When Danny had learned the Doctor was a Time Lord, he'd reassured himself that it couldn't get any weirder.
Eating dinner with Clara while she groused about Gabrielle, part of Danny's mind marveled at how she blinded herself to the Doctor's true nature, while another part of his brain thought, 'Your girlfriend is jealous of a living statue who's riding shotgun with the Doctor. That's insane.'
"Has to be the wings, hasn't it?" Clara complained. "I've seen them catalogs. Men have a thing for women with wings, don't they? All big and flappin' a little every time she moves."
"I'm not surprised," Danny said, doing his best to be reasonable. "You didn't think he'd just toss you aside one day?"
"What!? In favor of her? After all we've been through? I'm his impossible girl, he called me. What's she?"
"His angel?"
"Yeah, his wide-eyed wing-flappin' angel. Yeah, those big doe-eyes of hers. That's what did it. I've seen weepin' angels. Yeah? On Trenzalore. Comin' out of the snow they were. And the Doctor and me were *both* scared. He doesn't like 'em. Daleks, no problem. But Angels? Only thing I've seen that gives him the willies. And yet she's alone with him in the cemetery for five mintues – I checked the Tardis flight logs, and that's how long it was—and all of a sudden they're thick as thieves."
Danny decided on a different tack. "Oh, aye," he said sympathetically in an effeminate voice, "you think you know a Time Lord, but the first time-bending stone angel that waggles her wings at him and off he goes. It's the same old story, love." Then he read the look on Clara's face. "What?"
8
8
Fortunately, the Doctor had returned the Tardis to the basement at the school. Danny shifted the blankets and pillows to one arm and knocked.
Gabrielle answered the door. Her look had changed since he'd met her: She was letting her dark hair fall around her shoulders and had a white, sleeveless top and black pants on, the top's straps allowing enough room for her wings.
Danny said, "Sorry, but have I come at a bad time?"
"No," Gabrielle said. "You're most welcome." She got out of his way and let him in, and added, "The Doctor and I were just trading stories about Leonardo da Vinci."
"You knew him?" Danny said. "Of course you knew him."
"Well," Gabrielle said, "I was more of a tenant really. I spent several years in the corner of his workshop. Little bit of a food coma, I suppose you could say, so I just stood there and watched. And there was something about the renaissance, wasn't there? You could feel humanity waking up. I didn't want to mess with it. I just wanted to enjoy it." She pointed at the Doctor. "And he was there, in and out with different faces. Small universe, eh? We were just talking about the time he was tortured."
"Tortured?" Danny asked.
"Thumb screws," the Doctor said. "Very unpleasant. Although I wasn't actually tortured. I can't stand being tortured by someone with sweaty hands."
Gabrielle asked, "And that Captain Tancredi, he was really the last of the Jagaroth?"
"Yep," the Doctor said. "I was about to say their ship blew up trying to take off on warp drive." He turned to Danny. "Provided the spark of radiation that started life on this planet and lead to you, Danny."
"I always wondered what happened to them," Gabrielle said. "Explains that temporal anomaly near Bermuda. Still, vicious, callous war-like race. Can't say I miss 'em. And their timelines – eeeyuuuuhhhh! We used to say, you want to put an angel on a starvation diet? Put her on a planet full of Jagaroth." She turned to Danny. "But I'm sorry! We must be terrible hosts." She noticed the blankets and pillows. "Is everything all right? Did Clara kick you out?"
Danny smiled somehow. "No everything's fine. Some place I can sleep the night?"
The Doctor pointed at the hatch. "Leela's old room is closest. I made it a permanent part of the architecture. Out that door, to the right. Can't miss it. Mind the land mines."
"Land mines?" Danny asked.
"Everywhere we went, she picked up a weapon," the Doctor lamented. "Bad habit. Couldn't get her out of it. But at least she never got the knack of making gunpowder. She would have blown us up. By accident of course."
8
8
Probably as a peace offering to Danny – with Clara's influence behind it, Danny thought – the Doctor arranged a field trip for their English and Math students to UNIT's original HQ. He gave the kids some rides in Bessie, his old yellow roadster; and in the garage, did some simple lessons in science and chemistry. Danny was impressed with the Doctor's teaching ability and gave him credit on that. Then they went out to the parade ground. It had rained and the ground was a bit damp. Gabrielle swore them to secrecy and told them they were going to look what it was like to be her.
"What," a boy said, "drop dead gorgeous?" The other kids laughed, and a girl swatted him on the head.
"No. But thank you. I meant this." She touched her necklace and her body turned to stone. Her voice came out of the necklace: "Quantum locked. I can't move while you're looking at me. Which means someone has to turn the Heisneberg compensator back on."
