Tuck Those Ribbons Under Your Helmet [Closed]

[economicalrhinoplasty]

Eva waits on the log for a very long time, until the chill from the shoe tree leaves her shivering slightly, her teeth clicking irregularly as a replacement for her normal twitching and jerking. She's become a very patient person, she thinks - she measured her life in three-day cycles for so long that she thinks she no longer views time like a normal human being, but rather in some extended and flimsy nature, like a rubber band with all the elasticity stretched out of it.

Given that she has no watch on her - Stacy's unique perspective on time, even more distorted and deformed than Eva's, has long since made watches useless - she can't properly estimate how much time she spends sitting there waiting, but she expects it must be hours, since she feels tired and bored and tiny icicles are starting to form around her eyelashes and bangs.

Somehow it seems strangely appropriate to sit around waiting for the Doctor. He doesn't seem to follow anyone else's schedule. She wonders how many people before have sat on this log, waiting for something, maybe for the Doctor or for deliverance or for God. Or maybe she's singularly unique, the sole passenger in this log's history, and this is the one moment in time where this log not only exists but is sittable, and has been seen by sentient eyes.

She's starting to think like him. All the silence in her own head is getting to her. Maybe she should get her Yeerk back. She misses conversation.

That's a terrible idea.

She gets up and twists her back some, eking little pops out of her spine. She wipes the ice from her eyes, careful not to harm her makeup, although it did get smeared somewhat during the dumbwaiter trip and library attack. It's the principle of the matter.

Tossing her hair up into a clip again, she walks in the direction the Doctor took off towards, her feet adjusting to the sockless interior of her new shoes. "Doc?"

Comments

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"You didn't guess it was green?" Eva tends to wear green whenever she can. Today her shirt is a pale turquoise leaning more towards green than blue, and her hairclip is a green and gold leaf. She laughs. "Of course it's green. What other color would it be? Blue?"

She peers into the water, ignoring the Doctor's winning smile, although she suspects he's doing it. He does have a nice smile. He tends to just give it out, she thinks, like some resource he'll never deplete. She likes that.

While he loosens his bowtie, she takes the revolver from her holster, pops out the bullets, and lays it down on a flat surface in the boat. A peace offering, almost, although she'd still break the Doctor's hand if he tried to move it. She kicks off her new shoes, too, though they're damp already with melted ice and snow, and pulls the clip from her hair. Then she leans over the edge of the boat and flops backwards into the water, so suddenly it may look like an accident.

Under the water, she blinks her eyes open through a net of flowing hair and stinging water. Nothing, as far as she can see, though she swears the water's clearer below the surface than it looks from above. She breaches again, hair like a messy wet helmet dribbling from her skull, smile wide as she stares up at the Doctor.

"Why the hell not?"

[makeherblue]

What's wrong with blue? The Doctor thinks that's the natural choice, given how beautifully blue blue is and at any rate, Eva is suddenly falling back into the water that is torn between whether it wants to be blue or green or blue-green/green/blue (funny distinction), the Doctor rushing to the edge of the dinghy and nearly tipping himself into the sea right after Eva. The side of the boat dips over dangerously under his weight as he clings to the railing and leans over.

Eva, you look like a wet cat. The water utterly kills her hair so that it's plastered flat against her skull and he has to say, he's seen even wet cats have better days. But she's grinning up at him, this grin that he can't help but find innocent because she's so young and - and human, and it's a downright infectious thing, an Eva Salazar smile! It's enough to make him pretend not to see the gun, or at least not consider (too much) how easy it would be to accidentally drop it off the side of the boat into the depths.

"Why no sharks? Or is this one of those rhetorical question things? They're really just questions," the Doctor sniffs. He bobs his head, trying to peer past Eva for any sign of sharks and/or anything of the sea monster variety.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Why not join me? Besides that we need someone to attend the boat." Honestly, taking a relaxing swim through water that may or may not contain mortal threats is probably not her brightest idea, but she's riding a little high on having survived not one, but two bizarre threats in the TARDIS.

