Prompt 32: Doctor / Companian AU [TW: Mentioned abuse]Requested by feministxibalba
"So… We can go anywhere I want?"
Following the questions about being dead and the physics of why the old girl was bigger on the inside, this was a common question, and even newly regenerated, the Doctor (she’d read the name Theresa in the newspaper recently, and decided that this new companion could call her that if Doctor didn’t suit his tastes) smiled at hearing it. “Anywhere in time or space, Mr. Vincent,” she confirmed.
"My name is Archie," the young man reminded, not for the first time today.
"Consider the possibilities," she went on, darting about the TARDIS’ control panels with purpose. "The birth of humanity, Rome at the height of power, the eve of the French Revolution, the beaches of Normandy in real time—"
"What about a place in present day?" he asked suddenly.
"Of course," Theresa answered.
"Can I give you a specific address?" Archie hopped off his perch on a rail and moved toward her, the gold metal of his brace the brightest thing in the blue-gray light of the control room.
"Well, the old girl can be a bit difficult," Theresa admitted, running her hands fondly over the control panels, "but I’m sure she can manage." She looked at Archie with twinkling, almost mischievous eyes. "What did you have in mind?"
"I have a score to settle," he replied simply.
They were in a small chamber off the main control room, Archie seated in a soft armchair and Theresa dashing from cabinet to drawer, piling up medical supplies in her arms as she went and screeching, “Archie James Vincent, what in God’s name were you thinking?”
"The bastard had it coming?" he replied, shrugging one shoulder and keeping a tissue pressed to a gash on his cheek.
"You walked up to someone’s house, asked the owner his name andpunched him!” she scolded, sitting in the chair next to him, the gathered supplies piled up on the small end table between their chairs. “A fistfight with a fifty year old man!” She picked up a clean cloth and poured a healing salve, light green and foul smelling, onto it and dabbed the salve to a scrape on his cheek, dragging him closer by the T-shirt sleeve when he flinched back from the rag. “You told me you had a score to settle!”
"That was the score," he said simply.
"That was a beat-down!" Theresa snapped.
"A beat down twenty-five years in the making," Archie growled. "He had every punch coming to him."
"How dare you use me and my TARDIS to get into a fight like that?" she hissed.
"You want to know ‘how dare I?’" he repeated angrily, pushing the rag away.
"Please, do tell—try to afford me more manners than you did back there."
"You told me anywhere I wanted," he reminded her. "I wanted to go back to that house and finish what he’d started."
"And what pray tell was that?" she asked, rolling her eyes and taking up a roll of bandages.
When Archie spoke, his voice was frigid. “That son of a bitch was my old man. He treated me like shit from the day I was born—see this?” He thrust his right leg out and pointed to the heavy brace encasing his ankle and lower calf. “He’s the reason I need this to walk—he beat me so bad that I couldn’t walk the next morning.One more kick would have completely destroyed my already wrecked ankle. Being told every day for fourteen years that you’re stupid and worthless and unwanted, and then running away and never seeing the bastard again for ten more years sticks with you, and you swear on your life that when you’re finally old enough and strong enough that the next time you see him you’re going to beat the shit out of him—that was the score I needed to settle.”
Theresa’s hands were still, and her eyes were wide. “I’m sorry,” she finally murmured. “I didn’t realize that there was that much more to it.” She reached over and took his hands in hers, lightly squeezing his fingers as she looked them over. “Bloodied knuckles are a pain to treat—but I’m sure I have something here for that…
The soft tone was quite the change from the yelling earlier. “Aren’t you going to finish tearing me a new one?” he asked.
"Well, now that I’ve considered all the facts…" She poured a different solution onto a clean rag. "I think I can give you a pass for that one."
…Oh. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
"And if I may be so bold?" she went on, exposing pink flesh as she wiped away the blood form his knuckles.
"Go ahead, it’s your spaceship," he replied, although he was listening very closely.
"I don’t think of you as stupid," she said simply, "or worthless or unwanted. After all, you took out a Dalek on your own—that’s quite clever of you. I think…" She paused to consider her words carefully, so they would both convey the truth and not sound condescending. "I think you’re a very worthwhile person, and I would much like for you to come with me."
Archie looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “I could use a change of scenery,” he announced finally, lightly—but the smile on his face said that he was just as thrilled with the prospect of being her companion as she was.