roleplay for ibringlife and <lj site="livejournal.com" user="the_

[rude_not_ginger]

Stardusting

or

What Happens When a Mun Decides To Use Flavor Text and It Becomes a Plot All on Its Own


Now, it really, really would've been unprofessional for the Doctor to have gotten bored while waiting for Byron. He should've been thinking of all the ways that Byron could've been messing up time, what he could've been doing with Reinette, all those fantastic and wonderful things.

Of course, that would lead to extreme upset and a raging sort of jealousy.

Which, naturally, the Doctor would not have approved of. So, he busied himself with thinking of other things, like how many roundels there were in the console room. To do so, he was, of course, going to have to be comfortable, so he stretched out on the captain's chair.

Counting roundels? Very much like counting sheep.

He might've been snoring just a bit.

Cutely, though.

Comments

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"There's no need to come after me," Byron said quietly from the door. He was leaning against it, watching them for a moment, then moved in with a flash of a bright smile.

"I have to thank you, Doctor, for such an enlightening experience. Never let it be said that I doubted your prowess in time travel again. Shall we be off then? "

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Enlightening, was it?" the Doctor didn't bother to do much covering of his distaste for the entire situation, "At least you managed to not alter the time-space vortex, everything should be fine, she should still meet Rose in a few more years, and re-meet me five more after that without a problem."

He hopped to his feet, rubbing his eyes (not because he was picking the sleep out, of course not) and fiddling with the controls, "All right, back to your own time, then, Byron? Now that you're not convinced my companion here is mad?"

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

Rose looked a bit embarrassed at having been overheard by Byron, though she supposed it could've been worse: he could've been there when she fell on her head not five minutes previous. And she hadn't been the one who was worried.

"I'm not even convinced I'm not mad, Doctor," she teased, trying to lighten some of the weird tension that still seemed to be hovering about. "Sometimes I think that's your qualification for picking companions."

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"I didn't mind if you were," Byron said with a small smile at her. "The mad are far more interesting than the sane most of the time..."

He wasn't going to speak of what happened, nor let anything else show, no matter how surly the Doctor became.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Mad isn't a prequalifier," the Doctor replied, "Impudent apparently is, however."

He narrowed his eyes a bit at the TARDIS console, then flipped back up the switch he'd knocked down with his foot. Odd, what did that lever do?

"All right, preprogrammed coordinates to your home time and place," he flipped another switch, "Then Rose and I have a couple of interesting places to go." Jealous over him seeing Reinette? Oh, whatever would give you that idea?

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"Right. Home."

Rose tried very hard not to sound as disappointed as she felt, and she turned her attention to Byron, smiling brightly enough that she could almost believe she felt that bright, herself.

"Did you have a good time? Was it worth listening to the Doctor complain the whole way here?"

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"I had a lovely time, Rose. Thank you for making it possible." He kept the smile, however hard and forced.

"Where are you two off to, then, after dropping me off?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"My ship, my doing," the Doctor said, offhandedly, his eyes still on the controls, "Best be thanking me."

He snorted a little, the swirling Gallifreyan letters saying that something was wrong, but they had no idea what. Brilliant machine, really.

"Manclunian system," he said, "Got a ceremony to check out there, bicentennial. If it's good, I might take us 'round to the other side of the planet so we can watch it again. Like a double matinee."

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"I think he just did that," Rose grumbled, half under her breath, in response to the Doctor. To Byron, her smile turned almost apologetic.

"I wanted..." She hesitated, biting the inside of her lip.

There was no use dwelling on what she'd wanted, how she'd plead with the Doctor to bring Byron along for that, too, for the Stardusting ceremony that had sounded so brilliant. "I just wanted this to be fun, for you. Because time travel is, mostly, and I don't get to show it to people very often."

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"Indeed I did. First thing, but it was brushed aside with a grumble and what could be mistaken for snark. So I thought expressing my gratitude to Rose might be accepted." Byron's tone was mild, if dry, and then he'd practically dismissed the Doctor.

He leaned in to kiss Rose's cheek gently. "It was brilliant and the chance to see 18th century France was one thing I've always longed for, and never attained. There was no court like it, even when they reestablished the monarchy."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder, feeling that familiar jealousy-something hit him at Byron's intimacy with Rose. Intimacy. The one thing he could never really have with someone.

"How is she?" he asked, his voice a little quiet, "Reinette? How...is she?"

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"I'm glad." Rose smiled up at Byron, and might have said something more, but then the Doctor was talking and she felt some small twinge of... not quite guilt, exactly, but like maybe she shouldn't have pushed quite so hard for this trip, and maybe she shouldn't be standing there being so... friendly, with Byron.

Though there was a small twinge of jealousy in the way the Doctor asked after Reinette that replaced any other feelings she might have been having, at least for the moment.

