#multi-doctor

“So, what is the matter?” Seven asked. Nine immediately wanted to call Seven out on his placating tone, because I was you and I remember and I practically invented that tone of voice so don’t you dare use that on me, but he found himself… placated. And, well, as much as he remembered being Seven, he had forgotten how good Seven was at this. This, being… well, whatever it was. “It must be something important if you crossed timelines to talk to yourself about it.”

“We met a girl,” said Nine.

“Oh, dear, that’s awfully specific,” Seven snarked casually, shifting the kettle. “Please, be more vague so that we can include basically every day of our lives and ninety percent of our companions.”

“Shut it. I’m the one who’s supposed to be a snark, not you,” Nine said. He would have been amused if he wasn’t in such a foul temper.

“Hmph. I can be whatever I want to be.” Seven shifted the kettle again, more out of habit than necessity, since moving the tea kettle did absolutely nothing. “So, tell me. What’s so important about this girl?”

“We love her.” Sometimes blunt really was the way to go, especially with one’s own self.

“We do?” Seven looked as startled as he had ever been, which was saying something, considering how many times he had gotten a gun pointed in his face. Really should be a bit more wary of guns, Nine thought, remembering Seven’s unfortunate and honestly stupid end, but it wasn’t as if he could warn his younger self, so he stayed silent on that matter. Seven stared Nine down, looking for some hint as to his future self’s meaning, and he must have found it genuine, because he suddenly went slack in his seat and said, “Oh. Oh my. We do.”

“Yeah.”

Seven’s eyes darted aimlessly before settling on Nine’ shoe. “So. Love. I never thought...”

“Neither did I,” Nine agreed, bobbing his head in a nod. “But she’s fantastic.”

A small smile lit Seven’s face. “So, did you come just to tell me the big news, or did you need something? Not that news like that isn’t enough. I won’t be able to remember it, but I’ll still have that sensation of looking forward to something. Thank you.”

“S’pose I should tell the others,” Nine pondered, before shaking himself. “But I’m here because… well, I did something stupid.”

“Oh, of course,” Seven groaned. “I may not be particularly knowledgeable of your regeneration, seeing as you do come sometime after me, but I think I can guess that it was something you said. Our talent with words doesn’t seem to last past myself.”

“It does, though,” corrected the Ninth with a sneer. “It lasts through Eight, that’s for certain.”

For a moment or two, Seven was pleased, before he noticed Nine’s sneer of disdain. “Oh, dear. What does this have to do with Eight?”

“Well, y’see, it started…” Nine leaned forward, and so did Seven, both looking as though they were about to divulge the secrets of the universe. Which they could. “Ah, well… It's odd, y'know, I've never had t'explain this before. Thing is, she’s human.”

“Human?” echoed Seven, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline. “Well, I suppose that’s… very much like us, to give our affections to a human. I never really considered it, I don’t think.”

“You will.”

“Hm. So, what’s it like? Loving a… a human.”

“Fantastic.” Nine smiled. “Not like those Gallifreyan ladies. She’s not full of it, actin’ better’n I am ’cause-a station. She’s jus’… her. Wants to see the whole universe. I get to show her everythin’. And she tries so hard, jus’t’be alive. Harder’n any Gallifreyan in history ever bothered to.”

A warm, toasty feeling started to crackle to life between Seven’s hearts. “That sounds… wonderful.”

“Is. Problem, though,” admitted Nine.

Seven turned to gather two teacups from the cabinet. Nine looked at the delicate, floral-painted, gilded cups with some level of amusement. They didn’t really suit him or Seven, or any of him, but they had been around for so long, he couldn’t imagine getting rid of them. He hadn’t dared to take them out around you, but now that he thought about it, maybe you would find them as funny as he did.

“Of course there is,” said Seven, snatching the kettle off the burner (and, really, was that a Bunsen burner? Why did he even own one of those, much less make tea on it?). “Go on.”

“Well, being human, she doesn’t really know about the courtin’ procedures,” Nine admitted. Seven saw where the conversation was going and immediately groaned and allowed his head to bump against the cabinet door with a dull thud. “My thoughts exactly. And the worst part is’at I’m not all that good at courtin’ in the first place. I tried a few little things, messed the last one up horribly.”

“Double down,” Seven mused. “So you want me to help–” and then Seven paused, because the whole conversation clicked in his mind like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle. “Eight is good with words, you said. You went to him for help.”

