sorry, but this is all very gloomy, which wasn’t what I intended at all. I think the actual site for the moon landing is just over that ridge up there, if you’d like a look?”
“Sure,” Mickey replied, and the Doctor set off. “Now Martha thought that the best view was from the other side, but I never thought so. I’m very much looking forward to your thoughts on the issue...”
***
When they finally returned to Earth it had gone almost completely dark, and - judging by the laughter emanating from the largest tent - their excursion hadn't been noticed. Once they'd managed to get out of the space suits, leaving them outside the nearest tent, the Doctor didn't head back to the gathering, instead looking around, eyes narrowing.
"Mickey," he said softly. "Where did you park?"
"Uh, right over there..." he replied, pointing towards where the car ought to be. "That's weird, it's gone. I think... it's kinda dark in case you hadn't noticed."
The Doctor chuckled, and began walking in the direction he was pointing.
"Not weird - River is very good at spacey-wacey parking."
Before Mickey could ask him to elaborate, he turned on the spot and seemed to lean against thin air.
"Mickey, my friend - our ride out of here has finally arrived!"
Lifting his left hand he snapped his fingers, and - in the middle of the air - a door sprang open.
"But-" Mickey said, flummoxed, and the Doctor grinned.
"She can turn invisible - did I never mention that?"
Unable to stop a matching grin spreading across his face, Mickey shook his head.
“Dude. You're like... the biggest showoff in the universe!"
The Doctor’s grin turned into a full-blown smirk.
“Well, Jack is giving me a good run for my money, but I'm happy to have your vote!”
Laughing, Mickey walked through the doorway, and then stopped dead in his tracks for the second time. The Doctor followed, closing the door behind them, and then looped his arm around Mickey's shoulders as he with his other hand made a large sweep towards the new interior.
"Quite something, isn't she?" he said proudly, and Mickey could only nod. He was dimly aware of River standing at the controls, which were now on a raised glass-floored platform, and only at the very back of his mind wondered why Martha, descending the stairs, looked so serious. It had been a mad, ridiculous, scary sort of day, but also magical on a scale he still tried to comprehend, and somehow all the beauty he'd taken in was doing something to him that he couldn't explain. The starkness of the moon, the golden warmth of the TARDIS, the way the Doctor seemed to, for the first time, see him... Long held anger and resentment were giving way, collapsing and breaking apart like an iceberg which found itself in a warmer and more hospitable climate. Impossible as he would have found the notion just that very morning, he found that he liked the Doctor.
"She's beautiful," he nodded, watching the Doctor's face light up, and he felt that this day had turned out pretty perfect all told. Noticing that Martha was now with them, he turned his head towards her, but what he was about to say died on his lips as he saw the look on her face.
"Martha?" the Doctor asked, his features rapidly losing the joy that had illuminated them - but she only tilted her head, before calmly and forcefully punching him squarely in the face.
Chapter 10
(Previous chapters here in my memories.)
Summary: In which River is enigmatic, Martha is frustrated, Mickey is intrigued and the Doctor... is a Pond.
Setting: Post-S6 (spoilers for everything aired so far, including First Night/Last Night and The Christmas Special).
Characters: Martha, Mickey, River, the Doctor (11), OCs. (More characters will probably turn up later.)
Word count (this chapter): 2400 words approx.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Whether it was the tea, or just the action of getting everyone to sit down, the hostility began to recede, and the interrogation of the Doctor - as well as the plan to determine some kind of solution to the problem of the stolen dig - took a back seat as the current, the ancient past and the future all tried to get an understanding of each other.
Mickey noticed that the Doctor allowed himself to fade into the background, eventually choosing a seat near the tent opening with an overview of the people around the table, from whence he silently observed the discussions. It took Mickey a while to work out what it reminded him of, and then it hit him - it was like a parent, watching as the kids made new friends and keeping an eye on them just in case squabbles might break out. But then he was old, wasn't he? Rose had said 900, and he'd talked about a millennium earlier on...
This was something Mickey had never really considered in any sort of detail, as the question of age had usually been framed as 'I am old, so shut up, because I know best' (sounding just like his teachers from school). Not old old, in the way his grandma had been - somehow removed from the current world, watching life pass by from some indefinable vantage point, amused and entertained by the antics of the ‘young people’. (Except when he'd screwed up. She hadn't even needed to say anything then, she'd just looked. He had a feeling that this new, older Doctor had that disappointed look down to absolute perfection.)
Musing on this Mickey found himself drifting away from the conversations around him, although after a while he was unable to ignore another kind of distraction: the effects of three consecutive cups of tea were very insistent, and eventually he had to excuse himself.
When he walked off in search of the Portaloo, he realised that he’d not been keeping track of the time, as the sun was now almost setting and a low mist hung over the surrounding fields. But it wasn’t until he was heading back to the tent a little later that he stopped to admire the landscape. As he watched, the last sliver of sun dipped below the horizon, the sky awash with oranges and reds receding into dark blue, and the moon, already out, hung like a shining disk right above him. So near, and yet so far...
"Correct me if I'm wrong-" a voice said softly behind him, nearly making him jump out of his skin, "-but I don't think you've ever been to the moon?"
