Episode 07: Dancing in Versailles, in 1689
The explosion echoed loudly in Eroica's ears, one horrific roar against the inside of his skull as the world shuddered and split apart around him. He felt the ground torn out from under his feet, the sky somersaulted and there was, amidst the glaring, suffocating heat, and the blinding wash of pain, the loud thud of his own body hitting the ground, and then darkness.
Darkness.
He fought against it, even as his lungs were burning and every inch of skin ached. Hovering, on the thin and shaking bridge between consciousness and dark oblivion, the sound of dirt and rubble falling back down in a rain of debris washed over him, but none of it touched him.
For one horrifying moment, Dorian wondered if he hadn't died and left his body, or was suffering some sort of bizarre brain damage-induced sensation, and it was this momentary wash of fear that finally pried his eyes open--
To see Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach leaning over him, the Major's long raven hair spilling over his broad shoulders, large hands placed firmly on the ground at either side of Dorian's head. The thief felt his heart catch in his chest for just a second, staring up into the burning green eyes of the man above him. On top of him. Oh my...
And he just wouldn't be Eroica if he didn't offer the Major a coy wink and, smiling, say: "Normally, I prefer to be the top, not the bottom, but for you, darling, I'll make an exception!"
As he might have predicted, the Major stared at him with his blank horrified-petrified expression...but this time the Major didn't start shouting and swearing at him. The Major didn't even move. But stared at him like...like...
Dorian blinked.
Klaus swallowed. "You...you..."
"Pervert?" Eroica supplied helpfully, a little worried by the Major's stunned expression and the fact that Klaus still hadn't moved... "Major?"
The ground rumbled sharply beneath them, the ruins of the building trembling, splintered piles of mortar and burnt, toppled columns sliding further into the mess and crunching thickly in on each other. A dull buzzing roar began to fill the air, growing louder until it became a deafening wash rolling over them. Heavy winds began to push against them, blowing the Major's hair back, and causing thin streams of dirt to whip through the air, cutting thin slivers across their skin.
Klaus pushed himself away from Dorian, stumbling to his feet and brushing the dirt from his uniform. He gazed intently up at the dark black night sky.
"What is it now?" the thief asked, propping himself up on one elbow, still too shaken from the explosion to stand up entirely.
"Are you two alright?" The Doctor's voice called to them through the shadows, hollering over the roar that had surrounded them. A moment later, Dorian watched as Rose and the alien emerged from the surrounding darkness. The damaged K-9 unit had been transferred to Rose's arms, and the Doctor approached them with a deeply concerned expression. "You're not hurt, are you?" he shouted, wind pushing back at him, throwing Rose's hair into a wild torrent around her pale face.
"Unh..." Eroica groaned, wincing at bruises he could feel forming along his back and shoulders. His spine felt as though it had been snapped in two, and he was relatively certain, even without looking, that this particular black catsuit would never be suitable for the light of day-er, night--again.
"We have more important things to worry about," the Major interrupted that train of thought sharply, still refusing to tear his eyes away from the night sky. "What is that?"
The Doctor stared up at the sky, his brow creasing as a frown deepened on his lips. "You notice how we can't see the stars?" he shouted over the roar and the winds. "I'd say that's a spaceship hovering over us!"
"Not more Daleks!" Eroica cried, pushing himself, with some effort, from the ground, wincing at the pain in his limbs as he forced them to move. "It can't be!"
"It can be!" the Doctor shouted back, "But it could also be the Roktarr military coming to the Renell's rescue."
"You mean you can't tell!" Dorian shouted, the wind whipping his long golden curls into his mouth as he tried to speak.
"I don't have preternatural night vision, you know!"
"Doctor!" Rose called suddenly, shifting K-9 in her arms and grabbing at the pocket of her sweater.
"What?"
"I feel something--the TARDIS key!"
Dorian instantly reached for his own pocket and fished out the small silver key. It shone and burned hot in his hand. "Does this mean...?"
"The TARDIS!" the Doctor exclaimed. He turned to Klaus and Dorian, gesturing for them to follow. "Come on, now's our chance!"
"What?" Dorian exclaimed, looking at the Doctor in surprise. "But what about the Daleks? What about the Renell?"
The dark sky above them split open with the blinding white search lights, beams cut down, glowing circles of light revealing the tattered ruins of the city around them. In the far distance, Dorian thought he could make out the rebels scrambling to take cover, to defend themselves, regarding the new invaders with confusion and uncertainty. Explosions carried in the far distance, the smell of smoke laced the air and the dull whine of missiles firing echoed across the ruins. The fighting continued without them, the Dalek invaders continued to poor in, unwilling to relent unless they were all defeated.
"You don't understand!" the Doctor screamed at him, over the whine and explosion of bombs and the collapse of distant ruins. "We shouldn't even be here--this is somewhere in the past, something that's already happened-and since the Time Wars--we just have to get out of here while we can!"
"But you can't just abandon these people!" Dorian shouted, breaking away from the Doctor as he stepped towards him. "They need us! They need YOU! How can you abandon them!"
He watched as the Doctor's face changed, the colour drained from his skin, the eyes darkened into shadows of burning coal, the mouth became a firm, brittle wire. For a moment, Eroica felt himself startled into silence, the change so abrupt, so swift...so complete.
"You don't understand. You...can't understand. Either the Renell will be aided by the Roktarr and fight off their enemies...or they will be conquered and enslaved by the Daleks. The Dalek armies enslaved thousands of worlds across the universe. It is history. You can not change it...no matter how much you..."
Rose stood beside the Doctor, still cradling K-9 against her chest. She struggled to place a hand on the Time Lord's shoulder, shifting the robot dog in her arms. Her soft brown eyes were filled with pain and sadness, and a sort of empathy--understanding--where Dorian could not understand.
"You can't change the past," she whispered. "It's one of the-one of the rules, I guess. You just can't--" her voice choked with emotion then, eyes clouded with tears so that she turned her head, looked away, as the Doctor continued, his tone and his expression far graver than Dorian had seen before.
"I tried long ago to just go back, before the Daleks were even created, and stop them. It was a...a mission given to me by the Time Lords. I went back, to the very genesis of the hideous creatures-but I-it couldn't be done! It could not be undone, it just had to be...just is..." he looked away, his expression sombre, worse than sombre, twisted with grief, wretched. "Do you think, since the Time Wars, since losing my...do you think I never wanted to go back? To change the outcome of those final days of war?"