“Yeah,” said Nine. “Eight is… well, you’ll understand when you’re him, but it seemed like the perfect plan. He’s good with that sort of… thing. Women, I guess. He practically memorized the courting procedures, and he’s very… charming, y’could say, so I thought it would work.”

“What would work? You didn’t… oh. You did.”

“I took ’er t’see’im,” Nine admitted, scrubbing a palm down his face and covering his eyes. Seven scooted a cup of freshly-brewed tea under the other Doctor’s rather prominent nose. The steam rose up and wetted Nine’s skin. “It seemed like a good idea. He was so lonely, y’know. That body wanted love more’n any o’ the others did, so I thought he would be the most willing to help. Was a bit too willing.”

“Ah.” Seven sipped his tea and instantly regretted it. The liquid was scalding. “So.”

“He was all over her!” Nine exclaimed, suddenly throwing both hands into the air. If he hadn’t been feeling so tired, he might have jumped out of his chair to pace, as well. “I swear, second I told him who she was to us, he practically ran over and snogged her right then and there.”

“Well, you did say he wanted love more than the rest of us, and that’s saying something, considering how much we’ve wanted a… a bond-mate, over the centuries.”

Nine scoffed. “Either way, he was ridiculous. Eight’s very tactile, no sense of personal space, so I was expectin’ him to get a bit touchy with her, but he had her sitting on his lap. On his lap, hear me? I’ve known her for years, few weeks ago I finally get her to lie down on the couch with me, and in less than five minutes he’s got her on his lap, holding his hand. Oh, n’his hands were everywhere. On her face, in her hair, on her thigh, blast it. And she didn’t stop ’im, either.”

“Why would you want her to?” Seven asked, confused. “He’s us, he was forward enough to initiate courting touches, and she accepted. That’s perfect. What’s the problem?”

“She’s human, Doctor,” said Nine, frowning. “From a Gallifreyan woman, that might have been perfect, but she’s human. To her, it wasn’t me. It was a man who was more handsome and better spoken than me, touching her, and she was fine with it.”

“So you didn’t tell her that you and Eight are the same person? That we’re all the Doctor, despite our differences?” asked Seven, who was beginning to wonder if his counterpart had lost some brain cells through regeneration.

“Of course I did, but–”

“But nothing!” Seven cut his future self off abruptly. “You explained to her that Eight is you, she met Eight, and she accepted his courting offers. Maybe she doesn’t know the first thing about courting procedures, but it sounds to me as if he was making himself rather obvious. If she accepted it from him, then she accepted it from you, just as much as from me and all of us who come before and after.”

Nine was silent.

“I don’t know how your regeneration thinks,” Seven continued, voice much softer, “but I don’t think we would fall in love with a girl who wouldn’t love all of us. If she is who I hope she is, then she knows that we’re all… us. If she accepted Eight, she accepted us all, and that includes you, in case you didn’t notice. Now, stop being a jealous sod and go to her.”

Slowly, Nine eased his way out of his chair. His eyes wandered over the TARDIS’s mixed interior, obviously recalling when it had been his, what had come before and what would come after. Then he looked down at Seven, and Seven saw a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“I’d better get back to her, then,” Nine said, a smile playing at his lips but not coming all the way through. “Y’know… seems t’me like ya understand it all better than I do, and you haven’t even met her yet.”

“Maybe so,” Seven admitted, shrugging. He dipped his head down to take a sip of tea, but, remembering the perfectly unacceptable temperature, he refrained. “Still, would you give her my love?”

The smile turned into a full grin.

“Aye. I’ll do that.”

And just like that, Nine swiftly escaped from Seven’s TARDIS and into the rough terrain of whatever planet they had agreed to meet each other on. Seven knew that Nine’s TARDIS couldn’t be far away, which meant that you were probably close by. He stamped down the temptation to follow Nine, to catch a glimpse of you, or maybe just to hear your voice. He wanted to know. As confident as he had acted for his counterpart’s sake, he didn’t know anything about you, and he wished… he just wanted to know something about you.

Anything. Anything at all.

Someday, he thought, sipping the tea that had finally cooled, someday. He would have to forget all of this. If he didn’t, it would cause a paradox. But there was nothing saying that he had to forget immediately. He could keep the memory for a day, or two.