She ducks back under the water and, while she's down there, rubs the last of the makeup off her face. When she opens them again she sees a shoal of glittering fish a few yards away, but on closer examination, they appear to be cooking utensils mimicking fish and not actual creatures. Maybe it's a trick of the light.

Then she swims under the boat, appears on the other side, and flicks water at the Doctor's head. "You'd like it down here. It's very you."

[makeherblue]

That's true, except he's certain that if he has a word or two or several (or a couple), the dinghy will be quite understanding and wait for them without sailing off on its own. Fairly certain. Certain enough to frown at Eva, nose crinkling at the water sprinkling his face, the Doctor starts to shrug out of his jacket to prove a point. Off comes the jacket as he works at his buttons and braces. Speaking of braces, brace for it, Eva, because you're going to get one of those rare moments that might be seared into your eyeballs and the memory centers in that highly-evolved monkey brain of yours. The Doctor's shirt flaps off and smacks into the bench.

You have now seen the Doctor shirtless, Eva Salazar.

Take a moment to adjust to it.

The Doctor is all ridiculous skinniness as he turns on the cramped deck, holding his footing and kicking off his boots. They thunk against the wood The trousers stay, thankfully. He balances near the edge of the dinghy, makes sure Eva is watching, holds his nose with his fingers and takes a picture-perfect cannonball into the water.

A few long moments later he surfaces next to Eva, squirting out a stream of water, his hair in his eyes. "No sea monsters so far! Can't hurt to check twice."

Don't ask how he's treading the water. It's a long tradition on some asteroid Eva hasn't ever heard of, and looks like he ought to be drowning but isn't. The Doctor flails around as he turns in the water to check their bearings, pleased that Eva is a decently aquatic human on top of everything else. Renaissance Woman. Woman-person. Earthling, resident of the Milky Way. She ought to smile more. Bit of a toothy smile but he likes it.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Eva raises her eyebrows, blinking water out of her eyelashes. She shakes her head at the Doctor. How odd it is to see him with less poofy hair. He could almost pass for a typical human and not an eccentric one, if not for the flailing and the fact that he still uses his fingers to plug his nose."You look like my husband ten years ago."

That isn't a compliment.

Eva dips back under the water, more at home there than anywhere on the ground. Weightless, unrestrained by the snares of gravity and age and pain. No sea monsters as far as she can see, although the cutlery fish are coming a bit closer. She hopes the forks and knives among them don't have sharp teeth she can't see.

The Doctor's kicking up a bit of a froth. She surfaces again, takes a deep breath, and dives down beneath him. She reaches up and tugs his ankle, playing the age-old game of "I'm a shark, rawr" with him.

Her smile, shark-like, like any of the rest of her, is indeed all teeth.

[makeherblue]

It might not be a compliment but even so, the Doctor has enough time and presence of mind to shoot her a baffled, almost wary look. Very stern look! Possibly a bit scared. He might just be remembering that time Amy had a go at him; it's the sort of thing to make a very big impression. His eyebrows scrunch at her as he does one of those frowns. Twice might be more than he's willing to handle right now, not that Eva isn't a lovely woman (most of the time)...it's just she's, well, human! Sometimes he means it as an insult. Other times, it's the highest of compliments. Depends on his mood.

The Doctor continues to tread water the Aonh style, third Tier, when Eva sinks under the water, presumably to have another look at the cutlery shoal wiggling closer to investigate.

Odd, he doesn't remember putting in a cutlery shoal! It's possible he's forgotten. Old age does that to you! Eva ought to name it since she found them, it's only --

The Doctor gives an undignified squeak yelp sound that most certainly is none of the above when he suddenly feels someone grabbing at his ankles. They're just as skinny as the rest of him. Now they give a surprised little kick as he ducks his head in, deciding that at the very least he wants to see if there's an entire kitchen there.

Eva. Toothy smile and what if that had been a real kitchen nibbling him? He might not believe it next time because of Eva! The Doctor Who Cries Wolf. Kitchen-wolf-slash-shark to be precise. The Doctor resurfaces and tosses his wet hair out of his eyes.

