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

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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.

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"Not a lot," Barbara replied with a happy smile. "Just some clothes for John and Ian. When you have children, you'll be grateful for how long you can go between buying clothes for yourself," she added to Rose.

"How old are your children?" Rose asks. Howard doesn't correct that Barbara and Ian only have one, instead tilting his head to the side and trying to see what Barbara chose as clothing gifts.

Barbara smiled at Rose. "Aside from Howard, I've only one child, and he's almost a year old now." She handed her shopping to Howard and fished around in her handbag for her purse. "Here, I've a picture somewhere. Ah - it's a little old now, he's grown rather a lot since then, but that's John and Ian. My husband."

The photograph slid easily out of the little clear window in her purse. It was faded somewhat, but still quite clear. A proud Ian with a large, beaming smile, held up a tiny John who, at the time, was only just becoming more alert. He stared at the camera with large, round, blue eyes. Blue like Ian's.

"This one's from our wedding," Barbara continued, pulling out another photograph that was older and more faded. Even so, it was still clear and vibrant enough that Howard, Ian and Barbara could be easily made out. It lived in another pocket that unfortunately didn't have a window, but Barbara was just as proud to show it off. "Howard was Ian's best man, much to Ian's brother's displeasure. Or so I heard."

Howard tries not to look as surprised as he is with how Barbara qualifies him as one of hers. His smile disappears into the apples of his cheeks, but he's looking out at the water and not at them, so it's lost.

"He's beautiful. Beautiful eyes. And you look lovely in your wedding gown." Rose peers at the photograph. "So you and Ian...you officially adopted Howard?"

"Not officially, but our parents don't know that. It was originally a way to give him a place to live and food to eat without anyone getting suspicious, or drawing attention to ourselves. But even before we came home, I loved Howard as though he were my own."

She smiled proudly at Rose, then at Howard who was looking out at the water. "Now he's all grown up and left home, has a job of his own..." there really was no end to how proud Barbara could be of Howard. Even if he did make mistakes every now and again.

"I'm technically undocumented, because of, you know, the time travel, so they couldn't adopt me back then anyway. And now I'm too old for it." His smile wavers a little; it's not as if he doesn't believe Barbara, but there's a limit to how loved he can feel before he gets preoccupied thinking about how he'll lose it. "Anyway, I could have made it on my own if I have to, they just were really kind."

And while he says that, he doubts he'd be alive if not for Ian and Barbara. Especially Barbara. It would have been too easy to lose hope entirely.

"He told me about being a mechanic and wanting to write," Rose says. "And about you and Ian being teachers. I suppose that probably helped with the writing bit."

"Um," Barbara wasn't too sure if they helped so much with his writing, "I suppose I've edited a few pieces for him, but I don't think we've done much more than that." She looked to Howard for confirmation as Rose handed back her photographs and they were put away.

"Barbara was the first person to tell me my writing wasn't stupid," Howard says. Granted, that's because she was one of the first who ever saw it, but still.

"Is this the restaurant?" Rose points at one of them.

"Yes, that's the one," Barbara happily replied. The restaurant was designed specifically for tourists, and a lot of them at that. Pictures of American landmarks were framed and put up around the walls. The ceiling was painted with a large street map of the city, and the menus featured pictures of the bridge.

They were shown to a table located near an enthusiastic and large family, who were taking pictures of one another and talking in a foreign tongue. Barbara could catch a few words thanks to the TARDIS, but only if she focused on what they were saying.

"Do you and Hal have a favourite place to eat?" Barbara asked Rose once they were settled.

Howard finds the seat at the table furthest away from the family; he flinches slightly every time one of the little kids gives an enthusiastic yelp, although he tries very hard to hide that and just glance at the map on the ceiling whenever it happens. The woman in the large family gives the trio a curious, disapproving look, but she's too far away for Howard to hear what she whispers to the father.

Rose goes into detail describing the restaurant Hal proposed to her at, and it's clear from the way she talks about him that she really does love him, and he feels the same about her. The waiter actually has to interrupt her when he arrives to take their order. "And I'm guessing Ian did something similar for you?"

Oblivious to the family, and even the waiter until he interrupted, Barbara listened wholeheartedly to Rose. Their story was sweet and wonderful, but in their own special way rather than carbon copy of what the advertising firms said was romantic and special.

Barbara chuckled. "I proposed initially. I asked him to elope with me one evening but he convinced me that our parents, not to mention Howard and all of Ian's siblings, would not take very well to it." Rose was giving her a rather startled look, and Barbara backpedaled a little. "We'd discussed marriage - it wasn't out of the blue! After going through so much together for so long, we knew that there was no possible way we could live without one another."

She went on to explain how Ian got down on one knee in a park by his home one evening, but was caught by some of his students who took it upon themselves to join in once he'd asked The Question. They shouted out many reasons as to why she should say yes, and after a moment Barbara was giggling too hard to say anything at all, so she merely nodded her head. Howard was then waiting for them with a bottle of champagne and flowers when they got back to Ian's flat. It was, by far, one of the best experiences she'd had since coming home.

