"B'dah!" The girl turned an awkward forward roll on the thick spring grass, leaving a trail of purple light twisting in the air behind her. When she came up she stared forward for a little time, and then put her hands into the riot of curl and color that was her hair and pulled free a battered envelope. "This place isn't on my list of people," she said.

Her elder brother looked down at her and smiled a tired but patient smile. "No."

"Oh." She smiled deliriously and went hunting for green roses.

There weren't any, so she started a bush of them growing out the side of the student union. She liked college campuses; they were full of people who needed her.

--

Benny had spent considerable American currency on a cherry vanilla milkshake and was making slurping noises with her straw. Ace looked at the dining hall food and decided she could stand to lose a little weight anyway. The Doctor bought a chocolate chip muffin and ended up with chocolate all over his fingers, but none on his dove grey jacket. The console had exploded in his face this morning, ruining the white one.

Ace didn't bother to ask what they were doing here. There was always something, whether the Doctor had thought of it beforehand or was making it up as he went. She wandered away from where the Doctor and Bernice were sitting to get a better look at the man standing in front of the student union.

Not human, she knew that from the start. He was pale, not pink-pale, not even bloodless-pale, but hole-in-the-universe pale, nothing-there pale. And his eyes were black and black on black and full of stars. That thing that the astronaut saw in 2001 had nothing on this guy's eyes.

Not everyone seemed to see him, though he was very tall in his black trench coat. A girl sat on the grass next to him. She had maybe a little color, but no way she was human either. Her hair was flaming red, streaked with less likely colors. She wore a black velvet shirt and a beach towel wrapped around her waist. She was barefoot.

There were little birds flying around her head, like she was a cartoon with a head injury. A trick of the light made them look like tiny blue vultures.

Get this over with then. She walked right up to the pair of whatever they were. "Hi, I'm Ace."

The man looked down an her. He had borrowed David Bowie's bones to fill out his nothing-coloured skin and his hair belonged to any number of punk guitarists. He said nothing.

"Not from around here, are you?"

The girl jumped up. "We're from Nevada, and Bhatan, and Ki'imgu, and Peladon and . . . " she frowned and started counting quietly on her fingers, " . . . lots of places." She finished lamely. She spun around a bit, her hair flying like a firestorm. "We're looking for my brother."

"Yeah?"

The girl looked up at the man. "He's got a beard." She looked up hopefully at Ace. "A big red beard . . . but he might not."

The man spoke at last and his voice was like ether. "We are waiting for a . . . friend of the family, who may be able to . . . help us. Thank you."

Ace didn't much like being dismissed. One guess, anyway. "So if I could take you to this friend of the family, you'd clear out with no trouble, right?" Little chance; there was always trouble.

A long, measuring look. Then Ace turned to see the Doctor and Bernice coming up behind her. Oh well, fun while it lasted.

The Doctor bowed, a deep courtly bow. Ace wondered if she'd been playing with fire. Benny, taking his lead, executed a perfect curtsey. Ace had seen Benny practice; she could curtsey blind drunk and in a floor-length dress with hoops and a train. Ace was just surprised to see that she could also do it when she was sober.

"My lord," the Doctor said, and then, grinning his sweetest grin, "my lady."

The girl grinned back and Ace realized that the beach towel she was wearing had a picture of a police box on it. This was getting fishy.

"How are you," the Doctor asked politely, "and your family?"

"Well enough," the man answered, "and yours?"

The Doctor got that old sad look.

"Forgive me," the man said, "I had not realized how much time had passed."

"No, no." the Doctor waved it off. "I've been seeing a lot of your older sister lately. Did she get the hat I sent her for day off this century?"

"I do not know . . . I have been concerned with . . . other matters."

"We're looking for my brother," the girl said, "not this one and not the other one or the kind-of one but the other other one . . . " she frowned and brushed rose petals off her shirt, " . . . without the book."

The Doctor sighed. "I thought you might be."

"Can you tell us where he is?" The man's perfect voice reminded Ace of someone she'd met once . . . but she couldn't quite remember.

The Doctor looked aside. He was about to say that the brother was dead, or worse, Ace was sure. Instead he said, "I can't. I truly wish I could."

The girl had a scrap of paper in her hand. She raised it suddenly and pointed to a little doodle at the corner. "Oh," she said, "you were on my list. You were."

The colorless man loomed over the Doctor. "You cannot tell us," he said politely, expectantly.

The Doctor met those non-eyes. "I can't."

They were gone. One minute there, next minute not. Ace felt like she was just waking up.

"What was all that about?" Benny was demanding.

"Can't tell isn't don't know," Ace said under her breath. This was always the way. The Doctor never changed; it would be the death of him, one of these days.

The Doctor responded to neither of them, but instead explained that Jim Henson had gone to this very university, and offered to get them guest spots on Sesame Street. Ace decided that sounded like much more fun than thinking about those two strange people, who even now were fading in her memory to a cutout of white and black and a swirl of color. She picked a green rose growing out of a crumbling brick wall and attached it to her jacket with its own thorns.

"Brief Encounters, Brief Lives" 1994 by p q laertes
pqlaertes yahoo com
The Fake Book
Endless created by Neil Gaiman, The Doctor created by Bunny Webster, Ace by Ian Briggs, Benny by Paul Cornell.