moragmacpherson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moragmacpherson) wrote2008-03-28 06:03 am
moragmacpherson) wrote2008-03-28 06:03 am
Fic: Better With Two (7/??) (Buffy/DrWho)
Title: Better With Two (7/??)
Series: Tempus Frangit
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moragmacpherson
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: True sequel to Another Side of the Sky. Takes place during AU Buffy season 8 "The Long Way Home," approximately two months post Another Side for the Doctor.
Disclaimer: I make no claim to any characters contained herein, who are actually owned by big corporations filled with highly paid attorneys who know that suing me would be idiotic based on the fact that all I own are student loans and they wouldn't even be able to recover costs.
Archive: Here, TtH. If you'd like it, let me know.
Betas: Depending on the chapter, some combination of Arkaeus, LiastraLee, MissJulie, and/orbooster17
Summary: Great muppety Odin, Buffy misses the Doctor. She decides the time has come to do something about it.
Chapter Seven - The Sum of His Parts
Akiko turned the corner and found a huge group of slayers, along with Willow, Xander, and Spike crowded around the TARDIS. Perceiving her quarry, she moved forward and grabbed Ashley. "What's going on and why haven't you shown up in the library for your shift?"
Ashley giggled. "Oh my God, Akiko, it's incredible."
Siri pulled Akiko's head down. "The Doctor asked Buffy to have his kids!"
"What?" yelped Akiko, then everyone hushed her. "So what's going on?"
"They took off in there. I guess he's also giving the TARDIS to Willow, she's freaking out, there's this whole plan that nobody understands, and Buffy and the Doctor have been locked in there for more than an hour."
Ashley added, "They only just stopped yelling at each other about five minutes ago."
"They were talking in foreign languages, but he forgot the TARDIS translates for me now," said Mu, her black eyes shining. "There were some really bad words coming out of there."
Akiko looked around. "What have Willow and Xander had to say?"
"Not much. They keep trying to get a hold of Giles. I think they like the Doctor's plan, but Buffy's pissed and Spike keeps banging his head against the wall." The girls all peered over at the vampire, who was indeed pushing his head repeatedly against the stone.
"Pregnant Buffy?" A look of horror crossed Akiko's face. "No, no way. It'll never happen."
"And her alien spawn!" Ashley was gleeful. "I always knew she was weird, but this pushes the limit."
"No, Ashley, think about the mood swings. None of us will survive it." Akiko shook her head as the other girls paled. Then Satsu glared at them, and they all looked down.
"That is, if the Doctor talks her into it. It hasn't sounded like it's gone well." Mu mentioned.
The doors of the TARDIS pushed open, and an entirely unhappy and fully clothed Buffy looked over the room, disappointing a crowd of girls who'd bet that the recent quiet had meant that the pair had gone baby-making, while Alyssa collected their bets. "Of course. Can't do anything without the gaggle getting in on it any more." She sighed. "Girls, my friend the Doctor has decided to ask for our help. It is a plan that might work, but will require-" her face twisted, "a certain number of sacrifices from each of us. I'm still not entirely convinced by this plan, but I'm not the only one that gets a vote on it. So, there will be a meeting, in two days. Willow, could you get in touch with Giles and my sister? Even if they can't be here, they should be in on the plan."
"Yeah Buffy, I can do that."
"Good. As for any mention of my relationship with the Doctor, or any changes that might be happening in it, no, the rest of you do not get a vote on that." Buffy glared back into the box, where Akiko noticed the Doctor standing a few paces behind her, his shoulders low. "I don't even know if I do right now. But anyway, what happens with that is not really any of your concern, and don't get worried. So, if you could, I'm going to get some sleep – in my bedroom, in the TARDIS, Spike, I want some privacy and some quiet time." Her teeth gritted. "Thanks everyone for all of your concern, and we'll deal with this as best we can." Buffy turned around, and to everyone else's shock, pushed the Doctor out of the TARDIS and locked the door behind her. For a moment it looked like the Doctor was about to start banging and yelling at the door, but then he remembered the crowd around him, and turned back to them, opening his mouth a few times when he'd almost decided what to say, but ultimately remaining silent.
Xander started herding the girls out as Willow went to talk with the Doctor. Spike lingered in the corner, smoking a cigarette with a bleak smile on his face. Akiko wanted to go up and talk with them, to find out what was really going on, but Ashley tugged on her hand, and she headed back to the library with her assistant.
When Akiko found the Doctor curled up on a couch in the stacks an hour later, she took his shoes and glasses off and pulled an afghan over him. His gentle snores continued uninterrupted, and she allowed herself to rub a lock of his hair between her fingers as she turned the reading lamp off.
~*~
The space was wrong, like she could feel the substance of the air. Buffy waved her hand in front of her face and felt dizzy from the distortion of the movement.
"Here, you'll want to stop that." A pale hand stopped her arm, the grip strangely uncallused, a grip she associated with only one man.
