for ambitious_woman

[rude_not_ginger]

Trenzalore.

He promises himself he will remember this name. He'll hold onto it, he'll keep it deep inside and then---and then---well, he'll just have to do something about it, won't he?

Always facing down the fear of death. The Doctor had been convinced that this death, the one he was running from with his romance with Elizabeth, would be his last. He won't remember that he's going to regenerate, that he's not going to end. He'll go back to running. He'll always be running.

He looks at the scanner outside, of his future self and Clara, just waiting for him to go. He doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to think about the knocking, about how he's so convinced of his own death that he can't stop running.

He pulls the parking brake. I don't want to go.

Memories start to fade, even as the TARDIS starts him on his journey, starts him moving, backwards in time. Somewhere he needs to go. Somewhere he should go.

Comments

[ambitious_woman]

Spring, it seems, has arrived in Paris.

It is a shift Reinette inevitably feels before she sees, her body acknowledging the warming of the earth even before the first flowers of the season push free of it. There is the easing in her chest, the ability to breath once more. Emerging beauty and the freedom to inhabit it.

She rise even earlier than usual and following her coffee Reinette arranges to meet with her gardeners. As much as their was to do to care for her grounds in the winter, there will be even moreso now. And it is the flowers and trees that hold her attention now, as Louis' had drifted elsewhere. Of course that too had been inevitable, and a truth Reinette chose to meet halfway before it was the one to consume her.

Which means, of course, that she remains standing. In his home when she chose to, and still in Louis' heart and confidence. No, the court did not know what to make of that. And truthfully, Reinette did not care.

Let them wonder. She had more pressing things to attend to.

[rude_not_ginger]

Trenzalore is a distant memory when the TARDIS lands on the grounds in Paris, and a vague thought that might've been by the time he makes it to the door. Oddly enough, he doesn't feel like he's forgetting something when he steps out, nor does he doubt where he is. Paris. One of the first places he found himself when he regenerated. One of the first places he felt like he could stay.

After all, he married the wrong aristocrat. No, no, he never would have married Reinette. She was far too ambitious, far too many of her own plans. And he? Well, he was flawed if he wasn't free. But he should not have married Elizabeth. Such the mistake, even she would probably not understand why.

This whole space of time should be locked, now. He'd affected it too much. Did the Moment let him through, too?

[ambitious_woman]

The sound is not one she instantly recognizes. After all, it is not anything Reinette actually experienced for herself. Nevertheless, it is still there. Present and pressing and compelling her to walk towards it. For all that she herself cannot remember it, she recalls it all the same.

From someone else's mind. And from within their memories.

This, she knows, is his ship.

His home.

And apparently it had now decided to invade hers.

[rude_not_ginger]

He stops the moment the familiar scent of France fills his nose. He almost lived here. He was almost trapped here, forever. He can even think that he wouldn't have minded, not really. Not at first.

"Reinette," he says, his voice coming out as a low breath.

[ambitious_woman]

For some reason she cannot fathom Reinette battles a rush of irritation at the sight of him. Perhaps this moment is about her own failings. Failed mother. Failed mistress. Here in voluntarily isolation as she tried to understand what life will be next.

She is uncertain, in a way she rarely likes to entertain.

And yet here he is, sudden and familiar and so easy and yes. There is resentment.

"Doctor."