Doctor Who: The Boy Who Remembered (Fan Fic)

Chapter 13: When In France

The streets of Paris had all but emptied. Only a few traces of the midday sun spilled through the cracks amongst the endless sea of clouds. Benjamin French and the Doctor had navigated the Parisian streets in hopes of unearthing even the slightest of clues that would lead them in the direction of the Time Thief. Instead, the further they searched, the less they found. With each passing hour, the few bodies that had littered the alleyways and roads had all but disappeared. In a time when Paris should have been bustling with life, it seemed as if the entire city had decided they had better things to do back in the comforts of their own home.

For the first time since the start of their journey, the Doctor did not know where to start. He had forced his way into closed shops and stolen onto desolate docks, all in hopes of finding even a solitary worker to question, but with each turn they found only emptiness. Notable salons, lavished courtyards, and mid-city parlors, the very heart of the socialite culture that had so prevailed France, stood as barren as the rest of the city. What few souls had remained perched atop park benches and meandering along abandoned roadways had been quite sure nothing all that peculiar had taken place. The Doctor had even taken the time to question a few of the horses that remained unattended outside their manors, but even they had little information to share.

The Exposition Universelle of 1889 had been a commemorative event set on the hundredth anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. The raid on the prison had served as the central spark for the French Revolution, the day when the people took back the liberty they had been so denied. In its memory, the Bastille had been rebuilt just in time for the Expo and thousands had flocked to Paris to celebrate the occasion. Yet despite the natural course of history, the reconstructed prison was nowhere to be found. There were no gathered crowds nor mesmerized onlookers, no fascinated innovators or pioneers of industry, only the sound of the wind in place of curious whispers. But of all the attractions that had been unveiled at the Exposition Universelle there was one which had not gone so easily missing.

Benjamin French gazed up to find nothing but the sky in place of a monument he had so longed to see. It had been a structure which had been celebrated throughout France, as well as the world, as one of humanity's greatest innovations. The gem of Paris, the tower whose spirit dwarfed all others, the famous Eiffel Tower. In the history the boy remembered, the landmark designed by Goustave Eiffel had been the entranceway to the 1889 Exposition. In the century that followed it had not only withstood nature, but so too the deadliest of human wars, as well the ravishing throes of time. Now it stood a hollow skeleton. With only its legs rising a few hundred feet off the ground it was clear that it remained nowhere near completion. There were no workers ceaselessly laboring to make up for its delayed construction, no engineers toiling through schematics, only four steel pillars that stood unadmired by the few who strode past.

It was the Doctor who had been the first to give breath to their awestruck curiosities, however they had not been those Benjamin had expected, "Would you look at that! The Eiffel Tower. Told you it couldn't go missing. Très Bien! I know I've seen it before, but such a wonder never ceases to amaze me."

The boy in his oversized frock gazed up towards the taller man both perplexed and somewhat embarrassed, "You do realize it's not finished?"

"Come now Benjamin," laughed the Doctor. "I think I can tell whether something is done or not. You're speaking with a semi-professional architect, in my own right. Chief engineer of the Pyramids, supervising chair of the Hanging Gardens, some have even argued I was the orchestrator that brought about the Parthenon. Not to brag or anything."

"So you don't remember it being...oh, I don't know...taller?"

"Pish-posh my French-less French," he stated brushing away the idea. "You can fool me, but you can't fool history. Today is the grand unveiling of the Eiffel Tower. Of all the fixed points in time this is by far one of the most fixed. Even other species have written about this object, surely even our Time Thief is not that talented."