The moon above the planet Torlan hung in a decaying orbit shockingly close to the planet's surface. It's massive silver face all but consumed the lavender skies overhead. Naturally high winds were blocked by a nearby range of high mountains, creating an uncommonly benevolent spot on the otherwise inhospitable terrain and a shining 51st century city glistened in the near distance across a lake the color of iolite.
The Doctor smiled as he leaned against a railing and looked out over a botanical garden the likes of which would never be seen on Earth. "Not bad work with limited space, is it?" he asked, turning slightly toward Asha. "Human ingenuity at it's finest. You lot were the first to imagine that colonization might even be possible here. Always on the lookout for a diamond in the rough... I suppose I'm lucky that's the case as well, aren't I?" His eyes twinkled as he favored her with an understated smile.
Truth be told, he was nervous and he didn't fully understand why. Technically speaking, they'd been together nearly her entire life. He had no plans to leave her. Much as he feared being present for her slow decline, the alternative no longer appealed to him at all. Still, this was not something he asked lightly. In fact it was something he had only asked on other person in over a thousand years and it had been one of his own species then.
Hearts thundering away beneath his ribs, the Doctor reached into his pocket as he turned to face her fully. "There's a reason I brought you here, Asha. I've got something important to ask you..."
His own people's traditions differed greatly from those on Earth and the customs of Asha's own people didn't really apply, neither one of them having family worth involving in the process. For that reason, he had chosen the more simple traditions of Great Britain. It had become his home away from home after all.
“Probably-- Should’ve done this a long time ago...” Feeling awkward and still a bit out of his depth, he got down on one knee in front of her and opened the small, leather box for her to see. "Asha Vimal, will you marry me?"
Long legs carried the Doctor just ahead of Asha down a corridor of the TARDIS that was lesser known to her even after so long. Her hand was clasped firmly in his and the feeling was a bit exhilarating. Just feeling able to touch her again was remarkable. This face was not overly fond of being touched by most people. It felt entirely too personal for him. The flip side of it, however, was that when it was personal, like with Asha, it felt several thousand times more important.
So many years had been spent in the TARDIS, and before that at her home, watching Asha mark her skin with complicated patterns that her people called henna. At first he had missed the point a bit, confused by spending so much time on something that would only last a few weeks. As time went on he began to understand that the value was in the act itself, the creation. Now he had come to view it with a certain symbolism. Putting so much care and effort...emotion even, in a sense, into something so fleeting... Well, if that wasn't his relationship with Asha summed up, he didn't know what was.
The Doctor had always had a certain affinity for art. While he had always been quite passable at it, these new hands of his with their long, finely articulated fingers, were particularly well-suited to such pursuits. One of the few features of this model that was a genuine improvement. Several weeks ago, when the rekindling of their relationship had still been brand new and Asha had showered him with gifts as was her way, it had occured to him that he had so little to give her. She had immersed him in her culture, shared her world and her planet with him, showered him with trinkets and baubles, and he had nothing to offer her in return. His planet was lost, his culture was dead, no treasures from the Time Lords remained that did not reside in this blue box. Just a box and the universe and that troubled him. She deserved something more personal after all they had shared.
So he had set about planning a gift that would, with luck, blend her world together with his... and help to blend them together once more as well. He had studied and practiced, sketched and resketched the design until it was perfect and now he was ready to give her his gift. So with his usual cryptic air he had asked her to follow him.
Turning back to offer her an encouraging smile, he pushed open a door they had stopped in front of. Inside, the spacey designs of the ship gave way to the rich hues and fine furnishings of a Victorian salon. Hardwood floors lay covered with plush, sprawling rugs and heavy leather furniture. Bookshelves towered toward the ceiling, interpersed with tapestries and oil paintings. The far wall was dominated by a roaring fireplace surrounded by a cluster of chairs and a sumptuous rug. His smile turned enigmatic and ever so slightly suggestive as he led her forward.
