Carpe Tempus
Chapter One

Pairings:
Tennant/Piper Time, Space, and Chips Continuum
Matt Smith Post Big Bang

Guests: Pasephea Tyler, Jack Harkness

Rating: NC-17

Notes: From the hints I gave in Two and a Half Doctors, I was asked to write how Eleven and the Metacrisis met. Well, this is based on a RP site (Time Space & Chips) and rather than just throw together and plagiarize everything, I'm rewriting this as if it were in a book or on the screen instead of a back and forth roleplay, making some alterations here and there as I see fit and what would work best. Also doing it completely from memory, lest I actually steal lines... well, except mine of course.

The threads in question are 'London. No Place Like It!', 'Project: Shatterpoint', and 'Apples and Pears'. Hit my bio for the link to the site, if you're curious. Hoping this will turn out like an actual two hour episode that would most likely happen after 9pm, hence the swearing that's going on... as well as the bit of... shall we say... explicitness that happens round the end. This is why it's rated 'M'.

Enjoy

At the tender age of nineteen, a young girl was given a car for her birthday. Well, this car wasn't exactly a car. It just looked like one, a metallic silver BMW to be precise. Well, it was now anyway. No telling what it'd be tomorrow. Sure, it could be driven around like the real thing, but you could pop under the seat into the ship that was within. And what a ship her baby was. Sure, he was a baby. Only had enough rooms for a kitchen, a bedroom, cloister room, and the console room of course, but it was hers, and she loved the wonderful dear.

Her first trip was a bit... well... off? Instead of hitting some planet, she ramrodded headfirst into docking with her ship's grandmother after going through what only could be described as a time storm. That was a sight. Her uncle was completely speechless. Well, after going round the bend trying to figure out who she was of course, not to mention how she got onboard. Kept asking if it was her wedding day for some reason. Looked just like her dad too, only more talkative. And good Lord that man could talk!

Well, anyway. After getting the whole 'you're in the wrong universe' bit sorted out, she decided to hit London to go shopping. Well, that was the intention anyway. She spent a good two hours just marveling at how empty the sky was without all the zeppelins floating about. It was weird. Well that, and the extremely comforting feeling she had in the back of her mind. So many minds whirring and jabbering, it was really comforting just feeling that bit of white noise. No wonder her uncle talked as much as he did. The absolute silence from the absence of anything must have driven him mental.

She was walking along and got a whiff of something positively delicious. Staring at where the smell of chips was coming from, she was startled to see her father shuffling his feet and heading into the same chippy she was being drawn to. He looked and felt so sad. 'Where's mum?' she thought. Squaring her shoulders, Phea ran in behind him. Daddy being upset was wrong, and she was going to fix it!

She got completely distracted by the inside of the chippy. This one was a bit more like a pub, what with the bar and stools. Only, there wasn't any hard liquor about. Strange. Well, anyway. Noticing that her dad was on one of the stools, she sat next to him and stopped cold. Same jeans. Same chocolate brown jacket. Almost surely, his feet were being warmed by a set of some colour of trainers, but there was something decidedly off. His hair was just as messy as it's ever been, but the colour was... 'Oh shit, where's his silver sideburns?' she thought.

Phea blanched as the colour drained from her face. She was distracted by the waiter or barman or whatever that bloke was, and she ordered some chips and a ginger beer. She'd jumped timelines. The one thing her father swore her to never do, and here she was next to a younger version of the same man. She was in SO much trouble now.

Thing is though, he felt so crushingly miserable to her. She listened to him order the exact same thing she did not two seconds ago, and the tone of his voice was breaking her hearts. She wanted to just wrap him up in her arms and kiss his forehead, like he'd always do for her. Something he was fiddling with caught her attention though, and she glanced at his hands. A little burgundy felt box was spinning in his fingers. When she saw it as well as the pointedly bare finger of his left hand, she nearly fainted dead away.

Slamming every door in her mind and deadlocking them, the only thought she had was 'Oh. My. God! He hasn't asked her to marry him yet!' Phea had to clamp her lungs shut and switch to her respiratory bypass, lest she made a scene from hyperventilating. As it was, her hearts were hammering so hard in her chest, she could swear everyone could hear them. Was this a predestination paradox? She hadn't planned on being here any more than she had in meeting her uncle, but here she was. Any wrong word now and she'd simply vanish.

