Episode 08: The Oracle
As the music faded softly into the gentle murmur of background noises, mingled with conversations and laughter, the Doctor pulled Rose close against him. She was truly beautiful—silver sparkles dancing in her golden hair. She was smiling, and the Doctor thought she looked happier than he had ever seen her before. He found himself staring at her, trapped by the beauty of her face, her smile, and the lights in her eyes. She smiled up at him, her lips parted invitingly, painted a deep glossy red—wet and shining.
He suddenly felt an incredible urge to taste those red lips.
Instantly he felt his face flush, and turned away, his two hearts pounding sharply in his chest. Never, never, before had he felt that way about one of his travelling companions. Well, there had been Grace, hadn't there? He had kissed Grace, yes. But…that had been different, in the past, clouded by regeneration and eclipsed by the horrors he had seen since.
But he felt it would be wrong now, wrong for him to…
"Doctor?" she caught his hand in hers tightly, forcing him to turn around and face her with an incessant tug.
He looked back at her and found himself stunned by the cold light of the chandeliers and the candles blazing off her golden hair, casting a halo of raw brilliance all around her. Before he realized what he was doing, he found that his hands were grasping her bare shoulders, pulling her closer on sheer instinct.
"Doctor, are you alright?" she asked, peering up at him with a slightly perplexed, slightly concerned expression that was, really, at its heart, he thought, amused.
Of course.
What manner of Time Lord had instincts like that!
The Doctor shook himself, and forced himself once again to turn away. "I—I'm fine—fantastic! Just need some fresh air, that's all!" He winced at the sound of his voice, it was higher than normal; he felt like a jabbering idiot. "If you'll excuse me now, Rose—"
She captured his hands tightly once again, in her unrelenting grasp. "No, I won't! You're acting strangely, and I don't—"
He spun around abruptly, once again, this time unable to stop from colliding with her. He felt her entire body, warm and pulsing, pressed up against his. The other dancers moving around them seemed to evaporate and vanish into a dull blur of colours he could no longer see, and noises he could no longer hear. He felt her firm round breasts, nearly bursting out of the tight low-cut French gown, and the warmth penetrated straight through his shirt and stunned him, so that he was quite incapable of moving or turning away. A part of his brain that was still functioning was screaming at him to run away. But his current body, this regeneration, was reacting with a rush of mad, torturous and wonderful sensations he had not thought his people capable of feeling. Something ancient, primeval, left over from his ancestor's ancestors.
He had his hands on her shoulders again, holding her close, although she was making no move to get away, only staring up at him with those wide brown eyes, trusting him, implicitly. And she was so pretty, so perfect before him, an angel in silk and lace, with flowers in her hair and candlelight and innocence in her eyes.
Oh, whatever gods there were in the universe, he was the Doctor! His life wasn't meant to be some tawdry romance. It had never been before. Had it? It was so hard to remember his past regenerations…
He tentatively felt the smooth, perfect curve of her cheek, her pouting lips, the corners of her eyes. Eyes that were lost on him, for him, loving him.
Damn it.
Every sane part of him was telling him to resist.
But he had always been a bit of an eccentric.
He pulled her even tighter against him, wrapping his arms possessively around his Rose's back, she was his—and he—
He pressed his lips against hers hungrily, clumsily, how long had been since…? His hands worked their way up to her hair, working their way through the braids and coils. He felt her moan into his mouth, and return his kiss with equal passion, fervour. It sent electric shocks jolting through his body, and he tightened his arms around her small waist again, wanting her as close against him as possible. He wanted it to continue, her slender arms reaching up and encircling his neck. He wanted it to never end.
But the startled gasps and exclamations of the seventeenth-century court brought them both back to reality with a rather unpleasant jolt. Rose looked around, suddenly appearing surprisingly meek, at the eyes staring at them in shock and horror.
"Uh…maybe we should continue this elsewhere, Doctor."
He gave the crowd a nervous grin.
"I think you might be right."
On the walk back to the TARDIS, Rose clasped his hand tightly, and leaned a little against him. "This is really happening, isn't it?" she whispered quietly.
