iselldrugstothecommunity | But Time Takes Time, You Know [Musebox]

Current Music: IAMX - "Spit It Out"

Entry tags:

But Time Takes Time, You Know [Musebox]

It's hard to research things that haven't happened yet, Howard discovers. Rather than hitting the library, like he would have on Stacy, he has to spend a lot of time thinking, sitting around talking to Barbara about every detail he remembers of his family history. Every year that passes by, the memories get a little more obscure, a little less refined, and he starts to panic, thinking that he won't have enough information to track down his family at all soon.

Over endless cups of tea, Barbara asks questions ("do you remember your mother's maiden name? do you know where your father's parents were from before they came to California? do you remember what their professions were?") to try and drag out the useful information, but it ends up being a stray memory of a Christmas dinner that puts the pieces in place.

"My grandma has to be in San Francisco. They had a one year wedding anniversary ornament on the Christmas tree of the Golden Gate Bridge, and I'm pretty sure they got married in 1969."

What they were doing in San Francisco is beyond his knowledge, but it's the closest they have to a shot. He doesn't know what hospitals his parents were born in, or where his paternal grandparents might be now, or even what year his parents are going to meet. It takes a lot of agonizing before he decides to spend all that money he's been saving in a can under the sink on plane tickets for him and Barbara to go there, but when he invites her she agrees that it's important to him, and besides, how often does one get to vacation in America?

So they both have suitcases packed and a promise to be back in ten days, waiting for Ian in the kitchen to come drive them to the airport. Howard's nervous, naturally, because he's not sure how he'll introduce himself to total strangers as their grandkid from the future. But he's come to relax a bit - a bit - over the last few years, and as such he just chews his lip and bounces his leg a bit rather than panics. He even got six hours of sleep last night. It's truly a miracle.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Barbara got the hint from Howard's look that it was her turn.

"It's rather complicated, but one evening, my concern for a student's home life took me to following her home - I'm a secondary teacher at Coal Hill School near London - she lived in a police box, except that it wasn't a police box, it was a transdimensional machine called the 'Time and Relative Dimension In Space', or the TARDIS." She had to take her time with the explanation, trying to remember just how to pronounce the words.

"That was in 1963, and we bounced through time from then on, because time isn't straight as we think it is, you see? It's quite curved, making it easier to pass through multiple time streams. Long story cut quite short, I met Howard in a war, and invited him to come and stay with my husband and I, since his home was practically destroyed. I know it sounds utterly fantastic, but you have to believe us. Howard has been so very keen to meet the both of you."

Rose and Hal look at Barbara as if she's even crazier than Howard.

"Well, it sounds to me as if you both should be locked up," Hal harrumphs as he turns to leave. "Come on, Rose. We didn't come here to listen to the ramblings of insane people."

"Please, just-" Howard moves and grabs at Hal's jacket. "Please listen to me, I can prove it, I know you're from Michigan and you're a carpenter and-"

And he wishes at this point that back when he was thirteen, he'd bothered to care about the lives his grandparents had had. He probably can't prove it, honestly.

"I know Rose cheats at cards-"

Hal wrenches away from Howard. "Hey, don't touch me!"

"Stop it, both of you!" Rose narrows her eyes and flicks her earring with her finger, her voice commanding in spite of her small physique. "Just stop it. Hal, stop acting like they're a threat and you, ahem, Howard. Bear in mind that your story is crazy."

She looks to Barbara as if they have formed an alliance in being sane women in all this.

"Let's sit down and discuss this like civilized adults. Then we can go over what it is you and Barbara want from us."

"There's a park bench just over there," Barbara said to Rose and pointed. "It's still out in the open, if you're worried about that, but we can at least sit for a while and talk."

She made to go over there, just a couple of steps at first, and hoped that the others would follow.

"I am worried about that," Rose says, following, although she keeps herself between Hal and Howard, as if certain they're about to lunge at each other (mostly because Hal's the cantankerous type).

"If you want money, we're flat broke." Hal keeps shaking his head, as if internally warring with what's been presented to him.

"I just wanted to get to know you guys," Howard says, feeling stupid. Of course that's too much to ask. It's an insane request. It's an insane story.

When they reach the bench, Rose reaches over and takes Barbara's hands in her own. She leans in so only Barbara can hear. "You seem the sensible sort." Although she seems to be withholding actually meaning that based on the way Barbara described being abducted by a police box. "Hal's just wary of being conned. We just got married last year and we're trying to afford a place to live, and we don't want to be set back for a good story."

