A/N: I have to do a little world building in the next couple chapters, I've tried to make it clear and to balance it with story developments, please bear with me! Thank you for the reviews/favourites/follows, they are greatly appreciated! There is a bit of spoiler free info about this story in response to the reviews/messages I have gotten so far on my author profile. Nothing big, just some general responses.
Health and Safety: Chapter 4 – Move 'em on Head' em Up
Ria gallops back to the scattered wagons, waving her arms when she gets closer, asking for help I suppose. One wagon is brought over to her, and a group of people unload whatever was in it, distributing the content to the other carts. Once it's been emptied, she leads it and about half a dozen men on horses back towards us.
We get some funny looks from them, but under Ria's direction the wagon driver to backs up until he is almost knocking into the TARDIS. That takes some doing, the horses don't seem too keen on getting anywhere near the time machine. Meanwhile, the Doctor rocks back and forth on his feet, looking quite apprehensive of the people milling about his precious ship.
"Stand back!" Ria calls to us.
"How are you going to-"
The Doctor stops mid question as his mouth drops open in horror. Ria and the others have grabbed lassos off of their saddles, and send the ropes sailing towards the TARDIS, all but one snagging over the light on the top of the box. Once they've pulled the loops tight, the riders use their horses to pull the TARDIS down so that she is leaning against the back of the empty wagon before a few of them dismount and push her up so that she's resting in the wagon on her side before covering the whole thing with a tarp. Several of the men start shooting Ria dirty looks, some of them mumbling about this not being part of their jobs, or that they are wasting their time.
Strax and Vastra are helped onto the bench with the driver, and one of the less grumpy looking men offers Jenny a hand up, pulling her to sit sideways behind him, minding her sword and her skirt carefully. That just leaves me and the Doctor.
"We can put you all on wagons once we get back to the caravan." Ria says, before offering me a hand up.
The Doctor shoots her a piercing look. He hasn't let me get much more than an arm's length away from him since we found each other in his time stream, and I haven't really wanted to be any farther away from him than that. Ria looks puzzled by his protectiveness, but then scoots out of the saddle, sitting behind it instead.
"I'll find you a spot together in the wagons." She promises me.
The Doctor looks like he wants to protest, but thinks better of it. The two of them help me up so that I'm sitting side saddle. She puts an arm around me and reaches for the reins. The Doctor hops up with another man. It doesn't take us long to get back to the wagon train, there are probably twenty carts in all, varying in size, most of them heavily loaded down. It's hard to count how many riders there are, they keep buzzing about, checking this and that, grumbling about delays and murmuring calming words to anxious horses.
Ria finds the Doctor and I a spot in the back of one of the wagons, it's a little cramped, we're squished between some crates and the back hatch of the wagon, but we make do. I sort of have to sit on him, but he doesn't seem to mind, shifting so that I end up completely across his lap really before one of his hands starts playing with my hair absent mindedly.
A woman with a very loud voice bellows to get going again, and the caravan starts rolling forward once more. Now that we're moving, the whole wagon is jarred back and forth so frequently by the rough terrain that despite how tired I'm feeling there is no risk of me falling asleep.
"So, we're somewhere in the late 1800's then going by the cowboys out there?" I ask him.
"No, we are about 400 years in the future from your perspective actually."
"Sorry, what?"
"Well, you lot kind of fail the first great energy crisis. Despite how adaptable you can be when you set your minds to it, you're also very resistant to change. You don't get the message till the end is nigh that you're not treating the planet right when it comes to energy sources, fossil fuels and such. Not to mention the petrol ends up pretty much running out. But, as I said, you're adaptable, and you do get there in the end. Things have to get a bit simpler for a while, back to horses and oxen instead of hover cars, more leather and wool instead of polyfibers, glass instead of plastics. The cities get back to full power first of course, especially the smart ones. You should see Tokyo or Stockholm right now…"
A rather large bump knocks us both sideways, momentarily halting his speech. The older man driving the wagon calls back an apology to us.
"The outlying areas are way behind the curve though, not as many resources at their disposal or support from the powers that be. So, most of the little towns and even some of the smaller cities out here wouldn't look out of place in a Clint Eastwood movie right now if you ignore the solar panels and fancy do-dads that make it out from the urban areas."
After listening to the Doctor, I take a closer look at the people around us. They are dressed in clothing that at first glance would be Wild West, but on a closer inspection they definitely aren't the same. Some of the materials are obviously new, and the cuts are different too, reflecting a very different style, more tailored designs and flashy ornamentation. A lot of women are either riding as guards or driving the wagons, which I don't think would have been the case in the nineteenth century either.