"Enjoying yourself? Don't answer, smile like that tells me all I need to know!" The Doctor continues that awkward flail/flounder of his. It's one of the fastest strokes in the Blue Rim Nebula's arm, so he'd advise against Eva getting any funny ideas about racing him. Not unless she wants to be terribly embarrassed! "Did you name the shoal? Probably haven't seen a proper human in decades! Centuries? Probably centuries."

Maybe longer. Either way, at least they're not trying to poke her in all sorts of awkward places to see if she was done.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"I'll have to think of a terribly punny name for them." She does an underwater barrel roll and comes up again. She forgets, fairly often, how nice it is to be able to move. She's not just floating or swimming, she's dancing, some instinctive dance that only her bones know the steps to.

She pops her head back up again. "Platies. Like the little orange fish but, you know, they go on plates."

Although as she ducks back under again, it does seem like the cutlery is getting a bit more aggressive. And while the spoons are fine, she sees a school of serrated knives make a turn for them thirty feet away.

"Doc, it might be time to get back onto shore, don't you think?" She strokes back to the dinghy and holds out a hand to help him back up before she rescues herself from the platies.

[makeherblue]

Ooh, that is good! The Doctor feels jealous. Platies! Why didn't he think of that? It's downright brilliant! Platies. He rolls the word around, tries it on for size like a hat, and decides he'll have to add it into the Oxford dictionary next time he drops in.

He flail-treads water as Eva ducks her head back under to enjoy her shoal of platies, the Doctor shading his eyes and glancing around. A few white clouds are scooting across the sky, cottony wisps that are wisely staying away from the airspace over the Nothing Forest. Very smart! Despite the library still out there hungering for human, the Doctor has to say that of the traps he's seen in the TARDIS, so far he thinks that Nothing Forest is probably the worst: you could wander around in there for months, years, your mind withering in on itself and you'd be aware of it happening the whole time! It's almost brilliant in how cruel it is.

The Doctor's distracted as one of the platies bumps against his leg, glancing down just in time for Eva to surface again. "What? Oh! Yes, back to the dinghy. Platies," he mutters to himself, under his breath. "It's almost too good."

He flounders back to the boat, accepting her hand as he flops back over the side and onto the deck. It's less of a flop and more of a skinny wet slither. Eva's sense of self-preservation proves to be right on the mark. There's the sound of some of the cutlery trying to dig into the wood of the dinghy, a scratching sound that eventually goes away as they discover they can't get too far. The Doctor heaves himself onto the bench, groping about for his braces.

"We'll probably have to make a few stops. Human metabolisms, that sort of thing. Food. Stuff like that." He waves his hand at the vague idea of Stuff. "I didn't get to install a proper hyper-drive on this, so..."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

She follows him up, surprisingly strong despite favoring one shoulder. She's kept herself in shape since being freed. The body requires upkeep. If she's bound to this one, she needs to keep it fit.

Eva has much less interest in the sky than she does in the water. She even dangles her fingers in still, taunting the platies. As the knives come up to attack her fingers she jerks her hand up, barely out the way, seeing if they can jump. When they don't, she sticks her hand back in and wiggles her fingertips, continuing to tease them as she leans back and talks to the Doctor.

She grins. She's clearly pleased he approves of the name. Daniel Jackson could take some notes on appreciating her sparkling wit.

"Food?" She stretches out in the boat, taking up a little of the Doctor's personal space, but less like flirting and more like a cat presuming the whole ship belongs to her. "How long do you expect we'll be lost? I'll start to miss the creature comforts, eventually."

After a long while, though. The presence of a boat and intelligent conversation elevates this above her months living with the Hork-Bajir in the woods. "Hyper-drive?"

[makeherblue]

The Doctor combs his fingers through his hair, patting himself dry with his bunched-up shirt. He doesn't seem to mind her taking up what bit of boat she can find, instead glancing at her as he struggles back into his shirt and casts about for his bowtie, one hand reaching back and fumbling for his braces. It's like a one-man version of Twister sans mat and logic.

