rude_not_ginger | RP for perfectblue

He was letting too much out. He put on a large, very false grin and waved her concern away.

"Naaaah, just gotta find that fob watch, keeping you our resident amnesiac isn't going to help either of us, is it?"

She was so not Illyria, it made him miss Illyria more. Which was frustrating, because being without her so long made it easier to get used to being without her.

"I'm not bothered by it, now. Not as much anyway." A tiny shrug, at that.

"From what I hear I was... difficult to associate with. I suppose it goes with the territory of being what I was, but it seems to me that I might've gotten very lonely."

"Well. I like you," the Doctor said, simply. "People who say that aren't important. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Those who say it seem to like me well enough in spite of it, unless they are only being polite to this version of me."

Illyria frowned a little, more in thought than displeasure.

"Did you enjoy being human, when you were?"

The Doctor took a breath, then looked away from her again.

He thought about Joan, about all the things that John Smith felt for her, felt for the boys at school. Everything seemed so simple and right back then. God, country and all that. And he had love.

"It...was different."

"Obviously it would be," she replied, sounding a little like the old Illyria.

"Were you very different? There are things that... now and then, I get the impression that there are little things that I do that are very much like my usual self, and I wonder how much of me I still am, without all the history I'm missing."

He turned and looked at her again. Very seriously and almost coldly he said: "You're not like you were at all."

It was hard, seeing her be almost Illyria, but not quite.

He looked away again. "I...I'm sorry, that was...unnecessarily cold."

She didn't flinch, this time, but she did blink, stunned by the sharp little pang of hurt that she felt. It seemed absurd for her to be stung by it, and yet she was, for reasons she couldn't quite reason through.

"It's fine," she assured him, a little less than convincingly. "I can hardly be offended by the truth, and the truth is that you were friends with a different Illyria."

She regarded him almost warily.

"Perhaps I ought to go. This seems... difficult, and I am certain you will locate the object in question in due time."

"We'll change you back soon," he promised, "But...you're not..."

He turned again, then took a step towards her. Warily, he raised a hand to cup her very human cheek.

He remembered what it was like being human. He wanted Illyria to be able to remember that he didn't despise her when she was.

A tiny surprised intake of breath at the touch was her only initial response, though she didn't move away, only looked at him with wide brown eyes that were entirely different but just as curious as they'd been when blue.

She didn't fully understand the sudden alternation between coldness and kindness, though she thought, perhaps... there was something there, something she wondered if she'd merely imagined. An attraction, perhaps, between the two of them. That would explain a great deal of the awkwardness, and she felt strange enough around him to believe there had been something, perhaps unspoken.

Perhaps. There was too much uncertainty, and she felt too much as though she were prying into something better left alone. So she stepped back, with a tiny smile and a little nod.

"I understand."

It wasn't entirely true, but it would serve in place of anything else she might've said.

At least the rejection wasn't different. The Doctor wasn't one to find himself attracted to someone...just short of ever, and Illyria was one who managed to pry that sort of emotion from him.

"Do you?" he asked, lowering his hand.

That would be something new. Illyria never noticed, or if she did, she never said anything. It was better that way.

"I..." she frowned again, ever so slightly, and her own hand absently lingered over the spot on her face where the Doctor's had just been.

"I am not certain," she admitted, quietly. "It is all quite strange, discerning the nature of my relationships with those who claimed me as a friend. If there is anything I have forgotten that is important, that would make a difference in how I relate to you... you would tell me that, would you not?"

The Doctor took a breath, and nodded.

"There's...nothing. We're companions. I've always considered you my friend, but you're very picky on your choices of friends."

He smiled, a little wistfully. "You're very important to me, Illyria." There was weight behind those words, but he couldn't measure it. Well, he supposed he could, but he wouldn't.

"I've been unkind to you, haven't I?"

There was a hint of realization behind her words, something that guessed at more than she spoke aloud.