"I—don't know," he admitted, swallowing the lump that had been building in his throat. She was so young. And so beautiful. And so innocent. It suddenly seemed wrong and selfish of him to be with her. To want to be with her. To—
"Doctor," she stopped suddenly, pulling him around to face her, and looking up at him, the brown eyes intense, the pretty face serious. "We watched the world end together, didn't we? And afterwards, you told me there was no one left. But I told you—I'm here, Doctor. And I'm not going anywhere."
She reached up and touched the side of his face, her fingers, so light, like feathers against him.
He closed his eyes.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Meanwhile, Dorian and Klaus sat in the TARDIS, waiting for the Doctor and Rose to return. Eroica sighed, while plucking bits of ribbon out of his hair and shaking the abundant curls free.
"There is just one thing bothering me," the Major said suddenly, causing Dorian to look up from where he was lounging against the main console.
Just one thing? Oh dear.
"How is it that you and Miss Tyler were able to get into the palace of Versailles without an invitation?" The Major's brow was settled into a deep frown of concentration already teetering on disapproval. "The Doctor and I had enough difficulty…" Always the stern upholder of authority and order, his Major.
Eroica looked at his darling, surprised and amused. Slowly, a sly grin crept across his face. "But I had an invitation, darling." He took a small slip of paper out of his pocket and presented it to Klaus.
The Major found himself staring at thick piece of parchment, the borders illuminated with raised golden ribbons, the words elaborately painted in a calligraphy that made it nearly impossible to decipher, completed with the Sun King's seal.
Frowning, he blinked and shook his head. When he focused his eyes on the paper again, it was only an ordinary, blank, card. He scowled at the thief. "Psychic paper. This belongs to the Doctor."
"I'm going to give it back," Eroica replied with a look of complete innocence.
"I thought you gave it back before."
"I did."
"You stole it again," the Major sighed, exasperated. "You could have just asked! I am sure he would have leant it to you."
Eroica pouted. "But I'm a thief, darling! Thieving is what I do!"
The Major rolled his eyes. "I know."
Dorian laughed at the expression on his beloved's face, just as the TARDIS' door opened, revealing the Doctor and Rose. He was slightly surprised that both seemed a bit uneasy and perturbed. He frowned, not understanding.
"Doctor?"
This wasn't how it was supposed to go. The dance was supposed to make them both happy, and instead, Dorian found himself frowning at their darkened and serious expressions.
"Well, let's set the course for our next destination, shall we?" the Doctor said brightly, though, to Dorian the levity sounded more than a little feigned. "After all, there's no telling what we'll have to be prepared for with my doppelganger on the lose with the Luinway Solar Crystal, mixing up all sorts of trouble!"
"Your doppelganger…so that isn't—wasn't—is not—you?" Dorian asked, slightly bewildered.
"I don't know," the Doctor said quietly, his face once again turning grave as he reached for the TARDIS' main console. "I don't know, but either way we're going to have to be prepared. Whoever he is, he's definitely…mad, insane—"
"You're not mad, Doctor," Rose said softly, placing a hand firmly on his arm.
"Whatever is going on here, that man wants to fold time in on itself, compressing the entire universe, overlapping everything that ever was or ever will be, or is, and that will—"
"Erase everything?" Klaus asked dryly.
The Doctor looked at them, his eyes dark and serious. "Yes."
"Oh God…so it will…" Rose breathed softly. "We can't—what are we going to do?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know."
"You don't know?" Eroica repeated, struggling a bit unsuccessfully to keep the incredulity out of his voice. He turned to the Major. Klaus was in the process of lighting a cigarette. "Major?"
"How the hell should I know how to stop an insane rampaging alien bent on erasing the boundaries between time and space?" the Major replied, glaring at him in annoyance. Then, while taking a deep drag from his cigarette, he frowned, more deeply than before, and his entire expression appeared to darken.
"Major…?"
He didn't like the way Klaus looked just then.
"Doctor…" the Major slowly flicked his cigarette away, before reaching into the jacket of his uniform. "I think it is impossible, but then, I have thought many things were impossible before…this farce."