"Doctor?" But this was wrong; he was too thick through the chest, blue eyes, big ears, the accent was wrong, and the black leather coat was a departure from his usual wool suits.
"Yeah, that's me. Me too, really, so far as you're concerned." He released her arm and sat down beside her on a chair that appeared from the aether.
Buffy put her head between her knees. "Okay, I'm going to get this wrong, so please just tell me what's going on."
This Doctor smiled, an action that looked less natural with him than it did with her Doctor. "Normally, I'd make you at least try to guess, but it's been a long day, so I suppose I shouldn't irritate you any extra. You are taking your own good advice and sleeping on this little decision. And so are we." This Doctor frowned. "Well, he is. But we remembered that psychic field all you Slayers seem to possess, so we decided to pay you a quick visit, seeing as the current us-"
"- is a bloody fool." An older man in a velvet smoking jacket took Buffy's hand after finishing the other's sentence. "I've been keeping an eye on you this whole time, and I'm terribly fond, I must say. It's a pleasure."
Buffy expelled dream breath. "You're him too?"
Merriment danced in the latest Doctor's eyes. "I suppose you could say that I'm him Three."
Processing this turn of events, Buffy wrinkled her nose, then looked around and announced loudly: "If you're all here, could you all just come out so that I can keep you straight?"
Obediently seven more men emerged from the mists: a tall man with an elegant cravat who also kissed her hand; a shorter man with a straw hat who bowed deeply, one with a mop of curly hair who popped open his umbrella in greeting, the youngest-looking one wearing a stick of celery on his lapel blushed and stammered. Next was a Doctor with a long nose and a longer scarf who shook her hand warmly, that same cool smoothness in his grasp, then came one with a shag haircut who nodded briskly. Last was a slight old man with that eternal look of mischief in his eyes, who winked at her.
"So this is all of you?"
"Indeed, this is all of us," replied the one with the scarf.
"'I am he and you are we and we are all together,'" chimed the shaggy haired one. Everyone except for the old man snickered.
"I guess that makes me the egg man." Buffy couldn't help but smile.
"At least you're not the walrus," agreed the one in black leather.
"That's true. Okay, Doctors," Buffy faltered. "Should I give you numbers?"
"It's as good a system as any," allowed the curly-haired one with the umbrella. "We've sat in order from your left to right."
Again Buffy couldn't control her grin. "You know me." Then her face fell and she bit her knuckle. "You really are him."
Three moved to put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm afraid you're in love with a complicated man."
Buffy's eyes widened. "I'm – I mean, am I in love with all of you? Are you all in love with me?"
Two and Six coughed. One, Five, and Seven looked away. Four shrugged. Three, Eight, and Nine nodded. Eight then added, "We all love you. It's just that some of us actually have a spark of romance from time to time."
"Some of us had other things on which to concentrate our attentions," pronounced Six. The group descended into a muddle of accusations and arguments.
Five tapped Buffy's leg. "Some of us are just a bit shy," he told her, then blushed.
Buffy palmed her face. "Okay!" The Doctors quieted down after her shout. "So, other than to deliver the really fun revelation that not all of my alien husband's multiple personalities are all that crazy about me, did you fellas have any reason for this little get-together?"
"You have no patience, do you?" sniped Two.
"Yes, we did," said Nine while glaring at Two.
"You just called us your husband," mentioned Four. Sudden silence reigned. Buffy blushed, but recovered.
"After sixty-odd years, not to mention asking me to be the mother of your children, are you really going to object?" There was a chorus of "no's," again except from One, who shook his head, a small smile upon his face. "Good then. So what's the deal?"
Eight caught her gaze. "We want you to know that we think we went about this the wrong way."
Seven chuckled. "You see, we've never been very good at this sort of thing."
"We're a rude bastard," summarized Five.
"But you've always loved us in spite of that," finished Nine.
"That's for damn sure." Buffy looked the motley group over. "A chorus of apologies helps, but it doesn't change things. I don't know if I'm ready to be Mother of the Time Lords."
"That's precisely the qualm we had," exclaimed Six. "Now you understand!"
Buffy held her palms to the sky. "But I haven't had this great epiphany yet! I can barely deal with all of the responsibility I already have, I mean, my own sister can't stand me, what if the same thing happens with the kids? What if I'm mother to a race that thinks I'm an idiot air-head with too much power for her own good?"
"Then you'll have raised teenagers," quipped Three. The laugh escaped Buffy's lips before she remembered that she was experiencing serious self-doubt and angst and shouldn't be laughing at the Doctor's bad jokes.
But then if she didn't laugh at the Doctor's bad jokes, she wouldn't be her, and he wouldn't be him. And despite the many faces, she saw the Doctor in each of the men before her, laughing at themselves, a carnival mirror vision of the man she knew.
"What we're trying to say is, we have much the same fears," said Eight. "We've had children before, we even know how well-founded your fears are."
