applesaucedream | what's happened to these buildings? they all look rundown and so forlorn [open to all]

Imagine a street in New York City. Well, you're not imagining it, someone else is. One of those long avenues where you could stand on the sidewalk in Harlem and see all the way down to the Statue of Liberty, if you could see that far. Which you can't. I mean, you literally can't see that far, but you also can't see an end to this avenue. It just keeps going, which is scary sort of in the way that the expanding universe is. What is it expanding into? Is there an edge? Is it really donut-shaped infinity? You read about that somewhere.

If you explore further, you find that it is sort of donut-shaped, or it must be, because you keep coming back to the same block. Or maybe you never leave it. Every window is - not dark, precisely, but the stores aren't open, and the apartment dwellers are asleep. Actually, not every window. Two wide windows frame a glass door and they're all spilling warm, welcoming light onto the sidewalk from underneath the scalloped hat of an awning. You can't read it if you try, and yet you know that it's inviting you into a diner. It's a really nice looking diner. Not nice like fancy, but nice like, that's exactly the sort of diner you'd like to go to late at night. Hey, it's nighttime. It's so quiet for the nighttime, especially for New York City.

You want to go to that diner, don't you? Yeah, you do. You might see through the window, or as you walk in, that it's full of worn and comfortable (but empty) leather-cushioned booths. Stools (also empty) file along the linoleum-topped counters. Nothing is dirty, but it doesn't look clean, either, like everything from the 70s. And there's just... there's a lot of pie. You probably noticed that first. Some diners might have a choice of two pies, or even three, but this one just might be run by someone who can reanimate things by touching them. It's not, don't get excited. But it could be. That's how dedicated this diner is to pie. They probably serve other food too, since it's a diner. Or they would if there was anyone to serve it. Looks like you're stuck with pie.

What? You don't like pie? Well, you're wrong. But that's okay. Ianto does. He'll eat it for you, after he's finished eating the slice he's picking at in the booth halfway down. Have you met him before? Does he even go here? You know what, it's hard to remember.

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Unexpectedly, it is sort of amusing to watch Ianto's reaction to the new Doctor and what he has to say about him. She wouldn't call him stern so much as irritable, but that may be a feature easier to determine through personal interaction. And what is it about him that would make Ianto think he would like to wear capes? She'll never understand any human mind.

But Ianto also has a good point. "Yes, indeed," she agrees, though it's as comforting as it is disheartening to think he is forced to settle in. Settling into a cage is not something either of them have ever done willingly or well. Still, "I think perhaps the child someone brought him will help. He was travelling alone in his own universe. You know that is never good for him in the long term."

Ianto takes a preparatory breath and opens his mouth to speak, then closes it and exhales through his nose. "Erm," he starts, twining his fingers together, then deciding otherwise and laying his hands flat on the table. His food and drink blink from existence, forgotten in the intense amount of thought Ianto has suddenly put into... whatever it is that he's focused on.

"I'm going to give you a chance to rephrase that," he settles on - rather magnanimously, he thinks, "and, if you don't mind a suggestion, a good place to start would be the child someone brought him."

Oh what is it now? Perhaps Ianto's prolonged injuries are starting to affect his mind as well, how sad that would be. Or he really is just profoundly confused by something she thought was very straightforward. Being the more pleasant and more likely options of the two, she decides to assume the latter and frowns at him, letting the Doctor's image fade.

"Was I not being clear?" Perhaps he just needs a little more context. "A scientist named Iman Asadi brought him a child the day after he arrived. They had previously met in one of the rift-facilitated inter-universal dreams, and since she had just arrived, he decided she ought to live with us. He is already quite attached to her." But not in any way the TARDIS has reason to mind. Especially since the child is a tolerable inhabitant.

Oh, well, now that she's explained it, that's actually not at all better in any way. So it's a riftie girl, now essentially an orphan. It sounds well-intentioned, but it also sounds a bit like 'hey, I found this scientifically interesting little girl, let's do science on her', and even if it's not that (which it probably isn't) then any child near any of this rift/ROMAC business seems very, very wrong to him.