He said the word in a way that did encompass the Doctor, and Rose, and the TARDIS, and alien worlds, and Daleks, and dinosaurs, Dorian thought, hugging his arms around himself tightly at the cold chill, something even harsher than the usual growl, in Klaus' deep baritone voice.
"If that madman who has been tormenting us and is threatening us is you, Doctor…"
The Major pulled out his gun.
"Major…" the Doctor murmured.
"The surest way to solve our problems would be to—"
"NO!" Rose cried, looking from Klaus to the Doctor in horror. "What are you doing! Stop it!" she screamed, moving to stop the Major, but the Doctor held out his arm and pushed her back.
Dorian could only stare with wide eyes at the scene playing out before him. He tried to say something, to shout out, to call to them, but no sounds could make their way through his tightened throat. Rose was almost in tears. "Stop it! Stop it! Please—!"
And Dorian couldn't even move.
"Please—!"
Swallowing, he shut his eyes.
"Rose, this is beyond you and me," the Doctor was saying gravely, the column in the centre of the TARDIS console was blaring, the green lights rising and falling, the entire room shifted and groaned around them. "If this could save the universe…perhaps this is the answer."
He spoke, Dorian thought, as though dying meant next to nothing to him…
"NO!" Rose cried, and before Dorian or the Doctor could move to stop her, she had flung herself past the Major, and began slamming buttons on the TARDIS' main console. "Do something!" she screamed, looking up at the great centre column of the many-sided console. "I know you aren't just a machine! Help us—"
"Rose—!"
And that was the last thing Dorian heard as the entire ship gave one shuddering, screeching halt, the walls and floors shaking violently as though they were going to break apart, and then everything went dark.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
I'm getting tired of being knocked out. It isn't like me at all.
Dorian struggled for a moment to sit up, the hard floor of the TARDIS made for a very uncomfortable bed. The interior of the console room was still plunged into darkness.
"Mhgh—" he groaned as he struggled to stand, shakily grasping the corner of the console for support. "Major?" he stumbled forwards a few steps, and felt his foot strike something on the floor. Something that groaned and proceeded to curse loudly at him. There was the brief sound of the Major struggling to his feet and straightening out his uniform, although in the dark Dorian still couldn't see anything. "What happened?"
"How the hell should I know, Dummkopf!" Klaus snarled.
"We need to find the Doctor—"
The Major snorted, they both took a step forwards, and…
CRACK!
"Ouch!" Eroica winced, stumbling back and rubbing his forehead. "Watch where you're going!"
"You watch where you're going!" Klaus growled.
The TARDIS lights flooded on, not a moment too soon, to reveal the Doctor and Rose, also picking themselves up off the floor rather shakily. "Well, that was certainly a rough landing," the Doctor murmured, caressing his right shoulder gingerly.
"But where are we?" Dorian asked, casting the TARDIS a suspicious glance.
"Who knows?" the Doctor grinned from ear to ear. "It'll be a real adventure!"
Though slightly unnerved, Eroica found himself smiling back, grateful to see the Doctor was back to his old self, and the Major seemed to have forgotten, for the time being, his plan of shooting the Time Lord.
"Well, let's go have a look at the monitors, shall we?"
Rose walked to the console and flicked on the screen. A rugged landscape stretched out before them. Mountain ranges, steep and craggy, erupted throughout stretches of upland plains and scatterings of valleys, where sheep and goats peacefully grazed. The sea surrounded them, grey waves rising and crashing against hundreds of tiny islands, some mere shards of green and brown earth jutting from the waves.
"The Aegean Sea!" Dorian exclaimed at once.
The Major studied the monitor a moment longer with a scrutinizing expression, then nodded curtly in agreement, lighting a cigarette. "Gut. Means we're back on Earth."
"But we were just on Earth—" Eroica pointed out. Klaus merely snorted. Evidently, seventeenth century France had been alien enough for the officer.
"Hmm…" the Doctor ran his hands over the control panel, flicking various switches and studying the given readings. "We may be on Earth, but…"
"What is it?" Rose asked, peering over his shoulder.
The Doctor pushed himself away from the main console and turned to face the group with a ridiculous grin plastered on his face. "Looks like we're in the thirteenth century this time."