"We also know that it's not just the plan," soothed Two. "We really do want to have children. Your children."
"Our children," elaborated Nine. "We're a sad, broken bunch, but you make us a better person."
"We just want you to trust us," finished Seven.
Buffy bit her lip. "Okay. I'll think about it." She was blown back by the sudden wave of arguments and berating that followed her answer. They were all talking now, with a variety of reasons about why she didn't really need to think about this anymore, and other internal disputes which must have dated back decades.
Then came the call. "Enough!" One rose to his feet as silence fell. "The rest of me, out!" He thudded a cane against the floor, and with mutters and murmurs amongst themselves, and kisses and hugs for her, the other Doctors filed out of the field of vision.
"Sometimes I really do need to learn to shut up."
Buffy laughed. "If there's one thing I've learned in all of my time with you, I know that's never going to happen."
"Too right! Come now, join me." Buffy sat next to the First Doctor, the first version of the man she'd spent a lifetime with. "Now, you mustn't pay too much attention to those others. Avowed bachelors, the lot of them, albeit the Fourth me came quite close with dearest Romana, and the Eighth and Ninth had romantic natures. But no, I was the only other me to explore these particular realms of the universe."
"So the wife and children?"
"They were mine, yes, in my youth, when I wasn't much older than you are now. Do you know, I'm not even sure that rascal Ten even remembers what it was like to be me?" One sighed. "It seems like most of the others spent their time trying to forget all of my mistakes. But it's hard to get past me. I did the growing up, I raised our family, I was the first one run out of Gallifrey, and I stole the TARDIS, that other love of our life. We were me five hundred years. None of the others lasted more than a hundred."
"Really?"
The Doctor nodded. "Yes. The whole lot of us are my fault. Well, actually, Nine is sort of Four's fault, but that's a long story you can ask us sometime later over a warm mug of something strong. But I like to think we're not so bad, in the end. Though I must ask, having met us, do you think that you'll love the next?"
Buffy stopped. "I- I think so. I never thought about it before. I've spent so much time and effort making sure you didn't regenerate. I never imagined how our lives would change if you did." Her fingers ran along the back of the chair. "I mean, I'd love a new you. I couldn't stop if I tried. But you heard the rest of you. Would you still love me?"
The Doctor regarded her several long moments. "You drive us mad. You and your violence and magic and make up and the way it takes you six tries to pronounce anything longer than four syllables right. When we met you, you were strange and interesting. All of that death and destruction in your past, but you were somehow clean of it, as if the blood just never stuck. You hung about, and you kept picking at us, forcing us to look at the world your way." He shrugged his shoulders. "I think we hated you, for a while. And then, you insisted on loving us. We didn't know exactly what to do about that, it was such a shock. We figured it would wear off, but we would enjoy it while it lasted. Imagine our surprise when we figured out that we loved you. Wholly, passionately, a woman unlike any other in our past. After that, we spent another sixty years with you." His eyes were wide. "We were a bit of wreck, while we thought you were gone." He sighed and shook his head.
"I know the despair. Right after I was pulled out of your arms, I landed in my body, in a coffin, and it was worse than hell. In those first days, what kept me going was your words before I disappeared, that you'd find me." Buffy chuckled. "Then I got bored of waiting I guess."
"The heavens tremble at the thought of bored Buffy." The Doctor stroked her hands with his fingers. No calluses, but these hands were the hands of an old man. For the first time she saw the Doctor's nine hundred odd years someplace other than in the depths of his eyes. Those eyes, blue not brown, but still the same, regarded her now. "I can't imagine us ever being anything but devoted to you, not even when there's twenty of us in this space."
Buffy pulled away. "And Time-tots? What ever happened to that problem? Are you sure you're ready to take care of them when I'm gone?" Buffy looked away. "You already know what I'll look like as an old woman. It'll happen again, if I'm lucky. You're talking about having kids with a woman who's already been through menopause once, who already gave up on this dream a long time ago. Because you asked me to. This is it Doctor, this is my last hurrah. There won't ever be twenty of me lurking around in my head, there's just this one." She swallowed. "So you've got to mean this. It's got to be more than just a quick fix with the universe. You're going to have to be there for them. Will you still want to be a father after I'm buried for the last time?"
The Doctor closed his eyes. "Yes." Clearing his throat, he stood. "I know this seems like a sudden switch. I know you've never trusted the mood swings. But I want you to know, this is sincere. And I think there's one more person in this mind that would like to meet you, who you might trust this time." He offered her his hand, and she accepted, standing to follow him through the mists.
He looked uncomfortable, wearing a plaid wool suit that was unfamiliar to her, but the hair, everything else, was just right. Then he moved, and she realized it was all wrong: None of the Doctor's easy unconscious grace, none of the manic energy. It wasn't even like those moments when he wrapped all that energy inside, just waiting to pounce. It was more like the energy wasn't even there, leaving behind a nervous young man who seemed even younger than Buffy, possibly younger than Dawn. He bowed stiffly, and his eyes were wide and embarrassed. "H-hello."
