Once we're gone, you won't be coming back here for a while

[themadmanwithabox]

There's a doorway to New York City standing before the Doctor.

It's a recognizable sight that anyone would know from the gleaming lights of the skyline in the background and the Empire State Building in the glory of its construction looms above it all, though the Doctor can't move his eyes. He knows this city and he knows the year. He knows that this is New York City in the 1930's and he knows that Amy and Rory are there. If he walks through that door, he will see them again. Even this hotel with its infinite possibilities and all its doors can't bring him back to them.

He can walk through that door, but there's one large problem standing in his way.

"Don't move," he says to whomever has come up next to him. He can feel their presence with the breath in his general area, he can tell that he isn't alone given the way the hairs on his arms have begun to stand up on end. The Doctor stares before him, but avoids looking at the eyes because he's been in this situation before and he knows what looking in its eyes will do. "Don't blink," he breathes out.

He has to close this door. He has to close this door and leave the possibility of Amy and Rory behind. It's far too dangerous. There's no telling if he could even get back if he managed to get past the Weeping Angel, who guards the door, only offering the scantest bit of space to move past. If he gets past that Weeping Angel guarding New York City, he can find them and he can...he can, do what? He can warn them? He can try and tell them to get out of that graveyard before Rory looks at the gravestone?

Time can be rewritten, Amy's voice whispers in his mind with all its temptations and all its promises. I know it can. Can he do that? Can he walk through this door and risk unleashing a lethal enemy on the hotel behind him? All for the sake of companions he had thought lost. High upon a cloud, he had mourned them until a remnant of the future past had brought him down, but now he's faced with something far more difficult.

He can get them back.

But people will likely die in the process. If he goes through that door, that Weeping Angel will come in and it won't stop. He doesn't blink, not for a moment, but his vision clouds as he stares at the creature that had taken them away from him, at the monster who stands between them. What does he do? What does the Doctor do?

Comments

[oneguyinaunitard]

It's a lot to sacrifice, the ability to see someone you care about. Peter ha a door back home, one he can slip through any time he needs to go see Aunt Mae. Having to close that door, to keep it closed would be hard. In fact, he's not sure he could do it.

"All right," Peter responds, stock still and focusing on not blinking. He pretends he's playing a game at school, some sort of 'first one to blink loses' kind of thing. He clears his throat, trying to avoid the instinct to look at what the Doctor is doing.

"Ready." And his eyes are starting to ache from not blinking.

[themadmanwithabox]

The Doctor has faced these villains many times before, has been in impossible situations in which the Weeping Angels have thought themselves victorious, but there's a bitter pill to swallow with this perceived victory. He will win because he will shut the door and prevent them from entering the hotel, but this will cost him a personal loss. The Angel isn't smiling with that grim visage, but it might as well be, because it's won this much.

He gets close enough to reach for the doorknob without getting in the potential choking reach, closing the door frantically and scanning the knob with his sonic screwdriver to ensure that New York City has been lost and can never be found.

No matter how much that hurts him. He clenches his jaw tighter, pressing his back heavily against the door before he even registers that someone else has been helping him through this. "You can go ahead and blink," he instructs. "Unless you've found it so enlightening that you wish to take it up on a more permanent basis."

[oneguyinaunitard]

Peter definitely lets out a sigh of relief when the door is closed, taking a step back and letting his shoulders fall, eyes closing for a moment.

"Wow. Okay...what was with the not blinking?" Whatever it was, it had been intense for a moment or six there.

[themadmanwithabox]

"They're quantum locked," the Doctor rambles, pacing back and forth to try and shed some of the excess energy that comes from an encounter with them, especially one so fraught with intense emotion as that had been. He smacks his forehead with his hand, an attempt to snap him out of it. "Normally, they might displace you through history and feed off the energy created from that, but I don't think they were going to do that," he says, given how cross they probably are with the Doctor.

No, they probably had been ready for a kill.