Dorian stared at the Doctor in disbelief, he could feel the other man's pain...he could see the inner turmoil reflected in every taught line of the weary face. But he couldn't--couldn't--shut out the screams of the Renell in the distance, the explosions, the harsh burning crackle of a blaze of fire. "But they...they need you...Doctor..."
The familiar whirring buzz of the TARDIS' signal began to ring throughout the air beside them, and the pulsing resonating light of the blue police public call box softly began to shimmer in and out of reality.
In the background, bombs erupted, the earth trembled, fires roared and voices screamed, cried, in agony, in terror, in pain. The Doctor turned away.
Eroica stared at him, blue eyes wide, he felt tears stinging in them despite himself, his hands shaking at the horrific noises exploding behind them. "You can't-you CAN'T abandon these people! Doctor, you CAN'T!" he heard his voice shaking, threatening to crack as he continued and shaken, forced himself to stop, heart pounding, and turned back to the fiery inferno that was rapidly engulfing the ruined city.
Lights of lasers and missiles flashed, fires crackled in empty windows and somewhere, distantly, he could still hear the harsh mechanical voices crying, without mercy or passion: "Exterminate! Exterminate! EXTERMINATE!"
And there were people--hundreds of people--innocent people--who--who were-
He felt a strong hand close around his wrist, and turned to see Klaus pull him firmly inside the TARDIS' blue wooden doors.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
It was dark within the TARDIS. Cold and dark, and strangely, strangely unsettling. The Doctor could not remember ever feeling so disconcerted within the safe walls of his oldest companion, but the floor beneath his feet creaked, and behind him, Rose, holding K-9, was staying back, crowded next to the Major and Eroica, and none of them seemed willing to move forwards.
Eroica...the thief's anger at him, hurt, was evident and raw, and it cut deep into his heart because it was the same anger and disgust he felt at himself. He felt the bile rising sickeningly at the back of his throat, remembering the screams of the Renell at the sight of the spaceship which had most likely not been their saviours, but...
So this is what I have come to, is it?
Blast it all! I was never meant to be a bloody hero. Just some sorry bloke who never made his way home until it was too late.
So why...so why did he feel so awful about it?
"So...you're back."
Instantly, the TARDIS flooded with harsh white light. The Doctor raised a hand to his face to shield his eyes, grimacing as he waited for his sight to adjust to the near-blinding glare. Behind him, he heard Rose gasp, and K-9, damaged in her arms, made weak whirring sounds of protest and alarm.
"Who are you?" he demanded, unable to keep the anger from his voice. "What do you want?" he cried, images of the Daleks and his companions placed so squarely in the jaws of death replaying in his mind. Entire armies manipulated into chasing them, from the KGB and NATO on Earth, to Ristead's Spartens near Luinway, all across the universe...and his TARDIS, stolen, right from under him..."Who are you and what do you want?"
The lights faded slightly, allowing the raw outlines of the TARDIS' interior to form, and a man standing near the controls, tall, dressed in dark clothing, he leaned back against the operating station casually, but with a rigid alertness simmering beneath the calm exterior. The Doctor could sense the other man's hostility, even though the face was still blurred by the harsh glow of the lights.
"Come on, who are you?" he demanded. "Who is it that's been chasing us and torturing us and trying to kill us from one end of the universe to the other? Who even has that sort of power? What do you want?"
The figure was silent for a moment, the head turned away slightly, as though to hide a smirk, the shoulders, blurry outlines, trembled slightly. And then the lights faded, and the figure at the control panel turned to face them.
The Doctor heard the surprised gasps behind him. The startled cries, the sound of the Major taking one step forwards, and then stopping in confusion. And the Doctor, he just-he just stood there. Eyes wide, mouth agape, staring at the man who had been manipulating them, chasing them, hunting them...staring at...himself.
"You seemed to have forgotten how horrible the Daleks really are," the other Doctor said bitterly, his face, the same face as his own, only somehow colder, the mouth twisted into a bitter snarl, the eyes gleaming darkly. "I thought it would be best to remind you."
"What...what are you...you can't be..." he stumbled over the words, barely hearing them as they tumbled from his lips. He saw the impossible--"This is forbidden-the Laws of Time--"
The other Doctor smiled ruefully. "The Laws of Time? The Laws of Time? And who is going to uphold those laws now? Now that the Time Lords have all been...now that Gallifrey...now that they're all gone."
He felt the weight of it sink into him, the darkness running in a chill river down his spine. He couldn't look at the other Doctor, at himself, he could barely look at the faintly pulsing TARDIS walls. "All of this time...I sensed another Time Lord...I thought someone had survived..."
"No one survived."
"I thought...you wanted to rule the universe or..."
"Don't be trite, now," his other self smiled, there was no trace of kindness in it. "What would we do with a universe that betrayed us? Watched our people die? Our planet...our history...the Time Wars should have turned out differently. You know they should have!"
The Time Lord felt his chest tighten. Every dark thought he had ever had, since those horrible battles, since that eternity of explosions and screams and chaos. The harsh screams of "EXTERMINATE!" as the Dalek war ships surrounded them. The terrible, grand, blazing end. The end of a planet he had never really agreed with, but in the end, had been home. And he'd watched it end. He'd watched a world end.
Every dark thought now...
"No."
"What?"
"You hear me, I said no!" he forced his gaze back up, staring himself in the eye, and repressed a cold shudder at what he saw. "No. I won't--I can't turn into you."
His other self smirked. "I'm afraid the evidence doesn't support that claim, now, does it?"
"But do you--why are you doing this?"
"I came for this..." the Doctor that was not the Doctor grinned, though it was nothing like the amicable manic grin he was used to, but one twisted and darkened by a dull gleam in the darkened eyes. He turned back to the control station, and lifted the Meren's Solar Crystal. "The energy to power an entire world...this much energy, to power my own TARDIS..."
"But what--"
"I need to go back," the Doctor snapped, his eyes fixing back on himself, determined, cold, but still fiercely intelligent, fiercely there. "I need to change it. Stop it. Rewrite it."
