Yowzah Oneshot Collection (1)

57(M)

our hearts were jagged stones in our fists

It had been fun, he thought. Little Amelia Pond and a crack in her wall. He’d been brand new, full of possibility, full of potential – full of the ability to live on. Fresh start – he was what he made of himself, but what he’d made of himself was someone who said five minutes but meant twelve years.

Still.

He had saved the day – a little late but he had ensured Prisoner Zero’s capture. But twelve years (and four psychiatrists) too late. Twelve years was a long time to live with a psychic being in your house, in your head. It was a long time to have a crack in your wall, the universe whispering to you every night.

Poor Amelia Pond.

To the moon and back, he’d said – running his hands over the new console as he whispered to his oldest and most dear companion. Just a little run – test the old girl out. But the moon had been boring as moons were wont to be. All dust and excellent bouncing but definitely, incredibly boring.  He supposed he could have aimed later, but once the colony and the university were built, it became less a heavenly body and more a tourist trap – and he hated that.

Humans.

So determined to stake claim to every rock they came across. They were forever stabbing flags into unknown soil as if the universe had been created merely to be inhabited by them.

So he left the moon. He thought about going back – back to Amelia and taking her on adventures, but he felt the weight of those twelve years every time she looked at him – full to the brim of belief and expectation. All he had to offer in return was madness. Madness and the universe and it would mark her, he knew – it always marked them. All of them.

His hearts clenched at the thought – at the memory, so he pushed it aside, letting his old girl decide the next location. If it was time for him to get Amelia (and he knew he would. Something about her... it drew him. There was a bigger mystery about her) then she would take him there, he knew. He grinned as he watched the time rotor rise and fall, the melodious scraping noise echoing as she landed. With a quick adjustment to the bowtie and a tug of the tweed, he quite liked it really; he leapt down the stairs, eager to greet the next adventure.

“A museum?” he spat the question out with distaste, glaring over his shoulder through the open doorway. The TARDIS simply hummed, and while he knew she couldn’t really sound irritated – damned if she didn’t do a good imitation of what a ship ought to sound like while irritated. “Fine, fine. A museum. Oh yay, what treasures shall I discover?”

He mumbled to himself as he darted through displays, ignoring other patrons as he went. “Wrong.” He trotted over to the next display. “Oh terribly wrong – honestly who researches these things?! I hope you didn’t pay much to get in here,” he spoke in an aside to the elderly woman who stood next to him. She opened her mouth and he pointed to the next case in excitement. “Oh, mine!”

He ran across and leaned over the glass, “Oh and even wronger. I cannot believe people do this for a profession,” he spoke aloud, but no one responded as he read the placard.

“Mummy, what’s the writing say?” he heard a little girl ask from behind him and he turned as the child’s mother glanced over her shoulder.

“It doesn’t say darling, only says it’s untranslatable.”

“Untranslatable? That’s impossible, everything is translatable and I should know – I speak over nine hundred different languages-” his voice died as he arrived across from them, staring down at the small black box with wonder.

“So what’s it then?” the girl looked up at him, while the Mum eyed him suspiciously, but he paid neither of them any mind as he stared down into the glass case. It wasn’t possible. Of course – he supposed it’s not that it wasn’t possible – anything was possible really – but it so took him by surprise, he couldn’t speak for a moment as he stared down at the words, a smile curling reluctantly along the edge of his mouth, despite his best efforts to stop it.