"Miss Summers, please meet Mister John Smith."
Taking her cue from her beloved's clone, she curtsied, finding that at some point the dream stuff had dressed her in a loose skirt. "Pleased to meet you."
"N-no, not really. I've see- I, I've seen you before. From inside." His eyes went even wider and she worried he might faint. "I mean, I can see through our eyes, from inside the Doctor, not that I, although I have-" John broke off and blushed a deep red, covering his face with his hands.
The Doctor laughed, and Buffy glared at him. "Sorry. I'll just leave you two to catch up."
Buffy chose to sit on the other side of the bench from John, who was recovering but steadfastly looking at his shoes. The bow tie looked cute on him, in a fluffy duckling kind of way. "So you're part of the Doctor?"
"A human. Drawn from him, he became me once when he had to hide. I only lived two months, in 1913, before he-" John's voice cracked. "There were invaders from space. People were dying. I had to bring him back. Once he was back, I sort of faded into him. Discovered my other incarnations. It was, ah, alarming."
"That was very brave of you. So you can watch?"
"Yes. Sometimes. I try to observe some propriety but-"
Buffy couldn't help her smile, even as she sympathized with his embarrassment. This poor identity seemed to have received every ounce of the primness the Doctor had dragged along with him before she took care of it, anyway. Carefully scooting a few inches closer, she helped him with his confession. "But sometimes you got curious."
"Well, yes."
"Because you were human in 1913, and of course, you couldn't have had any relations with anybody in just two months back then."
"No, no. There was a, uh, lady, but there wasn't near enough time." And by the agony in his voice, she knew John had loved that lady, and took his hand in hers. It was warm.
"I understand."
"You can't." Finally, John looked her in the eye. "Before I released the Doctor, I could see, we could both see, Joan and I, we saw the life we would have had without him. Our family." He looked at Buffy. "I know that the Doctor is a strange man, every one of him. But I would like to experience family, again. And I think it would make him a better person."
Buffy felt John's calluses, where he had held pens and tabbed through old papers, the hands of a scholar. "You think he'd make a good father?"
"Yes, I do. Probably a better one than me."
"And you'll be in the background, watching him? Watching me? Watching them?"
She was surprised as his scholarly hand caught her chin. "Of course I will. Miss Summers, we will protect them and you to the end of the universe and back again." He kissed her, and his lips were warm against hers, the human face of the alien she loved so, and it was so normal, and sweet, and right.
His eyes were looking down on her when she finally opened her own. "Okay. Let's do it." She stole one more kiss as the background fuzzed further and though she was in contact with him, he was further and further away. "Thank you." And then it all went black.
~*~
Buffy could smell hot coffee and cinnamon as she woke up, and sure enough, cup and toast sat on a tray by the bed. She could hear the Doctor banging away in the background, and wound her way through the corridors until she found the obscure storage room he'd been searching through. "Good morning."
He jumped. "Buffy!" The Doctor tried to regain composure, but lost. "The TARDIS let me back in a few minutes ago, after I, I y'know, had a sleep, like you said. You were still asleep, so I left some food there for you and figured I'd get to work on the new culturing equipment in case you had decided to have a change of mind while you were asleep, because you said you were going to sleep on the decision and maybe you'd be less mad after a good night's kip, seems to help you human types and did I wake you up back here, because I can come back later, I didn't mean to wake you." She crossed her arms and he stopped. "Please, just say something."
"Have any interesting dreams?"
The Doctor blinked, and he rocked back on his heels. "No, not really. Don't dream often."
"Really? I did. It'll come to you." Buffy knew she had to wait only a few moments before the Doctor's patented Sudden Epiphany Face came on.
"No!"
"Yes."
"How?!"
"You know."
"They didn't?!"
"They did."
"You agreed?!"
"I did."
"Even after you met them?!"
"And they called you bloody fool, a blithering skinny idiot and a number of other very funny, very true, not very nice things." Buffy approached the Doctor, her Doctor, and wrapped her hands in his lapels. "Despite your schizophrenic self-esteem issues, you're the best looking you yet."
"Am I?" The Doctor's voice managed the transition from nervous to husky in just two words.
"Oh yeah. Although Eight wasn't bad either and I liked Nine's dress sense, but then I've always had a thing for big guys in leather jackets." She folded his wool jacket over her back, sniffing at the Doctor's neck.
"I still have it, it's up in the wardrobe. Bit big on me, but then-" He dipped his mouth to hers then, and she melted into him, and he could hear the hoots and hollers of every other him inside, and gave the rest of them a mental "Shut up!" before returning his full attention to his beautiful companion and mate who was scooting him up against the wall and turning the clothes she stripped off of him into a serviceable pad on the floor with her feet. "But it's the wrong part of the month for working on the plan-" he managed while she was throwing his trainers out the door.