He felt his own eyes growing wide at the realization. His most secretly harboured dreams, desires. Forbidden. Impossible. "You can't...you can't change the past. You can't rewrite history! Not the Time Wars, if you try that than--"
"Time itself will be compressed. Folded in upon itself. The threads that hold together the fabric of the universe will not just be unravelled--they will be torn." He heard his own voice say. Coldly, unemotionally. Cruelly.
So this is what I will come to? A mad man. Evil, in my own right.
And somewhere, in his memory, the harsh mechanical voice echoed: "You would make a good Dalek."
"Hold on--hold on a second here!"
The Doctor snapped out of his reverie at the familiar voice. He heard the footsteps echoing across the TARDIS' floor, and saw Rose move past him, confronting...him. K-9 had been set aside and she stood, long golden hair shining in the lights of the control room, her back straight and her head held high, never intimidated or afraid, just proud and arrogant and brave and--Rose--his Rose.
He watched himself regard her, he felt himself rather numb and empty and transparent, like a ghost, barely there at all. Rose continued to speak, perhaps she had been speaking more, and he had not heard it. "--You can't be doing this. You know changing the past doesn't work! You were there when--when I tried--for my Dad and you--" her voice caught on this, and even though she wasn't facing him, the Doctor could see her face, full of emotion, pained. "You saw what happened then! The Earth was almost destroyed because I tried to change the fate of one ordinary man!"
"Rose love," he watched his other self lean forwards, capturing her chin with his hands and tilting her face up to his own. He felt himself sickened. "I know what will happen to the universe. I just don't care."
And then he turned from her, walked past his own stunned self, past the Earl and the Major who had been watching in a sort of transfixed and bewildered horror, to the doors of the TARDIS, where he gave them one last salute with the Solar Crystal in hand, and vanished.
The Doctor stared blankly at the control panel before him for a moment, before falling against the familiar desk, unable to believe what had happened. He felt Rose standing beside him, looking at him, her large brown eyes mixed with sympathy, and horror, and confusion.
Confusion. Oh God, they would have to reinvent the word, after this.
Without thinking, he grabbed a random lever on the TARDIS and pushed it down. Hard.
The time ship gave a shuddering jolt, the tall cylindrical column in the centre pulsing and gyrating as the engines stirred. "We have to...go somewhere," he muttered, sparing a glance over his shoulder to see Rose, Dorian, and Klaus all staring at him mutely. Their expressions were alarmingly alike. He felt the frown deepen on his face.
Don't look at me like that. I'm not mad.
When the TARDIS came to a halt, he gestured for the doors without even turning around. "Go, go on. I took you somewhere nice--wait, better get costumes first, wouldn't want to cause a riot."
"Wait--you mean we're somewhere in the past again?" Rose asked, looking to the doors and back to the Doctor in confusion. "But what about--"
"Just go for now, alright!" he snapped, surprised at the bitterness in his own voice and looked to Rose apologetically, only to find her eyes on him were already knowing and sympathetic. "I-I- need to repair K-9 and do some work on the TARDIS. Especially after he--" I? "-was here mucking around with it. It'd just bore the lot of you, go and have fun. Enjoy the aesthetics of the..." he paused to peer at the monitor flickering before him, "the seventeenth century. Earth. Hm, looks like France. You lot ought to have a fantastic time."
There was an almost audible beat of silence, before Eroica repeated, "The seventeenth century? France?"
Rose and Major Eberbach both looked to the earl for some explanation. Eroica sighed. "France was the major power in Europe, ruled by King Louis XIV, the Sun King. He built Versailles-a great golden palace in the centre of France, as a symbol of his power and influence."
The Doctor watched as the Major and Rose both turned to regard Eroica for a moment, and their thoughts were almost audible: what do we do now? Just go on our merry way? Pretend like nothing happened? Ignore the...whatever that was?
The Doctor sighed deeply, and turned back to the TARDIS controls, bracing his hands against the familiar counter and wishing...he didn't know what. He needed time to think. "Just go...please. Have a fantastic time. Rose, show Major Eberbach and Lord Gloria where the costumes are, won't you?"
There was another stretch of silence in which his three companions simply stared at him like he had sprouted another head, and the Doctor felt himself strangely unsettled. An impossible paradox, his own possible insanity? But it wasn't...something didn't make sense.
Across the control room, Rose turned to look at Dorian and the two seemed to come to some sort of silent agreement. They moved through one of the many doorways, towards the costume room if the TARDIS was feeling cooperative. The Major, however, remained where he was, regarding the Doctor with an increasingly suspicious expression engraved upon his stern face.
The silence became almost painful, before the Major said slowly, in a low and deadly serious tone: "You and I both know...that man could not possibly have been you."
"Well, it's nice to know someone has faith in me," the Doctor replied, forcing a grin.
"Do not be an idiot," the German replied coldly. "It is simply impossible. The paradox...if you crossed your own timeline, you would have erased yourself, would you have not? You would have to exist at one point..."
"But I don't know how else to explain any of this!" he growled, throwing his hands up in frustration.
The Major was, in the mean time, lighting a cigarette and appeared to be contemplating their situation. "Well, in any case," he said finally, "we must repair the TARDIS before anything else..." he took a drag off the cigarette and then added, as an afterthought, "And I suppose that mutt as well."
"What do you mean 'we?'" the Doctor regarded him suspiciously. "You don't know anything about the TARDIS! Or K-9's circuitry, for that matter and I--"
The Major settled that argument with a glare.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"The costumes are this way..." Rose called over her shoulder, as she and the Earl made their way through the TARDIS' long hallways. "Let's see...past the library, oh but that doesn't look like it's the library today...hm...I could have sworn the kitchen was just..."
Eroica walked beside her, brushing out his now rather tangled golden curls with a brush he had procured from somewhere, glancing at his well-beyond ruined black suit in disdain. The material was shredded, drenched with dirt and blood from wounds that the Doctor had healed, but had still left bloody marks on his clothing. Even the gold bracelets that jangled on his wrists were caked in mud and dirt. "I think I need a shower before we do any more adventuring..." the thief sighed.
"I know what you mean, I could use a bit of nap, myself," Rose yawned, but stopped when they came to the costume room. It was lined with racks upon racks of clothing. Doorways to numerous additional closets appeared along the walls around them, and it was all organized in alphabetical order by the name of the location, and then the time period for which the costume could be worn. There was plenty of apparel available for both men and women and in an incredible assortment of sizes.