Turning on the spot, Mickey saw the Doctor leaning against the archaeologists' mini van, a finger across his lips as Mickey opened his mouth.
Mickey shook his head mutely, and the Doctor smiled.
"Would you like to go?"
Looking around, confused, Mickey frowned, but answered in the same soft whisper.
"Did River come back with the TARDIS? I didn't hear anything..."
It was the Doctor’s turn to shake his head, before he detached himself from the mini van and walked up to him, and Mickey could just about make out the way his eyes were lit up with... something very much resembling mischief.
"Well, I was thinking - there are two space suits in that tent over there, with inbuilt teleporters. Seems a shame not to make use of them."
Keeping his face and voice carefully neutral, Mickey raised an eyebrow.
"That's... a pretty radical idea. You sure that Professor Pond won’t mind?"
The Doctor shrugged, the familiar devil-may-care swagger now in full evidence.
"She can't mind what she doesn't know about... Rule 17: If the answer is going to be no - do it before anyone finds out."
Somewhere in Mickey's head the image of the Doctor paralleling his grandmother was turned upside down, and, heart suddenly beating with excitement, he followed the Doctor as they tiptoed towards the tent where the space suits had been put away.
"Seriously though?" he whispered, appreciation growing by the second, feeling like he was seven again and sneaking off with his mates illicitly. "In theory you'd just ‘borrow’ anything that's not nailed down?"
The Doctor, who was trying to insert himself through the tent flap without causing too much of the velcro to rip apart noisily (considering his gangliness he was surprisingly limber), stopped and beamed at him.
"Why not? After all, that's how it all started."
"What do you mean?" Mickey asked, following by the same route, and the Doctor, now busy inspecting the space suits, turned to him with a surprised frown.
"Surely I must have told you this? I stole the TARDIS - back when I first ran away from Gallifrey. I was fed up with all the stuffiness and the boring rules, and I wanted to see the universe... They caught up with me eventually of course, and the punishment was-"
He stopped abruptly, and Mickey dearly wished that the tent wasn't quite so dark, because he could barely make out the Doctor's face.
"Anyway, I got to keep her - and she me. My beautiful, magical box. Here - I think this one is closest to your size."
Realising he'd unexpectedly hit a tender nerve, Mickey got on with the business of getting the suit on (a far more difficult task than he'd anticipated), silently musing on what a Time Lord punishment could have been like, as well as the fact that it had been necessary... The marvellous, wonderful Doctor - not so much shining hero and authority figure, as trouble-making tearaway with a rap sheet. Why hadn’t he known this before? Although it certainly explained his attraction to River...
Finally, however, the Doctor attached his helmet to the rest of the outfit, and stepped back, surveying him.
"Mickey Smith, space man," he said, with great satisfaction, before carefully checking that the suits were properly done up and then programmed the teleports.
"Ready?" he asked, and before Mickey had time to nod the world went to whiteout.
And then...
Then he was standing on the moon.
For a moment he could only stare around in silence.
"I'm on the moon," he said finally, stupidly, as a wide grin broke out on his face. "Holy... This is amazing!"
A soft chuckle from the Doctor.
"Happy to help. You know, I once had a badge that said that - wish I’d kept it. Anyway, it seemed especially apropos as the moon was your lovely wife's first proper adventure, and we went back... oh so very many times. Seems only fair that you should get a taste of it too."
“Thank you,” he replied, with feeling, before taking a step, unable to stop himself from saying: “One small step for man...” in a terrible American accent.
The Doctor started to say: “You know, I once started a revolution with Neil Armstrong’s foot-”, but Mickey just shook his head and happily ignored him, as he experimented with walking in the low gravity, and the Doctor took the hint and shut up. (Neil Armstrong's foot - yeah right.)
He wasn’t quite sure how long he spent fooling around, but after a while he became aware of the Doctor watching him. Suddenly self-conscious, he carefully turned around, doing his best to aim for nonchalant.
“Sorry, this must be kinda boring for you...”
The Doctor looked distinctly puzzled.
“Why would I be bored?”
“Well... you must have been to the moon about a million times.”
“But I’ve never been to the moon with you,” the Doctor replied, as if this was the most logical thing ever, and it stopped Mickey in his tracks.
“Doctor-” he began, unsure how to formulate the question, but knowing that suddenly he really cared about the answer. “Why does River kill you?”
The Doctor studied him silently for a moment, then turned to watch the endless blackness above them.
"Oh Mickey. You always knew the answer to that.”
For a second Mickey thought that this enigmatic non-answer was all the explanation he was going to get, but then the Doctor continued, voice oddly quiet.
“'You look deep enough on the Internet... and in the history books, and there's my name. Followed by a list of the dead.' Doesn't just go for Earth of course. There are places out there, where the word ‘Doctor’ means ‘Mighty Warrior’. And people noticed. People with followers and armies and lots of good reasons for wishing me dead."
“So they hired River?” Mickey asked cautiously, trying not to show how shocked he was that the Doctor not only remembered his words, but acknowledged the truth in them. Except he wasn’t so sure about his own conclusions anymore...
