I haven’t actually watched that much Star Trek, actually. Really you have the internet to thank for that moment of brilliance. Though I wish I could take credit for it.
[There is another soft chuckle from him before he blinks and stares for a moment. Did she…She did. Oh. Well. It looks like running late was proving to be one of the better things that happened to him.]
That sounds like it could be fun. I um…I should give you my number then, huh?
[Yes Theodore. Ask her permission before you give her your number.]
But you’d like it. Great fun to take the mickey out of when you’ve had a bad day. Wouldn’t a volcano sound hot rather than cool?
Ah. I know what you mean. Everything I say is probably a reference to something I’ve seen on the internet at one point or another.
[Of course she did.]
Ah. I don’t have a phone.
[Well, technically she does. It just kind of doesn’t work in this time period. It’s a bit of an issue, actually.]
But, I’m not doing anything now.
That’s the running joke. That they all die, I mean.
[Theo chuckled a bit, absentmindedly running a hand through his hair again as he did so. It was slowly becoming a bit of a nervous tick of his when it came to talking to women.]
Oh you should rent it. It’s great. Cheesy as can be, but great.
[At her saying he should be a volcanologist, he shook his head.]
You couldn’t pay me enough to do that. I’d like my feet firmly on unsinged ground. Why do you ask?
Right, right, yeah.
[The redhead only shrugs, taking another sip from her mug. Oh, she just thinks he’s adorable. And it gets a soft giggle out of her.]
You should watch it with me.
[It’s sounds like an afterthought. But you know, she really would take the time to sit down and watch it with him.]
I dunno. It just sounds like fun.
—And cool. [Or, hot. Because, volcanoes.] I mean, it’d always be like an adventure.
Ah. That would do.
[Theo smiles widely while trying to think of something slightly witty to say. He’d never been all that versed in Star Trek growing up. A moment later he shakes a sugar packet in Jasmine’s direction.]
You be careful and don’t wear any red shirts, yeah?
[He paused again, head tilting to the side before giving her a slow nod.]
I think they’re pretty interesting actually. And I actually really liked that one American movie…where the volcano was in LA?
Oh, right, ‘cause they always die. [She thinks. She hasn’t actually watched much star trek.]
I… Haven’t seen it.
But, volcanoes are cool.
You should be a volcano guy. You know, the ones that study them and explore them and jump in them and stuff.
I mean, loads of those people die. But you could probably do it without dying, I think.
……Or something…You really seem to have a thing for the idea of time travel.
[He’s torn between staring at her and staring at his coffee. This was the oddest, most interesting conversation he’s had. And he wasn’t entirely sure of the girls sanity with the way she was talking about time travel. As if it was real.]
Well that’s nice to know. That I’m not the only one, I mean. I’d not wish that on anyone. [He doesn’t get it yet. Maybe one day.] I could…ooor I could do what we were talking about and weight my options.
Um. I watch a lot of…
[There’s a pause. Remember, that she comes from the future. And television shows have evolved since then. It takes her a while to come up with something that’s actually been invented by this time.]
Star Trek.
[But if you asked her who the main character is, she might not be able to tell you. At least she’s seen the back to the future films.]
Do you like volcanoes?
[She’ll have a point, eventually, I promise.]
Yeah, yeah. And that one thing could cause a whole domino effect of things going wrong Before you know it you’ve… [It took him a moment to think of the word.] Paradoxed yourself out of existence.
I don’t think I’d take the chance either.
[Theo chuckles at the thought, shaking his head slightly before she mentioned hating hospitals.]
Turns out so do I. I’d been wanting to study medicine…But it turns out that I faint when I catch sight of too much blood. I’d be a ruddy useless doctor.
Or you’ve ripped a hole in the universe the size of Africa. It depends on whether one of your descendants does something super important that effects earth’s history drastically.
Or something.
[Jas, you can’t just keep adding ‘or something’ to make it seem like your knowledge regarding this stuff is flawed due to it coming from science fiction.]
Oh, my mum does that too. [Get it. That was a hilarious joke.] You could always be a different sort of doctor.
[Still a bit amused.] Alexander Fell. It’s nice to meet you, Jasmine.
The pleasure’s all mine.
So, um, do you actually sell any of these books? Or do you just sit here and look at them all day.
Would it be weird to say that I’d meet my Great Grandparents or something? God that sounds so pathetic when I say it out loud. But I would. Or um…When the Wright Brothers first flew at Kittyhawk. Something like that.
[Just one? How could he pick just one. He sips at his coffee once more while thinking over that. Maybe running late and missing his classes wasn’t as bad as he first thought.]
No. Right up there with food service workers and the blokes who take my blood when I have to go to hospital.
I wouldn’t recommend it.
Because all sorts of bad things happen when you meddle with your own past. Like how Marty McFly went back and as a result his parents almost never got married. So then he wouldn’t have been born—
It might end up like that. Or something.
[Using pop culture references is generally how she tries to make time travel more understandable. It generally works.]
Oh, I hate hospitals.
[He seems to find that amusing.] Maybe. One can hope.
Yeah, but we probably won’t be alive to witness it’s creation in whatever year that happens to be.
—And I’m Jasmine, by the way. Jasmine Pond.
It would. I…don’t even know that I could really pick one time. There’d be a whole list of places.
[That laugh has him smiling even wider. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a conversation like this. And with a near stranger no less.]
Oh that’s not it. I love old libraries. I…Just have a bit of a bad luck streak. So staying in a place like that for long would probably be a bad idea.
Where would you go? I mean, if you could go anywhere. Where do you think you’d pick. Like, if you had to choose one?
[Jasmine you can’t take random strangers on adventures and just tell them about time travel out of the blue. There’s probably a rule about that somewhere. Oh, it’s probably on that list of rules your dad told you before you left. You know, right under ‘no boys under any circumstances ever’.
—So don’t even think about it.]
Oh, right. And librarians are the kinds of people that you don’t want to get on the bad side of.