For a moment, Dorian merely stared at the expanse of costumes laid out before them, and then he turned to her slowly, and asked: "Am I dreaming?"
She couldn't help but laugh. "A time-travelling alien, a laser-firing robot dog, and a telepathic space ship and you don't bat an eye, but some nice clothes--"
"Some clothes?" Eroica repeated, casting her a sideways glance. "You could dress a country with this!" He walked over to a rack of costumes and began looking through them, they were all brightly coloured, fantastically designed with layers upon layers of elaborate gauzy fabrics.
Rose shook her head with a bemused grin and headed for the "Earth" section, looking for "France." When she found it, it was a matter of sorting through racks of clothing until she came to the seventeenth century. "Oh my God," she choked, staring at the mess of lace, the frilly and enormous ribbons and bows that she pulled off the shelf. "I actually have to wear this?" she laughed.
"No, love," Eroica said, having looked up at her sudden exclamation. "That's a man's costume. This one's for you." He pulled a long and very heavy-looking gown from the rack. It was comprised of layers of long skirts, the shimmering silver material pooling in his hands and draping across the floor. She stared at it in disbelief. Sure, it was pretty...but...a corset?
"I'm not wearing that!" she exclaimed, unable to contain her smile.
"Yes you are! You're grinning as madly as the Doctor!" Eroica teased, thrusting the gown into her arms.
A few minutes later, the two were sitting together, shifting through a stack of boxes of accessories, containing everything from shoes, to ribbons, to bracelets and necklaces of genuine gold, to fake flowers Rose thought would look nice done up in her hair.
"I wonder what the Doctor will think when he sees me in this?" Rose mused aloud, holding the shimmering gown before her and studying it in a long mirror. "The last time he saw me in a dress..." she threw Dorian a glance over her shoulder, unable to stifle a giggle. "The look on his face was priceless!"
Dorian momentarily looked up from the mess of red ribbon he was picking his way through, smiling a bit slyly. "I knew it!"
"What? Knew what?" Rose asked, turning around and looking at him with an inscrutable expression, somewhere between annoyance, perplexity and fright.
"Nothing..." the Earl murmured, finally pulling apart two long pieces of ribbon that had been tangled together and winding the strands absently around his fingers.
"No, tell me!" she demanded, suddenly unnerved. The Earl looked at her evenly. It made her nervous.
"You're in love with him, aren't you?" he asked. "You're head over heels in love with the Doctor. Don't give me any of that nonsense about having a 'boyfriend' back home or that 'age difference' guff, you're in love with him, plain and simple." So saying, the Earl placed the mess of ribbon down neatly in his lap and gave her an even gaze, which was a little unsettling coming from someone who, in her experience, was so rarely serious. It suddenly seemed as though he could see right through her and was picking out all of her secrets.
"Umm..." she stared back at him with wide eyes, and an expression she feared was not nearly as blank as she would have liked. She could already feel the heat rushing to her face and turned away, unable to keep from smiling, besides the fact that it really wasn't funny at all. "Bloody hell..." she choked, feeling tears pricking her eyes even as her lips were pulled into a smile she could no longer hide. I don't know whether to laugh, or to cry. "Is it that obvious, then? Is it-is it the hand holding? The hugging?"
"It's the way you look at him," Eroica replied simply, picking one of the plastic flowers out of the box of assorted accessories and twirling it between his long, slender thief's fingers. "I'm all too used to unrequited love, my dear."
Now she did laugh. "What? You and that horrible Major? My God, that man's wound tighter than a-"
"Wire rope," the thief finished with a grin. But there was a pained look for a moment flitting through the blue eyes. "But honestly, Rose, it's far from hopeless with you and the Doctor."
"What do you mean! I'm his companion, and he's--he's--"
"An alien?"
"The Doctor."
Dorian sighed, and Rose crossed back to the bench where he was sitting and sat down beside him, the gown pooling in her lap. The two regarded one another for a long, winsome moment. "At least he'll admit to being your friend," the thief said finally, turning back to the ribbons in his lap. "That's something, isn't it? And you get to be with him, by his side, through everything."
She smiled. "But you get to be with the Major too, don't you? I sort of got the impression that you two were a team."
"An unwilling partnership, on his part, though. Oh, I adore every moment I spend with him, but I usually get little more than curses and a bruised jaw for my efforts."
He laughed, but it was a quiet sound, and Rose sighed, giving him a sympathetic look. "What a sad pair we make," she smiled, wiping the stubborn tears from her eyes as they laughed.
"Never matter," Eroica told her, jumping to his feet and smoothing out the fine white shirt of ruffles and lace he had pilfered from the clothing racks. "I know!" he turned on her with a mischievous smile and sparkling eyes. "The Sun King held many royal balls at Versailles. Elegance and beauty were considered of the utmost importance among nobility..."
"So you're saying we should go and enjoy the ball?" Rose asked, standing up, the dress clutched triumphantly in her hands. "I think you're right!"
"Not only that," Eroica grinned slyly. "I say we get a dance out of those two workaholics in the control room."
She laughed, unable to hide her delight. "We'll get them to dance," she agreed. "Or die trying."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The Doctor was, meanwhile, hunched over the TARDIS control panel, where he had torn loose one of the many circuitry boards and was busy reworking the system with his Sonic Screwdriver in hand. The Major had removed one of the many panels from around the control station and was lying on his back, working on the collection of wires and cables above his head. Surprisingly, the German seemed to have some idea what he was doing. More than, say, the average human would have when faced with technology of the fifth dimension.
Looking up at the centre column of the many-sided console, the Doctor frowned and slammed the circuit board back into place without having changed much. The Sonic Screwdriver clattered along the edge of the console and promptly dropped off the side, only to be snatched out of the air by Major Eberbach, who continued on with whatever he was doing, without so much as a glance at the Time Lord.
The Doctor sighed irritably and leaned against the console, massaging his temples with one hand. Everything had been so chaotic lately. Well, granted everything was, generally speaking, chaotic in his life, but this was turning out to be something else altogether.
"I miss the old days!" he said suddenly. "Travelling from world to world, getting mixed up in the petty problems of some monarchy or whatnot...fishing."