"And since when did the plan have anything to do with me doing this to you?"
"Fair play."
Next
Series: Tempus Frangit
Author:
moragmacpherson Rating: PG-13
Timeline: True sequel to Another Side of the Sky. Takes place during AU Buffy season 8 "The Long Way Home," approximately two months post Another Side for the Doctor.
Disclaimer: I make no claim to any characters contained herein, who are actually owned by big corporations filled with highly paid attorneys who know that suing me would be idiotic based on the fact that all I own are student loans and they wouldn't even be able to recover costs.
Archive: Here, TtH. If you'd like it, let me know.
Betas: Depending on the chapter, some combination of Arkaeus, LiastraLee, MissJulie, and/or
booster17 Summary: Great muppety Odin, Buffy misses the Doctor. She decides the time has come to do something about it.
Chapter Seven - The Sum of His Parts
Akiko turned the corner and found a huge group of slayers, along with Willow, Xander, and Spike crowded around the TARDIS. Perceiving her quarry, she moved forward and grabbed Ashley. "What's going on and why haven't you shown up in the library for your shift?"
Ashley giggled. "Oh my God, Akiko, it's incredible."
Siri pulled Akiko's head down. "The Doctor asked Buffy to have his kids!"
"What?" yelped Akiko, then everyone hushed her. "So what's going on?"
"They took off in there. I guess he's also giving the TARDIS to Willow, she's freaking out, there's this whole plan that nobody understands, and Buffy and the Doctor have been locked in there for more than an hour."
Ashley added, "They only just stopped yelling at each other about five minutes ago."
"They were talking in foreign languages, but he forgot the TARDIS translates for me now," said Mu, her black eyes shining. "There were some really bad words coming out of there."
Akiko looked around. "What have Willow and Xander had to say?"
"Not much. They keep trying to get a hold of Giles. I think they like the Doctor's plan, but Buffy's pissed and Spike keeps banging his head against the wall." The girls all peered over at the vampire, who was indeed pushing his head repeatedly against the stone.
"Pregnant Buffy?" A look of horror crossed Akiko's face. "No, no way. It'll never happen."
"And her alien spawn!" Ashley was gleeful. "I always knew she was weird, but this pushes the limit."
"No, Ashley, think about the mood swings. None of us will survive it." Akiko shook her head as the other girls paled. Then Satsu glared at them, and they all looked down.
"That is, if the Doctor talks her into it. It hasn't sounded like it's gone well." Mu mentioned.
The doors of the TARDIS pushed open, and an entirely unhappy and fully clothed Buffy looked over the room, disappointing a crowd of girls who'd bet that the recent quiet had meant that the pair had gone baby-making, while Alyssa collected their bets. "Of course. Can't do anything without the gaggle getting in on it any more." She sighed. "Girls, my friend the Doctor has decided to ask for our help. It is a plan that might work, but will require-" her face twisted, "a certain number of sacrifices from each of us. I'm still not entirely convinced by this plan, but I'm not the only one that gets a vote on it. So, there will be a meeting, in two days. Willow, could you get in touch with Giles and my sister? Even if they can't be here, they should be in on the plan."
"Yeah Buffy, I can do that."
"Good. As for any mention of my relationship with the Doctor, or any changes that might be happening in it, no, the rest of you do not get a vote on that." Buffy glared back into the box, where Akiko noticed the Doctor standing a few paces behind her, his shoulders low. "I don't even know if I do right now. But anyway, what happens with that is not really any of your concern, and don't get worried. So, if you could, I'm going to get some sleep – in my bedroom, in the TARDIS, Spike, I want some privacy and some quiet time." Her teeth gritted. "Thanks everyone for all of your concern, and we'll deal with this as best we can." Buffy turned around, and to everyone else's shock, pushed the Doctor out of the TARDIS and locked the door behind her. For a moment it looked like the Doctor was about to start banging and yelling at the door, but then he remembered the crowd around him, and turned back to them, opening his mouth a few times when he'd almost decided what to say, but ultimately remaining silent.
Xander started herding the girls out as Willow went to talk with the Doctor. Spike lingered in the corner, smoking a cigarette with a bleak smile on his face. Akiko wanted to go up and talk with them, to find out what was really going on, but Ashley tugged on her hand, and she headed back to the library with her assistant.
When Akiko found the Doctor curled up on a couch in the stacks an hour later, she took his shoes and glasses off and pulled an afghan over him. His gentle snores continued uninterrupted, and she allowed herself to rub a lock of his hair between her fingers as she turned the reading lamp off.
~*~
The space was wrong, like she could feel the substance of the air. Buffy waved her hand in front of her face and felt dizzy from the distortion of the movement.
"Here, you'll want to stop that." A pale hand stopped her arm, the grip strangely uncallused, a grip she associated with only one man.
"Doctor?" But this was wrong; he was too thick through the chest, blue eyes, big ears, the accent was wrong, and the black leather coat was a departure from his usual wool suits.
