Work Text:
“So Ruby Sunday,” he said, swinging her arm with a smile, “What next?”
Ruby hummed, skipping slightly as they walked down the street, music still swirling around them. It was like it was half in her head and half in the air around them. The Doctor said it was non-diegetic, like a movie, and would fade soon. Ruby was just enjoying it while it lasted, “I dunno.”
“Anywhere in the universe,” the Doctor said, waving his arm out dramatically, “Past, present, future, Earth, not Earth, a quarry in Wales-”
“A quarry in Wales?”
“Surprising amount of aliens found in quarries in Wales.”
Ruby shook her head and laughed. It was hard to tell sometimes when the Doctor was joking and when he was stating a fact. Ever since she had started traveling with him reality had become like fiction. Aliens in Wales, why not? There were probably aliens in 18th-century France too. Maybe shapeshifters lived down the street from her, anything was possible.
“So,” the Doctor smiled at her, moving his shoulders back and forth like they were still dancing, “Where to? The Universe is at our fingertips.”
She laughed, “There’s too many options when you put it like that!”
It was still hard to believe that it was possible. She could just name a time and place and travel there instantly (or almost instantly. There had been a few times where they got sidetracked, like the time they thought they were going to an ancient forest on a distant moon only to accidentally end up in the middle of the Ostrich War.)
She looked up at the Doctor, gathering up the courage to suggest what she had been thinking about all day, “We could… visit your granddaughter.”
Honestly she was still reeling over the fact that the Doctor had a granddaughter, and children apparently. She still wasn’t sure how old he was. He certainly didn’t look old enough for it, but sometimes he would do or say something and get a look on his face that was almost otherworldly, and not quite human, and she remembered that there was more to this man than there seemed.
(In addition to the whole, you know, travels all of time and space in a police box thing)
He had that look on his face now. He didn’t stumble, but he paused, just for a second. His foot missed a beat and the tip of his umbrella scraped the ground. A moment later he was fine, skipping and spinning the umbrella like nothing happened, but Ruby could tell it was bothering him.
The Doctor shook his head, “Nah, best not to.”
“Why not?”
She didn’t want to push. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have no idea what happened to her family. The thought of going years without seeing her mum or Cherry… She didn’t know how she would survive it. Much less how she could keep going like the Doctor did, with a kind heart and a smile on his face.
But at the same time, if she did lose them and had the chance to see them again, even from a distance, she would do it in a heartbeat.
“It’s…” the Doctor slowed to a walk, still swinging his umbrella, “Not a good idea.”
“But why can’t you visit her?” That was another thing she was learning. The Doctor would give up the surface details willingly, but he didn’t like explaining the why, or how he felt about it. He had a tendency to say the thing and assume that was enough, before running on to the next thing.
“Time travel. It’s complicated. Don’t want to mess up the time streams.”
“But can’t you just- I don’t know, stand on the other side of the street and look at her or something? Or say hello without saying who you are?”
The Doctor hesitated. She could see he wanted to say yes, but he shook his head, “Some things I can’t control, no matter how much I want to.” He looked at her and forced a smile, linking their arms together, “Tell you what we could do though— Ice Cream! I know a place a few streets over. Best ice cream in 1963!”
She let the smile take over as he dragged her along, steps turning into a skip and a dance as the music floated through the air.
The Doctor had told her he couldn’t take her to see her birth mum the night she was born, and as much as Ruby wished she could just go there and have her answers she was also relieved. Because a part of her wondered, what if it wasn’t what she expected? Her mum had warned her about that, back when she first started searching. She knew it probably wasn’t a happy story, nothing that led to leaving your child on the steps of a church could be, but part of her, a desperately curious part of her wanted to know.
But part of her was also afraid. What if her mother wasn’t what she expected? What if she hated her, or never cared? So as much as she wanted to know she was okay with it taking awhile.
And she supposed that if she lost someone, no, everyone, the Doctor had lost everyone, and assumed that meant Susan too. So if she lost everyone she would be scared to find out if that included her family too. She would be scared to look for answers, because now there was a possibility, but once that was gone there was only grief. And then seeing someone who was lost to you, maybe alive but maybe not, that would hurt more.
She might find it hard to visit too, if that were the case. She took a few running steps until she was by the Doctor’s side, “So what kind of ice cream is your favorite?”
“Favorite on Earth or on any planet?”
“Other planets have ice cream?”
“Oh Ruby, babes, you have so much to learn.”
The Doctor took another bite of his ice cream as they walked back to the Tardis.
He told himself he hadn’t come to Shoreditch on purpose- this really was the best ice cream in 1963 as far as he knew. It was just a coincidence that the ice cream shop was on the same road that Susan took home from school. It was a coincidence that they had come by at precisely 3:15 when she would be walking by. Coincidence. Just like all the others that kept adding up.
The streets looked strange now, unfamiliar after thousands of years away from here, but once upon a time, he knew them like the back of his hand.
