nexus_crossings | (no subject)

(no subject)

"I need a break from the Wastelands so I'm going to stick around for a bit. So if anyone happens to need a detective..."

Nick is a rather somber sounding mechanical man with a trilby hat, battered trench coat, and pants. He has a slender cigarette dangling from his skeletal fingers. Nick is standing under a street lamp, and he grumbles under his breath.

"I need to ask a question, okay, I'll ask a question. What do you do when you thought someone you knew turns out to be a complete lie?"

The somberness is gone, and Nick sounds angry very angry. "I've tried to reason with them, but he has decided to show his true colors." The old robot detective rocks back on the battered souls of his shoes, as he lifts his cigarette up to his lips to take a puff as if it will literally calm his gears.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Doctor remembers meeting Nick a very long time ago now. A trial with Davros was involved. But he has no way to know if this Nick is the same as that one.

He pulls a face at the question, because maybe he misheard it.

"What do you mean they turned out to be a complete lie? Everyone hides themselves a little when they first meet new people."

Looking up towards The Doctor, Nick removes the cigarette from his lips. "Good seeing you again." This will answer anything about if he is indeed the same battered android from the trial.

"When you seem to have a good head planted on your shoulder, only to show that isn't who you are. Though perhaps I ought to be less vague. A good friend of mine decided to go raider. And being a raider means pillaging and killing lots of innocent people."

His eyes look away from The Doctor, and they move to look down towards the ground at Nick's feet. "I know he went through a lot prior to us meeting, but I never expected to see him turn on all of the people who looked up to him."

He nods. "And you. Wasn't sure you'd remember me."

It was billions of years ago for him. And now, well, 'state of grace', but anyone's guess how long that might last. The Doctor listens to the story. It's a familiar one, sadly.

"Personally, I would wonder which is the lie. Is it the current behaviour or the first one."

Nick lifts a finger up to tap his head. "I might be old, but the ram in this old computer of mine works just fine."

Lower his hand back down to his side, Nick purses his lips. "Current. All was fine, or I wouldn't have helped him out when we first met. I know my friend has been through a lot since we first met, and maybe more than most whom I've worked with before. That or the whole cryogenic freezing thing did a number on him."

The Doctor smirks. "Lucky you."

The Doctor hums in consideration now that he has more of the story.

"Then, is there some reason why you can't help him find his way back?"

Seems like the simplest thing. Of course, he had been doing that with Missy recently, so maybe it's all projecting.

"I'd point out the son that he lost, well lets just say when he found him things didn't exactly turnout the way we were hoping for. Maybe he didn't take things as well as I thought he did."

Nick looks down to study his battered feet. "And I know just as well as anyone that The Commonwealth has teeth, and if you're not strong enough she'll sink them into anyone simply for the sake of survival."

"All very good information. Doesn't answer why you can't help him. He sounds more lost than anything."

At least to the Doctor. But, the more he changes the more he stays the same.

Nick sighs and he wishes things were just that simple. If things were simple, life would be a lot easier and then nobody would need him to find people and missing stuff.

"That there is the problem. How do you help someone who doesn't want to be helped? I tried to talk some sense into him, but he decided attacking a settlement full of settlers he originally was a better idea."

Then it dawns on him, and another sigh escapes him. "I think we could have done more to make sure he was in the right place and mind before putting on such a huge responsibility on his shoulders. Especially after all he was going through. But he didn't seem to mind, sure, there was a little sarcasm but there was no harm in it."

"It's easy to see everything you should've done or could've done after the fact. So the question becomes: what can you do now? You're clearly still worried about him and those he might hurt."

He goes quiet for a minute.

"He wouldn't be here, would he?"

The Doctor could talk to him. He's not good for much else these days, it seems.

"I wouldn't have brought it up if I weren't. Right now, I think trying to get my head back on my shoulders is a good idea, so coming here was a good idea. As for him being here? No. He doesn't know about the place."

Nick still sounds as if he couldn't believe what he saw. "And for the sake of this place, I think it is good that he doesn't. But I can't believe it. Here I thought we were going to check on one of the settlements he helped start, only to see him kill anyone in sight with his new friends. I tried to put a stop to it, but there was just too many of them. And all I know is he's operating in some old amusement park on the outskirts of The Commonwealth."