"Yeah, that's me. Me too, really, so far as you're concerned." He released her arm and sat down beside her on a chair that appeared from the aether.
Buffy put her head between her knees. "Okay, I'm going to get this wrong, so please just tell me what's going on."
This Doctor smiled, an action that looked less natural with him than it did with her Doctor. "Normally, I'd make you at least try to guess, but it's been a long day, so I suppose I shouldn't irritate you any extra. You are taking your own good advice and sleeping on this little decision. And so are we." This Doctor frowned. "Well, he is. But we remembered that psychic field all you Slayers seem to possess, so we decided to pay you a quick visit, seeing as the current us-"
"- is a bloody fool." An older man in a velvet smoking jacket took Buffy's hand after finishing the other's sentence. "I've been keeping an eye on you this whole time, and I'm terribly fond, I must say. It's a pleasure."
Buffy expelled dream breath. "You're him too?"
Merriment danced in the latest Doctor's eyes. "I suppose you could say that I'm him Three."
Processing this turn of events, Buffy wrinkled her nose, then looked around and announced loudly: "If you're all here, could you all just come out so that I can keep you straight?"
Obediently seven more men emerged from the mists: a tall man with an elegant cravat who also kissed her hand; a shorter man with a straw hat who bowed deeply, one with a mop of curly hair who popped open his umbrella in greeting, the youngest-looking one wearing a stick of celery on his lapel blushed and stammered. Next was a Doctor with a long nose and a longer scarf who shook her hand warmly, that same cool smoothness in his grasp, then came one with a shag haircut who nodded briskly. Last was a slight old man with that eternal look of mischief in his eyes, who winked at her.
"So this is all of you?"
"Indeed, this is all of us," replied the one with the scarf.
"'I am he and you are we and we are all together,'" chimed the shaggy haired one. Everyone except for the old man snickered.
"I guess that makes me the egg man." Buffy couldn't help but smile.
"At least you're not the walrus," agreed the one in black leather.
"That's true. Okay, Doctors," Buffy faltered. "Should I give you numbers?"
"It's as good a system as any," allowed the curly-haired one with the umbrella. "We've sat in order from your left to right."
Again Buffy couldn't control her grin. "You know me." Then her face fell and she bit her knuckle. "You really are him."
Three moved to put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm afraid you're in love with a complicated man."
Buffy's eyes widened. "I'm – I mean, am I in love with all of you? Are you all in love with me?"
Two and Six coughed. One, Five, and Seven looked away. Four shrugged. Three, Eight, and Nine nodded. Eight then added, "We all love you. It's just that some of us actually have a spark of romance from time to time."
"Some of us had other things on which to concentrate our attentions," pronounced Six. The group descended into a muddle of accusations and arguments.
Five tapped Buffy's leg. "Some of us are just a bit shy," he told her, then blushed.
Buffy palmed her face. "Okay!" The Doctors quieted down after her shout. "So, other than to deliver the really fun revelation that not all of my alien husband's multiple personalities are all that crazy about me, did you fellas have any reason for this little get-together?"
"You have no patience, do you?" sniped Two.
"Yes, we did," said Nine while glaring at Two.
"You just called us your husband," mentioned Four. Sudden silence reigned. Buffy blushed, but recovered.
"After sixty-odd years, not to mention asking me to be the mother of your children, are you really going to object?" There was a chorus of "no's," again except from One, who shook his head, a small smile upon his face. "Good then. So what's the deal?"
Eight caught her gaze. "We want you to know that we think we went about this the wrong way."
Seven chuckled. "You see, we've never been very good at this sort of thing."
"We're a rude bastard," summarized Five.
"But you've always loved us in spite of that," finished Nine.
"That's for damn sure." Buffy looked the motley group over. "A chorus of apologies helps, but it doesn't change things. I don't know if I'm ready to be Mother of the Time Lords."
"That's precisely the qualm we had," exclaimed Six. "Now you understand!"
Buffy held her palms to the sky. "But I haven't had this great epiphany yet! I can barely deal with all of the responsibility I already have, I mean, my own sister can't stand me, what if the same thing happens with the kids? What if I'm mother to a race that thinks I'm an idiot air-head with too much power for her own good?"
"Then you'll have raised teenagers," quipped Three. The laugh escaped Buffy's lips before she remembered that she was experiencing serious self-doubt and angst and shouldn't be laughing at the Doctor's bad jokes.
But then if she didn't laugh at the Doctor's bad jokes, she wouldn't be her, and he wouldn't be him. And despite the many faces, she saw the Doctor in each of the men before her, laughing at themselves, a carnival mirror vision of the man she knew.
"What we're trying to say is, we have much the same fears," said Eight. "We've had children before, we even know how well-founded your fears are."
"We also know that it's not just the plan," soothed Two. "We really do want to have children. Your children."