"Could be awhile. Depends on the wind and if things have shifted more than I've estimated," the Doctor shrugs, the I get lost every other weekend type of shrug. It's meant to be reassuring. "If we had a hyper-drive, I'd say a matter of hours."

He frowns at her as he locates his other brace, pulling it over his scrawny shoulder with a snap. He could spend all day thinking on Ifs and Buts and Well, You Coulds. They're further out at sea now, the water lapping against the hull of the dinghy and the sail puffed out and doing its job quite well despite all that time off-duty. The Doctor continues to fuss around with the boat, mostly because he needs to keep busy, partially because if he doesn't, the ship's components which might have been hobbled together out of several interesting but volatile components will start to set off a chain reaction and blow the deck out from under them. Makes for an interesting boat ride, at least!

It's starting to get dark when the Doctor pauses in his fiddling to pop back up next to Eva, his sonic screwdriver in his hand.

"Night sailing or pop off to get some sleep?" he asks, as if picking up a conversation they haven't had yet. "You humans haven't figured out how to sleep with one eye open yet, have you?"

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"How far out do you expect land is?"

Perhaps Eva should have thought more closely on the idea of getting wet before staying still on a boat for a long time in cold weather. She's just about chilled, although she supposes if it becomes a problem she can drop back into the water to warm up and hope not to become a snack of the floating cutlery. The water's warmer than the air by a good margin; the last traces of light catch on wafts of evaporation, miniature steam billows dancing over the surface and being buffeted by the small waves.

"No, not yet. Won't you be bored to death while I sleep? Unless you're incredibly interested in my snoring."

She wraps her arms around herself, chilled. "But I'm competent enough for some night sailing. That's how I died, you know. The first time."

[makeherblue]

"Far-ish." The Doctor is completely unhelpful. He reaches down and cranks a crank and turns a few knobs that need to be turned to keep the mast from wandering right off the boat. "Not much of a cat-nap person myself. I can always talk to myself if you're busy snoring."

He glances over at Eva as she hugs herself. It's getting colder, perhaps because they're off the coast of the Nothing Forest, and for a moment he thinks it's just that. But then she mentions dying, and, well. Dying is far more complicated than it should be. And it's downright odd she's had a first time because with humans, that sort of thing tends to be rather final, doesn't it? Most definitely from her time period. He's estimated her to be about 1990's-2000'sish. Not as accurate as he'd like but it's accurate enough. The Doctor pulls off his jacket, offering it to Eva as a tweed blanket.

He hunkers down on his own seat, those skinny legs of his stretching as he rests his elbows on them and leans forward.

"I didn't know. Bit of a thing to pull off, dying and changing your mind?" The Doctor tilts his head curiously. Never could resist the odd, the weird, the interesting.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Thank you. Are you one of those people who sleeps like a log?" She folds the tweed blanket over lap and smooths it with her hands.

"Dying is an art," she quotes. "And I do it exceptionally well." She dips her hand back into the water and tilts her head back at him in perfect imitation. "They faked my death, back in the day. Drowned at sea, they said. And then there were just a few more times I was presumed dead before the end of the war. No actual resurrections, although in the eye of the public I'm practically a phoenix."

It's probably nothing compared to what he's seen. Faked deaths are the stuff of spy novels and soap operas, not of universes full of sparkling individuals and races pulsing with progress. But it's important to her.

She cracks her knuckles and runs a hand through her wet, tangled hair. As she continues talking she clips it back again. "Besides, aren't I always full of surprises?"

[makeherblue]

The Doctor’s mouth quirks in a half-smile. Log, no. Not much for sleeping.

“You wouldn’t be on this boat if you weren’t,” the Doctor says and means it. At first it seems like you could pin Eva down as a survivor, a drunk in that tavern, another one of those humans. Special but not go on a few adventures with the woman special. But Eva surprises him more often than not and he knows he likes that about her. “Don’t worry about fake-dying or real-dying here. You’ll be fine. In fact, you ought to write that down at the start of every day: ‘You’ll Be Fine’.”

