paradisalogs | We shall not cease from exploration

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wade welles

We shall not cease from exploration

Who: Wade and The Fifth Doctor
What: A-hiking we will go
When: Before Jumanji plot
Where: The Enchanted Woods and beyond?
Rating:PG

Wade stretched and took in a lungful of the morning air, feeling something in her chest unclench just a bit now that the castle was at her back for the moment. She wasn't going to kid herself that anywhere was out of it's reach, but it was nice to stop and take a good look around for once - something she'd maybe been scared to do before now. And this time because she wasn't alone.

She turned around to glance back down the patch from where they'd come, boots scraping on the brick path under her feet.

"Hey Doc! It looks like there might be a clearing up ahead!" she called out.

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It was a glorious morning indeed and the chance to go exploring with Wade he wasn't going to pass on. Why? It came down to one very simple thing.

She was wearing boots.

No high-heels, no sling-backs, no pretty-strappy things that looked like items of intense torture to the Doctor. Sensible shoes. That was the way to do it.

That and of course he did enjoy her company.

"Feeling better? It's quite fresh out here, isn't it?"

Catching up to Wade, he already had his hat on his head. "Doctor. I'm not one of the Seven gnomes, you know," he said with a smile. "Let's take a look at the clearing, shall we?"

"Aw, why not? I think you'd make a great gnome," she said, grinning back at him as she walked backwards ahead of him for a few moments. The casual banter was as much of a distraction as the walk. It reminded her in a small way of the way things had been before she'd arrived in the castle. Even if she had no home, no steady job, no idea what the day would bring, she at least would know that there was somebody she could trust at her back.

Giving Wade a look that is already a little long-suffering but still in very good humour for her grin, casual bantering indeed and for it coming from Wade, it's something that feels familiar and that he's also missed.

"Gnome one knows for sure." Watching her step as she walked backwards, he jerked his head, indicating what was in front of them as the clearing became more in sight and the yellow bricked path came to an end.

"There you go. Looks like a well. I wonder why the path just ends here?"

Wade turned as she giggled at the joke, and approached the well. She put on hands on the edge and peered into the water inside, half expected something to be living inside of it, or for the contents to be something other than water. But it was about as mundane as it looked. At least for now.

"Probably because the castle isn't a big fan of us wandering very far off the beaten path. Personally, I'm not very fond of the beaten path. Especially this one," she said, scuffing her boots against the yellow bricks beneath them.

"I mean, seriously, it's not I didn't know I wasn't in Kansas anymore..."

Hearing her say that about the beaten path was music to his ears. He wasn't so good at following the rules - or the paths - himself. Hanging back a little from the well, he frowned as Wade went as far as to practically lean over it.

"Or Oz, for that matter. Er, do be careful. The edges do tend to get slippery and I no longer have the mile long scarf to pull you back up with."

Hands going into his trousers pockets, he looked around the clearing as if spying for a direction to go, "It seems a little... over done even for the castle, the path itself just for the-- oh, of course."

Rummaging around in his pockets he found a coin, red and triangular. Handing that out towards Wade and next unable to help himself he stood on tiptoes to look over the lip from where he was. "I'd say make a wish but we know what happens with that. How deep do you think it is?"

"Hard to say," Wade answered, dropping down to rest her forearms on the rim of the well instead, "twenty or thirty feet to the water, at a guess, but who knows how far it might go beyond that without a good light."

She was adventurous, but maybe not enough to go climbing down into a well without a good reason.

Smiling thoughtfully, she looked up at him, at at the object in his hand. "What's that?"

Twenty or thirty feet to the water. That's not so deep and not enough for him to give the well a wide berth, surely. He closed the short distance he had to the well nevertheless, more so to give what he had in his hand to Wade should she want it.

"Currency. A Delphon credit if I'm not mistaken. Goodness I've had that a while. Anyway, a yellow brick path and a well looking for all intents and purposes like it was made for wishes...? Here's a coin."

All it takes is a quick look over the edge to see for himself. "Even with a torch I can't imagine seeing much of its depth. Don't worry, I'm not about to suggest you live up to your name to find out."

"Gee thanks," she said, but with a wide grin as she held out her hand for the coin.

"Well then, what should I wish for?"

One alien coin for Wade and he returned with an amused but warm smile for her.

"When material wishes are granted at the drop of a hat without a coin... What would you wish for?" Hands back into his pockets, he made a sidelong glance at the well.