"Lead with that next time," he suggests, disgruntled, and he imagines a slice of custard pie and a cup of coffee back to give his hands something to do. "Saying that anyone's been brought a child is..." He shakes his head. It's not worth the explanation. It's not worth admitting that the idea of bringing children to someone makes his skin crawl for reasons other than morals or ethics.

"I really - absolutely tell him this - I really doubt the suitability of the Doctor as a foster parent."

Well that is actually fairly rude, particularly since the TARDIS can't tell what Ianto's problem even is. Sometimes the Doctor runs into people, sometimes they stow away, sometimes he kidnaps them, and sometimes they're introduced through someone else. No way of making friends seems more or less acceptable, as long as her interior ends up being filled with more cheer than gloom. And it's been a long time since there was as much happiness in her console room as when he realized the little girl had become newly alive. Really, Ianto, so far it's working out rather well for everyone.

"He has been a parent before, you know," she points out, frown intensifying. Though that was 'before her time', which as a concept is very nearly unfathomable to her. "As well as a grandparent, in human terms. It has been a very long time, for him, but I think he has retained some degree of sense for it. And you are all children to us, at the core of it." And besides, she's not going to let the child starve when the Doctor temporarily forgets she is on board.

Boy, she is really selling this to him. He did a thing that one time a thousand years ago, so he's probably still great at it. Ianto used to shoot aliens with handguns and run ten miles per hour four years ago - that doesn't mean he'd be good at either of those things now. And all the people who run slower than him doesn't mean he's going any faster.

"People change," he counters, cutting his slice with the edge of his fork and stabbing at the piece. Especially over centuries. "Susan, yeah?" He contemplates as he chews. Wasn't there someone else in there too? Andrew? Colin? Not that the Doctor was much involved in his great-grandson's life. "How did that work out for him?" he asks, staring down at his pie to avoid her gaze.

The TARDIS can certainly sense the tension in the atmosphere, but she still can't quite identify it. She's perfectly aware that Ianto harbors complicated feelings with regards to the Doctor, for reasons she doesn't entirely fault him for, but it irks her that he thinks this entitles him to judge her pilot on someone else's behalf. And that her word is apparently not good enough.

Nor does she appreciate that Ianto is apparently being fractious on purpose and trying to worry at the complicated matter of the Doctor's grandchild without possibly being able to understand. Her expression darkens, and she sets the fork down on the plate with a delicate clink before tightly folding her hands on the table. "The way it always does," she replies coolly. "She chose to stay in one place. We carried on travelling and he found new friends. Whatever else may change in him, his desire to care for those he loves does not." And if anyone can say that with any authority, it's certainly her.

"Jack cared for his grandson." And we all know how that turned out. Intent is meaningless; the best laid schemes o' Time Lords an' men gang aft agley. It's bad enough that the girl is trapped in this universe, trapped in Manhattan, surrounded by rifties of dubious goodness. Add that to living with the Doctor and you're just asking for trouble.

Ianto leans back, abandoning his pie, trying to ease up a little. He knows he's being harsh, but he feels that someone must be the voice of reason here, if no one else is going to say 'hey, you can't just pick up lost little girls and drop them on the doorsteps of well-intentioned but dangerous men without maybe informing them about other options or calling child services or anything but doing what you did'.

"I just don't think it's safe," he tries, which is a slightly different argument that maybe the TARDIS will find more palatable. "The Doctor attracts danger when he's standing still. Anything bad in this city will inevitably involve him. Adults can choose to stand by him, but children... that isn't fair."

Yes, she definitely knows how that turned out. It would have turned out as it was supposed to, if it hadn't been for the Doctor's attachments. People live and die, and sacrifices are made to avoid yet worse consequences, and none of that is the point here at all.

"Your lives are never safe," she counters, unimpressed. "Who else would you have take care of the child? Both of the rift-aware factions imprison and torture innocents. And neither of them could protect anyone against the highly powerful malevolent beings currently residing in the city." She raises her chin, less in defiance of Ianto now than of her own circumstances. "I may be as trapped as everyone else, but I am still the safest place here. And she feels safe with him." The Doctor and her might not agree on terribly much at the moment, but they both need this, and so does the girl.

what's happened to these buildings? they all look rundown and so forlorn [open to all]

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