earlgreytea68 | Something About Stars (8/20)

Title - Something About Stars (8/20)
Author -

earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, OCs
Spoilers - Through the specials.
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids, they're all mine.)
Summary - Four Time Lords and a Bad Wolf human, gallivanting through time and space. What could possibly go wrong?
Author's Notes - Huge thanks to Kristin and

chicklet73 , who talked through plot points. Special thanks to Kristin for coming up with the title. And even more thanks to

jlrpuck and c73, who so graciously beta'd.

The icon was created by

swankkat , commissioned by

jlrpuck for my birthday.

Prologue - Ch 1 - Ch 2 - Ch 3 - Ch 4 - Ch 5 - Ch 6

Chapter Seven

It had to be about Cunodys. It was too much of a coincidence for both his father and him to notice that Athena had been going to Cunodys. Coincidences did not tend to follow Time Lords around. Things seldom didn’t happen for a reason.

So it had to be about Cunodys.

Brem had never been to Cunodys before. He had never had reason to. But he was willing to bet, if Athena had been dating a Cunodysian, that the planet was home to creatures with tentacles.

Brem materialized his TARDIS and opened the door and found himself staring at a barren, deserted landscape. Not just barren and deserted. Ruined. Destroyed. Crumpled buildings and devastated streets, and that silence that only inhabits the shadow of Something Very Bad. Brem did not leave the safety of his TARDIS. He stared out at what had clearly been a grand city and breathed, “What happened here?”

He stepped back into his TARDIS and closed the door and thought. He had taken a wild stab at the time that Athena would have been visiting the planet. He’d clearly been very far off. But he had been just in time for something. Something terrible and awful and there were no coincidences.

He rested his hand on his TARDIS’s console, thought, and then flipped some controls, swinging through the Vortex. He stepped out again into Matt’s living room. Matt was on the sofa, a basketball game on the television.

Brem sat on the other end of the couch. “I need a right-hand man,” he said, without preamble.

Matt looked at him. “For what?”

“The time skips have to do with Cunodys, and something happened on Cunodys, something—” Brem cut himself off, narrowing his eyes at Matt, who looked…off. “You okay?”

“Have you talked to your sister?” Matt asked.

Brem lifted his eyebrows. “Should I have?”

“Yes,” snapped Matt.

“Which sister?”

“She took all of her DVDs,” seethed Matt. “Can you imagine? Doing something petty like that?”

“Athena, then,” concluded Brem.

“I mean, honestly,” continued Matt, ignoring him, “of all the childish things to do—”

“You do know they’re not technically DVDs, they’re a collection of technologies from—” Matt glared at him. “Sorry,” he said. He was silent for a second. “What the hell happened?” he asked, finally.

“Somehow, someway, this is your fault,” Matt told him.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt,” Brem agreed, solemnly.

“For not telling her about Kelly.”

“Who’s Kelly?”

“My girlfriend.”

“Oh. That. Matt, I didn’t—”

“And then Athena was completely irrational and took her DVDs—”

“You are oddly fixated on the DVDs,” remarked Brem.

“I’m not fixated on anything! I’m not—” Matt cut himself off and sighed, closing his eyes and leaning his head back on the couch. “What are you here for again? Oh, right-hand man, was that it?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t—”

“I would follow her anywhere. I would spend every minute I have chasing after her through time and space. What does she not understand about that? There is nothing in my life here that is nearly as important as she is. All she has to do is ask me.”

“Have you told her that?”

“No. I decided it was wiser to take her at face value the first dozen times she rejected me.”

“Matt, that was in college. That’s unfair. She was a kid—”

“No,” Matt said, sharply, and opened his eyes. “It’s the most obvious thing in the world, Brem. She’s supposed to be some brilliant alien. She can figure it out without my being the one with the broken heart. Again.”

Brem paused. “She doesn’t know many humans, Matt. She knows Kate. Who said no when I asked her. So there’s some precedent that…She just needs a little time.”

“Which I don’t have. Not the way you mean it when you say it. Never mind. It doesn’t matter. It’s just that I’m not in the mood for an adventure right now, so can you do the right-hand man thing without me for a bit?”

“Yeah. It’ll keep anyway.” Brem stood up. He could go back to Cunodys at a different time in its history in a few hours’ time, and the few hours wouldn’t make much difference, in a world where he possessed a time machine. “Come and show me an Earth bar, Matthew. You can get drunk, and I can use my fabulous coat to pull us the prettiest girls there.”

“I have a girlfriend,” Matt reminded him.