It had been chance that they landed here back then. He had stolen the Tardis, or the Tardis had stolen him, but despite his blustering, he really had no idea what he was doing then. Maybe it was just luck. Maybe the old girl really knew better than him.
They hadn’t stayed here long, and sometimes he wished it had been longer. Because for a while, these streets on this strange new planet called Earth had been home. Susan had been happy, here. She had never taken to adventuring like he had, and he was too young and foolish to slow down for her. But she had loved the school. She had loved the people, well, some of them. She had loved learning about humans and all they had to offer.
He paused at the street corner, just for a moment, and there she was.
His granddaughter, his brilliant, kind, and caring granddaughter walking towards them from far down the street. On her way back from school, arms full of books and a smile across her face as she watched the birds flying in the sunshine and the rain. She was skipping slightly, and humming to herself. She always loved human music.
It was early days for her, for them all. February 11, 1963. In less than a year two brave humans would barge into his life and change it forever.
Right now he was back in the Tardis, with its plain white walls and default console, only a few rooms full. Ian and Barbara would still be at the school, just beginning to grow suspicious of their new student. He would meet them soon enough.
Part of him wanted to see them as well, to turn the street corner and walk by Coal Hill, to see them in their classrooms talking about their students, one student in particular. Or see them walking home, blushing and not quite meeting each other’s eyes, not sure what their feelings were yet.
Rassilon he missed them.
Susan turned around the corner, and across the street of dancing people their eyes met.
He saw the flicker of recognition in her eyes, going from confusion to fear to curiosity in the span of an instant, felt her reaching out at the edges of his mind. He almost let down the barriers, almost let her mind in. How long had it been since he had talked with another Time Lord the way they were meant to? How long since another conscious had joined with his own and sung together?
Susan’s mind was bright. Not quite sunshine as humans knew it, but the brilliant light that shone from the stars in the nebulas of space, bursting with energy and potential. Her mind was the fresh new flowers at the beginning of spring. It was a lullaby lurking at the edges of memory, a whisper of something you used to know and could never quite remember or forget.
He felt himself reaching out, calling to her. Saw her confusion turn to a gentle look of understanding.
He went to raise a hand— a wave. A simple wave. Just a moment, to prove to himself that he hadn’t forgotten.
He couldn’t.
He turned away, toward the road that led to the Tardis, his Tardis, feeling Susan’s presence retreat from the edges of his mind, ignoring the confusion and disappointment.
Too many memories here. Too many memories everywhere. The whole universe at his fingertips and yet there was this planet, this one tiny planet and its people that kept calling him.
His memory shifted as he looked at the street, the time in 1963 the time in 2014 layering on top of one another. Ian and Barbara and Ace and Clara and Danny… He kept coming back here somehow. Maybe because this was where it all began. All his adventures in time and space, all because he crash-landed the Tardis in a junkyard in 1963.
“That was her, wasn’t it?”
Ruby had caught him staring. He could pretend, but this body wasn’t as good at that as others. The truth had started coming easier than lies. It was all Donna’s fault really.
“Yeah, that’s her.”
Ruby smiled and moved closer to him, leaning into his side as she craned her neck to get a better look. Susan had kept walking. Smart girl. She knew the laws of time backwards and forwards. Probably figured out who he was and knew he couldn’t interfere. (And, most likely, she was internally lecturing him on the dangers of coming here in the first place).
They watched as she smiled at the people around her, pausing only to pet a cat on a nearby windowsill.
“How old is she?”
“Well, Time Lord, so complicated, but in human terms she’s around sixteen.”
He could feel the time streams twisting and twirling. The memories fake and real intermingling. Susan as a child. Susan appearing one day. His past and all its variations muddling each other. Was Susan like him? Was she a Time Lord or something more? He was glad he took her with him when he left Gallifrey, knowing what he did now.
“She’s beautiful,” Ruby said, watching as Susan finally turned the corner.
The Doctor blinked, tearing himself away, “Yeah. She is.”
That was the thing about time. It was moments, together and separate, happening in order and backward and all at once. Susan was here, alive. Susan was traveling with him on the Tardis, safe. Susan was married in the future, happy. Susan was in his past, lost. This moment existed forever and was gone in an instant. But for a second, just for a second, he had seen her smile again.
“Come on,” he said, throwing an arm around Ruby’s shoulder, “Tardis is this way.”
They danced their way back as the music faded from the air and into the corner of his mind, joining the rest of his thoughts in a glorious cacophony.
He stepped in and let the hum of the Tardis fill him. Always the same after all these years. A comforting presence in his mind. I miss them too .
He pat the console, lazily setting the controls. Maybe an alien city next, Ruby hadn’t seen one of those. Or a nice beach. Sunsets. Those drinks with the little umbrellas.
Ruby was still looking at him. He glanced up, “How was the ice cream?”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”
And there it was. Should’ve known that wouldn’t be the end of it. Donna said there was nothing wrong with getting to know someone. That sharing his past didn’t have to be the all-consuming fire he sometimes felt like it was.
