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earlgreytea68) wrote2010-07-01 07:22 am
Something About Stars (19/20)
Author -
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earlgreytea68 Rating - General
Characters - Ten, 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 - Sorry for the delay. And for the short chapter.
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 - Ch 8 - Ch 9 - Ch 10 - Ch 11 - Ch 12 - Ch 13 - Ch 14 - Ch 15 - Ch 16 - Ch 17
Chapter Eighteen
The Doctor found Matt in his kitchen, washing out the buckets the family had used to scrub up the blood stain.
“Where is everyone?” he asked, leaning against the doorjamb.
Matt glanced at him. “Oh, they went to move Theenie’s TARDIS. I don’t know why they all had to go, but they seemed to think it was a field trip.”
“They probably wanted to talk about you. They do that. My family is very gossipy.”
“That’s the most human thing about all of you,” remarked Matt, dryly, squeezing out his dishcloth.
“I’m not angry at you, you know,” announced the Doctor, abruptly. “I was really only teasing you, before. I’m not…I’m not angry at you.”
Matt turned to him. “I didn’t think you were.”
“Okay.”
Matt folded his arms and crossed his ankles and leaned against his kitchen counter and ventured, slowly, “I’d…like to marry her. It’s an Earth custom, to ask the father for permission, first, and I didn’t know if—”
“The Gallifreyan custom is that you should wrestle with three goats and bring me the black blood of a flying pig-raven,” said the Doctor.
Matt blinked. “Oh,” he said.
“I’m joking,” said the Doctor. “We don’t have a custom. You have no need for my permission, if she will have you. But you have it. My permission, I mean. If you want it.”
Matt smiled a bit. “Thank you. So now I just have to convince her she wants to marry me.”
“She will. Your timelines are tangled with ours, Matt, didn’t I tell you that years ago? Something tells me you’ll not be able to escape this life.”
“I’m okay with that,” said Matt. “It’s a good life.”
The sound of a TARDIS materializing echoed into the kitchen. The Doctor looked at it, watched as his family tumbled out of it, collapsing with laughter over something.
He looked back at Matt and said, “It’s better with six.”
***
The last lingering sound of a de-materializing TARDIS faded away.
Matt looked at Athena. “My God,” he said. “This has been the most unbelievable day of my life.”
Athena smiled.
“And now I really need to sleep.”
“Ah,” she said, trying not to look too disappointed. “Okay.”
He paused and twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. “I know,” he said, “that we have a ton of stuff to discuss. But I’m exhausted, and I’d rather discuss it all when I’m awake. If that’s okay.”
“Of course.” She nodded and kissed him gently. “Do you mind if I sleep with you?”
“That,” he grinned, “I definitely do not mind. These are the things I don’t mind.” He punctuated them with kisses. “You wearing my shirts. You sleeping with me…”
It ended up being much longer before Matt fell asleep than he had quite intended.
Athena, not tired, watched the sun brighten the room and then start to fade away, thinking how very off Matt’s sleeping schedule was now, and how it would get worse the longer he stayed with her. She thought of his work, which she knew he loved, saving people, and she knew he was good at it. She thought of his parents, here on Earth, Matt their only adored child. She listened to the world turn under Matt’s bed.
He stirred finally, coming awake with a slow, lazy stretch and mumbling something as he buried his lips against her neck in a half-kiss.
“Matt,” she said.
“Mmm,” he responded, and opened his eyes and smiled at her.
“I think we should get married,” she said.
He blinked, then his smile widened. “Do you?”
“Yes. Don’t you?”
“I do. In fact, I asked your father for permission already.”
“Permission?” repeated Athena, with a little frown. “Why would you need his permission? I can marry whoever I like.”
“It’s an old-fashioned Earth custom, and I’m an old-fashioned Earthling. So. Athena. Rose. Tyler.” He planted three kisses between her names, forehead, bridge of nose, tip of nose. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said. “And we can live here.”
He drew back, looking confused. “Here?”
“Well, anywhere you like. This place will probably be a bit small once we have babies.”
“Babies?” he echoed.
“Matt, love, keep up with me.”
“I’ve learned from experience that’s impossible.”
She grinned, then sobered and rubbed the back of her hand over the stubble on his cheek. “I’m not going to…” She watched her hand and took a deep breath. “I’m not going to belabor this point, Matt, I’ll only say it once and then not again, but we don’t have very long, you and I.” She looked at him then. “Not to me. It’s a blink of an eye. And I know it’s not to you, and I won’t make us live every day under the pressure of that for me, I never would, but I just need to say it now that we have to do everything, Matt. We have to enjoy every single moment. Promise me we won’t waste any of them.”
He rubbed his thumb over the curve of her lower lip and said, solemnly, “I promise.”
“It would be better if you agree right now that I’m always going to be right, so that we don’t waste any precious time quarrelling.”
Matt grinned. “You little brat,” he said, rolling to trap her underneath him, and she laughed until he kissed her. “We’re not living here,” he told her, coming up for air.
“We’re not?”
“No. You, Athena Tyler—”
“Soon-to-be Mailloux,” she added.
“Soon-to-be Mailloux,” he agreed. “You, Athena Tyler Soon-to-be Mailloux, you are going to show me, and our children, and our children’s children, and our children’s children’s children the stars.”
Next Chapter
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