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misscamLife Enough
by Camilla Sandman
Summary: Beyond the end of the world, there is still life. [Battlestar Galactica/Doctor Who crossover. Tenth Doctor, Laura Roslin, Adama/Roslin, implied Ten/Rose, Galactica/TARDIS]
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Neither Doctor Who nor Battlestar Galactica belong to me, and this is merely a little non-profit crash of worlds.
Author's Note: Set before "Doomsday" in Doctor Who time, at some point in season four Galactica time. This one is for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
skybound2, who kinda dared me into writing it. Thanks to lyricalviolet for beta.
II
Cell, cell, cell, cell... It really is such a little word for something looming so large in the mind, the Doctor thinks. It sounds so neat and almost smart on the tongue, but in his head it's starting to scream a lot.
It's not that he's claustrophobic. It's just, with the universe as home, he feels so large and there's not enough room in here.
He really thinks Rose should have saved him by now. Okay, they're stuck in a different universe. Okay, the TARDIS is also locked up and being prodded somewhere (he knows that; each prod feels like a sharp pin to his brain). Okay, she might not even know where he is. Okay, they're in a ship of fairly hostile humans that don't seem to trust strangers. But really! Really!
Cell, cell, cell, cell; pace, pace, pace, pace.
When the door opens, he barely looks up.
"I haven't done anything to you," he says, wondering if he takes off his shoe, they'll let him play football with it.
"I know," comes the reply, and the redhead sits down calmly. He remembers her, looking like authority when they put him in here, but staying silent while the man-in-charge-of-some-military-rank spoke. "I'm trying to decide if you will."
"You lock people up for that?"
"Sometimes," she says, smiling a bit faintly, as if mostly to herself. "You were found wandering in the launch bay unauthorised, refusing to give any name but 'the Doctor'. You have a blue box we can't open parked by the Admiral's quarters. Sabotage?"
"Just passing by," he says cheerfully.
"On your own?"
He meets her gaze and holds it, considering her will against his stubbornness and desire to protect Rose. Hmm. Might be a close one.
"Me, I'm always alone," he replies, a lie that isn't. "You? Friends, companions, blondes?"
Her eyes flicker slightly to the right for a moment, before looking at him with what seems honest puzzlement. "You don't know who I am?"
"You're ginger," he says brightly. "How does that feel? I've always wanted to be ginger."
"The Admiral said you talked all nonsense with dedication," she replies, but he notices she touches her hair a little self-consciously for a moment. She doesn't look too well, he notes. "I'm Laura Roslin, President of the Twelve Colonies."
"Oh," he says, then jumps to his feet as memories knock hard on his brain. "Oh! Oh! Laura Roslin! Battlestar Galactica! Admiral Adama! The Twelve Colonies and the Cylon War! Of course! Sharon! Hera! Oh! I'm a bit slow in different universes, must be the difference in radiation. Laura Roslin! You're a fantastic ginger!"
She blinks, and for a long second she just stares at him, and he wonders how much truth he'll have to give her before she writes him off as mad.
"Dedicated nonsense," she says thoughtfully. "Mm."
She leaves; and he's left to pacing again, listening to the distant hum of unfamiliar time.
II
"You really should tell us who you are," Laura Roslin says, and it's the fifth time she has asked him.
"The Doctor," he says, and it's the sixth time he's told them that. Genocide. It really brings out the mistrust in humans, he considers, and wonders if it's the same with Time Lords.
The people of the Twelve Colonies, he thinks. Truce at one war, genocide at the next. One surviving fleet, trying to find a home.
Yes. He understands *that*.
"You have to be more than that," Laura counters, and he looks up to see her leaning against the cell walls. She's not alone this time. In the background, her Admiral is watching; silent, but clearly thinking.
"Yes," he agrees cheerfully. "I'm the coward, the survivor, the keeper and destroyer. We're all more. You're more than the dying leader you think you are, more than the teacher you started as, more than the President everyone sees you as, more than the wife you will be."
"Wife?"