He shrugged. “So I’ll use my fabulous coat to pull myself the prettiest girl there.”

“You and that coat,” said Matt, but he stood up and said, “You’re buying. You’re not flitting off and leaving me with the bill.”

Brem looked indignant. “Would I do that?”

“You have done it. And on planets where I didn’t have any money.”

“That’s because there were planet-ending events going on, Matt! Who can quibble about a bar bill when the planet may be ending?”

“You know, I don’t believe you anymore when you use that excuse. You’re like the boy who cried wolf.”

“An interesting cultural reference,” remarked Brem, watching Matt check that his door was locked behind them. “On Bou, you know, you encounter a similar story, only it’s about men claiming they’re not wearing toupees. ‘You’re like the man who said it really is that thick and luxurious,’ that’s what they say.”

“You’re totally making that up.”

“Wouldn’t I make up something better than that, if I was making it up?”

“God, I hope so.” Matt considered. “There’s something vaguely filthy about that saying. I mean, it just sounds like it should be.”

“Yeah, I’ve always thought so, too. Are we driving?” Brem asked, hopefully. “I could be the designated driver and drive us home.”

Matt barked laughter. “Do you think I’ve forgotten that you crashed my car the last time you ‘borrowed’ it?”

Brem pouted. “I’ve gotten better.”

“You haven’t. I know you haven’t. We’ll walk. Don’t pout, I know you run for a living, practically, you can handle walking a few blocks.”

Brem swept back his coat and stuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I’m sorry,” he said, abruptly.

“What?” Matt looked at him in surprise. “For what?”

“I…I don’t know. Is it my fault? It feels like it might be a little bit my fault.”

“It’s not. Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, you said it was.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“I know, but…I can talk to her, you know.”

“Don’t.”

“I know you always say that, but I don’t know if you’re right to tell me not to. I could get it sorted in two sentences, Matt.”

“Don’t.”

Brem sighed. “You’re very stubborn.”

“Pot, kettle.” There was a beat. “What’s that cultural reference on Toupee World?”

“You know,” mused Brem, “I don’t actually know.”

“You’re failing me.”

“I’ll try not to in the future.”

Matt paused by the entrance to the nearest neighborhood bar. “Seriously. Thank you for the offer. But don’t.”

Brem nodded shortly.

Matt nodded toward the door. “Go on. Show off your coat.”

“Molto bene,” said Brem.

***

It had to be about Cunodys. It was too much of a coincidence for both Brem and him to notice that Athena had been going to Cunodys. Coincidences did not tend to follow Time Lords around. Things seldom didn’t happen for a reason.

So it had to be about Cunodys.

The Doctor opened his TARDIS on a world covered in snow. He stood in the doorway and stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at it for a long moment, trying to figure out what it all meant. Cunodys. Had he ever been there before? It rang no bells, he could think of nothing significant about it. So why, suddenly, when Athena had visited it, did it start provoking time skips? He frowned.

Rose looked over his shoulder. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “A snow world! I have a new parka, wait a second.” He heard her rush off for her new parka.

He stepped cautiously out into the snow and paused. He didn’t know what he’d expected to happen. Did he think he would suddenly start skipping through time? But everything kept working normally. His frown deepened. He tilted his head back, looking up into the falling snow. What was it about this planet? What could it possibly be?

He heard Rose exit the TARDIS behind him, closing the door. He opened his mouth to tell her they were on Cunodys, and he was investigating, and they needed to figure out what about this place was so important.

And then Rose said, “Look! Ood!”

The Doctor stopped staring up into the sky, looking where Rose was pointing. There were indeed Ood. Three of them, standing and watching them as curiously as an Ood could watch anything.

“Where are we?” Rose asked him. He looked at her to find her sending him her teeth-tongue grin. “’S it related to Sanctuary Base 6?”

“No,” he said, honestly. “Or maybe. It’s…It’s Cunodys.”

“Cunodys?”

“Athena’d been making a lot of trips here. She said she was dating someone here.” The Doctor looked back at the Ood. “Athena was dating an Ood?”

Rose was silent for a second. “I hate to say it, but, well…tentacles, kind of.”

The Doctor shook his head, looking at the Ood, and realized something. “They’re calling me.”

“What?”

“They’re calling me. In the song. In my head. They’re calling me.”

Rose looked from him to the Ood and back again. “Why?”

“Dunno. Let’s find out.” He strode quickly out over the snow, Rose trailing in his wake, until they reached the Ood.

Who spoke first. “Doctor,” said one of them. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

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