He looked over at the Major for some response, but the officer was absorbed in his work, and did not even pause to give the Doctor a disgusted scowl. With a shake of his head, the Doctor turned to K-9. The little dog-shaped automaton was lying on one of the work benches around the console, his circuit board removed, with loose bits and pieces that had fallen off since the Dalek battle scattered about.
Behind him, he heard the Major slide out from under the console and stand. "You can fix that bloody thing, can't you?" he asked, his voice the perpetual growl the Doctor had grown used to, although...
The Time Lord turned to the Major with a look of some surprise. "Well, I am brilliant. But I hadn't been expecting you to care much about what happened to my dog, either way, Major."
Klaus scowled at him darkly. "That is not a dog, it is a robot."
"A mobile self-powered computer, actually," the Doctor corrected, taking his Sonic Screwdriver back from the Major and turning to the workbench. "But he's also my dog. So, if you don't mind..." he stopped suddenly, placing the screwdriver down next to the inanimate K-9 and turning back to the Major. "Oh I get it...this is because Dorian was so upset, isn't it?"
He had the amusement of watching the German's face change several angry colours, the hands clench into shaking fists, and the military-green eyes positively glow with outrage, before the bellowing began. "I care nothing about that verdammt idiot! That perverted faggot! That bloody lunatic!"
"No?" the Doctor asked, raising his eyebrows with a look of innocent confusion. "Really? Well then, why don't we get back to-"
"He is utterly irresponsible and frivolous! Nothing more than a child!"
"Well-" the Doctor attempted, turning back to the major with a rather confused look, only to be cut off again.
"And utterly mad! He's almost been killed countless times chasing after me the way he does! The bloody mad idiot! The first time...we were on a ship that had been taken by terrorists and I told him he was just a thief, it wasn't his domain! And then in Greece, when his car was forced off the cliff and he was almost killed, I told him 'This is what happens when you get involved with me!' he was lucky to be alive! Every time I tell him to stay out of the way--but does he ever listen?" By this point, the Major was smoking furiously, and pacing back and forth, he seemed to have forgotten the Doctor altogether. "--No! Of course he never listens! The damn imbecile! The fool! Did you know--" and here, he swung around to face the Doctor so suddenly that the Time Lord found himself quite startled by the penetrating and furious glare that was settled upon him. "--did you know the idiot actually placed himself between me and KGB operatives armed with machine guns? He is completely mad! I mean, what is so God-damn special about me that he has to follow me around like--like--like--"
"...like Mary's little lamb?" the Doctor supplied helpfully.
Well.
How was he supposed to know that was the wrong choice of words?
The Major turned on him with a look of absolute fury, the green eyes livid raging fires, and Klaus began to shout random phrases in German, stopping and sputtering, apparently too angry to form much of a sentence.
"It sounds to me like he cares about you," the Doctor said, turning back to K-9.
He could feel the Major's glare on the back of his neck. "That isn't...no, he is just a hedonistic pervert wanting to satisfy his perverted desires. And he is utterly mad."
"Well...it's my experience that anyone interesting usually is mad, in some way or another," the Doctor said, glancing over his shoulder while working on patching some of K-9's internal circuits. "And besides what if he wasn't?"
"Mad? Or a pervert?" the Major asked, looking at him suspiciously.
The Doctor sighed.
The Major continued to smoke in silence for the next several minutes, and the Doctor worked on repairing K-9. When von Eberbach spoke again, it was in a slightly subdued tone. "It is...dangerous to have a civilian interfering, ja? Why do you do it?"
"Hm? Do what?" he asked absently, continuing to toy with the advanced circuitry of K-9's databanks.
The Major scowled. "Miss Tyler. Why do you allow her to come with you? You have been in a war-"
"Wars," the Doctor corrected.
The Major frowned. "You certainly know what it is like. Is it not a distra...an inconvenience to have her around? You are less serious in her company. You let your guard down."
"I never let my guard down," the Doctor responded briskly. "I just let people think that I do. Oh, and, it's worth it."
"Was tust du?" the Major asked absently, glancing up from his cigarette as the Doctor turned to face him.
The Doctor sighed deeply. "It's worth it. The risk, the-the inconvenience. It's worth it. To have someone there with you, to have a friend, who will be by your side even when the entire universe is against you. How do I explain...when I first met her, I saved her life and promptly afterwards she saved mine. Hasn't Eroica saved your life, Major?"
Klaus grimaced at this, yanking another cigarette from his jacket pocket with considerable force. For the continued wellbeing of their party, the Doctor prayed the man never ran out. The Major was unpleasant enough without adding a nicotine shortage to the mix.
"Ja, I told you, that idiot fop has done plenty of idiotic things," the Major growled. "Like putting himself in a helicopter between me and armed KGB agents."
"And there's more to it than that...she trusts me so much," the Doctor paused for a moment, feeling the weight of his own words in his chest before he whispered the next two: "It's incredible."
The Major was, to his surprise, nodding understandingly.
"We were trapped by these aliens, and I told her I could stop them but I might end up losing her. And she just looked at me and said 'do it,' and she didn't even know what it was! She just trusted me so..." he took a deep breath, "Even when we're staring into the face of death, she's able to say she doesn't regret it."
Klaus stood smoking and staring at nothing, apparently lost in thought. The Doctor ran a hand over his head and leaned back against the work bench, he suddenly felt unsettled by his own revelations. He was startled when the Major continued their conversation in a low, serious voice.
"But you wouldn't let her be here if it was truly that dangerous, would you? If you were trapped in a situation, and you knew there was no getting out of it alive..."
He looked up at him then, feeling a sudden chill wave of cold sweep through him at the intensity of the officer's stern gaze. And he knew that"No. I would send her home. She wouldn't want to go. She would never even think of it. She's too good. But I..."
"You couldn't put her in that situation," the Major agreed calmly. "You couldn't let her put herself in that situation. And if she did, you would force her away, any way you could."
The Doctor found himself staring at the Major, the Major staring resolutely back. And he understood.
"You are different, Time Lord. I understand that now. Perhaps you understand better which situations are seriously deadly and which you will be able to escape. But I never know these things. Every time I am on a mission, I think, this could be the last. I might not return home after this. The thief...if I ever encouraged him, and he..."
"But Major--"
Their conversation, however, was interrupted, as at that moment, the doors to the console room reopened and Eroica and Rose stepped back into the control room looking...
Looking as though they had stepped in from the Seventeenth Century, not as actors wearing costumes, but as though they naturally belonged to that time period.