A small table in front of the fireplace held an assortment of henna inks which hinted to his purpose. "I thought that I would give you something," he began quietly. "It's a pity that you'll always be so removed from my people and their culture. I think you would have found them fascinating and they you...at least the ones I got on with. Your henna gave me an idea, though, and...with your permission of course, I would like to--" He faltered for just a moment, wondering how one even asked such a thing. "--to paint on you."
//I decided to set both of these prior to them getting back together romantically when everything is still a bit weird and tense but they’re starting to get along better. Sexual tension and awkward moments ensue. xD Both are under the cut. Hope ya like em. ^^
Comedy Club:A funny drabble about our characters
There was a bowl of fruit sitting on Asha’s kitchen counter. Or at least there had been. Now there was just a bowl and the Doctor. Sat at her tiny fold away dining table like he owned the place, the alien was leisurely juggling two apples, an orange, and a pear when she came through the door of her travel trailer.
At first he made no comment when she entered, entirely focused on the task at hand. Asha smirked at him. “You’ve been spending your time with the jugglers again, I see.”
“Could hardly do anything else, could I?” he groused, not pausing or taking his eyes off the fruit while he spoke. “Seeing as how you abandoned me to go swinging on your little ropes… much more exciting than the whole universe, I know.”
Not long ago, such a remark might have cut Asha quite deeply but she was getting used this new Doctor and his grouchy spells and she only rolled her eyes. Stepping forward, the aerialist reached out and snatched the pear out of midair above his head and held it out to his face. “Manners, Doctor. Or I will make you eat this.”
This earned her a petulant look as the rest of the fruits tumbled out of alignment and he rushed to catch them before any hit the floor. Clutching the remaining fruits easily in long, articulated hands, the Doctor leaned back in the chair and eyed the pear impassively. Then his features broke into a taunting grin and he stuck out his tongue. “New face, new tastebuds. You can’t threaten me with pears anymore.”
“Oh, so you like them now do you?” Asha asked, raising her eyebrows. As she spoke she moved the fruit closer to his face, close enough to smell, and the Doctor reared the chair back on two legs to inch away, eyeing the offending object with distaste.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
With a sadistic gleam in her eye, Asha took a lingering, decadent bite of the fruit, clearly savoring it. She cracked an eye open, fighting a smile, to watch the look of horror unfold across his face. “Mmmmm.”
“Oh that is disgusting. That is just– You stop that right now! That shouldn’t even be legal,” he continued to grumble, blatantly ignoring the small surge of desire that had gathered in the pit of his stomach which had nothing to do with fruit. It was this, more than the horrifying act of enjoying a pear, which prompted him to drop the chair forward again and launch himself out of it. Asha took off in a mad dash toward the sitting area and the Doctor followed, leaping onto the small sofa to head her off. He jumped in front and tackled her, wrenching the offending piece of fruit from her hand and tossing it out a window… which happened to be shut.
At the sound of breaking glass he froze and stared at her sideways cautiously. “I will fix it,” he offered by way of a peace treaty just before all hell broke loose. To his surprise and dismay and secret delight, Asha tackled him to the ground then and began tickling him mercilessly. What in the… “I am a Time Lord! I am a very important and sophisticated– I AM NOT TO BE TRIFLED WITH!” he yelped as her fingertips found his ribs.
For the smallest instant, the Doctor saw her eyes and Time itself seemed to freeze. In that brief moment he realized that she could see, in her mind’s eye, his younger, spiky-haired self beneath her and it took away his breath. Before either of them could come to their senses, her lips had claimed his to silence him with a kiss and the Doctor stared wide-eyed at the ceiling above them, not daring to move.
Half a moment later, Asha seemed to come to her senses and she leapt back from him as though she had been burnt, a small panic registering in her eyes at the realization of what she’d just done. The Doctor was still in a daze, but determined to write it off. No sense in things being awkward between them… Any more than usual at any rate.
The opportunity presented itself a second later as his heart rate slowed and his senses returned, foremost among them, the taste she had left on his tongue. “Bloody pears,” he groaned, letting his head fall to thunk against the floor. “You just had to eat a bloody pear, didn’t you?”
