belle, doctor who

thirty-nine

"Since you decided to come with me, I'm going to keep you here," the Doctor says as they enter the TARDIS. Belle protests.

"Doctor, why–"

He doesn't say anything more because he's already in the hallway of the TARDIS and Belle stops protesting. She hears a small 'hum' coming from the ship as a way of greeting her. Belle gives a small smile.

A minute or two later the Doctor comes out with a weird-looking machine. "Don't tell me you're going to try and defeat it with that," says Belle as she sees him coming up the stairs.

"Defeat it? No, definitely not," the Doctor says as he sees that it's working. He talks to himself as he tries to get the monitor set up correctly after he knows it's working. He goes up to Belle and kisses her. They pull away and Belle looks at him suspiciously.

"What?" she asks.

"I just forgot I made something for you. Follow me?"

"Is this your way of trying to get me to not follow you outside the TARDIS?" Belle asks. The Doctor shakes his head.

"No, no," he says, "it's something else."

"When I was talking to Amy," Belle says and the Doctor turns around, "she made me miss Jenny a bit. Can we visit her sometime?"

The Doctor gives a nervous laugh. "Sure. After we – I – try to stop this monster, yes, we can."

"And I think we should let Kaden come along on one trip, too... what's this?" Belle asks as he leads her to a room with a big screen. The Doctor sits her down.

"A little something to keep you occupied. Just – There," he presses play after he kisses her cheek and runs out the door.

"Belle," she hears a voice as she watches the Doctor leave. It was his past self on the screen, staring down at her. "Er... I don't know how long it's been since I've made this, because, well, you know I've already regenerated..."

Belle has her hand covering her mouth. The Doctor made a video for her?

"Hi mum," someone pops up at the corner of the screen. It's Jenny waving. Belle gives a big smile. Of course Jenny would be there.

"Sorry, if we haven't seen each other in a while... Just comforting dad while he makes this video for you."

Jenny gets out of the frame. "Er..." He starts, getting nervous. A blush comes on his face as he starts to talk to the screen. He says lots of wonderful things that make Belle cry. And he knows it would make her cry.

"Next to you should be a box about–" he motions how big it is, "--yay-wide– uh– yeah. If you open that–"

"A sonic screwdriver?" Belle whispers out loud.

"A replica of my old one," the Doctor explains, giving a soft smile. "Belle... you're very important to me. I wanted to give this to you because I wanted to say–"

The Doctor comes back into the room after the screen has turned off. Belle looks up at him, seeing his hand reach out for her to get up from the chair. Her other hand holds the sonic.

"Doctor... what–"

"I'm... in love with you, Belle," he says in a whisper. "You probably noticed when you were in your first regeneration..."

"I did notice something was odd about you," Belle whispered back as they hugged. "But I know you knew as soon as I left you that I was – am – in love with you too. Even though we're a couple now, it's still hard to believe–"

The Doctor interrupts her by putting his lips on hers. They moved in sync as they both silently cried. It was one of the best–

Amy comes into the room. Her eyes widened as she saw this. She was waiting for the Doctor and Belle to come back so they could get Vincent to the museum to see his paintings.

"I'll stall him a little more," Amy says as she sees them pull away.

"No," Belle stops Amy, "it's fine — we can go. Right, Doctor?"

The Doctor clearly doesn't want to go. Amy smiled even though she saw the Doctor's expression. Belle tries to drag him along but he stops her when Amy's gone. He kisses her quickly. "I love you," he whispers.

"I love you too," Belle kisses his cheek and they walk back to the console room.

•••

"Doctor Black, we met a few days ago. I asked you about the church at Auvers," the Doctor comes up to Doctor Black as he is trying to talk to other tourists about the paintings. Belle watches Vincent look around at the paintings.

"Oh, yes," he replies. "Glad to be of help. You were nice about my tie."

"Yes. And today is another cracker if I may say so. But I just wondered, between you and me, in a hundred words, where do you think Van Gogh rates in the history of art?"

"Well, big question, but to me, Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly, the most popular great painter of all time. The most beloved. His command of colour, the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world. No one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived," Doctor Black explained. Belle tears up again. That was so nice of him to say, and to have the real Vincent Van Gogh right there, and not even know it was him...

"Vincent. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is it too much?" The Doctor asks, pulling him into a hug. Amy drags Belle along to look at the paintings, but Belle stops Amy to watch the scene.

"No. They are tears of joy," Vincent lets go of the Doctor's grasp. "Thank you, sir. Thank you."

Now Vincent kisses Doctor Black on both cheeks and hugs him.

"You're welcome. You're welcome," Doctor Black says, a bit confused.

"Sorry about the beard," Vincent murmurs as he pulls away.

•••

Amy, Belle, and the Doctor come back from dropping Vincent off, wanting to see if there was any change or new paintings. Amy explained to Belle she tried to get Vincent to paint the sunflower painting.

Amy takes Belle's hand and tries to look for new paintings. She groans when she realises he didn't paint any more, because he died by suicide at the age of 37.

The Doctor grabs Belle's other hand as they stare at the painting Vincent had made, and said "For Amy" on it.

"If we had got married, our kids would have had very, very red hair," Amy said to Belle and the Doctor.

"The ultimate ginger," the Doctor said, squeezing Belle's hand.

"The ultimate ginge. Brighter than sunflowers," Amy says. The girls giggle.

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I can't believe "the Lodger" will be chapter 40! I'm excited for the Pandorica Opens and Big Bang 2!

I hope you liked this chapter... (maybe you did, maybe you didn't, but THEY FINALLY SAID I LOVE YOU!).

How did you like ten's cameo?! (and Jenny?? I've missed her!) very emotional. BRB crying.

Thanks for 1.5k reads!! 500 more and we reach 2k! I am in awe! Thank you so much!

<3 Liv