trans_9 | The more things change...

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The more things change...

Zouichi had taken a few wounds during the mission, but nothing that he would deem serious enough to require medical treatment. He'd already begun to heal, and he estimated that by the time tomorrow rolled around, he'd once again be at full strength. This was not, of course, true of everyone who had fought on that moon -- those who had lost their lives, for instance.

But for him, intense combat was the norm. There was no sense dwelling on loss of life or regretting the past, and there were no nightmares about the dead or dying. There was only the future, and the battles to be found there.

So it was back to business as usual: maintenance on the HDC, clearing stray leaves off the front steps and caring for the flowers... and teaching his pet parrot some commands. Today, however, Alan seemed more intent on rolling onto his back and demanding to be picked up. So Zouichi settled back in the shade of a nearby tree instead, playing with the bird and occasionally wondering where he'd picked up all these new phrases that sounded suspiciously like Lash.

Maybe if Howard showed up, they could look for odds and ends in the City.

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Zouichi blinked. "Wait, Engineering slime? What were you doing swimming in Engineering slime?"

Alan stared right back at the stranger, unblinking, the cogs slowly turning in his parrot brain. Weighing the Doctor. Judging him. When the Doctor extended his finger, Alan seemed to come to a decision. The bird leaned out with his beak... and bit the Doctor, hanging from his finger like a brightly-feathered hall decoration.

"Ouch!" The Doctor winced, holding up his new fashionably parrot accessory. Alan dangled stubbornly.

To his credit, the Doctor didn't flail at the bite, instead frowning and trying to focus on the perfectly lovely conversation he'd been having with Zouichi, pre-parrot.

"What? Oh, right, yes! Engineering slime. Had a bit of a crawl in the access tubes, you see. Don't think it agreed with me," the Doctor sniffled. He held up his finger. "I don't suppose you would mind?"

He held out his hand and Alan toward Zouichi. Brilliant parrot, but a bit ornery, wasn't he? The Doctor had to admit, he wasn't used to animals biting him -- not when they tended to love him and all he had to do was be willing to settle down and have a good chat with them. Alan apparently was either not that sort or it was a bad day for him and he was a grumpy bird.

"Alan!" Zouichi reached out, carefully removing the bird from the Doctor's person. The parrot let go of the Doctor without complaint, flapping his wings once or twice as he settled back on Zouichi's wrist, seemingly docile once more.

"I'm sorry about that; he's never bitten anyone before. I don't know what got into him."

Alan, for his part, turned his beady little bird glare on the noisy, sneezing stranger in an expression that clearly said the Doctor was not welcome. While Zouichi was around, however, it seemed he was going to behave. More or less.

"Er... what were you doing in the access tubes?"

Shaking his finger, the Doctor stuffed it into his mouth and sucked on it until he was (mostly) sure it had stopped hurting.

"Suppose he's not a fan of Time Lord, then," he said, sounding vaguely surprised. An animal that didn't like him! Suddenly he thought he knew how Marco felt with that otter, only trade in fur for feathers and you had Alan the parrot. The Doctor shook his finger a last time before making sure it was carefully out of biting range. "Repair work in Engineering during the Ohm attack over Lirath. What about you?"

Considering how widespread that call for the crew had been during the assault, he assumed Zouichi here had either gone down to the planet or kept himself busy trying to protect the ship. The Doctor pointedly ignored that little beady bird version of a glare.

Well, when grouchy flying parrots were concerned, nowhere was really safe. But Zouichi did give Alan a brief word or two of admonishment; he'd have to work with the bird later to make sure this didn't happen again.

He looked up. "Wait, Time Lord?" Zouichi had never heard the term before; about all he knew about the Doctor was that his name was the Doctor and he was very protective of that green, glowy Screwdriver (which did not, actually, appear to be a screwdriver). "I was down on the planet with the Nightmare, trying to make sure the Ohm didn't completely overrun the ground forces. But it sounds like the ship had quite a bit of excitement, too."

For his part, Alan leaned over to the side to deliver his glare from a different angle. You can pretend you're ignoring him, Doctor, but he's still there! Disapproving!

"Very...messy exciting, if that's what you mean," the Doctor thought back to River and her ridiculously deadly Ohm bodycount. He frowned, deciding to protect his finger and other bits from Alan and that beak of his. He did, however, look up from Alan back to Zouichi and smiles. "Time Lord. That's me! You know how it is, two hearts, (two of a few of things) and excellent taste in hats."