For a moment, the three merely stared at him dumbly.
"The thirteenth…"
"…century…?"
"Oh, thirteenth century BC," he added, altogether too cheerfully.
"The thirteenth century BC?" the Major choked, looking thoroughly horrified.
Eroica, however, clapped his hands together in sudden glee. "Oh my gosh, don't you see what this means! This is even further back than most historical records we have of ancient Greece. Most Greek historians focus on 490-323 BC. There isn't any writing or anything left from this far back, except for Linear B which is, of course, untranslatable..." he trailed off, upon noticing that Rose and the Major were both staring at him as though he had just sprouted an extra pair of arms. "Um. Well, all of the ancient myths and fables, like Homer's Iliad and The Odyssey were supposed to take place around this time…oh, come on! You must understand how incredibly—incredible!—this is!"
"Um…is that a school thing? Because I never really finished my A levels…" Rose said quietly.
The Major merely looked exasperated. "I don't see what's so 'incredibly incredible' about being in time before cigarettes and Nescafe!"
"Come on! Where's your sense of adventure?"
"The Earl is right!" the Doctor exclaimed happily, before the Major could respond. "This is fantastic, wouldn't you say?" he grinned at Dorian, positively beaming. "The ancient Greeks were amazing people—"
The Major snorted.
"—I mean think about it—! A smattering of people, tiny, really, inhabiting a land poor in resources, seventy-percent of which is covered in mountains that make travelling next to impossible, divided into hundreds of squabbling city-states…and yet they created one of the Earth's most remarkable cultures, remembered for millennia after they had fallen!" the Time Lord concluded, looking absolutely ecstatic about their destination. The days earlier horrors seemed completely forgotten.
Eroica smiled back at him happily. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go out there—"
"Idiot! Don't you think we have more important things to be worrying about at the moment?" the Major demanded. "We need to get back to our time, and find out how to locate and stop our enemy, and—"
"Darling, there is no way I'm passing up this opportunity!" Dorian replied tartly, with a flippant toss of golden curls.
Since the Major looked ready to throttle Dorian, Rose seemed to think it was a good time to grab him by the arm and pull him out of the way, muttering something about 'period costumes.'
A moment later, they were walking through the long and twisting corridors of the TARDIS, but she had quickly fallen silent. "So…." Eroica began, smirking mischievously. "Did you enjoy your dance with a certain Doctor?"
She immediately broke into a huge smile, blushing furiously. "Maybe—I mean—oh, of course! And what about you? You and the Major were no where to be found after we started dancing…did you maybe get a dance of your own?"
"Well…Maybe," he replied, winking playfully.
She actually squealed, jumping up and throwing her arms around his neck enthusiastically. With any other girl, it would have been extremely off-putting, but Rose was becoming like a little sister to him. And thank goodness she was fully dressed, unlike that horrible incident in Rome…
"Come on, let's go find our costumes," she said, pulling him out of his brief reverie, and grabbing his hand, she pulled him along the rest of the way.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The Doctor had gone back to examining K-9's damaged circuitry, the Major had returned to the task of chain smoking, and seemed lost in thought. All in all, the Time Lord decided it would be both easiest and safest not to pry into whatever was bothering the officer, and instead concentrated on repairing the damaged automaton. A significant amount of progress had been made in repairing the main systems, and he had just begun to puzzle over how in the world he was going to go about mending the outer casing, when Rose and the Earl returned from the depths of the TARDIS.
"Well, how do I look?" she asked, smiling from ear to ear and positively beaming at him.
"Beautiful," he said. Because she was, flowing white and pale orange robes that ran like water across her skin, her golden hair done up in a braid, like a halo, wound around the top of her head, leaving a shower of gold, still, to run down her back.
He was so entranced that he almost failed to hear Lord Gloria turn to the Major and jokingly ask, "Well, darling, how do I look?"
The Major glowered. "Like an insane flaming wanker, same as always."
Eroica, of course, only laughed.