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"A few years younger than when we spoke," Byron said drily, the only comment he was willing to make on the timing of their arrival and its inconvenience. "But she seems to be well. At the height of her glory, as it were."

He smiled back down at Rose, tucking a strand of her hair back behind her ear. "What did you all do to amuse yourselves, since you refused to leave the ship?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor nodded, eyes still on the console, "Good for her." That was the rest of what he planned to say regarding Reinette at all----he'd already mourned her loss, and there was no reason to pick at a wound that was only just healing.

Slipping on a mask of nonchalance (one he'd worked fairly hard to perfect), he shrugged, "Well, we chatted a bit, I counted the roundels in the console room...a rather exciting adventure in sitting, I imagine."

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"Which isn't all that different from a typical evening if the TARDIS is charging somewhere we can't go outside."

Rose thought it an impressive display of self-control not to have teased the Doctor about snoring, or possibly just reward for his not having teased her about falling over, both of which they might have done had company not been present.

"So. Back to boring old present-day Earth, then." Rose sighed, still not moving any further away from Byron regardless of the way the Doctor was very pointedly not looking at them.

"Though I guess not that boring for you, you've got rehearsals and things to get back to, yeah?"

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"And meetings. And recording." Byron smiled. "All sorts of things, yes."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Yes, sounds quite the dull life." It was strange, the sudden odd feeling of guilt that hit the Doctor. Rose wanted Byron to stay. And----

No, no 'and'. He was going home.

The console slid down again, and the controls flipped to 'landed'. The co-ordinates were wrong, though. Must've been a glitch from him hitting that switch.

"Uh...we're here. Take a peek outside, would you, Rose? Make sure I haven't landed us somewhere off?"

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"...'kay." Rose frowned a little, since he didn't usually worry about that sort of thing, but shrugged and did as she was told.

...

The shriek she emitted after a moment's silent disbelief could perhaps have been mistaken for something less joyful, particularly as she immediately disappeared out the door. However, as she dashed back in a moment later, beaming and fairly bouncing up and down with excitement, there couldn't be any mistaking her delight.

"You! You liar!" She ran over to hug the Doctor, and never quite stopped bouncing even as she did.

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

Byron blinked and stared at both of them.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor was just about as befuddled as Byron. This was...unexpected, to say the least. Maybe she was very excited about leaving Byron behind, but that wasn't what the Doctor thought she wanted. And if that were true, it was rather impolite of her to show such excitement around Byron, might hurt his feelings a bit.

Wait, he was a liar and she was excited? What?

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"I should've guessed, but you do the whole annoyed act so well..." Rose released the Doctor and stood shaking her head at him in mock disapproval for a moment, until she remembered her former excitement and ran back to the doorway, staring out in wonder at the scene before her.

She couldn't see much, yet, because it was rather dark, but what she did see held her in rapt wonder. A city, buildings made of dark obsidian glass rising up all around them, and in the gaps where buildings weren't, strange beautiful trees, totally at odds with the idea of city, not to mention all this darkness, and yet somehow fitting in perfect harmony.

It was beautiful, and from here and there she could see a faint glow that she wanted to get out and race toward to find the source of.

She did, however, remember her manners, and turned back around to hold her hand out to Byron, a gleeful invitation offered even as she flashed a brief look of gratitude to the Doctor.

"Come on, you have to see this. It's brilliant."

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

Byron was confused about exactly what she was so excited about. It was New York. A nice city to be sure, but surely nothing worth all of this?

He took her hand though, with a smile. "What's brilliant?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

A little bit of worry, then a flash of realization. Oh. The preprogrammed control switch, that was why the coordinates weren't reading right, they'd gone to the Stardusting Ceremony rather than New York.

Well, damn.

The glee on Rose's face was quite wonderful, though, and if he admitted that she'd just be terribly irritated.

"Oh, uh, well, I, uh..." he scratched the back of his head and followed, "Thought, uh, it would be a nice surprise."

[ibringlife.livejournal.com]

"I've never seen anything like it. Just look!"

She pushed the door the rest of the way open and led the way out into the twilight that she imagined would deepen fully into dark before the ceremony was to begin. Or maybe it was always like this, neither the black of night nor the bright day, but always dusky, too dark to be grey but never quite so dark you couldn't find your way through it.

Whatever it was, it was gorgeous. She wondered to herself how the plants stayed so lush without the benefit of the sun. She'd never quite gotten used to how different some of these places could be.

"Isn't it amazing?"

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

Byron followed her out and froze at the dusk, the glass city, the trees around.

Not New York, then.

Somehow traveling through time had seemed the merest bit of fascination, but this? Nowhere on earth could that quality of light exist. Nowhere had he seen a city built of this glass. Never had he even heard of black flowers created by nautre.

"It's..." The hurt from before still lingered, but he was a poet, and this was beauty and hurt mattered nothing compared to this. "I've never seen anything so breathtaking."