"Or, if you're not ready for the return walk to the castle yet, you might wish for one of us to lead a way through the trees for a quick reccy." He bobbed slightly on the balls of his feet, positively itching to take a look where the trees and foliage parted just enough to make a crude, thin trail just behind the well.

Turning the coin around in her fingers, Wade gazed down at the rippling surface of the water far below her, feeling a touch of solemness run across her like a shiver. "There was probably a time when I thought having anything you want like that was the greatest thing in the world. It almost got me killed once. I guess things like always come with a price, no matter where you are."

It had almost gotten Quinn killed, too, because she was too stubborn to open her eyes and see what was really happening. But without his face to fill the memory, all she could recall was his blood on her hands.

Well, maybe it wouldn't hurt to try, she figured, as she shook her head and silently wished to see him again before flicking the strange coin into the well.

"I'm not tired yet. I kind of wonder if we walk far enough, we'll find out what's behind the castle's curtain."

Edited 2014-07-10 02:52 (UTC)

Watching her silently for a moment and the change in her demeanour, he's reminded of her mood before they came out for the walk. He likes Wade and he is truly sorry that she had encountered anything bad at all. Present location and vicinity of the castle accounted for.

"Yes. The old adage of being careful what you wish for springs to mind. I'm sorry, Wade."

Asking what it is she wished for would be bad taste. Taking a deep breath in and with a brighter tone to hopefully take her mind off things, "I think if it's a little old man pressing buttons, some of us are going to be ticked off."

Hovering a hand at her back for a moment, he walks around the well and tramps into the foliage. "I think in the circumstances staying close might be a good idea."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Wade said, letting her smile waver just a little after he'd turned his back. The man behind the curtain joke had only reminded her of the time she'd pretty much seen that trick used in real life, and the man had turned out to be one of Quinn's doubles. A fact she only knows in her mind, but she cannot see his face either - the man who'd billed himself as 'the Sorcerer'.

It did, however, bring up another question in her mind.

"You know, I used to travel with a man we called Professor, except he was also pretty fond of reminding us exactly what he was a professor of. What exactly are you a Doctor of?"

Maybe he didn't have to tell her twice, but from a few steps in he made a glance back to see if she was following and staying close. The woods certainly appeared thick enough that it would be easy to misplace a walking and exploring companion with just a turn around a tree. Another reason for his glance was that he was thinking, and when that happened he tended to miss things in the here and now.

The waver in her smile for instance, he's good but while his back was turned he's not that good. Instead he was turning over something that Wade did say and was ruminating over how to broach it when she spoke.

He looked over his shoulder at her as he walked. "Hmm? You've travelled, and with a professor no less. Where to?" That's definitely interesting. He can get behind anyone that likes to broaden their horizons. "Me? Well, practically everything, really," he said, with a smile and a single shoulder shrug to go with it. "What was your travelling friend a professor of?"

"'A professor of cosmology and ontology at California University'," she answered, jokingly mimicking Arturo's deep tone and accent with a wry smile on her face. "As he was fond of reminding everyone. He wasn't the only one I was travelling with, though. There was also my friend, Quinn, and a guy named Rembrandt."

The answer to the where came next, and she paused slightly, knowing the usual reaction to it was either disbelief or shock. She picked at a leaf of a tree as they ducked under a low branch, turning the blade between her thumb.

"And, uh, we were actually traveling parallel universes..."

The mimic in Wade's voice made him smirk, but it was her professor's chosen subjects that made his eyes alight with interest. Listening closely while he was tramping through the undergrowth, he pointed out a large, gnarled root to avoid. With Wade's pause however, he looks back over his shoulder again and from her explanation, surprise and a little shock indeed registers on his face.

"I beg your pardon? I thought you just said parallel universes?"

Knee deep in foliage the Doctor came to a stop.

"Event One and particle physics, metaphysics and the nature of being. I think I like your professor already but I might be able to put some of his ideas on their head. Namely, travel to parallel universes in your time isn't possible. It shouldn't be possible. The technology alone is so far advanced... What time are you from?"

She tries not to take offense at the statement, given that she pretty much had nothing to do with the creation or inception of the device that made it possible. She was just a hanger-on from the get go.

"1997," she said crossing her arms in a way that might have been a tiny bit defensive, "and maybe it shouldn't be, but it's true. I've been sliding more than two years now. I know what I've seen. Also it's not really the Professor that invented it. That was my friend Quinn. He's kind of a brainiac."

