Chapter 2: -Meg Take Warning

"Boo!"

The Doctor didn't jump or look up from the screen. "Just a sec."

She sighed, disappointed. "Super alien hearing?" She guessed, plopping into the pilot's chair.

"You'll never be able to sneak up on me." he told her, letting her believe what she wanted. Yes, he did have 'super alien hearing' but it wasn't that super, just better than a human. While she was as graceful as a predator with the silence to match; he hadn't heard her approach but he knew she was near. No matter how hard she tried to sneak up on him, he would always know.

He studied the computer screen. Stubbornly, the information remained the same.

Megara Ann Lupus-Savvides

Species: Homo sapiens sapiens

Age: 23 years 6 months 3 days 18 hours

Sex: Female

Height: 165 cm

Etcetera…

He hit the side of the screen. The picture refreshed, but the information didn't change.

She leaned over his shoulder to look at what he was doing. He didn't bother covering the screen, the information was in Gallifreyan. The TARDIS translation circuits never translated Gallifreyan into any other language. Why would it bother translating a time lord's native tongue? TARDISes weren't built for human guests.

As for what Meg was… that was anyone's guess. As for the TARDIS, she kept insisting she was 100% human.

"Ready?" Meg prompted.

He looked over and stared. She wore a gauzy painted-silk dress of hundreds of blush-pink cherry blossoms. She looked… startlingly feminine. She was so sporty before: bleeding out on his couch, hiking in the desert, then mountaineering. She was lovely then of course, but in a dress, she looked like something out of a fairy-tale.

He mentally shook himself out of his shock and smiled, opening the door. "After you."

"Wow." She couldn't help a wide grin as she took in her surroundings. She could get used to traveling like this: one moment on Earth, then next a perfectly manicured – and alien – garden. In blink of an eye, just how many lightyears had she traveled? And she used to think jets were impressive. She walked over to a bush of purple and lavender leaves.

New.

She smiled.

Further down the trail of black quartz-like crushed rock were flowers – green ones. She leaned over to smell them. Her hair brushed the petals and the flower withdrew into itself like an anemone. She laughed, surprised and delighted.

The Doctor watched her explore, marveling. She loves this.

She wandered farther down the lane. The Doctor wasn't the only one watching her. A rustling in the bushes caught the Doctor's attention. He quickly locked the TARDIS and investigated, catching sight of someone's fast retreating back. He wouldn't catch him. He shrugged and turned to catch up with Meg.

"Oh you poor thing."

The Doctor came to a sudden halt at a fountain. He'd never heard Meg coo like that. Early days still, but he was rather good at reading people and really, in the past couple days he was thinking a Slitheen with a hangover had a warmer, more vulnerable side than Meg. Suddenly he worried she was a Zygon body-double. He found her skimming the water of the fountain with her fingers, but he didn't see what she was reaching for till she withdrew her hand. Resting on her fingertips, too exhausted to fly, was an insect. And not just any insect, a Wixmoroff, viewed by some as the ugliest and meanest insect in the Pannoose system.

The Doctor put on his brainy specs and took a look. It was busily drying its antennae off, not paying the slightest attention to the two giants studying it. The Doctor looked at the insect, then looked at Meg, his expression - like peering into a microscope - unchanged from either subject.

"You know that's an alien, yeah?"

"Really? The five legs didn't give that away at all."

"But you didn't know what it was… and you picked it up."

"I do so know what it is."

"You do?"

"It's a bug. And it was drowning." The waterlogged insect started exploring Meg's hand, with her looking on like a serene Madonna. The Doctor was flummoxed. She put her hand by a leaf and it crawled away. She walked on as if the detour had never happened.

"How'd you know it wouldn't sting you?"

Meg shrugged. "I've rescued enough bees and spiders from water buckets and ponds. Whether they're grateful or merely exhausted is a question for scientists. I've never been stung once."

"But why save it?"

"Why leave it?"

"Megara Savvides, I can't figure you out. Love a puzzle, me, but only when the rules make sense. You don't like aliens."

"I don't trust aliens. Come to think of it, I'm not really all that trusting of humans either. But there's a difference." She linked arms with him. "Besides, a girl can change her mind, can't she? I trust you. I trusted that little critter. Score two in the positive column. That's progress, yes?"

He smiled. "Yes."

On K2 she decided she wanted to travel with him more, and while she wasn't going to apologize for being ready and able to defend herself, she wasn't without self-awareness. She knew her history gave her certain prejudices against aliens. But the Doctor was an alien, and a good man; she was willing to work on herself.

Rounding a bend in the garden, they were presented with two humanoids. Meg stopped dead. The Doctor squeezed her hand where she rested on his arm. She shot him a glance and nodded that she wasn't going to fliip out.

The men were both had rosy skin that pearlized slightly in the light. They had two antennae rising from their foreheads and large completely black eyes. The robes they wore looked expensive and important if Earth standards were anything to go by.

The men kow-towed before them. She looked over at the Doctor, "Are we supposed to do the same back?" But when one crawled forward and tried to kiss her feet Meg took several steps backwards to stop him. Do not touch. "Whoa, hey, what are you doing?"

"You must forgive Kl'ay's enthusiasm." The other said. "It is just that we have waited for this day for one hundred ninety one years."

"What day is that, then?" the Doctor asked casually.

"The day the great Megara Savvides and her handsome companion return."

"Return?" Meg asked.

"Her companion?" The Doctor asked.

"I'm sorry. From our point of view, yes. This is your first visit. I am Tal'k. Kl'ay and I will make sure it is unforgettable. We will hold a celebration tonight in your honor. You will lack for nothing."

"Um… thank you."

"No, thank you."

"For what?"

"Oh, that we cannot tell you. You strictly warned up before you left never to tell you the history of your selfless bravery. Foreknowledge is a dangerous thing."

"Quite right." The Doctor said, grasping the opportunity to sound brainy, and regain his footing. "It causes a paradox of how you got that information in the first place. The universe hates paradoxes even more than it hates a vacuum. Does everything it can to stop one, including tearing up pieces of itself. The long and short of it is: spoilers are bad."

"Isn't this a spoiler, though? I come here in a hundred and ninety years."

"You'll do anyway. But, if you found out now the only way to defeat the bad guys was to sing karaoke with a fruit basket on your head - with no way of finding that out yourself… that would be disastrous."

"How bad could it be?"

The Doctor put his serious face on. "Bad."

Meg decided she didn't really need to know. "So… bring on the party."