Barbara smiled warmly at Rose. "I understand. My husband and I will have been married five years in two months' time. The worrying doesn't stop when you have children, either." If there was one thing a mother had an excess of, it was worry.

She squeezed Rose's hands before letting them go to sit by Howard. There she put her purse on the table and dug in a little pocket on its side. "I know it's a far fetched story, but you do have to believe us. Howard has no family in the future," Barbara continued as she searched her purse, making eye contact when she could. "So now he just wants to connect with the two of you.

"Technically, I'm from this time but like I said, I've been all over." Barbara seemed to have found what she was looking for and pulled out two coins. The first, a shilling from 1963, and the second coin was an Italian Euro from 2013.

"This one," she said as she held out the first, "was a coin my now husband once left in my classroom. He dropped his wallet and it rolled under my desk. I had been meaning to return it for some time. And this other coin was one we picked up when we visited Earth's future in the TARDIS. You should see Italy in the coming years, if you can. It gets better with age."

"We're not looking at children anytime soon, thank you..." Rose takes the Euro and examines it, brow furrowed. Hal mutters something about how it must be a fake. Howard stands off to the side a bit, hands wrapped around each other as if to keep them from spasming.

"That's not even a real coin, it must be some sort of arcade tok-"

"Hal, stop." Rose passes it to him. "It can't hurt to talk to people."

She brushes her hand over her lower lip, deep in thought. "Howard, why don't you have family in the future?"

It's a question he's been dreading answering, because he doesn't really know how to explain it without everything seeming more unlikely. So he lies. "They're dead. My dad and mom - your daughter - there was a big accident, before I got unstuck in time."

"And what about us?" Hal asks, despite a hiss from Rose. "Are we dead too?"

Howard licks his lips as if about to lie. "Yeah. But it's way off, another forty years, almost."

"Is everything in the future certain?" Hal continues, looking between Barbara and Howard.

Barbara took in a breath as she considered the answer. "A number of things are, but there are some which aren't. Those that are, are called 'fixed points', and they're events which must shape time. Ancient cultures' sacrifices, is one example, the American Civil War is another. I can't tell you much more, I'm afraid. I couldn't quite understand what our friend was saying about these matters entirely, but then I'm not a scientist. My husband was far better at understanding it."

"Then why didn't he come along to explain it?" Hal complains, but Rose shushes him again.

"This might..." She purses her lips and starts again, looking at Howard. "This might have been easier if you was a little younger. I'm not even a mother yet. I can't be a grandmother to someone almost my age."

Howard wrings his hands. "I honestly don't know what I wanted. I just only knew you guys would be here today, and I didn't...I didn't want to let that chance go, knowing you guys were somewhere out there."

"But we have nothing in common with you," Hal says.

"I was always closer to grandma anyway," Howard snaps, although Rose seems to cringe at being called such.

She folds her hands. "You said we have a daughter?"

Howard's irritation leaks away. "Yeah, Lilah. I don't remember the dates though, so I don't know when you have her."

"I always thought we'd name a daughter Bernice," Rose says. "But I like that name."

Howard doesn't mention that he might have totally ruined that by messing up the timeline. He doesn't really know how these things work. "I was going to come to California. Permanently. I'd at least need someone I knew so I could find a place and all."

He'd floated the idea past Barbara but he hadn't really said he was set on it.

Barbara barely batted an eye-lid at the idea of Howard moving over here. She'd be happy for him, of course, but she would miss him terribly.

"There's only so much that Ian and I would be able to do from Hackney," she added, "especially when juggling jobs, a growing son, and both of our families."

"You don't expect us to take you in," Hal says. "We can barely afford to get by on our own."

"No, I just...need to know someone here." Howard's body language reflects that he feels like he's walking on a conversational minefield. "Exchange phone calls and letters and stuff so I have someone to touch base with. You guys seemed like my best shot. I'd have to save money first."

"So all this was for a pen pal?" Rose takes her earring off and cleans the spike with her fingertips, staring at him and Barbara with scrutiny.

"I had to know. Wouldn't you?"

Hal shakes his head a bit and mutters that he still doesn't know if he believes any of it. Rose considers.

"Will you still be in town tomorrow?" he asks hesitantly.

"Yes. If you'll give us time to think about...all of this," Rose says quickly. She stands and gives Barbara the coin back. "It's a lot to take in. Quite a lot."

"I understand. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I still think that it has all been some dream brought on by an upset stomach," Barbara said sympathetically once she took back the coin.

She fiddled with the coin in her hand, hoping that Rose would be open-minded enough to accept their cause, or at least accept Howard's friendship. It was what he needed more than to be believed.