"That's untraditional, isn't it?" Not that Rose thinks Barbara sticks much to tradition - she's a time traveler sheltering a boy of a different world and race under her roof, why not propose to a man instead of vice versa?

They order; Howard tries to impress, both for Rose and Barbara, by only going for a salad and a small cut of meat. His headache's mostly faded by now, and the queasiness is just a dull feeling rather than overwhelming like it was earlier. ~~He's still never drinking martinis again.~~

"Are you going to try for more children?" Rose asks (Howard tries to be discrete with the way his eyes widen). "We, erm. We've been trying for our first, or we were until I Hal's company left him going solo, so you can understand how it's such a thrill to hear we're successful down the line."

Barbara could just about feel the anxiety radiate from Howard, but she remained cool and calm, and kept her focus on Rose. "We're not sure. Johnny on his own is work enough for the moment, so we'll see." John was so perfect that Barbara would be happy enough if he was the only child they ever had. However, since neither of them had brought it up for serious discussion, she couldn't comment.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Although it is good to know that your future brightens a little." Barbara paused, smirking down at the table top. She gave Howard a side glance before learning forward to Rose a little and adding: "still, practicing is just as fun."

She sat back to cover her mouth and giggle like a girl. Feeling so close to Howard meant that she could say such outrageous things and not feel too ashamed. Maybe it was the connection to Rose through Howard which helped her feel so familiar, but Barbara felt so at ease, like she was chatting with an old friend.

"Oh, I'm not looking forward to the amount of sleep I'm going to miss out on when I have three..." Rose picks at the bread in the basket in front of them, which Howard is pointedly not touching.

Howard leans back in his seat and exaggeratedly groans. Rose giggles into her hands, face flushing bright red. She fans herself a bit with her hand. "I would definitely say it gets better in marriage, rather than worse."

"It does, doesn't it?" Barbara sounded like Rose was the first person to agree with her on that fact. "I've a friend who believes otherwise, and I have tried to tell her on so many occasions that men take time to learn..." she trailed off, grinning wickedly. "Sorry, Howard. We can talk of something else."

"Sorry, I can't hear you, I've gone spontaneously deaf..." Howard stares at the map on the ceiling.

Rose laughs harder. "Come on now, you're an adult. It's nothing weird to you."

He winces, though not for the obvious reasons. "You're my future grandmom and she's my foster mom. It's all weird."

Rose shakes her head and rolls her eyes, taking another bread roll. The waiter serves their dishes and she begins on her pasta with gusto.

Barbara's gaze fell to her plate. Beside her, Howard had curiously ordered a salad, and in front of her, Rose was eating as she'd seen Howard eat on a few occasions. She didn't feel right looking at either one, at least, not intently.

The first few bites of the Sheppard's pie were heaven, and Barbara slowed to savor the taste. It had been so long since she'd had it, simply because she hadn't had time to make it.

"Howard, did you tell Rose what a fantastic wedding planner you are?" she asked when the silence between them was reaching the limit of its comfort.

Howard picks at the salad with restraint that, to anyone who knows his habits, borders on superhuman. He's desperately afraid of embarrassing himself in front of Rose, and if he's not paying attention to what he's doing his eating habits are still closer to a starving person's than a normal adult's.

Rose swallows, dabs at her mouth with a napkin and grins. "I haven't been out for a nice dinner in a while. This vacation is the first time we've been eating fancy food in quite the while. And wedding planning?"

Howard smiles and blushes. "It was just, you know. I didn't want Barbara getting all stressed out about it so I did it for her. It wasn't that hard, just lots of phone calls and stuff."

Barbara gave him a bit of a curious look. "I wanted to elope right up until the day of the event. If Howard hadn't practically organised our wedding, we'd probably still be engaged."

"Ian's family never would have forgiven her." And besides, Howard wanted the wedding. It 'completed the picture', so to speak. "Besides, you know. I like special days being actually special."

Barbara's family wouldn't have forgiven her either, but they'd probably be more sly about it than Ian's family.

"It was very special. Thank you." In the end, Barbara was grateful that Howard and Ian had convinced her that a wedding was a good idea.

"You'll have to tell me about that sometimes, Barbara." Rose finishes her plate and sets it aside. "Howard, have some of the bread, it's really fresh."

"I'm fine. And man, the way you guys are getting along you're going to be pen pals before we are."

Barbara smiled at Rose. They were getting on rather well for a second meet. Maybe if or when Howard moved back over to America, Barbara would be able to visit multiple friends, and have big dinners with Howard's family.

"There's nothing wrong with that, is there?" she grinned at him cheekily. "What would you like to talk about, Howard?"

"I didn't say there was anything wrong about that. I'm just saying wedding talk, fine, baby talk, ehhh, sex talk is like way weird for me from you guys." He wrinkles his nose. "You're supposed to be ladies."

"Generally this is lady talk. It just doesn't often occur when there are men in the room," Barbara explained, holding in giggles. "So we're no less ladies than you are American."

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