The Earl, naturally, was perfect. Fashionable men had worn their hair long in this time period, Eroica's mane of golden curls, coupled with the expected elaborate clothing, made Eroica seem entirely in his element, perhaps even more so than in his own time period.
And Rose looked...the Doctor swallowed the lump that had been building in his throat. The last time he had seen her in a dress, he had said that she was beautiful before he could stop himself, and this time...but this was...He could not seem to stop himself from staring. Her gown was made of silver cloth, with teardrop pearls cascading down the flounces. Her slender waist was enclosed in a tight-fitting corset, and the chest was low cut and trimmed with bunches of lace. Her hair was wound up on her head in an elaborate crown of braids twisted amongst a nest of soft flowers.
Large brown eyes sparkled at him warmly, and she smiled, looking both energetic and enthused, and somehow slightly shy, and for that moment, the earlier chaos, the earlier horrors and confusion, were momentarily forgotten.
Until, of course, the Major's thunderous bellowing shattered the moment.
"God DAMN it, Eroica! What in God's name are you wearing! You God damn fop!"
Long golden curls spilled beautifully over a short bolero jacket and fine white muslin chemise, trimmed in lace at the cuffs, and gathered in small volumes at the sleeves, all trimmed with flashy red ribbons. Even the petticoat breeches trimmed with yards of ribbon, and the skin-tight stockings covering his otherwise bare long legs, all fastened with huge, elaborate ribbons and bows, were nothing out-of-the-ordinary for nobility of the French courts in the Seventeenth Century, in fact, it was rather expected, and the Earl looked perfectly at ease, in fact delighted, and moved with the sort of grace that would surely win the hearts of all the nobility he encountered.
"Actually, Major, the Earl isn't wearing anything that would be considered out of place among nobility during this time period," the Doctor informed him.
The Major paled. "I will not wear that!" he thundered.
"Hm, to be perfectly honest I think I'd rather sit this one out myself," the Doctor admitted, eyeing the lacy ensemble warily. "You two go have fun."
Rose's face instantly fell. "But Doctor-"
"No, no, no! The puppy dog eyes won't work on me!" he exclaimed, turning back to the work station so quickly he struck it with his knee and winced as the pain shot through his leg. "Sorry, Rose, I'm busy anyways."
"Oh come on, what if there are more Daleks out there? Or Spartens? Who knows what we could be up against!" she protested. "Doctor!"
He concentrated on the electronic parts spilled across the table in front of him. Don't look at her. Don't look at her. Don't look at her. But when she grabbed his hand and forced him to turn around and meet her gaze, he knew he was lost. He sighed a little in defeat, looking down into those large, determined brown eyes. "Alright then, you and Eroica go on ahead and I'll catch up later."
She frowned slightly at this, but finally agreed, moving to the TARDIS doors with Lord Gloria, pausing on her way out to take one last glance in his direction. Her large, soft eyes were so wide and silently pleading, glistening pink lips invitingly parted...the Doctor frowned, and shut his eyes, turning back to the automaton that, at this rate, was never going to be repaired.
After a few moments, once they were certain that Rose and the Earl had left, he said quietly, to the Major, although neither would really look at the other man, "I understand."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Eroica's gaze swept across the grand palace of Versailles, one of the most beautiful monuments in the world, and in the heart of its glory. The tall, shining walls rose up before them, illustrious and grand. Marble fountains, spraying crystal water lined their path, deep pools framed their vision, the stars from the night sky reflected in the glistening water like diamonds tumbled across black velvet. Thick stretches of garden covered the estate, overflowing with lush carnations, which, in the sunlight, would have been deep shades of red. For a moment, the Earl stood in stunned silence, drinking in the majesty and the history and the grandeur.
Rose was at his side, watching everything with wide eyes, and after a moment she startled him with a gleeful cry and nearly threw him off balance, grabbing his wrist and pointing excitedly. Following her gaze, Dorian saw them-the French nobles, the courtiers, all dressed in shimmering layers of bright and elaborate costume. Ostentatious jewels sparkled everywhere, the women moved with their large great gowns shifting about them, and the men were no less elaborately decorated in this time and place.
"Let's go closer," he murmured, and Rose laughed delightedly and jauntily took his arm.
Eroica had, naturally, been to Versailles several times in his life, but to see it in all of its glory, alight with thousands of candles, crystal chandeliers glowing above them, and hundreds of men and women all dressed in mountains of ruffles and ribbons and lace moving around him dancing and laughing, was more incredible and beautiful than he ever could have imagined.
For a moment, he allowed the shimmering golden and crystalline beauty to wash over him, eclipsing the horrors of the Spartens and the Daleks and the war-ravaged world of the Renell in a blazing barrage of splendour and light. Music floated through the air, the delicate twinkling of flutes and clarinets twinkling in and out between the French conversations, the bubbling laughter that created a dense murmur around them. Somewhere indiscernible, a violin was sweetly singing.
Beside him, Rose was laughing, her eyes shining as she positively beamed at the sights around them. Eroica smiled down at her for a moment, thinking, and the Doctor will come for her, and she will get her dance. Before turning his attention to the famous Hall of Mirrors.
The next moments had Dorian lost in the endless beauty of the countless crystal mirrors all lined between thick frames of gold, flicked with hot orange candlelight and the shattered lights reflected from the chandeliers. It wasn't long at all, before he found a room which hosted a very magnificent art gallery.
It was away from the noise and the crowds of the other guests, a hidden, rather secluded area, the Earl noted. Even Rose had disappeared, and he suddenly found himself quite alone, except that he could still hear the music, drifting up from the ballroom, and the faint murmur of voices in the distance. He felt himself momentarily relaxing, and moved closer to some of the ornately framed oil paintings that lined the walls.
His eyes lingered on one piece, in particular. It appeared to be the work of an unknown artist, although the style leant itself to the Italian Renaissance. The colours reminded him a little of Botticelli's art, although there was something distinctly Raphael-like in the softened, pretty, faces. The colours were bright, but fluid rather than garish, the textures seemed rich and soft, and the painted skin appeared to glow with its own inner-warmth.
Somehow, the warmth seemed to reach out and wrap around him, and he stayed there for a minute longer, revelling in the soft warming glow of the painted figures and the bright colours, which were for that moment, more real to him than the palace, or the ball, or the music floating in through the opened doorway.