"Our children," elaborated Nine. "We're a sad, broken bunch, but you make us a better person."
"We just want you to trust us," finished Seven.
Buffy bit her lip. "Okay. I'll think about it." She was blown back by the sudden wave of arguments and berating that followed her answer. They were all talking now, with a variety of reasons about why she didn't really need to think about this anymore, and other internal disputes which must have dated back decades.
Then came the call. "Enough!" One rose to his feet as silence fell. "The rest of me, out!" He thudded a cane against the floor, and with mutters and murmurs amongst themselves, and kisses and hugs for her, the other Doctors filed out of the field of vision.
"Sometimes I really do need to learn to shut up."
Buffy laughed. "If there's one thing I've learned in all of my time with you, I know that's never going to happen."
"Too right! Come now, join me." Buffy sat next to the First Doctor, the first version of the man she'd spent a lifetime with. "Now, you mustn't pay too much attention to those others. Avowed bachelors, the lot of them, albeit the Fourth me came quite close with dearest Romana, and the Eighth and Ninth had romantic natures. But no, I was the only other me to explore these particular realms of the universe."
"So the wife and children?"
"They were mine, yes, in my youth, when I wasn't much older than you are now. Do you know, I'm not even sure that rascal Ten even remembers what it was like to be me?" One sighed. "It seems like most of the others spent their time trying to forget all of my mistakes. But it's hard to get past me. I did the growing up, I raised our family, I was the first one run out of Gallifrey, and I stole the TARDIS, that other love of our life. We were me five hundred years. None of the others lasted more than a hundred."
"Really?"
The Doctor nodded. "Yes. The whole lot of us are my fault. Well, actually, Nine is sort of Four's fault, but that's a long story you can ask us sometime later over a warm mug of something strong. But I like to think we're not so bad, in the end. Though I must ask, having met us, do you think that you'll love the next?"
Buffy stopped. "I- I think so. I never thought about it before. I've spent so much time and effort making sure you didn't regenerate. I never imagined how our lives would change if you did." Her fingers ran along the back of the chair. "I mean, I'd love a new you. I couldn't stop if I tried. But you heard the rest of you. Would you still love me?"
The Doctor regarded her several long moments. "You drive us mad. You and your violence and magic and make up and the way it takes you six tries to pronounce anything longer than four syllables right. When we met you, you were strange and interesting. All of that death and destruction in your past, but you were somehow clean of it, as if the blood just never stuck. You hung about, and you kept picking at us, forcing us to look at the world your way." He shrugged his shoulders. "I think we hated you, for a while. And then, you insisted on loving us. We didn't know exactly what to do about that, it was such a shock. We figured it would wear off, but we would enjoy it while it lasted. Imagine our surprise when we figured out that we loved you. Wholly, passionately, a woman unlike any other in our past. After that, we spent another sixty years with you." His eyes were wide. "We were a bit of wreck, while we thought you were gone." He sighed and shook his head.
"I know the despair. Right after I was pulled out of your arms, I landed in my body, in a coffin, and it was worse than hell. In those first days, what kept me going was your words before I disappeared, that you'd find me." Buffy chuckled. "Then I got bored of waiting I guess."
"The heavens tremble at the thought of bored Buffy." The Doctor stroked her hands with his fingers. No calluses, but these hands were the hands of an old man. For the first time she saw the Doctor's nine hundred odd years someplace other than in the depths of his eyes. Those eyes, blue not brown, but still the same, regarded her now. "I can't imagine us ever being anything but devoted to you, not even when there's twenty of us in this space."
Buffy pulled away. "And Time-tots? What ever happened to that problem? Are you sure you're ready to take care of them when I'm gone?" Buffy looked away. "You already know what I'll look like as an old woman. It'll happen again, if I'm lucky. You're talking about having kids with a woman who's already been through menopause once, who already gave up on this dream a long time ago. Because you asked me to. This is it Doctor, this is my last hurrah. There won't ever be twenty of me lurking around in my head, there's just this one." She swallowed. "So you've got to mean this. It's got to be more than just a quick fix with the universe. You're going to have to be there for them. Will you still want to be a father after I'm buried for the last time?"
The Doctor closed his eyes. "Yes." Clearing his throat, he stood. "I know this seems like a sudden switch. I know you've never trusted the mood swings. But I want you to know, this is sincere. And I think there's one more person in this mind that would like to meet you, who you might trust this time." He offered her his hand, and she accepted, standing to follow him through the mists.
He looked uncomfortable, wearing a plaid wool suit that was unfamiliar to her, but the hair, everything else, was just right. Then he moved, and she realized it was all wrong: None of the Doctor's easy unconscious grace, none of the manic energy. It wasn't even like those moments when he wrapped all that energy inside, just waiting to pounce. It was more like the energy wasn't even there, leaving behind a nervous young man who seemed even younger than Buffy, possibly younger than Dawn. He bowed stiffly, and his eyes were wide and embarrassed. "H-hello."