“Oh, you know just, a couple thousand years.” It was a lie, but he didn’t know the real answer anymore.
“I’m sorry did you say thousand ?”
“But enough about that,” he turned back to the controls, running around the console, “How’s the ice cream?”
“It’s great but Doctor-”
“You know there’s another great place on a nearby moon a few hundred years from now. They actually get their ice from-”
“Doctor.” He slowed. Ruby had stopped, a look on her face that said she wasn’t moving until she got some answers. She looked like another face from not too long ago, a face he didn’t give answers to until it was too late. “Can’t you, I dunno warn her? Tell her about whatever happened to her people and help her stay safe?”
The Doctor laughed, doing his best to keep it from turning into a scream. If only he knew how often he’d wanted to. How often he’d tried. “That’s why I didn’t want to come here, Ruby,” he said, shaking his head.
“There’s always that temptation when you know the future. You have the ability to change things. To save everything. And you think sometimes, it’s just one life, how could it matter? In the great wide ocean of the universe does one drop of water really make a difference? And sometimes nothing changes. Sometimes you can mess with fate, just a little, and the universe will keep going. But there’s always consequences. There’s always changes, big or small. And sometimes one life changes everything. There are fixed points, things that cannot be changed because if they do time as we know it would cease to exist.”
He didn’t look at Ruby’s face, looking up to the light of the Tardis instead. He could guess what it looked like though. They all looked the same. A bit of awe, a bit of fear, sadness and pity as it all sunk in. He traced the Gallifreyan words etched into the controls.
“My people can see the streams of time. We can trace them. Everything tugging and pulling and pushing and dancing around each other. It’s delicate. Our job is to observe. To make sure the strands continue to flow.” The duty of the Time Lords. His duty now. He scoffed at the pretentiousness of it all.
Part of him wondered if it was all just bullshit, another lie along with all the rest they had told him. But messing with fixed points had never ended well. (He remembered gunshots in an empty house. Monsters tearing apart a church in search of one man. No. Best to leave those points alone).
“But you change things all the time. I mean what we just did-”
“We put things back on the correct path,” he said, “For this universe at least. There’s a universe out there where Maestro won, and the world did end in 1963. As for the rest of it,” he pulled a lever,
“I do my best to help who I can, but sometimes… sometimes there’s nothing I can do. Like with my people, or with Susan.”
“Or with my birth mother,” Ruby whispered
“Or with your birth mother,” he agreed. Ruby nodded and he knew she understood. Like Rose, like Donna, like Yaz, like they all did eventually.
“But!,” he said, springing up again with the energy that led to a new adventure, “For all those things I can’t change there’s thousands more I can. They named me a renegade for a reason. So, Ruby Sunday,” he grinned at her, pulling against a lever, “Where to next?”
“How about,” Ruby said, leaning against the railing, “We go an make a cup of tea, and you tell me about your granddaughter.”
He paused again. Come on Spaceman, Donna seemed to say, Let us in. He forced his shoulders to relax, his mind to settle. This body was better at that, but still the urge to move, to run, flooded every part of him.
“I don’t know how much I’ll be able to tell,” he admitted.
“Just whatever you can,” Ruby said, taking both his hands in hers.
He took a breath, “Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Susan was the one who introduced me to the Beatles,” he said, before he lost his nerve. “Was the first music I heard from Earth.”
“Yeah?” Ruby smiled, “Did we make a good impression?”
“I hated it.”
“You didn’t .”
“I did! I was young and stupid and I did!”
“Unbelievable,” Ruby shook her head and laughed, “What changed?”
“Well Susan listened to them nonstop of course, and then came Ian, Barbara, and Vicki and they all loved-”
“Wait how many people have traveled with you?”
“Oh, ummm…”
“Wait, staying on topic, pin in that. Susan.”
“Susan,” he agreed, letting her drag him to the kitchen.
Right now, a few miles away, his former self was in the Tardis. Right now Susan would be getting home, and telling him about her day. Maybe she would mention the stranger she saw, and maybe she wouldn’t. Right now he was there, tottering around too focused on keeping his secrets and staying hidden to enjoy the world around him. They were having tea too, probably, while Susan begged him for a record player and he shook his head at Earthen music.
Right now Ian Chesterton was walking home from school, trying to ignore the way his hand had brushed against Barbara’s for a second in the hallway, and wondering how on Earth young Susan Foreman could claim to have seen an image of an atom. Right now Barabara Wright was searching for another textbook Susan would enjoy, since the child was months ahead on homework and read anything Barbara gave her in one night. She was also thinking about the young Chemistry teacher and his kind smile.
In a few months, they would follow Susan and enter a junkyard. In a few months his life would be changed forever, and with it the flow of time.
But for now there was the Tardis, there was Ruby, a cup of tea, and stories waiting to be told.