"You're going to marry him," the Doctor says, indicating the Admiral. "At least I think so. I flunked alternate universes at University."
The silence is strangely awkward, and he uses it to wonder how much longer Rose will take, and how much anger to joy ratio is appropriate at which time.
"We will find out who you are, Doctor," the Admiral finally says, and the steel in his voice is no softer than his ship's.
II
Needles and dreams and 20 questions, his own voice sounding unfamiliar.
"What's in your box, Doctor?"
"My home," he says. "Always my home, even when Gallifrey was my planet."
"Where's Gallifrey?"
"Dust and rocks. Nothing."
"Cylons?"
"Me. To stop the Daleks. Me."
"Why are you here?"
"Accident. I wanted to show Rose Barcelona. Dogs with no noses. I promised."
"Who's Rose?"
"My companion. Rose Tyler! She's brilliant, you'd like her! Saves the world with two words and time, Rose."
"Is she here?"
"Yes."
"Is she a Cylon?"
"Rose? Too human, Rose. You're all too human. You die. You kill. You fear the future and never live the present. You're so human. I still don't understand."
"Understand what?"
"How one life is enough."
II
The next time he sees Laura, she isn't a redhead anymore, and he's not in a cell. Though hospital, sick bay, illness fighting zone, whatever they call it in this universe, is not much better.
"I'm sorry," Laura with dark hair says, and she even sounds it. "Your metabolism… We didn't know the drug would work like that on you. I'm sorry."
"How much to keep your people safe, Laura Roslin?" he asks, trying not to exhale seconds. Time feels woozy enough as it is. "Dark doesn't become you."
"You're not human," she says after a beat, her hand cool against his burning skin. "A Cylon with two hearts?"
"Time Lord," he counters. "I'm a Time Lord."
"What's a Time Lord?"
"A curse," he says, and closes his eyes to the lightshow across his brain. Faintly, he hears Laura get up and step away.
"I don't know, Bill," she says, voice much softer than he's heard before. "I don't think he's a Cylon."
"He could still be a threat, Laura."
"Yes. But what if he's not?"
"Then you should give me cake," the Doctor says, and passes out again.
II
"It's made of algae, I'm afraid," Laura says, settling down in a chair and smiling at him. No hair this time, he notes, a scarf covering her head. The dark hair must have been a wig, he notes, and she is clearly suffering cancer treatments. Yes. He remembers that.
"Algae cake," he says thoughtfully, biting into it and making a face. She laughs, a sound he finds strangely delightful.
"There's not much out here to make cake of, I'm afraid," she says, as excuse or explanation he's not sure. "You get used to the taste."
"Really?"
"No."
He still eats it, and Laura watches him, her face almost gentle the whole time.
"Tell me about Rose," she says.
Ah.
"No," he says.
He's sure it won't end at that.
II
"We still can't open your box," Laura tells him, arms crossed. She looks a little better today, which at least makes one of them.
"It's my ship," he says, watching the ceiling doing precicely nothing, just like it has for days. "The TARDIS."
"Your ship? That little wooden box is your ship?"
"She's bigger on the inside!" he says, feeling a moment of fairly justified indignation.
"She's interfacing with our ship."
"What?"
"The Admiral is sure it's sabotage. He was ready to airlock you, but we managed to tap into some of it." She breathes for a moment, and he can hear wonder in her voice. "She's singing. Your box is singing to Galactica."
"Oh," he says, then smiles. "Brilliant! I think my ship is getting a boyfriend."
"Why would..." Laura takes a moment to shake her head a little. "Is it alive?"
"Yes," he says. "You created the Cylons. My people created ships. My TARDIS, she's alive."
"And why is she singing to Galactica?"
"Because," he says gently, meeting her gaze without looking away. "Just because she's created doesn't mean she can't love."
"How do you know that?"
"She made me survive."
II
"I don't think you're mad," Laura says, and there's fatigue in her voice. At him or life, he doesn't know. "But you claim you're an alien from another universe who can travel in time in a blue box and know our future. I must be mad for thinking you're not."