[oneguyinaunitard]

Quantum locked. In theory, Peter understands what that mean, but in practice is another story. He watches the Doctor pace, eyes flicking back and forth. He's got his own energy burn thing going on in a random series of twitches, restless shifting and gestures. He pushes his glasses up on his nose a lot, shifts his weight, scrubs a hand over his hair as he listens. He's never still even though he never moves from that spot.

"They're locked in a particular...time, so they're not usually...which makes--makes sense if they...wow." It's a lot to absorb. His eyebrows go up and he furiously scrubs his hand through his hair a moment as he tries to process.

"Okay, so what were they going to do to us?"

[themadmanwithabox]

"That depends." There's definite emphasis in how the Doctor points at his new companion, whose name he doesn't even know. "The first time that I came into contact with the Angels, I had a whole new face." New? Old? Oldish new. Newish old, youngish fresh, he thinks, gesturing to the face and pulling his jaw back. "Those Angels only displaced you back through time to feed on your energy. I've run into ones that only want to kill, but that one...that one, would've sent you back and kept you locked away to feed and feed and steal!" His rage flares for a moment before he subdues it, patting the lapels of his suit to give him something to focus on.

His smile is weak, heavy with grief. "Good news, eh? Door's closed, it can't get to us."

[oneguyinaunitard]

His emphasis gets Peter to straighten up a little. Obviously this is important. Of course, that's immediately followed by confusion. How could someone even have a new face? The rage distracts him from his confusion though. "They can keep you alive and feed on you over time?"

Because in that case, definitely glad the door is closed.

"What about the people in the city?" Because he comes from New York City and while that looked a little different from his NYC, it was still NYC and there were still people trapped there with it.

[themadmanwithabox]

"The endless parade of their habits could fill a book," he remarks, smile grim. "Without pictures, one hopes, as the image of an angel does itself become an angel." The Doctor wishes, honestly wishes, that he didn't have such a storied knowledge of the creatures, but they've invaded his life and have ripped parts away from him, so much so that he can't even ignore them.

He bows his head lower, breathing out. "They'll be fine. That was the last of them, I think. The paradox had been closed, in our timeline, at a high price, but it worked. Unfortunately, that does mean that door is likely to never turn up again."

[oneguyinaunitard]

Peter listens, brow furrowed, nodding every now and then.

"What else is behind the door?" Oh and he realizes belatedly that he doesn't know this man at all. "I'm Peter Parker. Sorry. I guess--I guess there wasn't much time for introductions."

He scrapes a hand through his hair, watching the Doctor. It's obvious that there's something else there because otherwise why would the Doctor want that door to turn up again.

[themadmanwithabox]

"I'm the Doctor. Just the Doctor, mind you, nothing beyond that." Normally, he likes to hear the 'who' question that so often comes up, but today he could do without a reminder of all the times he's heard that question before. "And behind that door are two of my best friends," he says, smiling fondly at the very memory of them even if he hadn't been able to get past the Angel to see them. "There's a disturbance in the timeline. I can't get back there, not in any conventional way," he says, hands folded before him as though he still needs to move them, but can't bear to do it any way but this, sombre version.

"I don't think I'll be seeing them again, despite my hopes otherwise."

[oneguyinaunitard]

Peter quirks an eyebrow up at his introduction, but doesn't comment. Just 'the Doctor'? Of course questions of 'Doctor of what?' come to mind before who actually, but that's all pushed away when the Doctor says that his best friends are behind that door. The expression on Peter's face is one of sympathy. He has found a door home and he can visit his aunt, but he can only imagine if he couldn't, if he was separated from her.

"There could be another door, to before this, before the angels got there." He's hoping for the Doctor's sake, but in some ways, he's also hoping for himself. There's a chance he could see Uncle Ben again if he can find a door to earlier.

[themadmanwithabox]

"The Angels were there from the very first moment we arrived in New York," he says, knowing that to be true now that he has the benefit of distance to help him understand precisely that. "Even if we did find the door, even if I did have another way, they would be there to stop me. They want, so badly, to feed off that energy. Who wouldn't?" he replies, pointing at Peter as he paces. "After all, two time travellers sent back to the mid-thirties. Feeding off that, even for a brief moment, would be a meal for a lifetime."