So he was quite startled when he felt Rose brush his hand and her eyes on him, an inquiring frown on her lips. "Dorian? Dorian...?"
Shaking himself out of the hazy trance, Eroica turned and smiled at her, only to find that her worried expression did not fade. It took him a moment to realize why, when he reached up to touch his face, and felt something wet and cold sliding beneath his fingertips.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
They made their way back to the crowded ballroom, and Eroica tossed his lustrous golden mane, allowing the warmth of the hundreds of burning candles, the sparkling chandeliers, and the longing gazes of a crowd of noblewomen (and some men) to wash over him. The music picked up, a high sweeping piece lifting them over the floor, as pairs swirled around them.
"Well," Dorian asked, turning to Rose with a dazzling smile. "Shall we dance?"
The music played and they moved over the glistening floor, whirling through the crowds, and the crowd becoming a swirling sea of magnificent colours and lights around them as the music fell, only to rise so magnificently that it nearly lifted them off the floor altogether.
Rose laughed, and Dorian had to admit he was enjoying himself. In the sea of movement, colours and the thick rise and fall of the orchestra, it was easy to be lost and feel free. He knew that half of the room was staring at them in envy and awe, and felt a smile of triumph forming on his lips as they whirled and whirled through the diamond lights of the chandeliers, and the sparkling musical chords.
When they came to a stop, Dorian noticed the Doctor watching them from the assembled crowd. He almost laughed when he saw how odd the Doctor looked, for he had refused to conform with the fashions of the period, instead opting to wear the usual black leather jacket and dark trousers. Rather than appearing inconspicuous, however, he looked positively alien in the sparkling ballroom. Eyes turned in his direction nervously, women gossiped loudly, and Rose merely shook her head.
"He wouldn't get into costume last time, either," she claimed, with an exasperated sigh that ended in a bit of a laugh.
Once they crossed the ballroom and managed to meet up with him, he offered them an enthusiastic grin, the days earlier horrors seeming forgotten.
"Well Doctor, you came, now you have to dance!" Rose smiled.
"Oh no, I'm not dancing with you, Rose Tyler! You'd probably step on my feet!" the Doctor exclaimed, backing away a few steps.
She slapped him playfully on the arm and laughed. "You beast! Come on, Dorian danced with me!"
"Yes, but..." he turned to get away, and found himself face-to-face with the Earl.
Eroica smiled sweetly. "You could always dance with me, if you prefer, darling," he said with a coy wink.
The Doctor looked from Rose to the Earl, and back again. "Well...he is less likely to step on my toes, you know."
When the music began again, however, Rose grabbed the Doctor's arm, and Eroica gave him a little push, and sent the two out onto the ballroom floor. "Don't worry Doctor...you'll be fantastic!" Dorian called after him, laughing at the Doctor's expression. The Time Lord suddenly had his arms full of Rose Tyler, and evidently was not entirely sure what to do about it.
After the first awkward moment, however, as the flow of the music washed over them and dancing couples surrounded them, the Doctor appeared to relax, and the two moved and spun across the floor. The Doctor appearing painfully out of place with his short hair and plain clothes, but they were lovely, nonetheless.
Dorian watched for a while, as the Doctor and Rose moved across the floor. She was shining with joy, smiling up at the Doctor, completely enthralled, and he, he was looking down at her with a wide grin, his eyes sparkling, his hand resting at the small over her back and, almost unconsciously, pulling her closer against him. They moved and twirled together, as though none of the other dancers existed, and at that moment it really did seem as though the music and the lights existed for them alone.
Dorian smiled wistfully at them, before allowing his gaze to drop to an unfocused blur of colourful gowns and costumes, and then, finally, the music, the dancing, and his utter aloneness, grew too much for him, and he turned away from them, slipping back into the long corridors and splendid drawing rooms of Versailles.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Klaus scowled at the ridiculous golden walls that surrounded him. Everything was intolerably bright and lavish, utterly gaudy to the point where he found it not the least bit tasteful. The damn thief was probably in Heaven.
There was no force in the universe that would have made Klaus dress in one of those foppish ensembles that these people actually considered men's clothing, so he was clad in his familiar uniform, his long trench coat draped over top of it. Well, a trench coat that looked just like his. The Doctor had an utterly ridiculous amount of clothing stowed away in that TARDIS. It was a damned waste of space if ever the Major had seen one, although trying to gauge what 'space' exactly meant while living in a box that was bigger on the inside than the out only served to give him a headache.
And one look at that horrid ballroom was enough to convince Klaus that he never wanted to return to France again in any time period. Not that the surrounding hallways and corridors were much better, filled with frivolous artwork, statues, columns, the walls were trimmed with intricately cut gold and there were so many damn mirrors it was giving him a headache. Small wonder that Louis XVI had ended up bankrupt and getting his head chopped off. At least the French peasants had a bit of sense in them.
In any event, he was steadfastly determined not to go anywhere near that ballroom. No, he would observe the area and make sure that there were no Spartens, or Daleks or other homicidal aliens waiting to leap out of the shadows and exterminate them.
And it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Dorian-Lord Gloria-Eroica would be somewhere in that ballroom, wearing that perversely sensuous blouse, and those utterly disgraceful stockings that made his legs seem bare, and all those layers of frill and lace and ribbon that Klaus, inexplicably, felt his fingers itching to tear off...
Klaus stopped, almost swallowing his cigarette, and grimaced at himself in disgust. He wanted to punch something, but there wasn't an inch of wall free of the glass of some decadent mirror or another. But there was no help for it. The thief laughing in that bit of thin white ruffled fabric, which clung together by ribbons that could all-too easily be pulled loose, was going to haunt him just as...
Just as the Earl leaning over the balcony, basking in the hot golden glow of the sunset on Luinway haunted him. Just as the Earl laughing with joy at the wonders of Ristead's space station, wide eyes taking in everything, haunted him. Just as the image burned into his retinas of Eroica's falling form toppling from the ledge in the observation centre still made his blood run cold, and the thief's childlike concern for the robot dog, the face suddenly becoming so innocent and sad, refused to leave his mind.
