Archive of Our Own

Ace and Kate had begged the two of them to be allowed to go into the town on their own, Alistair originally putting his foot down and refusing to let them out of the house alone until The Doctor reminded him that they were both ‘perfectly responsible young women.’

“Yes, I'm sure they'll be fine.” The Timelord responded, looking deep in thought. It wasn't uncommon for any incarnation of The Doctor to spend time lost in thought, more often than not resulting in the poor fellow losing days of sleep pacing and theorizing. It seemed this incarnation was particularly guilty of it, sometimes even walking around the entire house whilst contemplating some sort of moral dilemma.

Alistair shook his head as he watched his partner's progressively agitated state, wondering if maybe it was time to step in. He could only imagine what was going on in that brilliant head of theirs, all those ideas floating about in there. Quite frankly, he didn't know how they managed to cope with it all. 

“Look, would you please come and sit down? You'll tire yourself out pacing like that.” Alistair sighed, watching as The Doctor began to heavily favor his good leg. They shrugged him off, mumbling something about the TARDIS's chameleon whatever it was and having to drain the pool out of the library. The alien astonished him with the nonsense that came out of their mouth sometimes, as brilliant as they were. 

“Darling, please. You'll hurt yourself if you keep pacing like that, I'm sure whatever you need to do to the TARDIS can wait.” He tried to keep his tone gentle despite his frustration, not wanting to cause any sort of row. 

They could be so beautifully frustrating sometimes. 

The Doctor stopped their pacing, glancing at Alistair then over at the back door where the TARDIS was parked. Their brows furrowed as they considered their opinions and Alastair couldn't help but smile as he watched him. 

Eventually, their eyes trailed back to him. 

“Yes, I suppose you're right. We are on holiday after all.” They sighed, taking their hat off and limping towards the coat rack by the front door before coming back into the living room and practically collapsing onto the sofa beside him.

Alistair never understood why they liked that hat so much, but he always thought hats suited them so he isn't really one to complain. 

They yawned, almost immediately becoming entranced by whatever nonsense was on the television. It was some American SCI-FI show called ‘Star Trek’ that had begun airing on some channels in England. The Doctor often commented on how unrealistic the effects were, but Alistair always thought they were rather good for their time. Of course, The Timelord had probably seen so much advanced technology that any practical effects looked unrealistic to them.

“Hm.” They hummed. “Do you think Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are secretly in love?” 

Alistair seemed to choke on air, the suddenness of the question surprising him.

“Well, I don't think things like that were very appreciated back then. What makes you think that?” He responded, face feeling a little hot at the idea of two men doing anything that would insinuate a romantic bond between them on television

“I'm not sure,” Alistair felt a weight on his shoulder and a cool hand grasp his own, making his stomach do summersaults even after all this time. “I suppose I just feel as if they would be a good couple. They seem close enough.” 

He thought about their words, watching as the Captain and his First Officer fought each other on the sands of Vulcan. He began to get lost in his own train of thought as he watched Spock kill his Captain, his friend, his brother and his- no.

That was an absurd idea. 

Alistair was pulled out of his thoughts by another yawn beside him, bringing him back to reality. The Doctor was practically falling asleep beside him, their eyes periodically drifting shut seemingly without their knowledge. He chuckled fondly to himself, smiling affectionately at the sleepy Timelord. Who would have thought? The same person that could save the world from destruction with nothing but a sonic screwdriver and a faulty spaceship was absolutely adorable. 

He turned his attention back to Star Trek, only just catching Mr Spock's wide grin as he discovered his Captain was indeed alive. Incredible, a drug that slows your heartbeat and temporarily mimics death. They could have used that in the military. 

The end credits rolled, the theme tune rather joyful for such an intense episode. Alistair was so engrossed in the show that he hardly noticed the head that was now in his lap. His fingers moved to absentmindedly comb through The Doctor's hair, a rumbling purr almost sending him jumping out of his seat. He looked down, only now realizing that The Doctor had laid their head in his lap and presumably fallen asleep.

Good lord, he must have really been distracted.

At least they had finally fallen asleep, though the purring was quite a shock to Alistair's system. He had only heard The Doctor do that a few times, and even then they tried their hardest to suppress it. He supposed there was no reason to hide things like that from each other anymore, not after they had been through so much together. 

He let his fingers sink into those curls once again, the low purr building up again until it was practically vibrating through the sofa. This made Alistar laugh a little, the image of The Doctor as a scraggly little cat with his hat and jumper on. 

Another episode of Star Trek came on, the title music triumphant and proud. He supposed watching another wouldn't hurt.

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“We're back!” Kate announced from the doorway, stepping into the house with Ace following quickly behind. The two of them waited for an answer, but seemingly no reply came.

“Do you think they've gone out of something?” Ace asked as she unlaced her boots, shrugging her jacket off and placing her backpack under the coat rack. 

Kate shook her head. “No, dad said he and papa were staying home today.” 

“Blimey, do you think they got abducted by aliens then?” Ace blurted out, receiving a confused look from Kate that morphed into genuine concern.

They both exchanged a worried glance, Ace taking the lead as they crept down the hallway into the living room. Kate stayed behind her, unfortunately not having as much experience with aliens as the other teen did. 

She watched as Ace peered around the corner, a giggle escaping her lips as she snuck back around to face Kate.

“What's so funny?” She asked, watching as her friend simply pointed into the living room. Kate sighed in annoyance, peering in to get a look at what was so funny. 

Her eyes widened, a hand coming up to her mouth to stifle a giggle as she studied the scene in front of her. It was pretty adorable, the two of them being so openly affectionate with each other even if they thought no one was looking. 

“Was he watching Star Trek??” Kate couldn't help but smile as she came back around the corner to look at Ace.  

Ace nodded, still giggling slightly. “Yeah, we'll have to ask him what he thinks of Captain Kirk and Mr Spock's romantic tales of woe.” 

They both burst into laughter, quickly running up the stairs to have a very important discussion on which of the two were more like Spock and which one was more like Kirk. Ace argued that ‘The Professor was more like Spock because he's an alien’, but Kate disagreed and said that her dad was more like Spock because he was a lot more stern and logical.

Eventually, they decided that the two were just a pair of Mr Spocks who seemed to love each other very much, and that's all that mattered to them.