The Earl was dressed in an assortment of colourful gauzy robes, one of nearly iridescent orange covered in an intricate pattern of twisting golden lines was draped artfully over one shoulder and looped loosely through a thick blue belt. A truly bizarre lime-green cape-like piece covered his left arm, while the right remained bare, and his long golden curls were loose and free, and tumbled in a wild torrent down his shoulders, completed with a wreath of large white flowers that rested like a crown on his head. It was truly one of the most extravagant looking costumes the Doctor had ever seen, he hadn't even known he had had anything like that in the TARDIS! But then again, from Eroica, he should not have expected anything less.
"Well…let's get going," he offered finally, hoping that his own dark leather jacket and trousers, and the Major's uniform and trench coat wouldn't cause too much trouble.
They stepped from the TARDIS and the roar of the large grey and blue waves, churning and crashing into the fractured rocks along a jagged shoreline met them. The sky overhead was thick and grey, the wind carried the smell of the sea. The ground beneath their feet was thick with dirt and patches of long, tangled grass and weeds, jutting rocks and splintering crevices.
"This is the country Lord Byron referred to as the 'land of lost gods,'" Eroica mused quietly, gazing at the dark waters of the Aegean Sea. "The epic poems of Homer are filled with marvellous gods and fabulous monsters, I was always quite fond of them as a child, although I suppose the reality of it can't be nearly as romantic."
The Doctor noticed Major Eberbach turn to the Earl for a moment, but the German merely shook his head and started down a rocky and uneven path that sloped towards the seashore.
An elderly man was hobbling along the uneven trail towards them, a gnarled cane grasped in one skeletal hand, a thick but tattered old cloak draped over his shoulders and head. As the old man passed them, the Doctor noticed the startled look of amazement in the gentlemen's eyes as he came upon the TARDIS. The elder stumbled, nearly falling along the rock-laden, crooked path in his astonishment, when Eroica caught him gently by the shoulders and steadied him.
"Are you alright?"
"Why yes, thank you—" the old man's voice was raspy and hoarse, and it took a minute for him to focus on the Earl. "It's so good to see at least some of today's young people respect their elders. I—" the rasping voice gave way to a choked gasp of astonishment as the clouded grey eyes finally settled on the Englishman's face. "By the immortal gods…"
The Earl blinked, looking quite confused.
"I have not seen you around Iolcus before, who are you?" the old man continued.
"I'm called Eroica," the Earl replied easily.
The elder continued to stare at him. "Eros...Eroica...yes, that name suits you. You are surely beloved by the goddess Aphrodite, my lad…indeed, one would believe you to be a son of the Cyprian!"
"Oh…" this seemed to amuse the thief, he smiled warmly at the old man. "I get that sort of thing a lot! Thanks."
"Just a little bit narcissistic, aren't we?" Rose asked, amusedly.
"I can't help it if the ancient Greeks happened to worship physical beauty and I happen to be very, very beautiful," Eroica replied with a smirk.
The Major snorted loudly from where he stood, watching.
"I'm serious, I am one of Apollo's priests, you know. If you pay your respects to the gods, I am certain they will watch over you, especially."
The Earl smiled at the old man. "I assure you, my parents were no gods."
"Then someone must have lied to you!" the elder insisted.
Eroica's smile for the old man was beatific.
The Major rolled his eyes. Rose looked much amused. The Doctor merely smiled widely.
"It is a shame that you and your fellow travellers did not arrive in Iolcus earlier. A heroic youth by the name of Jason was looking for brave men to accompany him on a most grand journey. They actually left for Colchis, that land at the end of the world, where the Golden Fleece supposedly hangs in the garden of Ares. We're all hoping for Jason's success in the mission, and for him to return and take back his father's throne, but……. It is a shame indeed, I am certain a group such as yours could have helped them."
"You're talking about Jason? Jason and the Argonauts?" the Earl repeated in disbelief. "Why, that's incredible!"
The old priest looked at the group for a moment longer. "…Are you certain you travellers were not brought here by the gods, to aid our kingdom in its time of need? None of us wants that usurper and murderer, Pelias, to remain tyrant over these lands, but unless Jason is able to return…"
"Ooh! I can't believe this! We're actually in the time of 'Jason and the Argonauts!' I always knew there was some truth in those old myths!" Eroica babbled excitedly. "And just think—! The journey, the quest against sorcerers and dragons—the—"
"The history, the grandeur…?" the Major muttered, rolling his eyes and looking thoroughly irritable. It caused the thief, however, to break out into one of his sunniest smiles as he nodded.
