Next chapter's on the 2nd of August.
Bill steps forwards, a little closer to Missy.
"You know that we aren't his assistants, right?" She asks, seeming to believe that the Time Lady is truly unaware of that.
The Mistress looks back, folding her hands to her hips and sighing.
"Right, right. So- what does he call you then?" She asks teasingly, "Companions? Pets?" The Mistress pauses between each word.
"Snacks?" Missy suggests, looking over the three of them. Her eyes linger on Florence who almost laughs as she watches the mirth shining in them. Her smile must show because she sees the Mistress' eyes drop to her lips briefly and a quirk of her own lips.
Nardole raises his eyebrows and Bill steps forwards.
"Normally-" She begins to say, cut off by an alarm, somewhat quiet, cutting through the room, red lights turning on and off. They send beams across the room as they rotate.
Florence feels tension rise in her spine and almost reaches across to Missy, clinging instead to the back of a chair.
"Someone's watching." The Mistress says. Her voice hitches slightly in shock but she smiles regardless, anxiety fraying the edges as she gently touches the tip of her parasol to the metal grating and fakes dancing.
"Well. That's. It's quite a good beat really, isn't it?" She says, not meeting Florence's eyes.
The human grabs her arm this time, wrapping her fingers around her wrist and squeezing.
This is normal procedure. They've done this before. They've been in similar situations before. It is going to be okay.
Nardole huffs behind them.
"Yeah. Right. Maybe we should be moving on?" He grumbles.
There's a brief pause as Missy hums a little, nodding and leaning towards a display.
"Of course, why didn't you say earlier?" She murmurs, typing nonsense as she does.
"Normally he calls us friends." Bill finally completes her sentence.
The Time Lady sighs and shares a tired glance with Florence.
"Oh, Doctor. Think of the age gap." She whines, only half-joking as she plops her parasol on a chair and starts to unpin her hat.
"Stop mucking about and concentrate." Comes sharply through the earbuds and Florence scowls, pulling hers out and putting it in her pocket.
She presumes that he says more words because she can hear it, tinny and incomprehensible, and Nardole heads over to a computer station, sighing heavily.
"On it, sir."
Bill rolls her eyes and walks over to Florence.
"He wants you to put your earbud back in." She says, apologetic.
"Then he can be nicer and speak quieter." Florence says as Missy nettles him further.
"Time Lords are friends with each other, dear." The Time Lady says patiently, "Everything else is cradle-snatching."
There's a pause while she fixes her hair in the reflection off of one of the displays
"Well. You know why that's different." Missy says, rolling her eyes at the ceiling as her arms cross over her chest.
Florence presumes that they're talking about her.
"It's a big one. Ship reads as four hundred miles long and a hundred miles wide." Nardole contributes.
"How old are you?" Bill asks, sidling up to the other human.
"According to my passport- about thirty-four." Florence says non-commitaly.
"And not according to your passport?" She prods, brows furrowed, "Just because. For her to talk about you like that you must have been together for a long time- unless you grew up with her."
"I was born and raised on Earth." Florence reassures her, "I don't know though. You tend to stop keeping track eventually."
Bill winces and looks up and Florence does too.
"It's heading towards a black hole." Nardole says, looking far too calm.
The emptiness above them shines with tendrils of light slipping around the edges, a burning vortex around nothing.
Florence has never been so close to one before.
She looks to Missy.
"No." She says, sounding tired. An element of fear surrounds the word as it emanated outwards from her mind. Florence reaches forwards with her own.
Bill winces again, hand going to her headpiece.
"It was heading towards a black hole, until somebody noticed." The Mistress strides around the room, eyes focused intently on the view above them. There's worry in her tone, the slight breathlessness of it.
"Now they're trying to reverse away from it." She looks away for a moment, trying to locate something and then gestures to a small screen propped up on the outside of a pillar.
"Engines are on a reverse thrust, see?" The Time Lady says.
Nardole makes a noise of satisfaction.
