The men lead us further and deeper into the hotel's grand winding corridors. So far that I'm quite sure I'd never be able to find my way back to room 125 if my life depended on it.
Here's hoping it doesn't at any point tonight…
We come to a pair of mahogany doors, intricately and carefully carved with fleur de lis all over. Behind it, I hear trumpets and cymbals and drums beating out a raucous melody. My heart swells and my lips can't help lifting into a grin. The Doctor nudges me, giving me a wink
"Enjoy, and don't let us catch you not causing trouble." The fairer haired of the two men says with an ill behaved smirk, and he thrusts open the doors.
I have never seen such a busy room in all of my life.
It's a large room, smaller than the ballroom, but large enough to contain the explosion of human beings going on inside of it. Somehow.
Men in suits with adorable coattails spin women in glittering flowing dresses around. Groups of ladies scream in joy, flapping their limbs around without abandon. Drinks are spilled, tossed, downed in single gulps. Even the band is dancing, as if they can't contain their glee either. An entire table is accidentally knocked over in the blissful chaos, and nobody does a single thing but laugh.
As soon as our feet hit the floor of the room, the doors close behind us, and we are a part of this giddy mess. A woman stumbles into me, her nasally laugh grating my eardrums over the music. She just gives me a heavy lidded smile, and shoves a bottle of booze in my hand, before her posse scrambles her back into the fray.
I take a look at the bottle. Some kind of fancy spiced rum. Seems as if she had barely had any of it. I give it a shake and look out into the crowd for some encouragement.
Everyone seems to have no problems, no cares in life. They've simply shaken them off, quite literally. I want to be just like them. I wish I could be half as unconcerned as they are.
I need to just forget for one hour. Just one measly hour, I can pretend I'm not a lost cause.
I rip the top of the bottle off and take four huge gulps of the burning liquid before it's yanked out of my hands. It sears my throat and warms my stomach, leaving me sputtering and coughing. I never was much of a boozer.
"Alright, that's enough of that." The Doctor says, capping the bottle and handing it off to a man wearing a furry pink boa wrapped around his head.
"Oh, the Doctor doesn't drink? Look around, you crazy alien! It's a party, have a little fun!" I say, laughter bubbling out of me all of the sudden.
"Well, I guess I haven't tried a drink with this mouth yet." He says hesitantly, and as if right on cue, a rather unstable waiter approaches us.
Someone's been having a taste of his own wares.
"Scotch on the rocks?" he asks, offering the Doctor a glass full of ice and amber colored liquid. He grudgingly takes it, lifting it to his lips, his nose crinkling in distaste. He takes a swig, manages to swallow once before he spits the rest out in a cloud of vaporized alcohol. I half scream, half laugh as some of it mists my bare skin.
"Oh, you are such a child!" I shout, wiping my arm off.
"Excuse me for having taste buds! How can you people drink that stuff? It's poison, literally poison!" He says, yanking the celery off of his suit and jabbing it into his mouth as if it were on fire.
"Whaddya doin' standing still, you couple of duds? Get hopping!" A lady in a purple rhinestone smattered dress says, grabbing my hand and dragging me towards the eye of the dancing storm. Quickly, I clutch the Doctor's gray vest and take him along for the ride, still chewing the best part of his outfit.
I watch the purple rhinestone lady and her friends carefully, trying to get a feel for how I should move. Then, I realize that the rule is there is no rules. You just move, simply move. I realize now why their dresses are short, as my flailing feet keep getting caught in my striking gold train. All of the flappers around me are yelling encouragement as I get into the groove of it.
"You two just friends or is he giving you the absent treatment, doll?" A red-haired, green clad woman asks me.
"Complicated," I shout over the music, and look over my shoulder to see the Doctor with his hands in his pockets, swaying awkwardly but smiling at all the happy humans around him.
"Well, give him your knee, maybe things will get much less complicated," purple rhinestone says, puckering her blood red lips.
"Give him my what?" I say, fumbling a bit and halting my frenzied dancing.
