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"Here we are!" The Doctor exited the TARDIS with long strides. "1931. Berlin, Germany. Just the way the city looked before things started to go bad." He turned to the other two, who were waiting in the doorway. "What?"
"It's freezing outside." Donna shivered.
"Well then, get a coat! Hurry up, I don't have all day!" The Doctor huffed. Donna and Ianto soon returned, wearing historically accurate coats and gloves. "Come along." He started to walk away.
"You just leave this thing out in the open?" Ianto looked back at the TARDIS.
"Of course." The Doctor smiled and continued his walk, secretly a bit frustrated. It was always questions, questions, questions with the new ones.
The three hurried along the streets. They laughed about various stupid jokes. Beggars yelled on street corners, children played on the sidewalks. Ianto seemed to be enjoying himself. They found a small bakery and sat inside, half for the purpose of actually eating, and half because of the biting cold outside.
"Why come here?" Ianto finally asked.
"I don't know. I haven't been in a while, I suppose. It's a very interesting time. All this horror waiting to arise, and people are totally oblivious." The Doctor grinned his usual grinned. Ianto stared at him in shock.
"You get off on the fact that in a few years, millions of people are going to die?" He scoffed and took a sip of his coffee. It tasted terrible.
"Even for you, that's low." Donna huffed at the Doctor.
"It's a question of looking at humanity, not "getting off." I find it amazing, the obliviousness." He paused and looked up. "Bollocks!" His voice raised but he kept the sound in a kind of stage whisper. "Well, I wasn't expecting that. We need to leave. Now." He started to get up. Ianto and Donna turned their heads to see what he was so panicked about.
Jack Harkness, a rather thin and awkward man, and a woman with green nail varnish, were standing, backs to their table, waiting to order food.
Ianto's heart leapt to his throat. He struggled to get a better view as he hurried out of the bakery. The trio ran down a street, stopping once they had cleared the next block.
"Well that wasn't supposed to happen." The Doctor sighed.
"What the hell was that?" Ianto's voice hit it's angry tone again.
"That was Jack, Christopher Isherwood, and Jean Ross from what I could tell. Under normal circumstances, I would have loved to have had a chat withe latter two, but if Jack had seen us it could have been detrimental. He hasn't met you yet and he has to wait at least another seventy or so years to find me again."
"Isherwood. The writer... Jack said he dated him for a time. I guess we just happened to be in the right place at the right time." Ianto smiled briefly, but it soon faded. "Doctor, I think I'd like to go back to my room now. Not like I can actually see him. It's just gonna make it worse if we stay." He tried to be passive, but Donna could tell he was in pain again. The Doctor was being completely oblivious again.
"How's about we find an inn or something? Get the whole Berlin experience. Better than sleeping in that dusty old TARDIS again." Donna winced, waiting for the Doctor to make some kind of defensive remark about how the TARDIS was beautiful. It didn't come.
"Sounds like a plan. But if you think you're bringing him to any of those raunchy cabaret bars you are quite wrong, Ms. Noble." The Doctir wagged a finger at Donna, who laughed a little. They set off yet again to find an inn.
"Charming name, isn't it?" Donna quipped before taking a swig of ale.
"Bloated Drunkard?" Ianto asked, looking back at the sign outside the inn. He shrugged. "Probably prophetic." He slung back his ale a little more aggressively than he intended. "I for one, am planning to drink off the entire day." He drank again. The Doctor sighed.
"You know, I try to keep things PG around here, it never seems to work. Just as long as you don't start spouting off your... Escapades... We'll be at least at a PG-13." He sipped his tea, trying to be a true opposition to the scene around him.
"Doctor, we are in a time before they had ratings, so I suggest you do yourself a favor and shut it before I slug you one." Donna drank again. She frowned at her almost empty pint. "Where did you go?" She called for another. The two drank for another three rounds or so, and that's when things started to get ugly.
"Haven't drank in at least six months. Being dead does that to you." Ianto called for a beer. Donna was yelling something unintelligable from across the table. "Do you know what would really be great? If Jack came in here right now. I would slap the shit out of that writer and then kick Jack's ass. Bastard. You know that best part? Can't die. He'd just keep coming back to get beaten again, wouldn't he? And you-" He motioned to the Doctor with his bottle. "You, I would take that big old clock over there and smash your bloody head in. Then we'll se who's a Time Lord- Get it?" He laughed and drank again. "Dangling him in front of me like that- Did it on purpose didn't you?" He stumbled backwards a bit. "You have no idea how it feels, sir. Sir, sir, sir all the time, I'm a proper office boy again aren't I? Sir, it fucking hurts. Being away and being here. Y-y-you don't know how it feels." He fell. The Doctor tried to help him up, he swatted him away. "Don't touch me! That's his job, always his job, like I didn't matter otherwise... Not much on that skinny writer to feel up is there? No sir. Sir again! I should be handing out knightships." He tried to get up, but fell back down. "You know who I saw today? That Seriath girl, what a lovely woman." He fell unconscious.
The Doctor's hearts stopped.
"What did you just say?" He tried to wake Ianto, but he was out cold. He hoped it was just a slur, a hallucination. But he knew that wasn't the case.
He brought Ianto upstairs to his room. Donna stumbled after and soon fell asleep in her adjoining room.
The Doctor couldn't sleep that night. He watched Ianto intently, waiting for another reason to be alarmed.
It wasn't long until he got it.