He grins at her. "I like mad."
"You've been to Earth?"
"Earth, Earth is great! Got a bit bored being stuck there, but always lovely to stop by. Love the cloudline."
"But that's the earth in your universe?"
"Yep!"
She rubs her temples slowly, shaking her head a little unconsciously. "I don't know why I believe you."
"My honest demeanour?"
"Hardly. You're keeping a million secrets." She seems lost in thoughts for a moment, or maybe it's memories. "I was a teacher. Now I'm the President of survivors, trying to find a new home on a planet I used to consider a legend. You're not the maddest thing to enter my life."
"You remind me of a friend I had," he says. "Harriet Jones. She became Prime Minister almost by accident, by surviving."
"What happened to her?"
"I brought her down," he says. "I saved her planet from an alien invasion. They were leaving. She killed them."
"Would they have come back?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
Yes, he wants to say.
"She wasn't," Laura continues. "She wasn't, was she? She couldn't be. She kept her people safe."
"By killing!"
"Didn't they kill? It can't always be that everyone lives, Doctor."
"I know," he says darkly, looking at his hands.
"I was given the opportunity to kill the Cylons," she says, sounding as if she's choosing her words carefully. "It didn't happen, but I made the choice. By my choice, they would have died."
"There might be another Sharon in the Cylon fleet," he says, but Laura doesn't even flinch.
"There might be. But there *are* over 30,000 humans in this fleet, and we're all that are left."
"And if there was just one Cylon left, what would you do?"
"I don't know. If there was only one - what did you call them - Dalek left, what would you do?"
"I don't know."
"Mm." She looks over at him, and he can't tell if she's joking or serious. "If I'd been Harriet Jones, I think I would have airlocked your ass."
II
Eventually, he does tell Laura about Rose. It's something to pass the time, and his voice is fairly pleasant most of the time, if he dares say so himself.
He talks about Autons, and unexpected meetings, and the pleasant feeling of palm against palm. He talks about the end of the world, about choices and chips and cost. He talks about ghosts that aren't alive and ghosts that live in the mind and being a Dickens fan. He talks about Harriet Jones and saving the world at the cost of friends. He talks about Daleks and hate and pity in it. He talks about fathers and letting go and holding on. He talks about bombs and war and everyone living, and even dancing. He talks about having a life in your power, and giving it anew. He talks about bad wolves and howling and a planet gone for nothing. He even talks about a new body, rude and not ginger, and she laughs at that.
He talks about New Earth and humans resettling and still keeping human. He talks about wolves and skin shed and hubris in running. He talks about evolving and still staying old, and for a split moment, the temptation of Godhood. He talks about a human life in a few hours in his time, and how silly humans really are. He talks about different worlds and the same horrors, and the stupidity of zeppelins not having proper breaks. He talks about change and rubber soles and the importance of having a face. He talks about Gods and devils and impossibilities, and how Time Lord is bad mortage material. He talks about the power of fire and hope, how flat it is inside a drawing and the sense of a storm coming.
He talks until he's dry, and Laura gives him a glass of water, looking slightly bemused.
"Why didn't you just ask her out? Or is that how Time Lords do it?"
"How do Admirals do it?" he counters.
"They don't," she says softly. "They lend books."
Love has always known different languages but words, he thinks.
II
When it's dark in his cell, he assumes it's night, so he's a little surprised when he opens his eyes and finds he's not alone in the dark. A little, but not deeply. Sooner or later, he rather expected this visit.
"You're a doctor," the Admiral says, shadows across his face.
"Yes."
"Her cancer. Can you...?"
"I could."
"But you won't."
Preserving the timeline, the Time Lord thinks. Always history kept, interference terminated. Preservation. Conservation.
Bollocks to that, the Doctor thinks. Always bollocks to that. Love. Life. Change.
"I don't know," he says.
II
"I've had nine deaths," he tells Laura, remembering. "They never get any easier."