The Major took a deep breath. For his entire life, he had known that there was no such thing as love in the universe. And he had also known that there were no such things as aliens, and that time travel was impossible. And now he had travelled through time, and fought side-by-side with an alien. And he knew that there was love in the universe. It was love when Eroica-Lord Gloria-Dorian looked at him. It was love that he had felt, with a horrible twisted pain in his chest, as he'd watched the thief fall...and when he waited outside the operating room, knowing Eroica was going to die.
Klaus stopped. He looked into one of the hundreds of mirrors that lined the hallway, and saw his own dark, tired eyes looking back at him. So he knew what it was now. It had a name now. But it still didn't change anything.
Eroica, almost getting himself killed again by the Daleks...
He could never encourage him. He could never know. They had to go back to Earth, and the thief had to stop following him on NATO missions, because Klaus wasn't sure, after everything he had come to realize, that he could handle it anymore if he had to endure-
A muffled sound in the next room. Out of instinct, Klaus reached for his magnum, and carefully slipped in through the slightly-ajar door. The room was dark, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but then he realized that he was in some sort of a private gallery room, paintings lining the walls and small detailed statues and vases resting on columns. Through the window, the moonlight poured across the dark floor, striking the solitary figure who stood in the room.
It could only be one person, with that mass of golden curls. Klaus returned the gun to his shoulder-holster and frowned. It seemed Eroica was always a thief, and just couldn't resist some damn painting or another. Except that, the thief wasn't, at the moment, doing any thieving. He was just...standing there, almost as though in a trance. The Major's frown deepened and he continued to watch in silence.
"There you are, my darling..."
For a moment, the Major started, staring at the back of the thief's head in surprise, before he realized that Eroica wasn't talking to him...
"Something I've always wanted..."
But to the painting.
"Something I've never, ever, had."
And Eroica shifted slightly, the long golden curls falling forwards as, for that moment the head bowed, and the moonlight shifting over him struck the painting on the wall, lifting the veil of darkness for Klaus to see...
There was a woman, plump and middle-aged, with a round kind face and soft-looking flesh, long shimmering hair done up in modest buns, the long draping folds of material that formed her clothing spilling out across the grassy green field, where, beside her, a man, her husband, was sitting, a kindly, fatherly-looking gentlemen. Between them was a small child, playing on the ground, as the parents looked loving down on him, and all three seemed to glow and shine off the canvas in haze of warmth and love so expertly captured by the painter that even Klaus found himself momentarily stunned by it.
It might have been the Madonna and Joseph, or it might have been an artist's depiction of an ordinary family, Klaus didn't know enough about art to be able to tell, but in either case, Klaus couldn't see what exactly Eroica wanted with it. It was a far cry from the usual paintings and statues of aesthetic young men that the Earl usually preferred.
"Stable family. Loving mother, and noble father," the Earl continued softly, reaching up, he placed a hand on both sides of the ornate bronze frame that surrounded the canvas, and pulled the large painting from the wall. "Well, I deserve to have you. The people here obviously haven't been taking very good care of you. Where are the sentries, the guards! Someone should have been looking out for you! Someone should have been protecting you! Arrogant, inattentive, NEGLECTFUL CRETINS! They don't deserve you!"
Klaus started at the unexpected tone the thief took, the brutally raised voice seemed unlike him, and unsettling, raw with emotion. And unstable. The Major had known Eroica for years, and he had to, however grudgingly, admit that the Earl was the best at what he did. Screaming at a painting in the middle of a heist where the guards could hear somehow failed to fit the profile of the Prince of Thieves.
Without thinking, the Major reached forwards and grabbed Eroica's arms, spinning the thief around forcefully. The painting clattered to the floor and the Earl's eyes grew wide in alarm as he suddenly found himself facing the Iron Major. "What are you doing here!"
"You can't steal this painting, Eroica!" he growled, shaking the thief and hoping, for once, to shake some sense into the blonde head.
"Go away!" the Earl snapped, to his surprise, struggling out of the Major's grip and turning away from him again. "Leave me alone!"
Klaus stared at Eroica in disbelief. "Use your head, idiot! You can't steal this painting. We don't even live in this time period! Think about it!"
Dorian still refused to face him, the thief has his arms wrapped tightly around himself, head bent forwards so that the mess of golden curls slid over his shoulders in a tangled heap. For a moment, the Major had a brief flash of memory, on a high jacked ship, many years ago, when he had rescued a badly shaken Eroica from a gang of seajackers.
With a weary sigh, Klaus pulled out another cigarette and lit it. The silence stretched uncomfortably between them. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked finally, because for once the thief wasn't prattling on about everything under the sun.
"No," came the uncharacteristically sullen reply. "I want you to leave."
"No," he replied simply.
The thief sighed exasperatedly. "Why?" He asked, turning back to Klaus, and the Major was momentarily stunned to see something like tear streaks glinting faintly along the white face in the moonlight.
"Because, you're likely to do something stupid and cause trouble for all of us," he said finally, taking a deep drag from his cigarette as Dorian wiped the tears from his face.
"It's not even that good of a painting, you know," the Major continued offhandedly, as Dorian's gaze travelled back to the canvas that was now sitting on the floor, propped against the wall. The thief looked at him in confusion. "The Eberbach collection has a much nicer piece of this...sort of scene."
Now Dorian was staring at him, not as he usually did, but with an utterly perplexed expression. "...You confuse me," he said, finally.
The Major smirked. "What else is new?"
In the distance, they could hear the music from the ball continuing, floating in around them in faint shimmerings of sound. When the Major looked up from his cigarette again, the thief had somehow closed the space between them. "Dance with me, Major."
He stared at the thief in utter disbelief. One minute...
"No one will ever know."
Klaus sighed heavily, tossing the cigarette to the floor where the servants would doubtless wonder about it. "Idiot."
"I don't mind if you step on my feet, Major."
"That's not the-"
He suddenly felt Dorian's hands locking in his own, and that warm body was pressed up against his for a second, before they were moving, back and forth across the empty, darkened gallery, in a slow, hazy sort of movement, as though in a dream.
It occurred to him later, that he probably should have punched the thief and stormed out. But at the moment it had just seemed like the only possible thing in the world for him to do was dance.
After all, he could go time-travelling with an alien in a police public call box, and fight evil robots with energy rays, so it seemed, in that light, utterly plausible that he could-should dance with Eroica, in Versailles, in 1689.
To be Continued in Episode 08: The Oracle