Chances Are

Chances Are

Chapter Four: The Human Race

    “Gypsy?”

    She shrugged. “Seems appropriate. You’re the Doctor, you fix things and apparently you actually know something about healing people. I never stay in the same place for very long, always running. Gypsies were nomad Romanians here on Earth, correct?”

    The Doctor was impressed... sort of. “You are a book worm, aren’t you? You’re right, yes, but they weren’t just Romanians-”

    “But also Irish, Southeast Asian, and the Yeniche people which consisted of the German, Austrian, Swiss, French, and Belgium nomads.” She gave him a cocky grin. “I’m not just a book worm, I’m the book worm.”

    “Huh. Well could be worse, you could’ve decided on ‘The Mistress’.” Gypsy raised an eyebrow at that.

    “Kinky but whatever. Ok, I don’t feel like my insides are on fire or about to fall out, so what about this Chris-something you promised me?” She buckled up her coat, knowing now after running out two times that it was cold, and honestly this wasn’t the most practical coat to stay warm in. The decision between fashion and function that plagued teens and parents on Earth was in fact fairly universal.

    “Ok, first no, second say it with me: Christ-mas,” The Doctor mouthed the word slowly, then stopped when he recognized the look Rose would give him when she was about to smack him, usually after making a derogatory remark about humanity.

    “Ok, Christ-mas. Satisfied?”

    “No but it’ll do.” He grabbed his brown trench coat from the railing and shrugged it on, going deliberately slower when Gypsy started tapping her foot impatiently. Checking for his screwdriver and psychic paper in the pockets, he was finally ready to get going.

    “All right, British Christmas, here we go!”

    They left the TARDIS, two Time Lords in sweeping coats, Gypsy equipped with a thermos of tea as her regeneration cycle once again left her gasping, close to a neural implosion. She fought him on it but finally gave in, so curious to discover this “Christ-mas” that she impatiently snatched the thermos after a few minutes and snapped it onto her belt loop. Apparently it was some kind of clever regenerating thermos, took a scan of the contents and kept it full until deactivated.

    The first place the Doctor took her was along the shops on Oxford Street, not to shop but to look at the displays. They spent two hours there as he explained the significance of snow, reindeer, sleigh, obese men in bright red and white fur, the gifts, the star of David, all the things that made the holiday season. Gypsy was fascinated, pointing at the lights and men dressed as Saint Nicholas playing instruments. She insisted they stop at an ATM and took out hundreds of dollars to give the veteran in the wheelchair ringing the bell, and consequently being dragged away by an irritated Doctor after commenting about having been through seven wars herself, thoroughly confusing the poor man.

    Gypsy was still in her regeneration cycle; her normal ability to sift through the air, the very sequence of time to establish her location and pinpoint herself in the time stream was overshadowed by the almost constant implosion of regeneration energy crackling in her blood, popping beneath her skin and crackling in her fingertips. If she had been out of this cycle, she could have easily just stepped out of the TARDIS and felt all of if for herself. But there was something about the way the Doctor explained things, a glow in his eyes and the excitement in his smile, that made her think even if she had all of the powers of a Time Lord, she probably would have faked the knowledge. She knew his history, and explaining human customs to a non-human was probably fairly new to him, and knowing how much he adored Earth and the human race, she concluded that this must a form of a “Christ-mas” gift for him, and she wouldn’t take that away from him. Not when it made him so happy.

    Honestly, Gypsy and the Doctor knew she should be in bed sleeping through these fifteen hours, but he also knew from the short time they’d been together that she would have fought him on it and probably won anyway. With tea and self-replicating thermos in hand, she’d be fine. When he suggested that they try ice skating a the Hampton Court Palace, she grabbed his hand eagerly and demanded to know which way.

    They boarded a double decker bus (“Primitive but kind of cozy,” Gypsy commented) and watched London in Christmas pass by. Watching the people shop, especially a curvy blonde in a pink hoodie, he drifted back to when he took Rose to the shopping Mecca of the Pentyur galaxy, the biggest mall in the universe. She’d jumped up and down (Jack too) and squealed:

    ”This is fantastic! I’m never gonna be able to go back to normal shops again! Do they have chips?”

    “Doctor?” Gypsy nudged him, noticing how his dark eyes glazed over and filled with tears. “Doctor, are you all right?” He didn’t answer her, just rubbed his eyes and continued staring out the window.

    Gypsy knew that look, knew it so well that it was practically tattooed on her face, she wore it so often. It was the look of loss, of a sudden, cutting loss. She could feel his sadness and had to forcibly shut herself out of his mind. She wouldn’t pry, wouldn’t sneak into his head. He was already angry at her, she didn’t want to make it worse.

    “So,” she said quietly, facing straight ahead, “Who was she?” That yanked him out of his reverie, his head snapping to face her, his eyes dark and full of pain and accusation. “The one you lost, who was she?”

    His eyes narrowed. “It’s not-”

    “Think about it, Doctor,” she said just as softly, still facing straight ahead, “I’m probably the only other person in the entire universe who is going to understand exactly what you’re feeling, all that pain, all that loneliness and solitude and fear of feeling anything for anyone because you might end up exactly where you are right now- with another bleeding wound to both of your hearts that will scar but it never heals, not even a little.” She turned then, her green eyes rimmed in red, unshed tears threatening to spill over. “They die and you have to go on, and you’re so old and tired but you never really learn, just keep on loving and losing, until both your hearts are nothing but scars, painful and always hurting. It never gets easier.” She turned away again, wetness trailing down her cheeks. “I tried so hard not to get close to anyone, to stay to myself, but no one can live their entire lives alone, much less a Time Lord. That’s our curse, our heritage: to watch the universe die and feel every moment. All the powers of the vortex and we can’t stop time going forward.”