"I'd compare notes, but I think I only get one," she replies dryly. "Death... Cylons don't really understand that. Resurrection ships and new bodies. Like you, Doctor."
"The Cylons changed beyond what you created," he counters, watching her. "Maybe they can learn."
"Is that why you travel with humans? To learn?"
"To live," he says.
She tilts her head, and her eyes seem strangely bright.
"You don't need ten bodies for that," she says, smiling at something beyond him. "There's life enough in one."
II
"Took you long enough," the Doctor remarks cheerfully, watching Rose testily jam the sonic screwdriver against the door and finally winning with a triumphant smile.
"I had a few adventures," she admits, but the rest is lost as he sweeps her into a crushing hug. "You all right?"
"Never been better."
She smiles, but there's a shadow in it. "They're looking for Earth."
"Yes," he agrees.
"Can't you just show them?"
"No," he says, taking her hand and leading her past the guards she's gotten knocked out. "Sometimes, the journey is as important as getting there."
"That goes for Barcelona too?" she asks, just a little teasingly. "I'm beginning to think you'll never get me there."
"First things first," he says firmly. "The TARDIS. We need to make one more stop."
II
She's been coming to him. Now he comes to her, even if it takes him a few tries to find her.
Laura is sleeping, but not alone. A red cloth tied loosely around her head, covers slipped to halfway down the back, she's nestled up against the Admiral, their breaths almost in sync.
Ah yes.
Humans, thinks the Doctor. Understand the species. Never understand the individual. Not Laura Roslin, not Admiral Adama, not Rose Tyler.
Different species, same truth. Never understand the Doctor, and he's been trying for ten incarnations already. He still isn't sure when he will break the rules, and when he will keep them.
Leaning down, he kisses Laura's forehead gently, exhaling as he does.
"Doctor!" Rose says a little urgently from the TARDIS door. "What are you doing?"
"Giving time," he says, stepping away. "Good luck, Laura Roslin."
Good luck humanity, he thinks. Beyond the end of the world, there is still life. Life enough. Love enough.
There's what he's still learning, then.
FIN
by Camilla Sandman
Summary: Beyond the end of the world, there is still life. [Battlestar Galactica/Doctor Who crossover. Tenth Doctor, Laura Roslin, Adama/Roslin, implied Ten/Rose, Galactica/TARDIS]
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Neither Doctor Who nor Battlestar Galactica belong to me, and this is merely a little non-profit crash of worlds.
Author's Note: Set before "Doomsday" in Doctor Who time, at some point in season four Galactica time. This one is for
skybound2, who kinda dared me into writing it. Thanks to lyricalviolet for beta. II
Cell, cell, cell, cell... It really is such a little word for something looming so large in the mind, the Doctor thinks. It sounds so neat and almost smart on the tongue, but in his head it's starting to scream a lot.
It's not that he's claustrophobic. It's just, with the universe as home, he feels so large and there's not enough room in here.
He really thinks Rose should have saved him by now. Okay, they're stuck in a different universe. Okay, the TARDIS is also locked up and being prodded somewhere (he knows that; each prod feels like a sharp pin to his brain). Okay, she might not even know where he is. Okay, they're in a ship of fairly hostile humans that don't seem to trust strangers. But really! Really!
Cell, cell, cell, cell; pace, pace, pace, pace.
When the door opens, he barely looks up.
"I haven't done anything to you," he says, wondering if he takes off his shoe, they'll let him play football with it.
"I know," comes the reply, and the redhead sits down calmly. He remembers her, looking like authority when they put him in here, but staying silent while the man-in-charge-of-some-military-rank spoke. "I'm trying to decide if you will."
"You lock people up for that?"
"Sometimes," she says, smiling a bit faintly, as if mostly to herself. "You were found wandering in the launch bay unauthorised, refusing to give any name but 'the Doctor'. You have a blue box we can't open parked by the Admiral's quarters. Sabotage?"
"Just passing by," he says cheerfully.
"On your own?"
He meets her gaze and holds it, considering her will against his stubbornness and desire to protect Rose. Hmm. Might be a close one.