The Doctor wisely kept his hands to himself. His finger had stopped stinging, thankfully, and he supposed he better put Get Chummy With Parrots somewhere on his to-do list, probably after intermediate underwater basket-weaving and before cleaning out the wardrobe. The Doctor smiled at Zouichi.

"Well! I'm glad to hear you're safe. Safe and healthy!"

"Excitement usually is messy," Zouichi agreed. His sort of excitement, anyway. Hurray, explosions!

At any rate, was anyone on this ship a normal, baseline human? Apparently even the absent-minded professor types were aliens. "I don't know about the two hearts thing, but I don't think I've ever seen you wearing a hat. Does that excellent taste extend to clothing in general?" Because that bow tie.

"Well, I'm sort of hard to kill off. I did have to blow up my plane. All things considered, though, I think I got off easier than many other people in the ground battle."

Hadn't seen him wear a hat? Remind the Doctor to fix that some time. He did, however, decide to take that last bit as a compliment, the Doctor straightening and even preening like a fussy bird pulling at his bowtie with a pleased grin.

"It does! I'm glad you like it," he said, his opinion of Zouichi's taste in anything important rising a few notches. "Excellent taste yourself."

He sized up Zouchi as the man went on about his own experiences during the battle. Hard to kill off? He could believe it, certainly. The Doctor's expression softened.

"I'd say the important thing is everyone's alive." Well, most everyone. And on a good day, it would've been everyone, not "most", but he'd been around long enough to know that sometimes "most" would have to do. Zouichi seemed to be handling the post-battle bit well, especially with a parrot like Alan to look after him.

Oh. Well, maybe someone would eventually convince the Doctor to part with the bowtie. Maybe even replace it with a necktie. Or a cravat.

...but it looked like there wasn't much chance of that. And he wasn't sure how to take it that the doctor had complimented his body armor. He'd... he'd always liked it, but maybe everyone was just too nice to say anything.

"Er, thanks. I suppose you're right. It could have been much worse." He paused. "By the way, what does it mean that you're a Time Lord? You can manipulate time?"

The day that happened was when Hell (or any remotely Hellish place) would freeze over. You don't get between a Doctor and his fashionably magnificent bowtie.

"I believe the technical term is 'giving it a nudge' or 'a gentle twiddle'," the Doctor corrected Zouichi. He didn't seem to mind too much about saying what he was -- it was the specifics about Gallifrey that wouldn't get his fellow crew-mate very far. "But I rather prefer just enjoying all of time and space, don't you?"

Well, it was fashionably... something.

"I didn't really get around to enjoying most of it, actually. Space travel was pretty completely subordinate to weapons development and bioengineering before my time came around. Maybe if things had turned out a little less apocalyptic."

Zouichi actually didn't know what Gallifrey was!

Fashionably something was completely acceptable (it was also incredibly original, so that was something like double bonus points on some planet or another).

"Really?" The Doctor leaned forward to search Zouichi's eyes. He frowned at him. "Remind me post-Ohm to fix that for you, because that is rubbish you've not seen everything space can offer. Trust me. I can show you everything! Endless waterfalls, the longest bridge in the Milky Way, what the color purple smells like on Enga's third moon. Or green," he added as an afterthought, "if you don't fancy purple, but most humanoids tend to go with the pruple."

The Doctor patted Zouichi on the arm, hitting him with a disarmingly friendly smile and somehow remembering to keep just out of reach of Alan's beak. Part of it was because he couldn't resist want to show off the universe to Zouichi -- the other part was probably less showboating and more a genuine interest and showing his crew-mate here that not everything was weapons R&D and space could be a loads more interesting than traveling from point A to point B.

Zouichi blinked at the arm-patting; Alan merely looked on disapprovingly from his perch on his owner's far shoulder. Clearly that shoulder was much too small for you to be sitting on, Doctor. Any parrot worth his feathers would know that.

"I'm afraid I can't take you up on that offer. If, as they say, our worlds can be restored, I'll have to return to Earth and finish my mission. I can't exactly be running off to smell things on distant moons."

As curious as he was about where everyone else on the ship came from, and as much as he might like to see what their worlds were like, his duty came first.

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The more things change...

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