There's also an assortment of technology, most of them have metal bands on their wrists that they talk into, or press buttons on, some kind of phone or communicator maybe? A rider near the front of the column keeps pulling out sophisticated looking binoculars, scanning the terrain. He was probably the person that spotted us. One driver's head is bobbing up and down, it looks like she has headphones on, and another has a radio sitting next to him whining what sounds like a country song. It is all a blend of old and new.
Ria approaches us, her horse falling into step with the wagon.
"How are you doing?" She asks kindly.
"It's been a bit of a rough day…" I answer honestly.
"Sorry… I know it's not the most comfortable ride, but these were meant for cargo, not people, barely any shocks in them except for right up front under the driver."
"Where are you heading?" The Doctor asks.
"This lot is on their way to Estevan eventually. I'm an Outrider on contract with Devedas Freight, escorting them to Bordure so they can clear customs before they head into the city."
"Outrider?" I ask.
"Yeah, like in the old days when to dock a ship in some ports you had to have a local guide you in. Government regulation says that someone who is Joint Marshal certified must lead any and all energy related technology being transported from point A to point B. It's too valuable to risk losing."
I try to get a better look at her face, but the sun is right in my eyes, making me squint. She takes off her hat and tosses it into the back of the wagon.
"Try that."
"Stetsons are very cool." The Doctor tells her seriously as I put it on my head.
The brim keeps the sun out of my eyes, and my first good look at the girl is of her beaming at the Doctor's comment. She has long dark hair tied back into a braid; considering how much time she must spend out in the sun I would expect her to be a lot more tanned than she is, though she does have a lot of freckles on her face.
She catches me studying her and smiles nervously before turning away.
"Subira, hurry it up back there, we're enough late already!" She calls somewhere behind us as she trots off again.
The wagons trundle along slowly. The view doesn't change much except for the occasional tree creeping into sight, then slowly being left behind again. Tumbleweeds are really exciting to the guards, sounds like a few people have made bets on how many they will see on the trip, and judging by the cursing that arose from one man at the last one that rolled by, he just lost. Betting on tumbleweeds really shows just how interesting the landscape is…
"Clara, you should sleep if you can." The Doctor says eventually, like he had been contemplating it for a long time.
"No, I'm fine Doctor, and besides, I don't think I could even if I wanted to." We conveniently hit a rather large bump again just as I say that, emphasizing my point.
"If… if you're worried about it, I can keep you from dreaming or remembering, or whatever is going on, I think… if you let me." He says hesitantly, putting his hands back on the sides of my head.
"No, Doctor, please stop." Being curled up in his lap I can't duck away.
His touch is light on my face, and I can feel him trying to ease my thoughts, but instead of letting him, like I think he was expecting, I resist, throwing up imaginary walls to stop him.
That same snapping noise from all the times before rattles across the plain, even louder than it had been in the TARDIS. It spooks several of the horses around us; one person nearly comes flying off. Great…
Two angry looking men storm up to us seconds later.
"What the hell just happened here?" One demands. The other flips back his coat to reveal a holstered gun.
The weapon that the one man is threatening to reach for was definitely modeled after an old colt pistol, there are some noticeable differences in the design though and I would guess it fires a lot more than half a dozen shots, shots that probably aren't made of lead…
"Nothing, it was just an accident with one of my tools." The Doctor bluffs, pulling out the sonic screwdriver to show them.
They exchange a look and one of them reaches for a device behind his back and waves it at us. I think the Doctor was expecting it to be another gun because he suddenly clutches me close and levels the sonic at him with a look of rage, resulting in a very tense moment with the other man gripping the handle his pistol tightly, ready to draw it if anyone makes a sudden move.
"Leave it Hank." The one scanning us finally says after his device dings a few times.
The man, Hank, lets his coat fall back over his holster and gives us an irate look before following his friend.
"What actually happened? " I ask quietly once they're a safe distance away.
The Doctor shakes his head, giving me a look that means he will tell me later.
Ria is suddenly alongside us again, eyes wide and looking upset.
"I'm so sorry about those two…"
"Not your fault." The Doctor tells her.
"No, but I still feel bad about it. Anyways…"
The same strong voiced woman calls out for everyone to stop and circle up. The wagon makes a left hand turn before jerking to a halt, and Ria gestures ahead of us. There is a little town spread out in front of us. Well, town might be an overstatement; there are a few clusters of buildings around a central road ahead of us. I guess I never saw them coming because they were right in front of us.
"Welcome to Bordure. Population… well, frankly that depends on how many caravans are in town and how cheap the drinks are at Betman's Saloon on a given night..."