"If only I understood what drives humans to think the way that they do."

The Doctor nods again, accepting as much information as he can get. Then Nick makes his last statement and the Doctor chuckles softly.

"You're talking to the wrong person if you want to know that. I mostly travel with humans because they understand things I never could."

He's not being entirely honest. It's not quite false modesty, it's more than he's aware there are some things that he will never understand about humans.

"So he's found a new group to hang with. And they approve of his new behaviour...." He trails off in thought. "Nothing for it, use this place and this time to regroup yourself. Rest. Nothing you can do about him here, unless he shows up. But taking care of yourself? That should be done."

"I might have the memories of a human, and some things that set me apart from a Mister Handy, but I'm still a bunch of screws and wires," Nick jokingly says, about himself. "And I do understand some of the fears humans have when it comes to someone like me. But the fact humans have this way of learning to trust those who are willing to prove themselves; they're not all that bad."

Then it is back to his old friend, Nick folds his arms against his chest, and he nods his head. "That was part of my plans when I came here. I can't stick around for long, because I still got some cases that need my attention."

"And so long as things are frozen back there, I'll be able to like you said, look after Nick."

The Doctor nods.

"I'm not sure it's so much things are frozen back there. More we're taken out of time from there, dropped here and then put back at the same time. They don't notice the passage of time, even if we do."

He's not yet ready to show what he means. The state of grace of his regeneration that he's currently in is a blessing and a curse in equal measures.

"That's good to know. And now that my partner has gone rogue, I'm going to be busy up to my bolts in cases. Guess it'll be time to look for a new partner."

Nick sounds relieved, very relieved that he'll going back home to the same amount of work as before.

"So what's been up with you, Doctor? It's been quite sometime since we met."

"Longer than you could possibly know."

Well, maybe? He doesn't remember if they met before or after his experience in his Confession Dial, but even then, between Darillium and the time he spent guarding the Vault, it's still been awhile.

Obviously not something he's keen to talk about.

"I wonder if there is any point in asking you what you've been up to since then."

Nick tries to keep up some form of conversation. And the fact the two of them are meeting on better terms, he figures there is no problem in being sociable.

The Doctor looks down at his hand and pumps it a few times. He’s glad when no regeneration energy is seen.

“None at all. My life continues to be a funny old thing. “

Nick tilts his head while watching The Doctor pump his hand. "Something wrong with your hand?" He mimics the pumping of the hand by doing the same with his spindly skeletal fingers.

The Doctor offers a small grin and meets Nick’s eyes.

“For the first time in a long while, no. Everything is fine.”

Well, no. He can feel the regeneration energy just under the surface, but it’s easier to hide.

Nick returns the smile, and he wiggles his fingers again.

"That's good to hear. I never like it when these old joints of mine feel like they're held together with brass screws."

The Doctor chuckles at that. It's almost a sad sound though - not quite wet but...

"That reminds me of a friend of mine... His name was Nardole. Cut him out of a robot and glued his head back onto a body."

More complex than that, of course. But then, everything is with the Doctor.

Nick's eyes go wide at the sheer horror this Nardole must have went through. Of course, Nick doesn't know who or what the poor guy was.

"Why would you remove his head?! I'm sure there was nothing wrong with the original body!"

The Doctor shrugs.

"Didn't look like it to me, but the Robot cut his head off and took it anyway. When the robot started to malfunction and die, I thought it was better to give him a body back."

Really, he's not explaining this well at all. Oops.

Nick still looks horrified as he imagines what happened to this poor Nardole fellow, and he absently goes to place his hand around his neck or what's left of it.

"Couldn't you have repaired the robot body? I mean if you can attach the head to another body, you should have the knowledge on fixing whatever was wrong with the rest of him."

“Ah, seen, that was the problem. The rest of him wasn’t his original body. And twenty-four years in, there was only so much I could do where repairs were concerned. Giving him a new body was really the best thing I could do and seeing as he didn’t want to die, he agreed.”

It’s not like the Doctor didn’t have permission. What do you take home for?