Curator III

My beloved Catastrophe,

I think Idris is playing funny buggers. Her library has a swimming pool, which seems like the kind of detail I would not have previously overlooked. And even if I had missed such a thing, I would not have missed that her quantum mechanics section is missing several vital texts. It appears my research will have to wait until she is in a better mood.

Nandy closed the door on the swimming pool-cum-library complex and made her way back toward the cloister. Maybe Idris was just feeling lonely at a certain time and had temporally shifted her to compensate for lack of company. A little soothing, maybe a short jaunt to somewhere colourful might put her back in a giving frame of mind.

She paused at the door to the console room. There were footsteps, voices. She raised an eyebrow and stroked a hand down the ship's wall, trying to telepathically hunt down the problem. Idris wasn't giving her anything. With a shrug she touched her fingers to the necklace that hung between her breasts and opened the door.

"Space, 1969!"

Nandy raised an eyebrow at the scene that greeted her. Specifically, the Doctor on one of his signature expository rambles. He dashed around the console, hitting buttons and pulling levers (the wrong buttons and levers) and talking to a mildly perturbed River, Amelia Pond and Rory the Roman.

Nandy took up a seat on the stairs, smoothed down her skirts and opened her journal again, preparing to continue her letter.

She appears to have decided I need a visit with the Doctor and the River. They are on their way to Washington, 1969, for some amusements with the Silence. I could think of such mischief if I tagged along. To think what heartbreak awaits when they realise how close they came to rescuing our impossible astronaut.

On a side note, remind me in the future not to have my perception filter installed on my favourite necklace. Sentimental value aside, it means I am the only one to ever see it. Better to choose an ugly one.

If she remembered rightly, the Ponds had just witnessed what they believed to be the Doctor's murder in Utah. Nandy smiled a little at that. If only they knew what they'd really witnessed was a wedding and a scrapped tesselecta. Lacking foreknowledge, they instead chose to stalk down to the cloister in a huff.

The Doctor stayed above, flicking more wrong switches and attempting to lock onto Canton. She rested her chin on her hand and watched him. It was a treat to see him so young. The youngest she had ever seen him, at a guess. He was still fairly new to his body. Awkward. His little pout was adorable, though.

Eventually he grew bored and yelled down to the conspirators below.

This is an exciting time to be a fly on the wall. It may be a stroke of good fortune to find myself here. There is a lot to observe.

Must go, action's starting.

Yours always.

Nandy trailed off and leaned forward anxiously. She'd never seen the particulars of how the Ponds had convinced the Doctor to follow his future self's orders. Giving orders to the Doctor was a challenge at the best of times, even his own orders. Best witnessed as he dramatically threw himself into the jumpseat and declared himself late for either knitting or biplane lessons.

She giggled, biting her lip.

The River tried to come up with a lie in stilted sentences. For such a proficient liar she was doing a terrible job. The Doctor seemed to agree, as he leapt to his feet and invaded her personal space. He growled out questions which River couldn't answer.

The laughter died on Nandy's lips. He was being so aggressive. Almost... cruel.

She'd heard about the early days, when he didn't trust River, but she'd never seen it in action. Who are you? Who did you kill?

Did he really think so poorly of her?

"Trust you? Seriously?" the Doctor asked, his voice as cold as ice.

River closed her eyes.

Nandy snapped her journal shut and jumped to her feet. She didn't need to see this. She tamped down on the urge to do something stupid.

Instead she turned on her heel, moved to leap up the stairs as quickly as possible, caught her toes on a step and promptly fell head-over-heels to the console room floor.

It all happened so quickly. Her knee hit the glass with a crack, sending a jolt of pain right up through her hip. She caught her weight on her hands. Her skirts blew up over her hair, landing her in a pile of hair and cotton and contorted limbs.

Her journal skittered across the floor so fast that she didn't even have time to cry out.

The pain in her leg and hands was nothing, some far away sensation to the cold horror that crashed over her as the book left the perception filter's boundaries and skidded straight into the Doctor's foot, thumping dully against his boot.

She was paralysed for a moment, her brain frozen with the implications of what had just happened. The Doctor stared at the book by his foot, his anger vanished.

Some long-forgotten instinct kicked in and she scrambled up the stairs, untangling herself and sliding through the door in one panicked movement. She had seconds, minutes at most before he realised someone else was on the TARDIS.

"Hide me, hide me, hide me," she begged as she ran.

One of the doors called to her and she skidded to a halt just a little too slowly to avoid slamming her shoulder against the door. She opened it up and slipped through, finding herself – of all places – in the proper library.

Nandy let out a choking laugh and pulled out her emergency psychic paper.

My beloved Catastrophe,

I may have accidentally cocked up the universe.

Stand by for details.

Yours always.