And he hopes, truly, that they choke on it.

[oneguyinaunitard]

Peter doesn't know the whole story, can't guess exactly what the Doctor is talking about, but he does get the gist of it.

"Wait. You said nineteen forties. You can check on them, can't you? Find a census or a computer that's got the information on file. It's not the same as seeing them; I know that, but you could at least know if they had been okay."

[themadmanwithabox]

"They wrote," he says. An epilogue in a book about his wife, which is telling as to the odd convoluted twisting history they have, but it does make them them. "They are happy, safe and sound. I believe they adopted a young boy. They're okay. They're far, far away, is the trouble."

And he's not supposed to be travelling alone, but maybe he keeps coming back here because of the hope it holds. If Martha Jones is here, then perhaps other companions will show their faces. Hope. It's definitely enough for hope.

[oneguyinaunitard]

Peter nods, listening and understanding in some way even if his experience with losing someone is more traditional than the Doctor's.

"It's not the same, is it?" He's lost his uncle and in some sense, he's lost Gwen. He knows that he can't date her anymore, can't have her in his life. He promised her father on his death bed that he would leave her alone.

Maybe here, he can find someone to travel with and it won't be the same, but it won't be travelling alone.

[themadmanwithabox]

"It never is. And no matter how many times that loss is felt, it is always, always difficult." He pushes that aside, puts on the mask again, and focuses on the man in front of him. "You sound as if you have personal experience," he says knowingly. "With New York, with the lack of ease in which some situations can be ... touchy," he says with his fingers wiggling in the air, as if avoiding touching anything in particular.

[oneguyinaunitard]

Peter watches as the Doctor pulls himself together, then ducks his head at the question, lips thinning into a straight line for a moment.

"I've lived in Manhattan my entire life." It's answer enough and until the Doctor clarifies (or pushes) the touchy bit of things, he's going to leave it at that. The only person here that knows he's Spider-man is from home as well.

[themadmanwithabox]

Well, that is a curious thing.

Because, see, the Doctor knows a young man named Frank who lived in Manhattan in the thirties no less and the boy standing before him rings an awful lot of a lookalike to him. Still, never ignore a coincidence. Or is that always? "Have you?" the Doctor asks with some suspicion. "And what year did that life begin in?"

Yes! You're awesome for catching this

[oneguyinaunitard]

Peter gives him a momentarily confused look. Was he really asking what year he'd been born in the most convoluted way possible? The answer appeared to be yes.

"Uhm...1995."

That's not to say that Frank might not have been a relative. After all, he knows his father and uncle were born in New York City. There's nothing that says his grandfather or a great uncle might not have been either.

"Why is that--I mean, the forties, you're thinking more my grandfather maybe, whom I don't know."

Re: Yes! You're awesome for catching this

[themadmanwithabox]

"Frank?" he echoes, touching his bowtie with the pride that comes when he remembers a name from out of the ether. Sometimes, the lack of linear function with time is a difficult thing, so when the Doctor does get it right and he remembers, even after so many centuries, which have been long and endless. "Was that his name? If so, he was influentially helpful in making sure the skyline of New York looks the way it does today."

[Oh, I definitely have seen quite a bit of Who in my day and love all those big actors who started there]

[oneguyinaunitard]

Peter furrows his brow at the man. "Yeah...but how..." Because this man is not old enough to have known his grandfather. He looks to the door then back to the Doctor.

"Did you meet him? In there?" he nods to the door.

[ I figured why not go with it?]

[themadmanwithabox]

"Not there," the Doctor explains, gesturing to his face in a circular motion. "Different face, different me. Everything was different then, but there's an uncanny ability for things to crawl out of the dark like a nightmare," he says, hitting the syllables of that word firmly. "It was years ago, now. Hundreds and hundreds of years, but I remember that he was very brave."

The Doctor's face falls, just slightly, as he bows his head. "They're always brave."