The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the necklace and she was flesh and blood again.
"Thank you," Gabrielle said. "My people have learned to live with that, and quite honestly, if it's someone other than me, you never want to see it. But it takes practice to move when you can turn to stone when someone sees you. You'll see what I mean." She pointed. "You're all going to line up over there. And you're going to run back here quick as you can. Here's the catch. You start when I shout 'Closed!' And when I say 'Open,' you have to stop right where you are, in mid-step, and stay like that until I say 'Closed' again. Which means no big running; you're in trouble if you're caught with one foot in the air. Any questions?"
A boy raised his hand. "What if it's both feet?"
"Then you are a very new angel who will get a headache thinking about it," Gabrielle said, "and I won't say anymore to anyone who wasn't on Gallifrey during the Time War."
Clara perked up. "I was!"
"Oh," Gabrielle said. "It's a long story. Anything else?"
No one else had any question, so everyone but Gabrielle lined up at the other end of the parade ground. The ground was damp and slightly muddy, so there was a lot of laughing and stumbling at Gabrielle's shouts of "Open!" At one point she pointed to a girl who was trying to clamber to her feet. "No! Don't finish getting up. You're stone…Closed!"
The Doctor and Danny got the muddiest of all.
It all seemed like great fun…until Gabrielle turned away from Clara for a moment. "Angel attack-" Clara started as she grabbed for Gabrielle's shoulder. Then Clara disappeared.
"Oops!" Gabrielle said. "Reflex. But I think she's all right…"
A Tardis materialized next to the parade ground. Clara got out with another Doctor and another Gabrielle.
The new Doctor said, "April 24, 1984, 2:15 Pm, Piccadilly Circus, the cop will be all right. UNIT will get his medical expenses."
"Right," the first Doctor said. He turned to his Gabrielle. "We'll have to go back to the school."
The first Doctor and the first Gabrielle got in Bessy and drove away.
The remaining Gabrielle turned to Clara. "No hard feelings?"
"Hard feelings?" Clara grumbled. "I have never been so-" She grabbed at Gabrielle and disappeared again.
Gabrielle doubled over, holding her stomach.
The Doctor was alarmed. "What's wrong?"
"I overcooked it," Gabrielle said. "Sent her too far back. Overloaded myself. I'll have to vent to-"
Yet another Tardis appeared, with another Doctor, another Gabrielle, Clara hopping out bound and gagged….
….and a man dressed like Robin Hood!?
One of the boys gawked. "You're not-"
"No, I'm not," the man said in with a smile. "Can't be – I don't exist."
He got in the first Tardis with the other Doctor and Gabrielle. It vanished.
The Doctor and Gabrielle who had just arrived backed into their Tardis. That Doctor said, "Parking it back at the school. Be right back." They got in their Tardis. It vanished…as another Doctor and Gabrielle pulled up in Bessie. They pulled up next to Clara, who was still hopping around. Danny was sure the gag was muffling words not fit for children.
Gabrielle smiled. "And that's a demonstration of time paradoxes."
"What I call Timey Wimey," the Doctor said. He looked past the group. "And were you watching the whole time?"
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart was at the back of the group. "Most of it," she said. "Is this the worst that's happened today?"
"Yes," the Doctor said somberly.
Kate smiled. "Good. Then I can call off the tactical nuclear strike."
Danny slept at the Tardis that night. He wasn't sure why Clara kicked him out, but thought better than to argue.
8
8
Not long after the school trip, Clara took a Tardis trip with the Doctor and Gabrielle. Though Danny normally didn't like it when Clara went off with the Doctor, he made an exception, thinking that might bring peace if the two…females faced common foes with the Doctor.
No such luck. He got the recap over dinner.
Danny just ate and didn't say anything as Clara complained: "…so all we have to do is get past a hundred guards and stop the papal from blowing up half the Empirical Galaxy and who does he turn to first? Her! Not me. Her! How does that happened? I immersed myself in his bloody timeline! Saved him from the Great Intelligence I did. What has she done?" She paused. "Or maybe I'm overreacting. Getting territorial when there's no cause to. What do you think? Come on, Danny. Say something!"
Danny ate the last of his food, wiped his mouth with his napkin, got up, got blankets and pillows out of the closet, and left.
When he got to the Tardis, the Doctor said, "I don't meant to pry, Danny, but if you're going to be staying here a lot, it would be no trouble for me to create a room for you."
"No, it's no trouble. I like sleeping on that fur rug on the floor. By the way, I have a mate interested in antique weapons. Think he could look at those land mines?"
The Doctor winced. "They're Leela's. And while I don't think I'll ever see her again, with time travel being what it is…"
"I understand. Thanks anyway."