earlgreytea68 | Something About Stars (9/20)

Title - Something About Stars (9/20)
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 - I somehow got talked into doing Bikram yoga tomorrow after work. This means that, best case scenario, I get home sometime after 9, and worst case scenario, I die. So, here's an early post for you this week!

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 - Ch 7

Chapter Eight

Athena went to visit Fortuna. Because, when a girl is going to complain about men, the best person to complain to is her sister.

Athena found Fortuna in the middle of baking a cake.

“I thought you might be coming to visit me,” Fortuna informed her. “You’re all muddled up here.” Fortuna pointed to her head.

“I’m not muddled,” retorted Athena. “I’m furious.”

“About what?” asked Fortuna, mildly, sliding her cake into the oven.

“I went to bring Thhhhhhhhhhhmyrian fudge to Matt.”

“Why?”

“Because he loves it.”

“Why were you bringing it to him? Is it his birthday?”

“His birthday?” echoed Athena. “No, it was…He was nice to me, about…It doesn’t matter. I was just trying to be nice, that’s all. I was just trying to be nice.”

“And what happened?” asked Fortuna, and then indicated her kettle. “Tea?”

“What?” Athena looked confused, then nodded. “Yeah, fine.” Athena sat at Fortuna’s kitchen table, warming to her story now. “So I go to his flat, right? And he’s not there. So I put the Thhhhhhhhhhhmyrian fudge in his fridge, and I leave him a note, and I turn around and there is a human girl there.”

“You don’t say,” remarked Fortuna. “A human girl. On Earth. Where humans are the native species. This is quite amazing, Theenie. I mean, it would have been more amazing had you encountered a Sycorax, or a Slitheen, but a human girl is noteworthy.”

Athena frowned at the sarcasm. “The point is that it was a human girl in Matt’s kitchen.”

“Ah,” said Fortuna, and turned as her kettle clicked.

“I don’t think you’re grasping the true importance of this, Fortuna. Her name was Kelly. Kelly!”

“Theenie,” said Fortuna, calmly pouring hot water into the teapot. “I definitely grasp the true importance of this. Much better than you do.”

“What does that mean?” demanded Athena. “You sound like the bloody Oracle at Delphi.”

Fortuna put the pot on the table between them. “I make much more sense than the Oracle at Delphi. Tell me about the human girl.”

“Kelly.”

“Yes, Kelly.” Fortuna sat opposite Athena, looking politely interested.

Athena frowned again. There was something unnerving about Fortuna. Something smug, she thought. She narrowed her eyes and said, “Well, I took back his Thhhhhhhhhhhmyrian fudge.”

“Took it back?”

“Out of his fridge and onto my TARDIS. It was very satisfying.”

“And what did Kelly say?”

“Not much of anything. She just stared. Matt was saying enough, anyhow.”

“Matt was there?”

“Oh. Yes. He showed up and…He showed up.”

“And what?”

“What?”

“He showed up and what?”

“We quarreled,” said Athena.

“About what?”

“I don’t even know.”

Fortuna looked at her, brown eyes steady. “You do know, Theenie.” Fortuna leaned forward and poured out their tea.

“There you go being cryptic, again. Honestly, it is very Oracle at Delphi, Fort.”

Fortuna nudged Athena’s teacup over to her and then said, “You’re in love with Matt, Athena.”

Athena stared at her in shocked silence. “What? No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” said Fortuna, and sipped her tea.

Athena was speechless. She took her hair down, shook it out, put it back up, tied her pink ribbon, and then said, “This is outrageous.”

“Uh-huh,” said Fortuna.

“I’m not in love with him, Fortuna. I love him, of course I love him, he’s Matt, you love him, too, but I’m not…it’s not…”

“You have one of his sweatshirts.”

“What?”

“We all went to watch the fireworks on New France, for Bastille Day. Matt had a sweatshirt on, because he and Brem had been somewhere cold just before that. Matt thought he lost it, he was looking for it later. You kept it.” Fortuna sipped her tea again.

Athena looked shocked. “How did you know that?”

Fortuna smiled. “Actually, I didn’t, until just now.”