    The Doctor stared at her, dumbfounded as she furiously wiped away her tears, muttering about how this regeneration just wouldn’t stop leaking. She was absolutely right. Every word that came out of her mouth was exactly what he’d always felt, like with every person he made the mistake of loving, the aching gap in his chest grew, a black hole that he had to fight to keep from consuming him, mind and soul. In her eyes he saw the same eternity, the same unbearable expanse of time that they had to live. Alone. They saw the expanse of the universe and in a way it had driven them both mad.

    “Rose,” he croaked, swallowing hard. “Her name was Rose, and I- I-” Even now he couldn’t say it, couldn’t let the pain form into words, words that tore and burned his hearts. It hurt to keep it in and it hurt to say, and he wondered if it would ever really stop hurting.

    “You love her,” she said simply. He was grateful she didn’t use the past tense, but then she knew. She knew. He nodded. They didn’t speak again until they reached their stop.

    It turns out that Gypsy was a fantastic ice skater and the Doctor was well... not so much. He kept stumbling and falling, with every fall a new insult on humanity. Gypsy finally took pity on him, helping him up and telling him to hold onto her waist, which he did reluctantly. She pulled him along, laughing when she terrified him with a sudden figure eight. They spent an hour like that, long enough for him to at least be able to slide along slowly on his own with Gypsy in front of him to catch him if he fell again.

    “You’re really rubbish at this!” she teased, skating a circle around him. “The great and awesome Time Lord, nine hundred and five years old, tenth regeneration and you can’t handle a little simple ice skating?”

    “Oh now you’ve done it!” he tried to lunge at her, only to end up on his stomach in the ice. Switching from teasing to alarm, she skidded to a stop and dropped down, helping him up.

    “Are you ok?”

    “Yeah, no I’m fine, just... humbling I guess, ‘great and awesome Time Lord’ can’t ice skate without falling over.” Gypsy smiled at him and they slowly made their way to the edge of the rink.

    “All right, I’ll tell you something, mind you it’s to make you feel better, and if you ever tell anyone I told you this, I’ll drop you in the Medusa Cascade.” He cocked an eyebrow at that as they climbed out the rink and sat on a bench, toeing off the skates. “I can’t dance worth a damn, the last time I tried, the poor guy had to have two casts and a testicle retrieval.”

    The Doctor’s mouth dropped open, justifiably horrified. “Exactly how did his testicles become involved?”

    “When he decided to cop a feel while spinning me, he gave up the right to have testicles.” She winked at him and buckled her boots back up, smoothing her jeans over.

    “Right...”

    “All right ‘Oncoming Storm’, I’ve seen Santa and deers that rain and snow and an infant in a haystack, what else is there to Christmas on Earth?”

    The Doctor grinned, a wide, enigmatic grin that actually scared Gypsy a little bit. “The best part of Christmas, Gypsy. Absolutely the best part.” He glanced skyward, towards the clear night sky dotted with stars, then shot off the bench and grabbed her hand, yanking her up and dragging her into a dead run.

    Cheeks cold and red, they finally made it to wherever the Doctor wanted them to be, near a large river. Gypsy looked out across the water, eyes lighting up at the large wheel colored in purple lights. “It’s beautiful! Is this what you wanted me to see, this large circle thing?”

    “What? Oh, no, that’s the Eye of London, this large ferris wheel type thing, has this big pods that people sit in so you can get to the top and see all of London. It’s... it’s pretty amazing.” He placed one hand on her shoulder and the other covered her eyes, and he turned her completely around. “But what I actually wanted to show you was... this.”

    He pulled his hand from her eyes and she gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. The Doctor had brought her to one of the historical streets, large buildings that spanned the centuries, from the Tudors to Victoria’s reign to the chic twenties, buildings frozen in time all lined up neatly together. But the most incredible part to Gypsy was what covered the buildings: billions upon billions of tiny lights, a million different colors, completely covered each building from roof to door, trimmed in garland and wreaths. It was bright and dazzling, the lights dancing occasionally, lighting up the street like daylight.

    For what felt like the hundredth time in just seven hours, her vision got hazy and wetness trailed down her cheeks. “By the suns of Gallifrey, this is incredible! Humans, they take something so ordinary, so functional as a light, and they turn it into just this... this amazing thing!” She looked at him, green eyes boring into brown, “It’s like I’m staring at all the joys of the human race, right here, right now in this street. These are just shops, ordinary shops, and... and-”

    “I know,” he said quietly, quirking the right side of his mouth. “I’ve been coming here for over seven hundred years, and there’s never been a time where I didn’t feel just like you. Humans are a humbling, brilliant, amazing species, even for Time Lords.” He was taken completely off guard by her next action, so uncharacteristic for the short tension-filled time they’d been together so far.

    Gypsy lunged at him, wrapping her arms around his neck in what he knew was a hug (he practically lived off them). Tentatively he wrapped his arms around her waist, and for a full 1.2 seconds they hugged before she pulled back, turning back to the lights.

    “I’ve never done that before,” she said softly, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “My father wasn’t the hugging type, not that affectionate.”

    “Yeah, I know the feeling,” the Doctor replied softly, glancing at her before turning to gaze opposite of her, at the Thames and the Eye.

    Gypsy smiled without warmth. “Guess that old Gallifreyan saying is true: ‘We are gods of time and space, but fools in love.’”

A/N: So this started before I had seen the entire series, so now I’m going to go back, modify all the chapters a bit, and then continue on. I have another fic, a book, and homework soon, but my goal is a chapter a week if possible for both of them. R&R, makes my day!