roleplay for alainn_aislinn

[rude_not_ginger]

At least Byron wouldn't be on the ship long enough to try to shag Rose. Just the idea of that irritated the Doctor in new and interesting ways.

Why was this Byron fellow getting under his skin? Maybe because he was the sort of capable, charming type that could take Rose away from the Doctor if he tried hard enough. Maybe it was because the Doctor had more than a few of Byron's poetry books, and therefore couldn't call the man anything but a genius in the literary sense.

So frustrating.

Not as frustrating, of course, as the TARDIS was being. It kept registering a non-human lifeform within the console room. At first the Doctor figured it was reading Rose (after the Time Vortex incident, she never did show up as fully human according to the TARDIS scanners), but she'd been gone for a good fifteen minutes, now, and the scanner shouldn't have been continually reading her.

Unless...

He looked up and around the console room. Nothing was there...or was it?

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[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor looked down at her in a bit of surprise at her touch. For all his friendliness and love of other people and species, physical contact wasn't common for him with anyone, really. She wasn't trying to hurt him, that was obvious. Perhaps her species, whatever she was, was more textile.

"Oooooh, this is where I live," he said, looking around the TARDIS, "Lived here for a good couple of centuries now, can't quite think to leave."

Followed the girl, followed Rose.

He gave Aislinn a curious look, "Why were you following the girl?"

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

She kept her fingers light on his cheek until he asked the question, at which point she flitted away with a shrug, wandering and touching things lightly here and there, familiarizing herself with the TARDIS, and slightly hypnotized by all the colors.

"She's different." It was an answer, if not the full one. "She doesn't belong here." Which was a completely wild guess based solely on the girl's British accent and the Doctor's commentary of being from far away and snippets of conversation. But it was better than the truth, which she couldn't have quite expressed anyway. And it was truth, in its own right as well as she felt the flare of jealousy again. She didn't belong with him.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor nodded again, "No, I suppose she doesn't. Bit of a wanderer, like me. Neither of us belong anywhere, not exactly, anyway."

He had a feeling he should've recognized her by now. She had the graceful bird-like movements of Nyssa, mixed with the youth of someone like Dodo or Vicki...but the TARDIS would've recognized her if she was Traken, and that entire race was gone, now. Like the Timelords, in that way.

"How did you see her, Rose? The girl, that is. Where did you start following her?"

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

Another little shrug, turning back to look at him, studying him intently.

"At his hotel." She thought. She'd hovered there a while, trying to get the courage to tell him she was glad he was alive. Days, maybe. Her sense of time was all off.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"His hotel?" the Doctor thought for a moment, "Oh, Byron's...oh. Oh."

Something very like jealousy resurfaced just below the Doctor's skin. It was one thing, teasing Rose about snogging Byron or whatever they might've been doing, it was another having some sort of confirmation as to it.

"Well, uh, she is, uh, well," he turned to the console (very like how a toddler would turn to a security blanket), flipping a few switches, "You know Byron, then? The man she was visiting? It was Byron, wasn't it?"

He rather hoped she wasn't snogging someone else besides.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

His jealousy triggered hers and her eyes filled with tears.

"I knew him. Before." Before they fought. Before he died. Whichever. Even she couldn't say for sure.

She wrapped her arms tight around herself, radiating her own distress, feeding off his. She didn't have a security blanket to hold on to, and gave every impression of being a very lost child.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor took a tentative step towards the girl, his jealousy replaced with concern, "Are you all right?" he asked.

She looked so very young, not unlike Rose herself in youth. Perhaps something had happened? The Doctor knew a bit about Byron's documented proclivities in the past, he could only hope they hadn't dribbled over into the modern day.

"Did he hurt you in some way?"

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

Her lower lip trembled, just a bit and she fought to keep from giving in to the tears. He had hurt her. He'd shut her out and wouldn't listen and took the poison and got lost and when you loved someone, that hurt.

She gave a little nod.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor took another step forward, placing a hand on her shoulder, "What did he do? What happened?"

Perhaps he should ask the more important question of Where is his hotel? so he could find Rose and get her out of there fast before he hurt her, too.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

He'd do as a security blanket in a pinch. Solid and warm and male and she slid her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest.

"He made me disappear." It was as close as she could get without going through it from the beginning.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Well, the Doctor hadn't exactly intended on this, but it worked, he supposed. Slightly awkwardly, he put his arms around her, trying his best to be comforting. Wasn't that often that a beautiful (probably) woman had her arms around him and her head on his chest. He'd only just gotten used to Rose doing that!

"Disappear?" he asked, gently. Was that some kind of a metaphor for something? Psychology was never really his strong point, not in this incarnation, at any rate.

"What do you mean, 'disappear', Aislinn?"

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

She frowned, even as she cried a little, and looked up at him. Her fingers rested over his--one of his hearts. That was different enough to distract her for a minute and she flitted fingers between them, listening to the different beats for a moment.

"Oh..." It was a delighted little sound of discovery, the tears drying up.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Goodness, she was frustrating. On a normal day, he might've appreciated that a) she was interested in his anatomy, he always did like talking about himself, or b) that she was not crying. As it was, it was not a normal day, it was a day where the most important person in his world was at a hotel with someone who could make this being 'disappear', whatever that meant.

