Heart of Gold

Fatal Flaw

"I paid my respects this morning on an early grave.
Already said goodbye nothing left to say."
- Nickelback: 'Woke Up This Morning' (Silver Side Up [2001])

~*~*~

Roof

They found Lazarus and Tish standing on the roof, looking northwest towards St. Paul's Cathedral, with the tower of the Collegiate Church of St. Saviour and St. Mary Overie in the foreground. It was obvious that Tish was deep in flirt mode and Lazarus was eating it right up. Or to be more accurate, waiting to eat Tish right up, of all her energy.

"That clock tower's beautiful all lit up like that," Tish observed.

"It's Southwark Cathedral," Lazarus corrects her. "One of the oldest churches in London. Been around even longer than I have." Tish turns to him with a sly smile and casually checks him out once again.

"Well, you're looking pretty good for your age."

"Thank you," Lazarus smiles pleasantly.

"Can I?" Tish gestures to touch Lazarus's face and he gives his consent, leaning forward a little to help her get access to it.

"Of course," He responds.

Tish tentatively strokes his cheek with her fingers, still obviously mystified by the transformation from an elderly old man aged seventy-six years old into a young man in his mid-thirties.

"Still can't take it in," She admits.

"I'm still adjusting myself," Lazarus confesses. "I've been working toward it for so many years, it's hard to believe the moment's finally arrived."

"And is it like you expected?" Tish was curious.

Lazarus shrugged.

"I find that nothing's ever exactly like you expect. There's always something to surprise you. Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act-"

"-Falls the shadow," the Doctor chimes in to finish the poem, The Hollow Men by T.S. Elliot, surprising both Tish and Lazarus who turn and notice that they weren't alone when they see the Doctor, Katy, and Martha.

Tish scowls in annoyance at her younger sister who remains unrepentant that she had interrupted her sister's romantic interlude with Lazarus.

"So, the mysterious Doctor knows his Elliot. I'm impressed," Lazarus compliments the Doctor who doesn't smile back, looking at him with a stony expression on his face.

"Martha, what are you doing here?" Tish demanded.

"Tish, get away from him." Martha warns and Tish is, at first, taken aback by Martha's request, then becomes defensive and comes over to chide her sister.

"What? Don't tell me what to do."

"I wouldn't have thought you had time for poetry, Lazarus, what with you being busy defying the laws of nature and all," the Doctor stated casually.

Lazarus gave him an arrogant smile.

"You're right, Doctor. One lifetime's been too short for me to do anything I'd like. How much more I'll get done in two or three or four."

"Except life doesn't work like that, sir." Katy piped up from where she was standing beside the Doctor. "Some people live more in twenty years than other do in eighty. It's not the time that matters, it's the person."

Both she and the Doctor knew this more than anyone, considering that both of them were centuries old aliens. And despite the fact that Katy's Time Lady subconscious was currently hidden away in a small heart-shaped locket.