"Me, I'm always alone," he replies, a lie that isn't. "You? Friends, companions, blondes?"
Her eyes flicker slightly to the right for a moment, before looking at him with what seems honest puzzlement. "You don't know who I am?"
"You're ginger," he says brightly. "How does that feel? I've always wanted to be ginger."
"The Admiral said you talked all nonsense with dedication," she replies, but he notices she touches her hair a little self-consciously for a moment. She doesn't look too well, he notes. "I'm Laura Roslin, President of the Twelve Colonies."
"Oh," he says, then jumps to his feet as memories knock hard on his brain. "Oh! Oh! Laura Roslin! Battlestar Galactica! Admiral Adama! The Twelve Colonies and the Cylon War! Of course! Sharon! Hera! Oh! I'm a bit slow in different universes, must be the difference in radiation. Laura Roslin! You're a fantastic ginger!"
She blinks, and for a long second she just stares at him, and he wonders how much truth he'll have to give her before she writes him off as mad.
"Dedicated nonsense," she says thoughtfully. "Mm."
She leaves; and he's left to pacing again, listening to the distant hum of unfamiliar time.
II
"You really should tell us who you are," Laura Roslin says, and it's the fifth time she has asked him.
"The Doctor," he says, and it's the sixth time he's told them that. Genocide. It really brings out the mistrust in humans, he considers, and wonders if it's the same with Time Lords.
The people of the Twelve Colonies, he thinks. Truce at one war, genocide at the next. One surviving fleet, trying to find a home.
Yes. He understands *that*.
"You have to be more than that," Laura counters, and he looks up to see her leaning against the cell walls. She's not alone this time. In the background, her Admiral is watching; silent, but clearly thinking.
"Yes," he agrees cheerfully. "I'm the coward, the survivor, the keeper and destroyer. We're all more. You're more than the dying leader you think you are, more than the teacher you started as, more than the President everyone sees you as, more than the wife you will be."
"Wife?"
"You're going to marry him," the Doctor says, indicating the Admiral. "At least I think so. I flunked alternate universes at University."
The silence is strangely awkward, and he uses it to wonder how much longer Rose will take, and how much anger to joy ratio is appropriate at which time.
"We will find out who you are, Doctor," the Admiral finally says, and the steel in his voice is no softer than his ship's.
II
Needles and dreams and 20 questions, his own voice sounding unfamiliar.
"What's in your box, Doctor?"
"My home," he says. "Always my home, even when Gallifrey was my planet."
"Where's Gallifrey?"
"Dust and rocks. Nothing."
"Cylons?"
"Me. To stop the Daleks. Me."
"Why are you here?"
"Accident. I wanted to show Rose Barcelona. Dogs with no noses. I promised."
"Who's Rose?"
"My companion. Rose Tyler! She's brilliant, you'd like her! Saves the world with two words and time, Rose."
"Is she here?"
"Yes."
"Is she a Cylon?"
"Rose? Too human, Rose. You're all too human. You die. You kill. You fear the future and never live the present. You're so human. I still don't understand."
"Understand what?"
"How one life is enough."
II
The next time he sees Laura, she isn't a redhead anymore, and he's not in a cell. Though hospital, sick bay, illness fighting zone, whatever they call it in this universe, is not much better.
"I'm sorry," Laura with dark hair says, and she even sounds it. "Your metabolism… We didn't know the drug would work like that on you. I'm sorry."
"How much to keep your people safe, Laura Roslin?" he asks, trying not to exhale seconds. Time feels woozy enough as it is. "Dark doesn't become you."
"You're not human," she says after a beat, her hand cool against his burning skin. "A Cylon with two hearts?"
"Time Lord," he counters. "I'm a Time Lord."
"What's a Time Lord?"
"A curse," he says, and closes his eyes to the lightshow across his brain. Faintly, he hears Laura get up and step away.
"I don't know, Bill," she says, voice much softer than he's heard before. "I don't think he's a Cylon."
"He could still be a threat, Laura."