He slaps his hands against his pockets, trying to find a pen and paper to give to Eva and realizes that whatever he has might be a bit soggy. Maybe later. For now he focuses on trying to steer the dinghy someplace they can land, shading his hands as if he can see in the dark. The boat dips and bobs in the ocean, the starlight – amazingly enough, there was a night sky in the TARDIS, the most painfully clear night sky a human can imagine – and he can see the growing outline of what might be a whale or a landmass.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Eva looks for a moment like she has a smart and witty comeback to that, 'you'll be fine', and then for a moment like she has a really cynical retort that will prove to the Doctor that life is a dark, dim place. But she pauses. Because she doesn't believe that. Life is beautiful, life is sweet, and yes, life is painful and hard and some days it's all she can do to get out of bed in the morning and she's hitting the sauce before lunch, but he's right.

You'll Be Fine.

Even if it's something she doesn't believe yet, it's something she wants to. Maybe she'll get there. Maybe she won't. But at the crossroads between stubborn optimism and jaded defeat, how could she choose the latter? Even with her son dead. With her mind fragmented. With her husband carrying the burden a family that no longer fits together right, deceitful puzzle pieces with parts that seem to match and patterns that clash. With her body broken and twisted. She wants to believe. And wanting is the first step.

So she smiles.

"Maybe I will. Later. When I'm not dripping." She squints out into the darkness, wishing she could have her glasses. "What do you think that is?"

[makeherblue]

The Doctor claps Eva on the shoulder, a warm, almost grandfatherly gesture. "Good! And that, I think, is land. Or possibly a parked whale, but I'm personally thinking land if you must ask."

Not that he has anything against introducing her to whales: some of his best friends are whales, he knows a wonderful humpback whale with a terrible sense of humor and a dream to win a Nobel Prize -- the flippers of course tend to make that a bit on the difficult side but the Doctor believes sooner or later he'll get on with it. He legs it past Eva to the other end of the dinghy, fiddling around with the hull and sonicing something that probably has no business being soniced. The dinghy puts on another burst of speed. Water chops against the sides as the Doctor steers them toward the dark landmass.

As they get closer, they can see that it's a small island, the shadows of trees standing black against the night sky. The dinghy scraps up against the sand as the Doctor vaults out, splashing up to his knees and holding out his hand for Eva.

"Probably one of the safest places, if you're looking to avoid libraries. Not big fans of water, you know!" The Doctor swivels around as an owl hoots somewhere in the distance. "We probably should check to make sure there's nothing else with teeth here though."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Eva takes his hand with a dramatic gesture and a dainty loose wrist. "Whisking me away to an island paradise, Doctor? It would be romantic if it weren't for the shoddy transportation."

By which she means running from the library and that awful dumbwaiter. She's sending it waves of telepathic disapproval now.

She's kidding, of course, with the flirting. She sees the Doctor as a friend, nothing more. Well, perhaps something more, but nothing romantically more. He's the type of person who tends to be the planet around which other, more short-lived satellites orbit, and those tend to be the types she avoids. She likes creating her own trajectories. So he's more than a friend, in that he's a friend who overcame the obstacles of her own obstinance and isolation to find himself at her side. Or to find her at his side.

"And knowing this sort of place, that could range from legitimate monsters to temperamental rock quarries." She undoes her hair and combs through it with her fingers as she gazes out onto the island. As they cross the beach she gathers pieces of driftwood, rolling them in her hands to test how damp they are. "I don't suppose you're adverse to building a fire? I'm chilled to the bone, but if you think it will attract carnivorous rock quarries I can grit my chattering teeth and bear it."

[makeherblue]

The Doctor helps her up and over the side of the dinghy, just like a gentleman – a gentleman who is incredibly old-fashioned and almost out-dated. The hair, of course, helps to even that out. It’s somehow fluffed out to its normal state like magic.