"Mm. Exactly."
"Gott…"
"…You certainly seem…enthusiastic…" the old priest said finally, having watched the conversation with a thoroughly baffled expression. "But the Argo sailed many weeks and weeks ago…it is a shame…"
"Oh, I think we can catch them," the Doctor said, with a bright smile. "I happen to have a…ship of my own."
"But they left Iolcus months ago! And no ship could out sail the Argo, it's all quite impossible… Unless, of course…" the old priest studied them a moment longer, and then with a swift bow, turned and hurried away as fast as his shaking legs could carry him.
Rose looked after him sympathetically. "What was that about?"
"He's probably convinced he was just in the company of four of the Olympian gods, in human disguise," the Earl said, after thinking for a moment. "The old Greek legends are filled with such accounts, you know."
"I know," the Doctor replied, remembering his own prior adventures in ancient Greece all too well, when the locals had insisted he was Zeus! "I wouldn't be surprised if he tells his friends he saw the Olympians debating Jason's voyage."
"So, are we going to help these people?" Rose asked, looking to the Doctor. He knew what she was thinking: helping people was what they did, and they hadn't been doing much of it lately. Eroica also turned to him expectantly.
The Major was meanwhile smoking and scowling darkly, clearly thinking the entire ordeal would be complete and utter nonsense. The Doctor merely smiled and shrugged amicably. "Sure, why not? It could be fun."
"It is a waste of time!" the Major snapped.
"But we don't know where the enemy Time Lord is," Eroica said thoughtfully. "He has as much chance of being in ancient Greece as he does anywhere else, and the TARDIS did bring us here…"
"Let's get back in the TARDIS, then," the Doctor advised, seeing as how everything appeared to be decided. "Jason and the Argonauts are sailing for Colchis, which is located on the Black Sea. I say we beat them to it."
"Whatever. Let's just get this entire bout of idiocy over with as soon as possible," the Major said, already half-way back to the police box.
The Doctor merely sighed and shook his head. "One day he's going to have to learn to enjoy his life a little," even with the threat of the complete dissolution of the universe hanging over our heads, but he didn't add that part aloud, as he didn't think it would help his case much.
Dorian was merely nodding in agreement. "Welcome to my world, Doctor…"
Rose laughed, "Come on, back to the TARDIS, then, boys!"
"I just hope she takes us where we want to go this time," Eroica added, regarding the police box warily for a moment.
"No worries," the Doctor grinned, stepping in after the Major and holding the door open for Lord Gloria and Rose.
"No worries," the Earl agreed, as he and Rose stepped inside the blue box, the wooden door falling shut behind them as the Doctor moved his arm out of the way.
"Fantastic."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The TARDIS materialized with its usual distinctive pulsating drone, that humming sound, which was almost a purr, if time-travelling space-ships disguised as phone boxes could purr. Knowing everything else he knew about the remarkable machine by now, though, purring wouldn't have surprised him. After all, the damn thing was ruddy telepathic, translating the ancient Greek into modern German for him, English for Eroica and the girl, and God-only-knows-what for the alien. It might as well purr, too, if just to add to the bloody nonsense.
The Major scowled, partly because he wanted another cigarette, badly, and his hands kept moving to the pockets where he kept them, but he couldn't smoke since it would probably cause some sort of mass panic or riot among the primitive people. Primitive being Klaus' word, not the Doctor's. The Doctor seemed positively delighted by the ancients as his eyes darted around them excitedly and he grinned, absolutely annoyingly, at everything and everyone they past.
The Major's scowl deepened.
Miss Tyler appeared captivated by the brightly coloured costumes, the youthful clean-shaven men clad only in crude, inappropriate kilts! Although he himself was growing more than a little uncomfortable in his layers of uniform and trench coat under the hot sun, the heat was certainly no excuse for not going about properly—and that meant fully—clothed at all times!