The Doctor’s reaction to his question wasn't what he'd expected, as the Time Lord closed his eyes and bowed his head. His face seemed ghostly; pale angular features outlined against the blackness behind them and the reflection of the moonscape arched across the helmet’s curve. Eventually he opened his eyes again, speaking slowly and quietly, his gaze on the distant stars.
“Oh, if only it had been that simple. You once accused me of ruining your life - and if I was harsh with you then, it was only because I knew how much worse it could be. Still... I never saw River coming.”
Finally looking Mickey in the eyes, he smiled the most bitter smile Mickey had ever seen.
“You see - she was born to kill me.”
A brief pause, then he retracted.
“No, that isn’t right. She was born Melody Pond, the beloved daughter of my best friends. And then she was stolen. Not even a month old, they literally tore her out of her mother’s arms, and I couldn’t get her back. They hid her away with monsters, and they turned her into a weapon - the perfect killing machine, just for me. Not just physically able, but they manipulated time itself, and she and I are now forever caught in the web of time, unable to escape. My death is a fixed point, and she... She never got a choice about the role she plays.”
The Doctor fell silent again, as Mickey tried to let this information sink in. He (still), very vividly, remembered Jackie’s pain and distress when Rose had gone missing... But losing a baby? He thought of Martha’s new little niece, barely a month old - recalled Leo’s ecstatic phone call at 3 in the morning to tell them the news that she’d been born, and the love and attention lavished on her from everyone ever since. He couldn't begin to imagine the devastation if they lost her. And to have been the cause of such pain - oh the transformation made sense now... The happenings of the afternoon, and River’s attitude, were rearranging themselves inside his mind, and everything now fitted, like jigsaw pieces. River had talked about the collateral damage, and knowing her place in the Doctor’s story - damn. The woman was a saint. No, that wasn’t right. She was... How had the Doctor put it? ‘A walking, talking, bluntly precise reminder’. River was that very thing - a tangible, constant reminder of what the Doctor clearly considered his worst sin. And he’d married her. Obviously there were still great swathes of backstory that Mickey didn’t know, but some things spoke for themselves - most especially the fact that the Doctor wasn’t trying to make any excuses for himself. (And River probably wouldn't let him anyway.)
Then the Doctor interrupted his thoughts.
“I'm sorry, but this is all very gloomy, which wasn’t what I intended at all. I think the actual site for the moon landing is just over that ridge up there, if you’d like a look?”
“Sure,” Mickey replied, and the Doctor set off. “Now Martha thought that the best view was from the other side, but I never thought so. I’m very much looking forward to your thoughts on the issue...”
When they finally returned to Earth it had gone almost completely dark, and - judging by the laughter emanating from the largest tent - their excursion hadn't been noticed. Once they'd managed to get out of the space suits, leaving them outside the nearest tent, the Doctor didn't head back to the gathering, instead looking around, eyes narrowing.
"Mickey," he said softly. "Where did you park?"
"Uh, right over there..." he replied, pointing towards where the car ought to be. "That's weird, it's gone. I think... it's kinda dark in case you hadn't noticed."
The Doctor chuckled, and began walking in the direction he was pointing.
"Not weird - River is very good at spacey-wacey parking."
Before Mickey could ask him to elaborate, he turned on the spot and seemed to lean against thin air.
"Mickey, my friend - our ride out of here has finally arrived!"
Lifting his left hand he snapped his fingers, and - in the middle of the air - a door sprang open.
"But-" Mickey said, flummoxed, and the Doctor grinned.
"She can turn invisible - did I never mention that?"
Unable to stop a matching grin spreading across his face, Mickey shook his head.
“Dude. You're like... the biggest showoff in the universe!"
The Doctor’s grin turned into a full-blown smirk.
“Well, Jack is giving me a good run for my money, but I'm happy to have your vote!”
Laughing, Mickey walked through the doorway, and then stopped dead in his tracks for the second time. The Doctor followed, closing the door behind them, and then looped his arm around Mickey's shoulders as he with his other hand made a large sweep towards the new interior.
"Quite something, isn't she?" he said proudly, and Mickey could only nod. He was dimly aware of River standing at the controls, which were now on a raised glass-floored platform, and only at the very back of his mind wondered why Martha, descending the stairs, looked so serious. It had been a mad, ridiculous, scary sort of day, but also magical on a scale he still tried to comprehend, and somehow all the beauty he'd taken in was doing something to him that he couldn't explain. The starkness of the moon, the golden warmth of the TARDIS, the way the Doctor seemed to, for the first time, see him... Long held anger and resentment were giving way, collapsing and breaking apart like an iceberg which found itself in a warmer and more hospitable climate. Impossible as he would have found the notion just that very morning, he found that he liked the Doctor.
"She's beautiful," he nodded, watching the Doctor's face light up, and he felt that this day had turned out pretty perfect all told. Noticing that Martha was now with them, he turned his head towards her, but what he was about to say died on his lips as he saw the look on her face.
"Martha?" the Doctor asked, his features rapidly losing the joy that had illuminated them - but she only tilted her head, before calmly and forcefully punching him squarely in the face.
Chapter 10