{"id":215400,"date":"2014-04-19T17:07:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-19T17:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/04\/19\/he-wondered-how-susan-was-getting-on-though-he\/"},"modified":"2014-04-19T17:07:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-19T17:07:00","slug":"he-wondered-how-susan-was-getting-on-though-he","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/04\/19\/he-wondered-how-susan-was-getting-on-though-he\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p>He wondered how Susan was getting on, though he &#8211; of all people &#8211; should know how idiotic the thought was. Susan wasn\u2019t \u2018getting on\u2019 <i>now<\/i> at all; she <i>would<\/i> be \u2018getting on\u2019 in about three and a half billion years\u2019 time. But still the Doctor found himself thinking: a day has passed, two days, she will be with David, they will be planning a wedding in some half-ruined church, choosing a place to live\u2014<\/p>\n<p>and then\u2014<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;How will you tell him, my dear?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><i>I can\u2019t bear your children, David, my people and yours are not cross-fertile\u2014<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Maybe they would adopt a child, one of the many orphans of the terrible war; or more than one child. He imagined Susan, happy in the middle of her huge family, teaching her children Earth-things, half-forgetting her own inheritance. And David growing older\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Would she try to disguise it? Dye her hair, perhaps? Put something on her skin to make it dry and wrinkled? How long would it be before she had to admit the truth?<\/p>\n<p><i>I won\u2019t grow old, David, not for hundreds of years. My people are\u2014 different. But I\u2019ll put flowers on your grave, David, flowers on your grave\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The Doctor swiped the air with his stick, felt it slash into a <i>jetheru<\/i> bush he hadn\u2019t even seen. Petals scattered onto the granite paving; some eight-fingered thing native to the world of the <i>mereon<\/i>-builders chittered and scurried away, invisible under the leaves. <\/p>\n<p>Yes, thought the Doctor, surveying the rows of flowers through misted eyes, maybe the Sou(ou)shi way was for the best; a few seconds of terror, and then the end. Better than all this stitching and patching and mending of history, the good intentions that go astray, the misery that can never be prevented, the child deprived of her inheritance by an old man\u2019s whim of rebellion and curiosity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class='attribution'>Venusian Lullaby (Paul Leonard). (via <a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/literarydimensions.tumblr.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">literarydimensions<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He wondered how Susan was getting on, though he &#8211; of all people &#8211; should know how idiotic the thought was. Susan wasn\u2019t \u2018getting on\u2019 now at all; she would be \u2018getting on\u2019 in about three and a half billion years\u2019 time. But still the Doctor found himself thinking: a day has passed, two days, &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/04\/19\/he-wondered-how-susan-was-getting-on-though-he\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[13,22493,22494,4,20020],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}