"Miss Summers, please meet Mister John Smith."
Taking her cue from her beloved's clone, she curtsied, finding that at some point the dream stuff had dressed her in a loose skirt. "Pleased to meet you."
"N-no, not really. I've see- I, I've seen you before. From inside." His eyes went even wider and she worried he might faint. "I mean, I can see through our eyes, from inside the Doctor, not that I, although I have-" John broke off and blushed a deep red, covering his face with his hands.
The Doctor laughed, and Buffy glared at him. "Sorry. I'll just leave you two to catch up."
Buffy chose to sit on the other side of the bench from John, who was recovering but steadfastly looking at his shoes. The bow tie looked cute on him, in a fluffy duckling kind of way. "So you're part of the Doctor?"
"A human. Drawn from him, he became me once when he had to hide. I only lived two months, in 1913, before he-" John's voice cracked. "There were invaders from space. People were dying. I had to bring him back. Once he was back, I sort of faded into him. Discovered my other incarnations. It was, ah, alarming."
"That was very brave of you. So you can watch?"
"Yes. Sometimes. I try to observe some propriety but-"
Buffy couldn't help her smile, even as she sympathized with his embarrassment. This poor identity seemed to have received every ounce of the primness the Doctor had dragged along with him before she took care of it, anyway. Carefully scooting a few inches closer, she helped him with his confession. "But sometimes you got curious."
"Well, yes."
"Because you were human in 1913, and of course, you couldn't have had any relations with anybody in just two months back then."
"No, no. There was a, uh, lady, but there wasn't near enough time." And by the agony in his voice, she knew John had loved that lady, and took his hand in hers. It was warm.
"I understand."
"You can't." Finally, John looked her in the eye. "Before I released the Doctor, I could see, we could both see, Joan and I, we saw the life we would have had without him. Our family." He looked at Buffy. "I know that the Doctor is a strange man, every one of him. But I would like to experience family, again. And I think it would make him a better person."
Buffy felt John's calluses, where he had held pens and tabbed through old papers, the hands of a scholar. "You think he'd make a good father?"
"Yes, I do. Probably a better one than me."
"And you'll be in the background, watching him? Watching me? Watching them?"
She was surprised as his scholarly hand caught her chin. "Of course I will. Miss Summers, we will protect them and you to the end of the universe and back again." He kissed her, and his lips were warm against hers, the human face of the alien she loved so, and it was so normal, and sweet, and right.
His eyes were looking down on her when she finally opened her own. "Okay. Let's do it." She stole one more kiss as the background fuzzed further and though she was in contact with him, he was further and further away. "Thank you." And then it all went black.
~*~
Buffy could smell hot coffee and cinnamon as she woke up, and sure enough, cup and toast sat on a tray by the bed. She could hear the Doctor banging away in the background, and wound her way through the corridors until she found the obscure storage room he'd been searching through. "Good morning."
He jumped. "Buffy!" The Doctor tried to regain composure, but lost. "The TARDIS let me back in a few minutes ago, after I, I y'know, had a sleep, like you said. You were still asleep, so I left some food there for you and figured I'd get to work on the new culturing equipment in case you had decided to have a change of mind while you were asleep, because you said you were going to sleep on the decision and maybe you'd be less mad after a good night's kip, seems to help you human types and did I wake you up back here, because I can come back later, I didn't mean to wake you." She crossed her arms and he stopped. "Please, just say something."
"Have any interesting dreams?"
The Doctor blinked, and he rocked back on his heels. "No, not really. Don't dream often."
"Really? I did. It'll come to you." Buffy knew she had to wait only a few moments before the Doctor's patented Sudden Epiphany Face came on.
"No!"
"Yes."
"How?!"
"You know."
"They didn't?!"
"They did."
"You agreed?!"
"I did."
"Even after you met them?!"
"And they called you bloody fool, a blithering skinny idiot and a number of other very funny, very true, not very nice things." Buffy approached the Doctor, her Doctor, and wrapped her hands in his lapels. "Despite your schizophrenic self-esteem issues, you're the best looking you yet."
"Am I?" The Doctor's voice managed the transition from nervous to husky in just two words.
"Oh yeah. Although Eight wasn't bad either and I liked Nine's dress sense, but then I've always had a thing for big guys in leather jackets." She folded his wool jacket over her back, sniffing at the Doctor's neck.
"I still have it, it's up in the wardrobe. Bit big on me, but then-" He dipped his mouth to hers then, and she melted into him, and he could hear the hoots and hollers of every other him inside, and gave the rest of them a mental "Shut up!" before returning his full attention to his beautiful companion and mate who was scooting him up against the wall and turning the clothes she stripped off of him into a serviceable pad on the floor with her feet. "But it's the wrong part of the month for working on the plan-" he managed while she was throwing his trainers out the door.
"And since when did the plan have anything to do with me doing this to you?"
"Fair play."
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