He’s sure the poor dumbwaiter is glad it’s not here to hear that. He fixes her with a baffled look at the flirting, almost as if he’s not quite sure what to do with her all of a sudden. With River Song, it’s one thing. She has an excessive amount of mystery about her, what with the professor being a time traveler and nevermind all that painfully intriguing stuff about the Storm Cage. She’s dangerous. But Eva is a friend, not time-bendingly (bendy?) dangerous and suddenly he’s not quite sure how to handle an Eva Salazar flirt fired at him at close range. He clears his throat, frowns a little, pretends he isn’t flustered, and nearly drops the anchor into the boat instead of into the water.

He manages to recover as he catches up to Eva. While she’s off collecting driftwood, he’s putting his time to better use and collecting sea shells. If anything, she ought to have a proper sea shell collection once this is all over. Think of it as a Doctor gift.

“I’m sure there aren’t carnivorous rock quarries. You’d be surprised how many quarries there are out there though! Almost a cliché, that’s how popular they are.” The Doctor motions for Eva to set the driftwood down wherever she wants that fire. Fire, he can do. He pulls out the sonic screwdriver from his breast pocket, fiddling with the settings.

And yes, it can’t do wood, but it can cheat around wood and starting a fire with his sonic is nothing at all.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

The Doctor' abashment only encourages Eva more, obviously. For all the times he's made her feel uncomfortable or vaguely insulted or just plain weirded out, this is a fitting retribution. And naturally she's taking quite a lot of enjoyment out of it. She blows an exaggerated kiss in his direction. Marco would be emancipating himself if he could see her now.

"They must be useful. There must be a lot of rock-mining in this Phantom Tollbooth of yours, then. Maybe it runs on iron. Or subterranean peoples." She waggles her eyebrows to show she's kidding, and then makes a surprised and delighted squeal at the fire. "And here I thought we'd be banging rocks together!"

She wags a finger at the Doctor. "I was looking forward to the melodious sounds of the Rock Banging Symphony, you know."

Granted, knowing the Doctor, such an orchestra probably exists, and he probably has all sorts of witty anecdotes about them that he'll never fully explain to her. He's just that way with her.

[makeherblue]

The Doctor can’t dodge the air-kiss. Quick one, this human! He couldn’t help giving her the Time Lord version of a deer-in-the-headlights (a classic), his cheeks even looking like they might, just might, be flushing before he can pretend to be busy doing what a toddler could do with the drift-wood.

“Well.” His voice squeaks – only a little, mind you. “There’s probably a quarry or two plus symphony but really, you humans are the ones who are so fond of digging holes into things. You’re practically masters of it. Galactically famous for quarries!”

Not much of a spoiler he thinks. Despite being rather…squishy, humans have made digging into practically an artform and they’re almost scarily good at it (or so he’s heard some other aliens say. You can quote him on that). He can’t say he’s heard of an orchestra called that word for word, but he can list the nature preserves out there in the universe where it’s a tourist attraction to listen to avalanches and landslides, for example. Close enough, right? Right. Yet another place he’ll have to take her once they’re out of the TARDIS and there’s the little matter of fixing the TARDIS but yes. That. All of that.

The fire crackles to life thanks to the sonic, the Doctor folding the prongs as he tucks it back into his pocket. There you are. Fire. There’s also probably the matter of food but at least they have some heat here.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Eva throws her head all the way back and laughs like a rather quiet hyena. She doesn't want to attract any attention from, say, killer libraries, so what she lacks in volume she has to make up for in body language. And currently her body is projecting completely amusement at the Doctor.

"Really now? Because I knew a race that was even better at digging holes in things than we were. Granted, they were trying to devour the dirt itself because they were painfully hungry, and they were a hive species, so it makes sense that they'd make giant anthills." She twitches her nose at him. "You're not the only one that's seen all sorts of aliens, Doctor."

She leans forward and warms her palms by the fire.