1997. Definitely not possible for the Earth and the time period that he knows, but he did also know that parallel universes existed and he wasn't naive to them. He didn't disbelieve Wade, it was just a discrepancy to what he knew.

And this was a large discrepancy. He made a tilt of his head at Wade with an expression of controlled patience to go along with it for her defensiveness.

"I'm not saying that I don't believe you," he began, "just that it shouldn't be possible. Your friend Quinn must be gifted indeed. Where I come from, travel between parallel universes is very difficult, requires precise mathematical calculations and technology well far in advance of 1997 for Earth. I've travelled between parallel universes too. But only a few times."

"It's also very dangerous." With that he was referencing something she had said earlier, about almost being killed. Putting the two and two together as best he could, it was logic that the sliding as Wade called it could be related.

It might not have been the way the Doctor was imagining, although there had been times when the wormholes did malfunction or put them in dangerous situations. They'd almost lost Quinn in the astral once because of such an event. But on the whole, the danger came from places other than the vortex, minus a little inadvertent limb flailing.

And she could tell he was mostly coming from a place of concern, which made her soften a little.

"It can be, yeah. And that's something all four of us have paid for over the years. My Quinn isn't even the only one. Several of his doubles have invented it. There's at least two other civilizations that knew the secret too. I wish I could explain to you how it was possible. Maybe if I could we could find a way to get out of here. But I don't."

Something else occurred to her, however. A distant ray of hope in his earlier words.

"You said you've done it, though? Could you do it again?"

Concerned yes, it isn't misplaced. He doesn't think that Wade isn't capable, she wears sensible shoes for a start, but like with all his friends, he doesn't like the idea of them being in danger or at risk.

Making a shake of his head, mulling that thought over, he also thinks on her question, the difficulties and danger of punching holes in the fabric of realities to begin with, the calculations needed and the odds against finding another CVE into N-Space and not stumbling upon one by accident. And the argument he and Adric had had when the boy asked to return home and the Doctor had said no. "I know how to do it and it is phenomenally dangerous but... Possible. Although not from here. My TARDIS can only travel in space currently, and not through time."

Another shake of his head, putting thoughts of Adric aside, he steps back through the foliage to lead the exploration.

"So you have met doubles of your group. Have you met yourself?"

"But I thought sliding...I mean...traveling in parallel dimensions...isn't time travel," she said, parroting back what she'd heard Arturo and Quinn tell her on numerous occasions, even when the world they'd landed in had made it seem like they had.

She brushed past him as she spoke, taken by a feeling of restlessness brought on by the conversation and the halt in their walking. She doesn't go much further than the fallen log a few feet ahead of the Time Lord, pausing to balance atop it.

"Yeah. Two times. The first time was actually the second world we ever went to. America was actually part of the Soviet Empire there, and I was one of the leaders of the underground American resistance. The second time..." she faltered for a moment, her not-so-secret pride in her earlier double falling flat as she had remembered wondering if this other Wade was a part of who she was too, "it was this Earth where everyone was under this huge amount of pressure to be successful. She...murdered her husband. Because of business."

Coming to a stop again as Wade brushed past, a smile curled his mouth as he watched her back.

"That's exactly right," he said. "Traversing dimensions themselves is not strictly travelling in time. But how do you propose I should find a CVE - a weak point between dimensions if you will - or take you to 1997?"

Watching her feet carefully, he stood with one foot on the log, bracing it while he listened to Wade explain around her pride for one doppelgänger and hesitance for the other. He hummed and nodded when she became silent.

"One of the times I travelled to a parallel world two of my oldest friends wouldn't listen to reason and tried to kill me." He delivers the information matter-of-factly, but he's making a point to try to help her not feel so bad.

"I know that circumstances must have been dire indeed. But they were not the people I know and ultimately, I knew they were not capable of that. Any more than you are. I was able to appeal to the side of them that I did know, in the end."

She knows she shouldn't take it personally. After all, she'd meant numerous versions of her friends that had turned out to be less than stellar human beings, or had made terrible choices. In the right environment, it could probably happen to everyone.

"You can't always. We're the ones that had to prove she did it, in the end. My friend...Quinn..." she frowned for a moment, feeling that inevitable pang of sadness at the thought of him and what she could not remember, "...he was the one she was married to in the world, and they were trying to blackmail him into staying. We didn't have a lot of choice."

She had regretted it, but in the end they could never turn a blind eye to that kind of injustice.

Sighing, Wade ran a hand through her hair. "Sorry. I'm sure if you could leave you would have a long time ago."

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We shall not cease from exploration

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