Athena squeaked. “I only kept it because…because…well, I was going to wash it for him, eventually—”

“You kept it because it reminds you of him, so that you have something of his when you miss him. You’re absurdly in love with him, Theenie. And you should tell him, because he loves you back. He’s always loved you back.”

Athena untied and retied her ponytail again. “There was a human girl named Kelly, Fort—”

“What did Matt say to you? When you quarreled?”

“I don’t know, he said…He said…I don’t know, that I didn’t have any right to be upset with him, and…I don’t know, something about decades and centuries.”

“Decades and centuries,” repeated Fortuna.

“Yes, how he didn’t have centuries, he had decades. It didn’t make sense, Fort.”

“Oh, Theenie.” Fortuna’s smile was affectionate. “He’s not wrong. He doesn’t have centuries, he has decades. How long can you expect him to wait? At the end of it all, he’s going to be a blink of an eye to you, Theenie. You have to go tell him you love him now, you’ll regret every moment you wasted not telling him.”

Athena stared at Fortuna, trying to process what she was saying. The possibility existed that she was in love with Matt Mailloux. The possibility existed that every relationship she’d ever had had failed because she had long ago given her hearts to someone else. The possibility existed that she had been spoken for, for years, and had foolishly never realized it. "Oh," she said, breathlessly. "I'm in love with Matt."

"Yes," agreed Fortuna, kindly, sipping her tea.

"How did I not...?"

"You're thick about these things. You get it from Dad. It's okay."

How could Fortuna so calmly be sipping her tea? "What am I going to do?" she demanded.

"You should tell him, Theenie. It will make him very, very happy. And I think he will make you very, very happy."

Suddenly, Athena could see the fork in the golden thread of her timeline. She could see it barreling upon her. How could she not have seen this before? She was going to have to make a choice, if she didn’t make it now the opportunity might be lost to her forever. “What if he…”

“He watches every move you make, Athena, for the slightest signal from you, the tiniest indication. Go to him. You won’t even have to say it. He’ll know. Now. The only decision to make is whether you should go before or after you finish your tea.”

***

They followed the Ood through a cave scattered over with candles, with a fire around which a number of Ood sat.

“Doctor,” said one of the Ood. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Yes, that’s what you keep telling me,” replied the Doctor, in clipped tones. “Anyone want to tell me why?”

“We do not know,” said another Ood.

“The mind of the Ood is troubled,” said yet another.

The Doctor looked quizzically among the Ood. “Why? What’s happened?”

“Every night, Doctor, we have bad dreams.”

“About what?”

There was an Ood muttering in the corner, rocking over a pot, waving its fumes toward him.

The Doctor felt Rose inch closer, her hand curled over his in his pocket.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, nervously.

“He’s Seeing,” the Doctor answered, and stepped forward, trying to determine the individual words the Ood was saying.

“Returning, returning, returning, it is slowly returning, through the dark and the fire and the blood, always returning, returning to this world. It is returning. And he is returning. And they are returning. But too late. Too Late. Far too late. He has come.”

The Doctor turned to one of the other Ood. “What’s that mean? It doesn’t make sense to me. What’s returning?”

“Events are taking shape. So many years ago and yet changing the now,” answered the Ood the Doctor had asked.

“Riddles,” said the Doctor. “These are riddles. Time is always in flux, the now is always changing, what are you talking about?”

“We see so much, but understand little,” replied the Ood.

“You and me both,” muttered the Doctor.

“A shadow is falling over creation,” said another Ood. “Something vast is stirring in the dark.”

“The Ood have gained this power to see through time,” contributed another. “Because time is bleeding. Shapes of things once lost are moving through the veil. And these events from years ago threaten to destroy this future. And the present. And the past.”

The Doctor stared around at them. He thought. And then he said, “Well. Thanks, then. Is that the only message you’ve got for me?”

“Only this,” said an Ood who hadn’t spoken before. “Songs are ending, Doctor.”

The Doctor went still. “What songs? What do you mean?”

“Songs, Doctor. Your song. The songs around you. Ending.”

Rose shivered against him.

The Doctor looked at her and said, “We’re going.”

He turned and led them out of the cave, past the carpets of candles. He could hear the Seeing Ood, behind them, muttering, over and over, Ending, ending, ending…

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