"Oh. Well. It's succeeding." He says calmly, turning back to the screen he's been working at.
"Very, very slowly." The Mistress echoes him, paling a little as she turns away from them all.
"Explains the distress call, I guess." Bill says, gesturing loosely to the glass ceiling. An element of fear seems to be crashing down over her too and her tone is flat.
Florence prods at the Time Lady's mind and finds it sluggish, confused. She hums in response to something.
Then one of the largest screens in the room fizzes, image blinking open and coming to life.
"Hello? Hello?" The person on the screen asks, looking over them all but apparently not seeing them.
"Who's there? Hello?" He asks again, "Please report status."
Florence practically feels the Mistress brighten at another person to perform to.
"Oh. Hello." The Time Lady purrs, "What do we have here?" She leans forwards, towards the screen.
"You're probably handsome, aren't you?" The Mistress croons, folding her arms over the top of a chair, "Well, congratulations on your relative symmetry." She tells them.
The person's eyebrows, or rather lack of them, furrow.
"Who are you?" There's tension in their tone.
"Well." She says, pushing aside the boiling concern from how close they are to a black hole, "I am that mysterious adventurer in all of time and space, known only-" She pauses, arm raising to bring awareness to the tardis still in the corner, "-as Doctor Who."
"And these three are my disposables, Exposition, Comic Relief and Adult Supervision." The Mistress waves her arm over the three non Time Lords despite the fact that the person on screen doesn't seem to be able to see them.
"We are not functions." Nardole complains, scandalised behind his desk.
The Time Lady sighs, rolling her eyes.
"Darling, those were genders." She says sharply, meeting Florence's gaze.
The woman frowns. Missy's expression shifts for a moment and she swallows under the sound of the man telling everyone to stay put through the speakers.
Apology and anxiety bloom against Florence's mind and she accepts them even as the Mistress keeps moving, not missing a beat as they communicate between themselves and the world.
"He likes me. So exciting." She play acts, grinning at the screen.
"I'm coming through." The person says, voice somewhat gentle, concern ringing through it.
The image cuts out.
"Hurry, my stallion!" Missy cries out, waving an arm over her head, "And if I'm in the shower, just bring me some beans on toast." She sighs, the back of one palm to her forehead as she pretends to swoon.
Nardole makes a noise of disgust.
"Mistress!" Florence hisses, knocking her arm.
The Time Lady pouts for a moment but the expression drops and she takes her human's hand, squeezing it tightly. Her pulses are racing.
"That's roughly human flirting, isn't it?" She asks, looking between the two humans in the room.
Bill is blinking in severe confusion, mouth opening to say words which don't quite escape. Florence hits her arm again lightly, a warning.
"I'm sorry." She murmurs, barely able to keep the grin from her face.
Silence falls again as Nardole keeps looking through the ship logs and the Mistress strides from terminal to terminal, trying to look busy and remain somewhat calm despite their impending dooms swirling above their heads.
The alarm, almost forgotten, has stopped whirring now. Most likely turned off by whoever that was on the screen.
"So. Why do you keep calling yourself Doctor Who?" Bill asks Missy, leaning over a metal railing which separates the two layers of this room.
The Mistress looks up, almost thankful for the question.
"I'm pretending to be him." She says quickly, "It's the point of this exercise. Be good like the Doctor, be free to do what I want again." Her hands gesture from one side to the other as if she's carrying a small box.
There's a pause and then Nardole, Bill and the Mistress all grimace in unison.
"What-" Florence asks, but off by the Mistress' scandalised; "Are you eating?"
There's another pause and Bill scoffs.
"Are you really eating while we're out here risking our-"
"Yeah? Well don't test me while you're eating crisps." The Mistress whines, "It's not fair. If you're going to eat crisps during the test you should at least bring enough for everyone." The Time Lady complains.
"I thought he was called the Doctor?" Bill asks.
The Mistress sighs heavily, as if the whole thing is a drain on her.