"Aislinn," he repeated, a little more firmly, "Aislinn, how did he make you disappear?"

Perhaps he'd taken away the length of her attention span.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

She blinked at the firmness in his voice. People weren't very often firm with her.

"Oh." She frowned a little, trying to explain. "He took poison. He always...just a little, but then they turned on him again and so he took more and then he could only see the girl...me, the girl...but not me the real me. And he said I had abandoned him and he called me horrible names and nothing...he just..." She was crying again. "There was more and more poison and so much anger and bitterness and he hated himself so much. He always did, but then it was...they hurt him and I didn't mean to go away and leave, but he couldn't see me and I couldn't be just a girl."

She was really crying by the end, fingers curling in his shirt.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

That made...so little sense. Poison he could only interpret to be the man's drug addiction, and seeing the girl versus the real her...well, perhaps she'd been part of that drug scene he was in.

They hurt him, and in turn he somehow hurt her. This was going to be the most confusing conversation.

He stroked her hair gently, letting her cling to him, "Shhh...it's all right, it's all right, no one's going to hurt you in here." A pause. "Who were 'they', the ones that hurt him?"

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

She clung tighter, trying to stifle the tears so that she could explain better.

The one question at a time helped, but she was trembling, remembering it all.

"His fans. The press. The public. They loved him, and then they hated him and they tried to put him in prison..." Not that they'd all loved him, ever, but the ones that did, to turn. "He tried to give them the heavens and they just...they threw it back and so he died and was no one and he didn't know...He tried again. I was there. I helped, but he'd said things and he was...was sliding so far away...and then I was gone."

It made sense in her head?

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

It...sort of made sense? A bit of sense? Her credibility was diminishing. A bit. A little bit. Insanity was one way that humans coped with traumatic experiences, wasn't it? But she wasn't human, the Doctor could tell that simply from how she looked, not just her registration on the TARDIS.

Time for another question.

"Where did you go?" he asked. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, dabbing it gently on her wet cheeks.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

"Home, for a little while." She looked up at him anxiously, guilt flickering along with horror in her eyes. "I couldn't make him hear, anymore. So, I had to go. I was...sometimes there's just. You have to live and he was killing me, literally. I was starving and he couldn't...he blamed me, but it was the poison."

It was a soft, quiet admission, still wracked with agonized guilt. "I found a painter."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"You found a painter?" he tilted his head a little, "Are you...a muse? You were his muse, and he blamed you for how things ended up? You found a painter and he felt jealous?"

Well, at least he didn't hurt her physically, though the emotional hurt wasn't good, either. He held onto her, continuing to stroke her hair, keep her calm. An upset muse in the TARDIS was a bad, bad idea.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

She almost smiled at him for being so clever, but despair was still so close to the surface that it came out a lot wobbly.

"For almost two hundred years...and now..." There were painters. Writers. Musicians. But not like him.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Well, that made quite a few things make a bit more sense, then. Namely why she was so odd in apperance. Beautiful, but odd. Fairy-like because she was a faerie of some sort. The Doctor knew very little about mystical beings like that, but...well, it was something to add to his list of things he'd learned.

"Well, you've got nothing to be sad about here," he said, "You can relax, it'll be all right. We'll get you sorted out."

A pause, as he tried to think of something calming. Well, there was the Zero Room, some jelly babies, or... "Would you like a cup of tea? I can get one ready if you'd like it."

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

Her fingers tightened on his shirt for a moment, the mildest flutter of separation anxiety before she forced them to relax, smoothing the creases gently, the slightest tingle of magic in her fingers to really fix it.

She hiccuped as the tears finally stopped, but nodded. "I like tea." A pause, and then a softer, "Thank you."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor looked down at his shirt, then back up at the girl, with a bit of surprise in his face. That was...impressive.

He took her hand, "Come on, I'll get you some tea. Nothing to be worried about." Well, not really. The TARDIS was sending signals into his brain that registered something like worry at bringing a being it didn't know into its depths. Great. Now he had two worried females to try and calm.

[alainn-aislinn.livejournal.com]

She clung to his fingers and gave him a better smile, if still watery. She was tired, but the dual concern mingling with her own distress made her head spin more. She didn't know if she could feed into the TARDIS' emotions, but she tried the same soothing she'd tried with the Doctor, opening enough to her to try and tell her she really didn't mean any harm to her or the Doctor.

Or Rose for that matter, though the mere thought of the girl caused that spike of hurt and jealousy again. Another sniff. Another hiccup.

"Do you have cream?" Like most of her kind, dairy was a delightful delicacy to her.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Oooh, I think I can find something," he said, "The milk in the refridgerator's gone a bit bad, I'm afraid, but I think I can get the TARDIS to create something like it. She's not a bad tea lady, on top of being a time space machine and all that."

He stopped at the tea machine, punching in a few ingredients and sliding some (mostly) clean mugs underneath. Within moments, two teas---one with just milk, one with cream and several cubes of sugar next to the cup---appeared.

"Here you go," he said, handing her the one with cream, "It's good, really."