He caught himself glancing at the Earl, and was momentarily surprised that the foppish thief appeared less interested in the crowds of barely-covered lean young men, then he did in examining the statues that lined the street corners, and the ancient buildings, now in their prime, glistening with brightly-coloured paints, the hot sunlight revealing them real and whole, vibrant and alive rather than the cracked, broken, faded lingering memories they would become by the twentieth century.
"You know, the ancient Greeks viewed Colchis as a vastly rich kingdom filled with gold and rare jewels. I'm certain that there—"
"—is something you would like to steal," the Major finished dryly. This earned him a surprised look from not only the thief, but also the Doctor and Miss Tyler, who stopped walking and turned around to stare—practically gape—at him.
"Why, darling…you do know me so well!" the Earl exclaimed after a moment's pause.
"It doesn't take a genius to figure out what a thief would want with a bunch of priceless treasures, idiot!"
This seemed to satisfy the girl and the alien, who turned back to the bustling streets of ancient Colchis. Eroica, however, continued to stare at him, those wide sky-blue eyes fixed into that look—that look, that Klaus had always resented. No, not resented, not quite. It had always made him uncomfortable. From the mess on the Michelangelo, to the balcony and the strange alien sunset, and especially so now, after everything the past few days had led him to realize.
Especially now, that look could bother him.
Klaus suddenly felt an irrational wave of—what? Fear? No, it couldn't be that, though something very, very near it—rise up in his gut at the thief's prolonged gaze. For one terrifying moment, he thought it must be obvious! Everything I've come to realize—it's written all over my face! He can tell! Of course, Klaus had kissed the thief, however briefly, in the TARDIS medical bay, when he had thought, honestly and horribly, that Eroica was going to die. And he hadn't even thought about it. Not then, or since, and then there had been that whole bloody mess in Versailles that never should have happened…
He's laughing at me!
The Major felt his face flush hot with anger or embarrassment, he didn't want to think which, and suddenly, like a great shadow slamming down on him from high above, he felt and heard, again, the old, terrible, bitter truth of the universe. The mantra from his lonely childhood:
Everyone hates you.
Everyone is just waiting for a reason to hate you.
Even Eroica, for all his claims of 'love' and 'romance' was just waiting for a moment to seize his weakness and mock and torment him. And it would never end. Because it was obvious, it had to be obvious, after everything that happened to them since they'd gone into that damned building in Russia. And suddenly, he was both angry at Eroica, and disgusted with himself, and he hated the Doctor, and the TARDIS, and whole damn universe, and the blackness seemed to be engulfing him everywhere when—
"Major?" Eroica was looking at him strangely, curiously. "Is everything quite alright?"
Now you love him, and he mocks you.
All in all, he was too far gone to even register his snarled reply of "NEIN, you sick-fucking-faggot!" as he brushed past the Earl, using excessive force to roughly shove the slender Englishman out of his path.
A part of his mind was still expecting to hear Eroica's biting laughter following after him. A part of his mind was faintly surprised when it didn't come.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Rose winced at the sound of the Major yelling in the background, she couldn't understand the words, but the tone was—"God, is that man always angry?"
The Doctor merely smiled, that glimpse of knowing, just instinctively, more than normal people. Or maybe it was the result of nine-hundred years of experience. Rose studied the profile of the man walking next to her, his eyes were wandering over the smooth marble giants that towered above them on either side of the street, and the groups of merchants and farmers, with their displays of vegetables and animal skins, and pottery. His gaze darted across the busy scenes of the marketplace, his expression flickering around amusement and excitement, grinning widely. He certainly didn't look nine-hundred years old.
She still had a difficult time believing that she, Rose Tyler, was really there, walking through the streets of a city that had fallen to ruin, been lost, been forgotten centuries before her birth. "Doctor…" she found herself stepping closer to him, the throng of plebeian merchants pushing them together, but also, she just…wanted to be there.
Her hand found his unconsciously, her slender fingers sliding easily between his, feeling the faint brush of the calluses, the strangely sharp yet enveloping warmth where they made contact. The feeling of safety, the reassurance that the Doctor was there, and real, and no matter what happened…
The smell of the sea was in the air, the summer sky a magnificent blue above them, cloudless, bright. All around them, people laughed and shouted and sang, people who would be dead, dead and forgotten, in her own time, with the TARDIS, in the blink of an eye.