"You call me a friend in spite of it, and you want that version of me to return, but I've been unkind in the past, because what I am is not given to kindness."

He shook his head, "No, no. You're not unkind. Well, no. No, you are. You're rather particular and sometimes cruel, but...that's just you. I've accepted it."

He gave the back of his head a scratch as he spoke. "You...can be...no, no. That's not it. You're you. I like you, the way you are."

And there it was. Five-year-old Doctor saying he liked Illyria.

She smiled a little, slightly perplexed, but a more genuine smile than Illyria's usual almost-expressions.

"I cannot help but think that I must have been fond of you in return, regardless of my general temperament. So far as I can tell, I did not willfully keep company with those I was not."

"Well, I have a time ship. I'm useful," the Doctor shrugged, a return smile on his own face. This woman before him was very nice, but she wasn't Illyria.

It must've been how Martha felt. Smith wasn't all that bad, but he wasn't the Doctor.

"Is that how I choose my friends?" She asked, not particularly surprised but sounding a little disappointed all the same.

"It must be, of course. The glimpses I've seen in dreams, that goddess would never choose someone less than useful. Wesley was my guide. Glaucon was a follower. You... had a time ship."

She sounded more sorry than anything, at what she must've been to these people who still seemed to miss that cold person she'd been. She couldn't quite fathom why they would.

"Weaeaeaeaeaell, that's the way things turn out."

He awkwardly took a step forward and put a reassuring (he hoped it was reassuring) hand on her shoulder.

"It'll all make a lot more sense once your memories are back. Honestly. You're not as bad as you make yourself sound to be." A pause. "Well, you are. But that's all right."

"Why?" She asked, simply, a tiny sad smile still gracing her features in a way it never did before.

"Why is that all right? Why do you -- why do any of you care for me if that is how I am?"

"I told you," he said, "I like you."

He grinned a small, rather lopsided grin at the woman. Like wasn't a strong enough word. He didn't know a stronger word that would fit that wouldn't completely embarrass him, however.

Funny, he felt more embarrassed about his feelings for Illyria to this not-Illyria than he probably would've to who she actually was.

"I suppose I can hardly object, though I think I must've gotten the better end of the bargain in our acquaintance."

She felt strangely self-conscious in a way she was certain she wouldn't have, otherwise. She was rather certain the goddess-her didn't have any sort of crush on the Time Lord, though she felt as though if she kept up this conversation, her present self might.

"Well, that would be new, I think," he said with a small chuckle, "I'm usually the selfish one in companionship. I had a friend who told me..."

He shook his head, "That I only keep my companions around because I'm lonely. Lonely god or some such nonsense. She actually told me that while I was a human, as a matter of fact."

His eyes looked over Illyria's face, trying to find the woman he'd known before in this human's features. "But I don't imagine it's that way with you. You're important in a different way to me."

Her eyes widened a little at his choice of words, the lonely god, and their similarity to the truth of what she'd been.

"We aren't so different, are we?" she asked, some small understanding dawning again, each little piece of the puzzle almost but not quite clicking. "In my dreams the temple is filled to its limits, buzzing with life, and yet now I keep only the company of one lone follower who stays because he has nowhere else he would belong."

She remembered he'd said she left him, that they'd traveled together and then she'd left, and winced a bit internally at the cruelty of that, unintentional though it may have been. When she spoke again, it was careful and deliberate, but direct, her now-brown eyes unblinking in their certainty.

"I think I must have stayed for more than just your time ship."

Her words were so ridiculously kind.

Further proof of how not-Illyria she was.

And yet she was, still. And completely understanding. Which was entirely frustrating, too.

He took a breath. Nodded slowly. Glanced around as if the fob watch could see what he was thinking. "Now, I'm going to do something. I've...it's something I've... Don't be afraid, and don't tell her, because she'll probably hate me if you do."

He leaned down and quickly, chastely, kissed her on the mouth.

RP for perfectblue

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