As he glowered up at her and watched the petrified expression slowly shift from her face, watched her realize that this didn’t have to be anything at all, his face broke into another teasing grin and he privately thought that pears had never tasted better.
In a very expensive solar system, within a very decadent galaxy, orbiting a very fashionable star, The Doctor and Asha found themselves at a fancy dress ball. The Doctor had, rather mysteriously, received an invitation to the event and brought Asha along as his plus-one. Strictly business, he had assured her before running off to make himself as presentable as he possibly could for... no particular reason apparently.
As always, they were expecting trouble. So it was imperative that they blend in for as long as possible. A short time ago, the band had struck up a dance and the party-goers around them now whirled in a complex wave of color and sound across the floor.
Realizing that they were the odd ones out, Asha grabbed the Doctor’s sleeve and gave it a sharp tug. Though she had to swallow down a bit of nerves to get it out, she knew that she was right. “Everyone here is dancing. I am your plus-one. If we don’t dance it will appear suspicious.”
“I don’t dance,” the Doctor answered flatly, glaring around at the room full of people with distrust. His attention was called back to Asha’s face by that familiar feeling he got when she was considering hitting him. He found a determined gleam in her eyes and a no-nonsense twist to her mouth.
“Do you want this to work or not?” she whispered urgently in frustration with him. His mouth worked uselessly for a moment during which she glanced around rather nervously herself, hoping that they weren’t calling undue attention to themselves. “Take. My waist,” she hissed with an expression that brooked no argument.
With a sigh of resignation, the Doctor did as she commanded, easily falling into step with the rest of the room. In truth, he wasn’t a bad dancer at all really. But he would rather not. Especially with Asha in that fine crimson sari he’d always been particularly fond of. It made all of this entirely more difficult than it needed to be. But she did have a point.
He felt her settle against him and, for a moment, lost all memory of why they were here. He recalled coy and frivolous nights spent dancing on the TARDIS or attending exclusive private galas under other people’s names. All of the passion and attraction that had crackled between them in those days. He tried not to dwell on the fact that, for her, those memories had been made with another man whom she had lost along the way. Just for the moment he decided to pretend that this was not another life, that it was here and now, and the ties between them were golden still.
Settling his hands over her back and his cheek against her hair, he moved and swayed with her in time to the music. Allowing himself a painfully genuine smile that he knew she could not see, he closed his eyes and subtly breathed her in. As her arms came up to wrap around his neck, he drew her close and hoped she would not feel the racing of his hearts against her chest.
Just as his mind and soul had been almost completely consumed by desire for what he could not have, the moment was shattered by the sound of an explosion in some distant part of the building. Every. Bloody. Time. A few startled screams broke across the music and brought the whole thing crashing to a halt. The Doctor and Asha sprang into action, ready to deal with the crisis and the dance was forgotten. Still, in the backs of their minds, the memory would linger on as a confusing blur to ponder in the weeks to come.
The Doctor stared into a mirror in the TARDIS wardrobe with a resounding frown. And it was a resounding frown. It really was. He couldn't remember the last time he had frowned with such authority. It was the eyebrows of course. Had to be. With a long-suffering sigh, he braced his hands against the counter and dropped his head. He was supposed to be meeting back up with Asha today and this was going to be more than a little hard to explain.
A few minutes later he had redressed in a waistcoat, button-up shirt, and dressy black trousers. He'd been going for minimalist but there was no denying it had come out a bit magician. Still, that might score him some points with the circus performer in Asha. One could only hope.
It wasn't hard to locate her circus on the little blue and green ball that was Earth and he quickly picked her trailer out of the cluster. What was he going to say to her? How could he possibly explain? And what was she going to think of this face? Nevermind simple human shock at the reality of regeneration. She was his wife in all but name and who in their right mind was going to sleep with these eyebrows?
He hung his head a moment and took a deep breath, gathering his courage. At long last he found the nerve to knock on her door.