For his part, Johnathon Smith was doing everything he could to think of the right words to say. Asking Rose to marry him was the biggest thing he'd ever do, and he so didn't want to cock this up. Every time they'd get close, this little wall of awkwardness would spring up in between them. It was so depressing. That wall had a name, and he hated that man for it. He heard someone gasp quietly next to him, and he turned his head. The girl was cute, he noted, and looked positively terrified? "You all right, love?"

Mind going completely blank with fear, she turned her head and plastered a mask of calm on her face. "Doing the best I can, under the circumstances." 'Run! Run away! Shit, why can't I move?'

John arched his brow at her. "Boyfriend trouble?" Well, it was the obvious question to ask. It was odd how her calm just curtained down like it did, but he could tell it was all a front. Something was bothering her. "John. John Smith, by the way."

"No," she sort of squeaked out. "Just marveling at my mum and dad's birthday present. He's parked across the street." She shook his offered hand. "Phea." 'Stand up... walk to the door... run for the TARDIS. How hard is that?'

"Oh, got a car then? That's lovely, Pheabird," he said. "Call it a he, then? Usually motors, boats, planes and the like are all girls," he smirked.

"Definitely a he," she haltingly chuckled. "I think he'd breakdown or something if I called him a girl." 'Holy crap, he just called me by my nickname,' she smiled wide despite herself.

They were briefly interrupted by the arrival of their chips and ginger beers. John noticed their identical orders and quietly chuckled to himself. "Chips and beer. Good choice."

She let out an honest laugh. "Yeah, well my dad always said a good ginger beer goes down better with chips. Mum just likes chips."

"Hah! I'm the same way," John smiled. This was a good distraction for him. At least it was getting his mind out of that damnable circular reasoning he was caught in.

"So, who's the lucky lady?" Phea asked, pointing at the little box on the counter.

John's eyebrows went up, and he stuffed the little box inside his jacket pocket. "Oh, someone I've known for three years. Well, one. Well, it's complicated." He rubbed the back of his neck and frowned.

Phea snorted. He was embarrassed. "What relationship isn't? Is she pretty?"

"Oh, she's gorgeous," he said with a sigh. He popped a chip in his mouth and took a sip of his drink. "Hair's all golden; her eyes could honestly make me melt with just a glance."

Phea couldn't help the little 'awwuh' that came out of her mouth. This was back when her mother still bleached her hair. She gave him a wistful smile, but came up short when he stared at her own eyes. "What? Have I got somethin' on my face?"

Those eyes looked awfully familiar to him for some reason. "No no. You just look like someone I know, and I can't place it." Her nervous turn to nibble on her chips made him focus on his. "It'll come to me. Probably remind me of someone I've seen on the telly."

Phea cleared her throat. "Nope, sorry. Much as an actor's life appeals to me, I'd rather be shot with louverian thorns," she frowned.

That got his attention, and his latest chip froze just inches from his gob. Those only existed in one place, and it definitely wasn't Earth. And if that hadn't alerted him, then the hand coming up to her mouth with her wide eyed expression of embarrassment would have. "Come again?" he asked.

"Nothing. Just an expression or something." 'Oh shit. I'm on his radar now,' she thought as she gulped down a few swallows of her ginger beer. She tried looking anywhere but in his direction.

John's mind was going through some calculations, and he decided to round about interrogate her... sort of, at any rate. This could be a bit of fun, but he was all for running if this went cockeyed. "So what kind of car did they get you?"

"Hmm?" she paused. What did it change into this time? "He's silver. A real hot rod. Oh, a beamer."

"Oh, one of those little two seaters?" His eyebrows went up, thinking. "Bit small," he said with a frown.

She chuckled and fell for the trap. "Oh, he'll fool you. Has a lot of space in the boot."

John smirked. "Bigger on the inside, eh?"

She chuckled. "You could say that." Then her face froze in a comical expression of 'I've been had.' She swallowed nervously and stuffed four whole chips in her mouth, then tried her best to not look like a deer caught in the headlights. She failed... rather spectacularly.

John turned to look at her directly. "All right, who are you? Louverian thorns aren't exactly local, you know."

'Shit, Shit, SHIT! Busted!' she started to panic. "No one special, just a student," she said a bit too fast.