"Dance with him, cotton for ears!" She says, pushing me towards the Doctor, and I run into his chest face-first. He catches me, dropping the scotch in his hand and it shatters with a muted crash. No one seems to care, sharp glass or not. I look up to meet his molten gold eyes.
"Hello there," He says, and I hide behind my hair, hoping it's just the rum making my cheeks burn.
"So, Doctor… Do Time Lords dance?" I say, and he gives me a flat look.
"I have seen thousands of timelines across eons, I am a Time Lord, my species is billions of years old and I have lived 90 decades worth of knowledge and scholasticism…"
I blink, feeling a bit stupid and frivolous.
"Plenty of time for this crazy alien to learn some crazy moves!" He says, grabbing my waist and spinning me around, my dress twirling out around me. The room spins, too.
Okay, so I can't hold my alcohol as well as I'd like to think. So what.
I can hardly believe what I'm seeing. He went from awkward to amazing at the speed of light. He flings us around the room, leading me over and under and around, weaving through and bumping into other couples.
"Doctor, Doctor, hold on!" I laugh as he lifts me up to swing me around. He plants me firmly on my feet, then, and grins at me.
"Some of us are only human. Need a breather," I say, blinking hard as my vision blurs considerably. He seems to notice, and laughs, leading me out of the gaggle of drunken dancers.
"Stay here, don't move, I'm going to go get us a few waters… Assuming they have anything not drowning in alcohol." He says, and starts pushing his way to the bar on the other side of the room.
I move my weight from foot to foot, starting to wish for some nice fuzzy slippers right about now.
A strong hand suddenly grips my arm, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
The Doctor doesn't know his own strength!
But when I turn to scold him for startling me, a face I surely do not recognize is staring at my own, eyes blank through the blur in my vision. It's a man, a tall one, with blonde hair and striking red eyes. He's dressed nicely, but something is off. The cut of the suit is so very modern looking, out of place in this old world.
And red eyes are never a good sign.
"Report. The weapon of mass destruction is primed and secure. Returning to The Revenant."
"Listen here pal. You're going to let go of me or things are going to get real interesting in about five seconds." I say, tripping and slurring over a few of my words, trying to jerk my arm out of his grip. I can feel his fingers leaving bruises.
He says nothing, and begins to walk towards the mahogany doors. His hand doesn't even budge a centimeter when I claw at it with my nails. I yell for the Doctor, and I see a few people being thrust out of the way to reveal a wide-eyed Time Lord. He starts to sprint after us, and when he reaches us, he takes one look at the man's empty red eyes, then dumps both waters on him.
I see a few sparks leap out of the man's nose, and then he focuses his attention on the Doctor. His other freakishly strong hand flashes up to grip the Time Lord's throat, lifting him effortlessly.
"Threat de- detected. Thre- Threat detected." He stutters, and the Doctor tries to pry the man's fingers from around his throat, choking slowly.
"Stop it, just stop it!" I scream, lifting my fist with intent to slugger him so hard, he'll have to let the Doctor go. But there's no need, because as soon as my fist closes, the man is gone. Dissolved into a billion, microscopic, golden particles, floating up to the ceiling. Just like that, the Doctor drops to the floor, and the man is gone.
Everyone in the party lets out a delighted shout, thinking it must be confetti or fireworks of some sort.
"Evy, look at me, are you okay?"
The Doctor is on his feet instantly, checking me for injuries. His eyes narrow upon seeing the bruise blossoming on my arm in the shape of a very large hand.
"I killed him," I whisper, a few tears slipping out from my eyes. When I wipe them away, red stains my hands.
"No, it wasn't a human, not even a life-form. That was a FACE, a robot designed to camouflage itself as the indigenous species. C'mon, we're getting out of here."
"He called me a weapon of mass destruction." I say, more red tears falling, and I duck my head to hide them, hoping no one will notice. The Doctor puts his arm around me, helping to shield me from curious eyes.
"Told you it would uncomplicate itself, doll!" I hear as we push through the mahogany doors, and into the winding halls of the Plaza.