Science Fiction

When Alfred looks back on his youth now, he realises that Arthur was the Doctor. He came along out of nowhere, in strange clothes in colours he'd only seen in streams or on the petals of flowers. He told him of bizarre lands, full of steam and industry and paper and prose. He came from a place where the people spoke a different language; where the children would get tucked into bed by loving nannies or else would curl up exhausted, covered in coal-dust and dirt.

He spoke to him of allies and enemies, others like themselves. They were shadowy figures who would betray you, if you gave them half a chance, and so you had to stay alone, had to be ready to move on when required without fuss or regret. Then Alfred would look at his own friends, birds and animals that only came to watch him stroll under trees or dip his feet into lakes, pecking at any crumbs he dropped before going on their way again, never plotting against him, never wishing him ill.

And as the years had passed, Arthur had regenerated. His doublet and hose were traded for a heavy frock coat with huge drooping cuffs that brushed against Alfred's forehead when he patted his head. Eventually his aristocratic silks and lace were swapped for blood red wool with military braid.

When he thinks about it, he was Arthur's companion. He was that one companion who was made to share him, Arthur, with others who were more interesting or else able to offer more: tea, cotton, opium. He was the companion who got left behind and never felt as though they got the closure they wanted. The one who maybe got to meet the man again in another one of his lives, changed beyond recognition and would never be fully able to forgive him for all the fights and all the madness they went through together. And yet, he was the one who probably looked back on those days with a kind of yearning to return to them. He was the one who sometimes dreamt of being able to simply take Arthur's hand and run with him, headfirst into the unknown, instead of doing what he had had to do: fight, resist and become something more than just an admiring bystander: independent, but ultimately alone.

*

Arthur has never been in any doubt that Alfred is Captain James T. Kirk. A headstrong, cocky, ambitious young man who bends every rule to breaking point in the name of noble principles: in the name of peace, of justice, of liberty. A man to lead whilst others simply fall into step behind him, awed by his confidence and self-possession. Alfred and Jim Kirk have, and he imagines always will be, synonymous to Arthur.

Alfred lives at a different speed: warp speed, living life fast and hard, constantly looking forward to the next mission, the next conquest or dream. He wore his bruises and wounds like medals in the way that only a strong and utterly assured man could. He wore them with the complete certainty that they would fade, and that he would continue, undeterred, unbroken, until he saw each task through to its end.

It left Arthur wondering, though: who was he? He had a feeling he was Spock. Cold, detached, watching that bright and gregarious creature from afar, through a bubble of sterility and isolation, quietly imagining what it would like to be such a person as Alfred was, wondering still harder what it would be like to call such a person one's own. Failing either eventuality, he knew he would continue as always to stand at Alfred's side, quietly performing his duties forever uncertain of whether the man's next charge into the beyond would prove too ambitious and he would burn out, with the furious heat of a dying star.

Another part of him only hoped that he was not a redshirt to Alfred: not some old, tired out looking man with a forgettable face and no name, sent on ahead of the heroes to die mindlessly and suddenly with no one to care about him, and no one to miss him.

*

"Hey, evening!"

"Evening."

"Is that the TV? Wow, did your library burn down?""

"Har bloody har. And yes, it is the telly. No need to ask you the same question: I'm amazed you're not deaf, listening to it at that volume."

"Huh? Anyway, I-Wait, is that Star Trek?"

"What? No, of course it bloody isn't, I don't watch that tosh."

"I swear I heard the fight music."

"The what music?"

"You know, the "dun dun dun dun, der dede der der", "Kirk's gonna get his shirt ripped" music."

"Well, thanks for that lovely rendition. Of course I don't know it, I don't watch that cobblers, I just said so. Hang about, that's a TARDIS travelling!"

"No way. And I don't even know what a STARDIT" is, or whatever you said."

"TARDIS. And that's definitely Tom Baker, booming away. You little liar. Why the hell are you watching that?"

"You tell me why you're watching the Enterprise boldly going first."

"No. I'm not saying. And, besides, I'm not even admitting to watching Star Trek."

"Then I'm not admitting to watching Doctor Who."

A pause.

"That's highly bloody illogical of you."

"Dude. I think we've lost you to the geeks - I'm sorry; I'm so sorry."

Arthur gave a rather undignified snort of laughter.