"Yes. But what if he's not?"
"Then you should give me cake," the Doctor says, and passes out again.
II
"It's made of algae, I'm afraid," Laura says, settling down in a chair and smiling at him. No hair this time, he notes, a scarf covering her head. The dark hair must have been a wig, he notes, and she is clearly suffering cancer treatments. Yes. He remembers that.
"Algae cake," he says thoughtfully, biting into it and making a face. She laughs, a sound he finds strangely delightful.
"There's not much out here to make cake of, I'm afraid," she says, as excuse or explanation he's not sure. "You get used to the taste."
"Really?"
"No."
He still eats it, and Laura watches him, her face almost gentle the whole time.
"Tell me about Rose," she says.
Ah.
"No," he says.
He's sure it won't end at that.
II
"We still can't open your box," Laura tells him, arms crossed. She looks a little better today, which at least makes one of them.
"It's my ship," he says, watching the ceiling doing precicely nothing, just like it has for days. "The TARDIS."
"Your ship? That little wooden box is your ship?"
"She's bigger on the inside!" he says, feeling a moment of fairly justified indignation.
"She's interfacing with our ship."
"What?"
"The Admiral is sure it's sabotage. He was ready to airlock you, but we managed to tap into some of it." She breathes for a moment, and he can hear wonder in her voice. "She's singing. Your box is singing to Galactica."
"Oh," he says, then smiles. "Brilliant! I think my ship is getting a boyfriend."
"Why would..." Laura takes a moment to shake her head a little. "Is it alive?"
"Yes," he says. "You created the Cylons. My people created ships. My TARDIS, she's alive."
"And why is she singing to Galactica?"
"Because," he says gently, meeting her gaze without looking away. "Just because she's created doesn't mean she can't love."
"How do you know that?"
"She made me survive."
II
"I don't think you're mad," Laura says, and there's fatigue in her voice. At him or life, he doesn't know. "But you claim you're an alien from another universe who can travel in time in a blue box and know our future. I must be mad for thinking you're not."
He grins at her. "I like mad."
"You've been to Earth?"
"Earth, Earth is great! Got a bit bored being stuck there, but always lovely to stop by. Love the cloudline."
"But that's the earth in your universe?"
"Yep!"
She rubs her temples slowly, shaking her head a little unconsciously. "I don't know why I believe you."
"My honest demeanour?"
"Hardly. You're keeping a million secrets." She seems lost in thoughts for a moment, or maybe it's memories. "I was a teacher. Now I'm the President of survivors, trying to find a new home on a planet I used to consider a legend. You're not the maddest thing to enter my life."
"You remind me of a friend I had," he says. "Harriet Jones. She became Prime Minister almost by accident, by surviving."
"What happened to her?"
"I brought her down," he says. "I saved her planet from an alien invasion. They were leaving. She killed them."
"Would they have come back?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
Yes, he wants to say.
"She wasn't," Laura continues. "She wasn't, was she? She couldn't be. She kept her people safe."
"By killing!"
"Didn't they kill? It can't always be that everyone lives, Doctor."
"I know," he says darkly, looking at his hands.
"I was given the opportunity to kill the Cylons," she says, sounding as if she's choosing her words carefully. "It didn't happen, but I made the choice. By my choice, they would have died."
"There might be another Sharon in the Cylon fleet," he says, but Laura doesn't even flinch.
"There might be. But there *are* over 30,000 humans in this fleet, and we're all that are left."
"And if there was just one Cylon left, what would you do?"
"I don't know. If there was only one - what did you call them - Dalek left, what would you do?"
"I don't know."
"Mm." She looks over at him, and he can't tell if she's joking or serious. "If I'd been Harriet Jones, I think I would have airlocked your ass."
II
Eventually, he does tell Laura about Rose. It's something to pass the time, and his voice is fairly pleasant most of the time, if he dares say so himself.
