Next chapter's on the 18th of July.
Bill wakes up in a dark and somewhat dusty place.
A wan light comes through the two loft windows above her and she blinks for a second into the haze of dust motes which float in the subtle corridors of light from each. Her brain stalls for a moment, disorientated and trying to figure out where she is- not in her room obviously- nor in the one she had at Monica's.
She remembers the Doctor and danger and sits bolt upright, groaning in pain and immediately collapsing back onto the somewhat hard and lumpy bed that she's lying on as her head shouts at her with what is a mixture of vertigo, nausea, dehydration and actual physical pain. The human squeezes her eyes shut, rubbing at her temples and breathing evenly in an attempt to push through the shock of pain and the ache which takes up the whole of her thought process.
Distantly she is aware of voices, talking, and the smell of dried hay like from that farm she'd stayed at for a school trip when she was a kid where she'd spent the whole time thinking about how pretty some girl's hair was.
Which is not what she should be thinking of right now when she can't even remember what colour her hair had been or her name.
Bill tries opening her eyes again, blinking repeatedly against the migraine which seems to be forming and cursing beneath her breath. As she does the voices become recognisable though not discernable, the Doctor's and Nardole's.
Gradually, and with no small amount of moaning, Bill manages to sit up.
There's a chipped mug of water on the bedside table, a rickety looking thing in a wood as dry and pale as the sheet that had been pulled up over her, and a small wooden bowl with three pills in it, small, round and white. She takes the pills, presuming that they're some kind of painkiller or at least safe enough that the Doctor didn't stop anyone from putting them there, and drinks the water. The mug is heavy and the water is lukewarm but it's good and needed. Her throat feels dry still and she swallows against it repeatedly, trying to sate the dry feeling.
Groggily she slides her legs off the side of the bed and feels a strange weight on the back of her head.
She reaches up, feet on the floor now, and feels a thick towel, tied loosely around the top of her head. Frowning, she removes it.
There's dried blood on the side that was pressed against her head and she tries not to think too much about that and leaves it and the tie on the table, rubbing at the mark which is likely on her forehead, grumbling a little about the mess that the Doctor has got them into this time, because as much as she would like to blame the Mistress she can't really be blamed for the Doctor deciding to land here without looking at the whole situation.
She stands on her own feet and they are steady enough after a moment, though she had to lean on the table, and then the iron bed-frame, for a few seconds longer than she would like.
She makes her way to the door and turns the wooden handle. The catch clicks open and, surprisingly quietly, the door swings out onto a landing above a narrow flight of stairs.
Bill holds the banister tightly with her right hand, left still hanging onto the mug, legs feeling heavy as her boots clunk against the worn stairs.
God- she hopes she doesn't fall.
After what feels like about ten minutes, and was in fact only about two, she reaches the bottom and steps out into the hallway which winds back around the stairs to another set going down. There are five sets of doors on her left and she ignores them, going to the room beneath hers where she thinks the Doctor's voice must have come from.
The entrance is open, doorless, and the room in front of her is far lighter than the hallway, lit by a large window on the left rather than by a small window overlooking the stairs, too high for a view to be had out the other side aside from the weird grey sky.
As she had thought the Doctor is there, pacing as if the room were far bigger than it is and he wasn't having to turn around after only two or three stride and go the other way, along with along with Nardole, who is standing on the right of a soot-stained and empty fireplace, keeping a close eye on the Master who stands at the opposite end from him looking extremely bored, Missy, currently sitting at the table with a only somewhat sub-par cup of tea, Florence, sitting beside the Mistress with her own cup of tea, and a strong looking woman who sits opposite them.
Bill presumes it's her house.
Florence looks to her briefly, hands clasped around a similar mug to Bill's, and the woman she doesn't know's eyes follow.
"Oh- you're awake- good." she says, making movement as if to stand, and then, "come in. You should stay off your feet. I'm Hazran by the way- I fixed you up." Bill steps in, mind too focused on pain and the dryness of her throat for uncertainty.
The room appears to be some kind of kitchen and her eyes are instantly drawn to the sink.
"Uh- thanks, Hazran," she replies automatically and then gestures to the sink with the mug she's holding, "do you mind?" She asks, looking at Hazran who nods and smiles in a way which suggests that she is not practised at it.
"Yes, go ahead, please." Hazran says, making no further effort to get up, "the tap's a bit stiff but it should run through clean after a few seconds." She says.
Bill is not very alert at the moment, what with the pain, the disorientation and the dehydration, but she can still feel the Doctor's eyes on her as if she's about to disappear at any moment. Ignoring it for now, because she knows he'll get to her when he does, she walks over to the sink, checks the taps briefly to find the cold one and fills the mug again.
She drains it once, thankful for the way it helps her clear her throat, looking out the window in front of it, the biggest that she's seen so far, which looks out over the fields. The glass itself is fogged with grime on the outside but she thinks that the view would be washed out anyway even if it was as clear as it was new.
She fills her mug again, watching the sickly light catch the dust motes as they drift in the air. There are some children playing outside, clothes patched and re-patched but otherwise as normal as any kid she'd see on the street in 2017.
She drinks the second slower, filtering out the conversation behind her as she looks at the sink, the slight grime around the edges where it is set into the wood, gouges and chips out of it smoothed by so much time and so many hands. The metal draining board set next to it is similarly dented and scratched but as clean as it can be. A teatowel hangs on a rail below it.
She fills her mug again and turns back to the room as a whole.
The Master looks as bored as ever, Missy is picking at her nails, Florence is gazing through her and out the window and the Doctor is talking, Hazran and Nardole his begrudging audience.
Bill eschews the wooden chairs around the table in favour of the old couch in the corner, leather thin and dull from years of use but still surprisingly comfortable. There are sagging bookshelves behind it set into an alcove in the wall and dried herbs and spices hanging from the ceiling. It's cozy and has the added advantage of putting Nardole between her and the Master, who had seemed very set on murdering her not too long ago.
He probably wouldn't be an effective barrier or do much about it but he is at the very least a lot more annoying than Bill and so much more likely to be the Master's first target and give her a chance to get away if she has to.
Bill tunes back in to what the Doctor is saying.
"Anyway- the cybermen are a huge threat, as you know, and their patterns are going to change now. Now they aren't just looking to 'fix'-" the Doctor spits the word, fingers drawing air-quotes around it, "- people. They're on recruitment and everyone is a candidate. We would have been fine if someone hadn't interrupted the connection when we were rewriting their code but I suppose that's just what we're dealing with now." The Time Lord snarks, pointedly looking at the Master who looks up, sneering.
"Oh, shut up, old man. I was doing just fine here until you showed up." The other Time Lord says, kicking at the side of the fireplace like a particularly grumpy child.
"Oh you shut up- you know he's right." The Mistress scoffs, kicking her chair back and keeping herself on the edge of balance with the toe of her right boot hooked around a chair leg.
Hazran, wizely, bites her tongue and says nothing.
"You know that it'd all collapse in on you eventually- it always does." The Time Lady taunts, lips curling in something between pleasure and irritation. Her eyes flash as she looks at him and the Time Lord screws up his face for a moment, folding his arms.
"Clearly being a woman has made your head go funny." He says.
"Clearly being an idiot has made all your plans fail." Missy retorts.
"Outside if you're going to fight!" Interrupts Hazran, finally re-taking control of her kitchen.
The Master and the Mistress glare at each other but no more words pass between them for the moment.