[makeherblue]

Laugh all you want, Eva. Try reversing it and imagining him – or another Time Lord – trying to make a pass at you and see how you deal with it. Also maybe it’s best to let that mental image sink in for a bit.

“Giant space termites? Or another species?” The Doctor looks interested despite himself. “Right, yeah. Sometimes I forget you’re traveled. Not often I run into a human who knows about an alien I don’t.” In a way it’s refreshing.

The Doctor shrugs out of his tweed jacket, laying it on the ground. Unfortunately he didn’t think to pack blankets or pillow or even a single sleeping bag, so it’s sand and possibly giant banana tree leaves if he can find any. He’s hoping this is one of the islands that might have the ones large enough to use as a boat (in case the dinghy ever sinks…or implodes out from under them) and incidentally they do act as decent enough blankets. Good for keeping in the body heat. He'll look later, once they're settled and if he's going to go out exploring, he'll have to remember to be more careful, what with what happened in the Nothing Forest only a few hours ago. The Doctor crouches down across from Eva. In the firelight he looks alien, the orange glow casting flickering shadows across his face.

“Did you want to see space, Eva?” It’s a question he’s had for a while and since they’re here, he supposes he might as well ask. "Before Stacy. All of this." He flaps his hand.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Centipedes, really. They were called Taxxons. And they were...well, the epitome of a tragic race. A complete subversion of our expectations." She looks sad for a moment. She didn't envy the Taxxons, found them disgusting, really, but out of any race she ran into, she found their decision to be voluntary controllers the only sympathetic one. "We thought they were evil and naturally, they were just scared and tortured. Much like many things in this reality."

She stares back at the Doctor. Yes, he's alien, and yet familiar, somehow. Not like the aliens in her life, the ones that tugged her around and ruined her and never once asked her permission before they upended everything she ever worked for. Before they stole her face and drafted her teenage son.

How could she ever blame him the way she blames the rest of the universe? He's like her - isolated. Carrying the wounds of pasts no one cares to delve into.

"No. I wanted to be president. But I was an immigrant." It's an honest answer. She did have quite the ambitions when she was young, but none of them involved traveling the galaxy. "I don't know that I want to see more of it now."

[makeherblue]

The Doctor nods as he takes in Giant Centipedes and Not-As-Evil-As-We-Thought. Eva’s completely right, of course. Very sensible for a human, and not in the Leadsworth Sensible way, either!

“You know they do change that. In the future. Different definitions of presidents and what counts as a human. Bit stretchy by then,” the Doctor points out. As spoilers go, he considers it harmless. It’s a future he probably would have liked to show her, if things had been different – and that, by the way, is a very human way of looking at it, as if that’s just how it will be. Why, he could still take her there! Show off the universe to her when it’s not trying to kill her or enslave her! Or…at least keep those bits away from her as best he could.

The Doctor has one of those Looks on his face, as if he’s plotting something. Maybe a scheme. His Scheming and Plotting Faces look the same anyway. Still, he’s past the days where he just pushes his companions into the TARDIS and they’re basically glorified prisoners, so it still all banks on Eva agreeing to go on an adventure or two in the end. The Doctor nods, watching the fire crackling in front of Eva. The firelight casts those scars of hers in deeper shadows, making her look old, and not just in that way humans get once they reach the end of their short lifespans.

“It’d be better off having more Eva Salazar,” the Doctor remarks. “The real you.”

[economicalrhinoplasty]

She draws one eyebrow up, the other down, in a quizzical attempt to glean meaning from the Doctor's face. He's plotting something, she can tell, but what is beyond her. It occurs to her that she's not sure that she trusts his schemes - she didn't when he refused to fill her in on the killer library, and while she knows he probably has her best interest in mind, she also knows he won't keep her as up to date as she'd like to be.

"And what do you know about the real me, Doc?"

For that matter, what does she know about the real her? That person seems like another casualty of the war, lost behind some wall twelve years ago. It's like remembering another person, an old friend she knew growing up, maybe, from childhood to high school to motherhood, but they got separated along the way.

Or is the real her the person she is now?