"Right," he said, disbelievingly. "And I'm the King of all Londinium with a shiny hat. Spill it girly." Okay, she was looking like she was about to bolt out of there at any second. Her fishing out her quid to put it on the bar only heightened that impression. Then her doe eyed expression as she stared at him clicked something in his head. 'No... No Way. She looks like... Both of us! But is she his or mine? Better not be his. I'll gladly relieve him of those last three regenera... Oh, who am I kidding? If she goes, she goes. Her happiness is all that matters.'

She watched him mirroring her with plopping money on the counter, and tried to keep her emotions in check. This was beyond dangerous territory now. Her very existence was at stake! She chanced a look in his direction and realized what a mistake that was. His eyes were as big as hers now. 'Fuck! He knows!'

Not wanting to be the one to break first, John came up with an idea. Grinning, he said, "C'mon, Rose should be here any minute from her shopping spree. I'll introduce you," he smiled. Turning in his stool, John stood and turned for the door, smirking to himself.

Screw panic, Phea was headlong into a full on nutter now. "Da-... John! That's not such a good idea!"

That aborted syllable cinched it. Not 'Do' as in Doctor, but 'Da' as in Dad! A spark hit that manic nerve in John's cerebellum, and his smirk spread into a full on split faced and toothy, shit eating smile. Spinning about, he pointed at her. "Hah! Gotcha! Hand in the biscuit bin!" He laughed as Phea slammed both hands over her mouth. "Oh yes! No doubt I would've told you just how bad an idea this would be, but you're here!" A tittering giggle came out of his gob, and he honestly didn't care how girly that sounded. She was his! That meant that Rose will say yes! He was on top of the entire bloody world now. "Well, I mean coming from me like you do, I'd expect nothing less!"

Phea turned her frightened expression to the other patrons, who were looking at them both rather strangely now. This was not the place for that sort of conversation. She literally jumped out of her stool, grabbed his hand, and ran out the door. She was hardly surprised at how easy it was to drag him along. How often did anyone in her family clasp hands and run? Her father was literally cackling at this point, and she didn't stop running until they got to a bus stop.

He was surprised when Phea turned around suddenly, with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be here! This was a complete accident! Went through some sort of time storm and he hasn't been right since! I was aiming for twenty thirty four! The zeppelins are gone, and I don't know what's happening!"

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa!" John said, steadying her by her shoulders. "You're not in trouble, dear. In fact, you've just now given me the right kick in my arse to get off said posterior and ask your mother to marry me! I should be thanking you! In fact," he pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head, "Thank you. You have no idea what your being here means to me." To himself, he was slightly worried. She mentioned the dirigibles... Well, the lack of them at any rate. That was bad, because that would mean that she was caught up in the same thing that he, Rose, and her entire family were not a month ago. That was one hell of a trip. If she remembered the zeppelins... 'Oh no. Is she a living paradox?' he thought, completely alarmed now.

Phea let the scent of time, sweat, oil, and books wash over her as her father held her. Instinctively, her arms wrapped around his middle and nearly cut off his air supply with how tight she clung to him. She was shaking uncontrollably now, but she couldn't help but smile though. She never felt safer than when she was in her father's arms.

Once she settled down, John pulled back a bit. "So, what's it like being a predestination paradox, eh?" Well, he was hoping that was it. He might fall apart if she just faded out of existence now. "I mean, I've been through a few of those before, but never been one myself. Kinda exciting, I would think?"

Phea's face was a mixture of a happy smile, and outright terror. "You have no idea." Her breathing was rather ragged, and for some reason she couldn't go back to her bypass. "I feel like I'm about to come outta my skin!"

A thought occurred to John. "Where are we anyway? I'd think your mother and I would be close by..." he blinked and realized what she said earlier. "Oh wait, you said this was an accident."

"You know I'd love to tell you, but I..." she paled even further now. A more than familiar woman was standing behind her father. She was blond now, but that didn't matter in the slightest. If the look on her face was any indication, she was trying to burn a hole through her father's back. "Oh God." That look meant there was going to be a round of shouting and slapping any minute. She felt a headache coming on.

John's face screwed up with confusion. "What? What's the," he heard something crumple on the sidewalk, "matter?" Then he felt a sharp poking jab at his shoulder. He turned slightly to look over said shoulder with a, "Hmm?"

Standing behind him was the woman he was going to propose to. She had her hands on her hips and was glaring at him. "Uh... hello?" she said, tilting her head. "What the hell is this?" she half yelled.

"This was such a bad idea..." Phea whimpered.