Rose and Hal leave, as well as leaving contact information, and Howard lets out a deep breath that seems to make his whole body go slack. He leans against the back of the bench.

"Thank God that's over." He reaches over and takes Barbara's hand, the one without the coin.

Barbara wrapped her fingers around Howard's hand, still staring at the backs of Rose and Hal.

"You did it," she smiled and turned to look over at him. "And you'll get to see them again."

She let go of his hand to give him a hug, resting her chin on his shoulder. "I'm very proud of you."

He clutches onto her, not seeming to mind that they're public, like someone seeing a loved one after a very very long time away. He buries her face in her neck and shoulder. There's a slight tremor down his spine.

"Thank you." He takes a few deep breaths. The anxiety that was so acute moments ago is leaving him. "Thanks for coming with me. Thanks for being here. Thanks."

A few passers-by stare, unsure what to make of the black man and older white woman so openly embracing, but they continue on.

"It was my pleasure," she replied into his hair, "you know that."

Barbara sat back and smiled at him some more. They'd successfully spoken to someone else about Time Travel. No one called the police, no one asked if they were on medication, or taking therapy. Rose even seemed to believe them the tiniest bit, and that was all they needed, really.

She sighed as she looked at him, her hand trailing down his arm. "Now. What shall we do while we wait for tomorrow?"

He finally lets go. "I thought for sure they were going to run screaming partway through. Like we were escapees from the insane asylum. But it...it went okay."

He wonders if Barbara's right, that he'll see them again. He hopes they don't just run away from him.

"I vote spa. I never even been to a spa, but I vote spa."

Barbara had been in a spa bath before, but that was her honeymoon and therefor private. She wasn't, however, going to lie to Howard, so she smiled as they stood and said: "a spa sounds lovely."

He has a travel guide in his pack (of course he does) so he pulls it out and looks for suggestions. "There's one a walk away that has natural hot springs. Let's go there."

Partially he's curious to see what his reaction to forced relaxation will be. Partially he just wants Barbara to have a good time and as that whole conversation felt excruciating for him, he's sure it wasn't fun for her either.

"What did you think? Of them, I mean?" In a way, he feels like he hopes they lived up to Barbara's expectations, too. Like he was showing them off to her, as if proving oh, hey, his family wasn't always in ruins. Once upon a time there was normalcy in his life.

"I'll need to go back to the room first and grab my swimmers," Barbara reminded him gently. "Then we can go to that one if you'd like."

As they walked, she contemplated his question. "From what I could tell, they seemed like decent people. Rose appears to be more open minded, but perhaps Hal is more practical, or he's been through some awful experience. It's difficult to say." She took in a breath, still thinking. "I suppose that in different circumstances, they would be lovely people who don't look at us suspiciously, as though we're trying to take all of their money."

"Right." He changes direction back to the hotel. "Well, I know my grandpa grew up dirt poor, so that's probably why he thought we were trying to con him or something."

Which had stung, being mistrusted from the start, although Howard's self-aware enough to recognize it's the way he treats everyone in turn.

"But my grandpa was always kind of a jerk, I hear. I didn't see much of him when I was a kid."

"If he is as much, I wonder what Rose can see in him?" Barbara clutched her purse strap with one had, keeping it on her shoulder a little more firmly. "He can't be that awful to have attracted someone so level-headed and open minded."

"Everyone always said I was a lot like him," Howard says, sounding a bit hurt. It's alright to assume such people are jerks, but that they aren't worthy of love from someone good is a bit much. "And he was a good dad to my mom."

Howard won't even have that going for him. He knows full well he won't ever have kids. ~~No foster grandkiddies for Barbara.~~

~~Worst foster son. Ever.~~ Barbara smiled at him. "If he was a good father, he can't be that bad a man." She stopped herself adding 'maybe you'll be a good father, too,' certain that they'd had that conversation before and that the reply was never as positive as Barbara would have liked.

"I won't ever know if I'd be a good father." In a way, there's a part of him that wishes he could even entertain the idea - but why subject a child to the cruelness of the world, or to the instability of a father sick in the head? How will he ever look at a kid and not be reminded of slaughters, or stop seeing them as a threat?

Not that it matters. He's twenty and he hasn't been kissed. Maybe while Barbara's sleeping tonight he'll hit the Castro.

"You're good to your pets," reasoned Barbara as they climbed the steps to the entrance of the hotel. "Maybe you're a good father in that respect?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Altering canon a little. Like a boss.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject