*Fitz* Live A Little!

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Finn was walking down the streets towards a coffee shop. Yeah, 18 year old girls do drink coffee. Well, sometimes. Finn did, anyway. She was shivering even in her white fluffy jacket, her jeans and her brown boots. It was absolutely freezing. Winter nearing, though, she couldn't say she was surprised, that much.

Christmas was only a few weeks away, but Finn knew she'd be spending it alone. She didn't talk to her mother nowadays. She was still ashamed of Finn. She'd done the first year of University then quit. Her mother had been disappointed, but Finn had known that was what she'd wanted. Her mother didn't respect that.

Finn never heard anything from any part of her family any more, but she supposed she was to blame for that as much as them. She just didn't want to see their disappointment when she told them University just wasn't the life for her. Finn wasn't concentrating as she thought about this and she walked straight into someone. Crap! Finn thought, as she looked up at the person.

"Sorry!" she said, turning crimson. "I'm really sorry. God, I'm clumsy today! Are you okay?" she checked. Finn, stop blushing! You look like even more of an idiot! she thought to herself furiously.

[Deleted]

Fitz Kreiner would be the first to admit that sometimes the Doctor wasn’t the easiest person in the universe to get along with. In fact, it’s really not like someone had to ask for him to admit that fact. He’d do it willingly, freely to the first person that listened. Which was actually not very many in his life at the moment, now that he thought about it. He normally shut himself up in the TARDIS kitchen and mutter darkly to his toast about the infernal Time Lord, or he would even turn to Sam and listen to her reverse his arguments and point out what he had done to aggravate the Doctor. But they had run out of bread and Sam was visiting her mother and father.

So he just did the one thing that he did best. He scoured the TARDIS for any sort of alcoholic beverage and took out the remaining pack of his Camels. Three left. The Doctor only had a few wine samples, which wasn’t much to work with, especially since they were from the year two billion or something, so Fitz wasn’t sure if they were ‘aged’ if they were still in the past. He’d meant to ask the Doctor, but he’d promised the Doctor that he would be ‘cutting back’ on his alcohol intake. And although he considered drinking less ‘cutting back’, the Doctor apparently thought Fitz had meant that he would stop drinking completely.

In any case, Fitz had decided to skip the wine just in case drinking the wine before it was made ripped some sort of hole in the universe – because he figured the Doctor had had enough universe rips for a lifetime. The Camels went by far too quickly and he almost debated trying to find the cause of his annoyance. Perhaps, maybe, it was that Sam referred to London as her ‘home’. Which, of course, it was. Her home was with her parents even though she didn’t like to admit it, but he’d seen the twitch in the Doctor’s eyes, the subtle change in color, and he’d noted his own twinge of emotion.

When, exactly, had he begun to consider the TARDIS his home?

Fitz scanned the cashier-lady, a cigarette between his teeth. There had been a ‘no-smoking’ sign on the outside, but the lady had given him a slight shrug and nodded her head in a nonverbal telling him to get the hell in before he let in a draft. She rung up his cigarettes and the price of some matches and a lighter. He stuck his hand into the leather jacket, knowing the Doctor had given him modern money somewhere.

He’d harassed the Doctor about his alarming lack of cigarettes. The Doctor had shrugged and said something about how he was perfectly able and willing of curing Fitz’s addiction, but Fitz wasn’t so sure he wanted the Doctor to be playing God with his biodata just yet. He’d stayed silent, certain that he had lost this brief little fight. He’d prepared himself to quit smoking fairly quickly after joining the little crew.

To his surprise, the Doctor’s stern expression had changed and he’d walked over to the console. One more.

“Thanks,” the cashier said, looking like a little like a zombie. Her eyes had dark bags, her hair was a bit frizzy, and Fitz wondered if the shirt was as dirty as it looked, or if it was the dull lighting. He shrugged, smiled, and grabbed the bag she’d given him.

“Hey,” Fitz said, looking up and running a hand through the short brown hair. “What’s the date?”

“The thirteenth…”

Fitz shook his head. “I mean, what’s the month and the year?”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “13 December 2005.”

Fitz nodded and left the store, the bells jingling. He turned cheerfully to where the Doctor had said he’d be waiting. “I really appre—” Wait. Where was the Doctor? He frowned and walked around the store to where the TARDIS had been ‘parked’.

It was gone.

“You bastard!” he shouted, resisting the urge to kick a trashcan. Instead he kicked a wall, then cursed under his breath as the pain shot through his foot. The Doctor had the attention span of an attention-deficit guppy. There was the possibility that perhaps he’d gotten bored and… and maybe he was just off to explore somewhere else for a few days… or…

Or what if he’d gotten bored of Fitz? The novelty of a sarcastic companion must have worn thin after Sam’s departure. It was practically a law of Time – the Doctor needed a soft and sympathetic companion for him to function properly.

No.

No, he wouldn’t do that. The Doctor wouldn’t just leave him.

Fitz turned slowly out from behind the building and started to walk down the street. What was he supposed to? Strike it out on his own? Hadn’t Sam mentioned being stranded on a foreign planet for three years before the Doctor came back for her.

The cigarette between his lips nearly dropped when a body barreled into his own. He raised an eyebrow and stared at her, flicking the cigarette into a bin and blowing smoke out. He brushed himself off and moved to step around her. People ran into each other time – he didn’t have time to stop and chat with each person. He had to figure out what he was going to do…

“Sorry!”[/b] the girl said, her face turning bright red. Fitz stared down at her with wide gray eyes. “I’m really sorry. God, I’m clumsy today! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, nonchalantly checking his pocket to make sure his wallet was still there. Hey, he’d grown up in London (albeit forty or so years ago, by the calendar). He’d had his fair share of pickpockets.[/size]

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Finn had happened to hear him shouting and she raised an eyebrow, concerned. "Why were you shouting? Has somebody left you?" she asked curiously. She didn't know about that, or anything. She was just guessing, since she heard him yelling 'You bastard'. It's pretty easy to guess from there. She cocked her head slightly when she saw him checking his pockets, and she raised her eyebrows.

"I'm no pickpocket." she said. Finn was very observant when she was eighteen. Much would change as she got older, but of course she didn't know this at the time. "What's your name, anyway? I'm Finn." she said, calmly.

Sure, it was early, but Finn wanted to get straight to the point with the introductions. She always did in those days. She looked the guy up and down. Some girls would see him as attractive. Finn supposed he kind of was, but she didn't really think about it. Men didn't really interest her at that time, since her recent break up with her violent boyfriend.

Finn shuddered at the though and absently touched the bruise on her arm. Ouch, it was still there? He'd hit her way too hard, then. She turned her attention back to the guy and awaited his reply, so that she didn't zone out and then miss it.

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“I don’t know,” he said, watching her carefully. Why was she picking a conversation up with him on the street? He looked towards where she had been headed and contemplated buying her a drink, but he’d used the last of his money – the Doctor’s money – to buy the damnable cigarettes that had gotten him in this position. He drew a deep breath. “He’ll be back for me,” Fitz said hopefully. He had no idea what he would do if he didn’t. He didn’t belong in this period. The Doctor had taken him out of the ‘swinging sixties’, as Sam had called it.

2005? By the calendar, he would be pushing seventy years old if he’d lived linearly. That was a strange feeling – knowing that he was walking the same streets he had been forty years ago. He glanced in the direction of Archway, and he wondered what had happened to his small, abandoned flat. He wondered if the police were still looking for him forty years after his ‘mysterious vanishing’. What had happened to Molly? Molly’s pub? “Yeah,” he said, trying to reassure himself. He stuck his hands in the leather pockets and glanced around anxiously again. “He’ll be back for me.”

“I’m no pickpocket,”[/i] the girl declared after watching him check his pockets. He looked at her carefully – arched eyebrows, tilted head, the remnants of a blush still clinging to her cheeks. She couldn’t be much older than seventeen. Of course, he couldn’t look much older than twenty-seven, but he was old enough to be her grandfather. The thought put a screeching halt to all thoughts of flirting with her.

“Never said you did, bird,” he said, adopting a lilt of a Russian accent. It was a game of his – when he’d met the Doctor, he’d been using his French one. He liked to think the only reason the Doctor had caught him in his act was because Fitz couldn’t speak French. “Why? Do you perhaps have a… guilty conscience?” he teased, grinning down at her and placing a hand on her shoulder. The faster she left him alone, the faster that he could return to pacing around London and trying to figure out what to do with himself until the Doctor remembered him.

Or… or what if he couldn’t remember him? Fitz had always been there for the Doctor when he’d had those bouts of amnesia. But this time he’d been in a bloody store, buying those damn cigarettes. He felt a wave of self-hatred. Gah… he was an idiot.

“What’s your name, anyway? I’m Finn,” the girl said. Fitz sighed and looked around anxiously, removing his hand from her shoulder and putting it on his hips, looking around them.

“Nikolai Vladimirovich,” he said, watching as she poked a bruise on her arm. It was in the shape of a hand – he’d seen bruises like that often enough. He’d been bullied as a youth for being a ‘Kraut’. He know those bruises. He sighed and looked away, turning on his heel and walking back the way he’d come. Maybe he shouldn’t move too far from the shop… what if the Doctor was just exploring something and had forgotten to tell him? He wrung his hands worriedly.

Oh man, what if he got stranded on Earth?[/size]

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When he spoke about being left behind but that person coming back for him, in an understanding way, Finn nodded. "Well, I really hope for your sake that he does." she said. "I know what it's like to be left behind." she said.

Then she rolled her eyes. "Of course you haven't." she said, tutting. When he put his hand on her shoulder, she blushed ever so lightly, again. Then, as it faded, he put his hand on his hips. Nikolai Vladimirovich, huh? She could tell he was obviously lying, but she didn't let on to this. She just nodded. "Nice to meet you. See you around, I guess." she said.

Before he went, her hand reached out just as he turned away, slipping a card with her number on in his pocket. He wouldn't notice till later, most likely, because she did actually have the eyes and skill of a pickpocket.

Just before she turned to go, though, she spotted his wallet on the ground. She picked it up and slipped it into her pocket and turned, starting to walk away. He'd find the card and most likely call her to ask about it. Finn was basically teasing him, because quite frankly, it was fun. She walked back to her apartment, going in and re-locking the door before putting her keys and her coat on their special hooks.

She sat down to watch TV, forgetting about the phone call. Because, she knew it might take a while for him to call. But she was sure he would.

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He’d just decided to step back into the store to see if the woman needed some help with anything, because he could honestly use a bit of extra cash. How long was the Doctor going to be gone? He would need food, a place to sleep… and preferably some clothes. Theoretically, he could travel back in time but… he hadn’t, or else he’d be there, wouldn’t he? Fitz’s head began its low and dull ache again, the kind that happened when he thought too deeply on the subject of Time. It was best, he’d learned, to leave it to the Time Lords.

It was as soon as he’d walked through the door that he realized something was wrong. He’d reached into his pocket to pull out his wallet and give her his fake ID with his Russian name, when he realized there was no wallet. He shut his eyes, remembering Finn’s brief flashes of movements while he’d turned away. “This is why you never trust a Finn,” he muttered, shaking his head as he pulled out the card with the phone number on it. He was almost tempted to give it to the police and let them handle tracking her down…

Almost. But instead, Fitz wondered if they were still looking for him, and suddenly the police didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. So he stepped back out of the store, casting an apologetic look over to the irritated woman who was glaring at him for messing with the bell.

He’d been pickpocketed. It wasn’t the first time it had happened – he’d been mugged by a unicorn, things tended to lose the ‘bizarre’ quality after that – and it probably wouldn’t be the last time, with the sorts of places the Doctor liked to drag him. He sighed and dug in his pockets as he crossed the busy street, searching for a telephone booth. Come on, come on, he knew he had to at least twenty pence in his pockets...

Fitz pulled out three ten pence coins, and muttered a brief ‘thank you’ under his breath. He entered the telephone booth, inserted the coins, and dialed the number, looking very irritable. It was too early for these shenanigans. He’d been stranded and now some lady had decided to make off with his wallet! Well, if she thought she was being clever or funny, she’d be awfully surprised at the rather empty state of the wallet.

Once she picked up the phone, Fitz shook his head. “Hahaha, very funny. Let’s play ‘steal-a-homeless-man’s-wallet’ today, huh?”

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Finn was actually baking cupcakes when the phone rang and so she quickly washed and dried her hands before picking up the phone. "I knew you'd call." she said, grinning as he spoke. "But actually, you'd be surprised. If you'd noticed, I didn't take your wallet. You dropped it, so I took it. If you hadn't called within a week, I'd have come to find you." Finn laughed softly. "Nothing's missing from it." she added.

"So, I'm guessing you'll want it back, yeah? Come to the address on the card. I'll be here all day. See you later...Nikolai." she said, with extra emphasis on his name, before hanging up to continue baking cupcakes. They were soon finished, so she iced them, before putting them out to cool and washing up.

After she'd finished, she looked in the wallet and was surprised at how empty it was. He really was homeless, huh? Finn thought, then she went to get her own wallet. She opened it, and took out almost everything that was in it, stuffing it in the homeless guy's wallet. She closed his wallet and threw her own across the room. She had loads of money, and...

Well, she felt sorry for him. Finn put his wallet on the table and put up her feet, leaning back to wait for his arrival.[/size]

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“Of course I’d call! You stole my wallet,” Fitz said irritably, not in the mood for games. He’d just been left on Earth with no way of helping the Doctor through this little amnesia episode. He shut his eyes, hoping that the Doctor had found somewhere safe and he wasn’t on Telos trying to flirt with one of the Cybermen. “Whether I dropped it or not, you still took it,” he snapped. And the address on his ID wouldn’t check out; Nikolai didn’t exist. Fat lot of good looking for him a week later would have done.

What if the Doctor doesn’t come back?

What if he was here for much longer than a month?

“So, I’m guessing you’ll want it back, yeah?”

Fitz rolled his eyes. “Of course I want it back, birdie,” he said, the irritability growing into full-blown annoyance. Perhaps on some other day he would have played along with her coy behavior, but it was really starting to grate his nerves. “Fine,” he said when she told him to follow the address on the card. He hung up the phone, ignoring the way she’d said ‘Nikolai’. It was none of his concern whether or not she believed a silly made-up.

He put his hands in his pockets and glared down at the card, then around the streets. Sure, he could find his way there. He walked down the streets, muttering out the occasional curse word. He took a cigarette and placed it between his lips, lighting it up with a match. He threw the used match in one of the corner trash bins, sticking his hands in his pockets.

Fitz just wanted his Doctor - his best friend – to be safe, and he had no way of ensuring his safety. He never prayed much, because he’d prayed enough as a child and was ignored each time so he’d eventually given up the practice along with his mother’s religion, but he prayed silently to whatever was listening that the Doctor had found someone to help him. He’d heard the Doctor talking to the TARDIS enough so, with a slightly embarrassed puff of his cigarette, he pleaded silently for the TARDIS to take the Doctor somewhere safe.

He waited, hoping that somehow the Doctor would round the corner. But he didn’t. He added an addition to his prayer: and with me.

“Idiot,” he muttered, holding the cigarette between his fingers. “That’d be too easy, huh?” he asked himself quietly. He stopped in front of an apartment building. He looked down at the card and pressed the buzzer.

He narrowed his eyes at it. “Little pig, little pig, let me in,” he said drily.

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Finn laughed and went over to the intercom thing. She spoke into it. "Ooh, I'm so scared, it's the big bad wolf!" she said sarcastically, before pressing the button to let him in. She opened her door and then went and sat on the couch. He'd know which apartment was hers that way.

Fin picked up his wallet and started messing around with it. It was slightly heavier, considering that she had put some of her own money in it, out of pure pity. She threw it up in the air and caught it, several times.

She pondered on the coming situation. Finn supposed he'd get his wallet and leave. She suddenly had a weird thought of her locking him out, just to annoy him more, but she decided to be nice today, and just let him go.


But before he left, Finn wanted to know his real name, instead of a fake one. After all, that was better, to know one's real name, right?

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“Ooh, I’m so scared, it’s the big bad wolf!” Finn declared. Fitz sighed, put off by her attitude. He’d met big bad wolves before. He’d had liquor and chips with one. He’d attended an opera with one. He ran a hand through his short brown hair and stared irritably at the apartment complex. The buzzer beeped and Fitz took a step inside, sticking his hands in his pockets and going down the hall. Just how did he manage to get in these situations? He rubbed his forehead, a sigh drawing from his lips. Honestly – how much did he have to jump through?

He leaned against the doorway, crossing his arms as he watched her toss his wallet up and down. It looked slightly thicker than it had when he had ‘dropped’ it. “Take whatever you put in it, out of it. I’m not a charity case,” Fitz said bluntly. He stepped through to the inside of her apartment and took a critical look around it. “Anyway, I don’t need it. He’s coming back for me. Just as soon as he remembers me,” he told her, holding his hand out expectantly.

“So just give me the wallet and I’ll be on my way.”

[Deleted]

Finn shrugged her shoulders, acting innocent. "Dunno what you mean." she said. She didn't care if he didn't need it now, he'd probably need it later. Anyway, it didn't really matter to her. Finn rolled her eyes.

"You've been left behind?" she asked. She raised her eyebrows. "Then call him, or something. It isn't rocket science."

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“Dunno what you mean,” Finn lied. Fitz sighed and rolled his eyes, sticking the wallet in his leather jacket. He supposed he could have met ruder pickpockets. Most of them stole money from their victims instead of giving it to them. He wasn’t about to complain anymore, though. If she wanted to treat him like a charity case, it was her money she was wasting. Anyway, when the Doctor eventually found him and he would find him, he’d just send the money back to the address Finn had slipped into his pocket.

“Have it your way, birdie,” Fitz said shortly.

The girl raised her eyebrows at him. “You’ve been left behind? Then call him, or something. It isn’t rocket science.”[/b]

Fitz sighed and shook his head. “No, it isn’t rocket science. It’s pandimensional transcendental chronodimensional and spacial science,” he said, throwing together a bunch of words the Doctor had told him at one point or another into the same sentence. “Anyway, I don’t have to call him. He’ll remember me. He forgets sometimes, but he’ll remember me.”

There was a silent I hope at the end of his sentence.[/size]