He talks about Autons, and unexpected meetings, and the pleasant feeling of palm against palm. He talks about the end of the world, about choices and chips and cost. He talks about ghosts that aren't alive and ghosts that live in the mind and being a Dickens fan. He talks about Harriet Jones and saving the world at the cost of friends. He talks about Daleks and hate and pity in it. He talks about fathers and letting go and holding on. He talks about bombs and war and everyone living, and even dancing. He talks about having a life in your power, and giving it anew. He talks about bad wolves and howling and a planet gone for nothing. He even talks about a new body, rude and not ginger, and she laughs at that.
He talks about New Earth and humans resettling and still keeping human. He talks about wolves and skin shed and hubris in running. He talks about evolving and still staying old, and for a split moment, the temptation of Godhood. He talks about a human life in a few hours in his time, and how silly humans really are. He talks about different worlds and the same horrors, and the stupidity of zeppelins not having proper breaks. He talks about change and rubber soles and the importance of having a face. He talks about Gods and devils and impossibilities, and how Time Lord is bad mortage material. He talks about the power of fire and hope, how flat it is inside a drawing and the sense of a storm coming.
He talks until he's dry, and Laura gives him a glass of water, looking slightly bemused.
"Why didn't you just ask her out? Or is that how Time Lords do it?"
"How do Admirals do it?" he counters.
"They don't," she says softly. "They lend books."
Love has always known different languages but words, he thinks.
II
When it's dark in his cell, he assumes it's night, so he's a little surprised when he opens his eyes and finds he's not alone in the dark. A little, but not deeply. Sooner or later, he rather expected this visit.
"You're a doctor," the Admiral says, shadows across his face.
"Yes."
"Her cancer. Can you...?"
"I could."
"But you won't."
Preserving the timeline, the Time Lord thinks. Always history kept, interference terminated. Preservation. Conservation.
Bollocks to that, the Doctor thinks. Always bollocks to that. Love. Life. Change.
"I don't know," he says.
II
"I've had nine deaths," he tells Laura, remembering. "They never get any easier."
"I'd compare notes, but I think I only get one," she replies dryly. "Death... Cylons don't really understand that. Resurrection ships and new bodies. Like you, Doctor."
"The Cylons changed beyond what you created," he counters, watching her. "Maybe they can learn."
"Is that why you travel with humans? To learn?"
"To live," he says.
She tilts her head, and her eyes seem strangely bright.
"You don't need ten bodies for that," she says, smiling at something beyond him. "There's life enough in one."
II
"Took you long enough," the Doctor remarks cheerfully, watching Rose testily jam the sonic screwdriver against the door and finally winning with a triumphant smile.
"I had a few adventures," she admits, but the rest is lost as he sweeps her into a crushing hug. "You all right?"
"Never been better."
She smiles, but there's a shadow in it. "They're looking for Earth."
"Yes," he agrees.
"Can't you just show them?"
"No," he says, taking her hand and leading her past the guards she's gotten knocked out. "Sometimes, the journey is as important as getting there."
"That goes for Barcelona too?" she asks, just a little teasingly. "I'm beginning to think you'll never get me there."
"First things first," he says firmly. "The TARDIS. We need to make one more stop."
II
She's been coming to him. Now he comes to her, even if it takes him a few tries to find her.
Laura is sleeping, but not alone. A red cloth tied loosely around her head, covers slipped to halfway down the back, she's nestled up against the Admiral, their breaths almost in sync.
Ah yes.
Humans, thinks the Doctor. Understand the species. Never understand the individual. Not Laura Roslin, not Admiral Adama, not Rose Tyler.
Different species, same truth. Never understand the Doctor, and he's been trying for ten incarnations already. He still isn't sure when he will break the rules, and when he will keep them.
Leaning down, he kisses Laura's forehead gently, exhaling as he does.
"Doctor!" Rose says a little urgently from the TARDIS door. "What are you doing?"
"Giving time," he says, stepping away. "Good luck, Laura Roslin."
Good luck humanity, he thinks. Beyond the end of the world, there is still life. Life enough. Love enough.
There's what he's still learning, then.
FIN