Rose felt the same heaviness tighten in her chest that she had felt when the Doctor had first taken her away in the blue box, to the end of the world. She had looked out at the stars, and the sun, and the Earth, all stretched out before her, and had been overwhelmed by the thought: it's five billion years in the future…and my mother is dead. Mickey is dead. Everyone I know is dead. And no one here will remember—or care—what happened to a human being five billion years ago.
In seconds to her, seconds to the Doctor, everyone walking, laughing, living, now, would all be lost in the relentless stream of time. They all would be lost. And now would remember them...
Without realizing it, she had leaned her head softly against the Doctor's shoulder. The leather jacket was warm, and solid, and for a moment, she could stop thinking about the rush of time and space and the erasure of the individual in the infinite.
"Rose?"
She could feel him stiffen in surprise when she leant against him, and she could picture, so adorable, his baffled expression, trying to look down at her, but she merely tightened her arm around his and pulled herself closer.
"Don't ever leave me here."
There was an almost perceptible beat of silence, before he asked, sounding far too amused, "In Colchis?"
But she laughed despite herself and skipped away from him, shaking her head as she went. "In time."
"Time?" he looked genuinely surprised at that.
She laughed again, because he was there, with her, and punched his arm playfully. "Not without you."
He smiled at her affectionately and shook his head, as though amused. "Come on then, let's find the—"
"Rose."
A different voice.
Rose turned to see a woman standing beside her, in the shadows of the nearby stone building, a heavy red shawl draped over her shoulders and head, obscuring her face in the shadows. In one hand she clasped laurel leaves.
"Rose."
A thick scent hung in the air around the cloaked woman, like smoke and incense and something else that Rose could not quite place. The din of the crowd around her suddenly seemed to fall away, the burning sun dulled, and the movement in the world around her seemed to be pushed backwards, so that there was nothing else in that place, at that time, apart from Rose and…
"I am called the Pythia," the woman said, the faintest hint of amusement in her voice.
There was a jarring flash, and for a moment, Rose had the wildly disconcerting feeling of being somewhere dark, underground, pitched into thick darkness. The air was thick with smoke and incense, which did nothing to mask the foul-smell of the vapours.
Gasping for breath, she stumbled backwards, pushing herself away from the stranger, and the illusion wavered. She could sense the crowded streets of Colchis around her, the sun shining, although it seemed distant, as though a veil had been cast over her, muting the rest of the world. In confusion, she looked back to the woman in red, and the streets of Colchis fell away.
The woman called Pythia no longer stood in the shadows of a stone building, but sat regally atop a golden tripod, settled on the rocks over a spring, the water dark below her. The deep blood-red robes that draped over her shoulders were pooled in billowing folds in her lap, and she leaned forwards slightly, her voice sound like the voice of many.
"Rose. We have travelled very far, indeed. Rose."
With a start, Rose felt something in her hands, and looking down, saw that she was clasping a long, coiling branch of laurel leaves in a tight grip. "Who are you?" she asked, in a hoarse whisper. She felt her heart racing in her chest, and her hands, grasping the leaves, shook.
Pythia smiled at this, her mouth the only part of her face that was visible to Rose, the lips painted a bright red. "You will find your enemy waiting for you in Colchis."
Beneath her tall golden tripod, an ominous crack in the dark earth of the mountain was torn, and the fumes and gases sprayed in a thick torrent from the opening.
"What?" Rose looked at her in confusion. No matter how hard she tried, she could not force herself to turn away. She could no longer see through the darkness of the cave to the bright, crowded streets of the living. She could no longer see the Doctor, although she felt he was close. Trapped in a dream, she could only stare at her captor in horror. "What do you know about our—"
"Just remember one thing, Rose. If your wishes are to be granted, then all of your dreams must be destroyed."
Before she could speak, the wind rose, impossibly, from the depths of the cave, slamming against her, pushing her backwards. She felt the wind pulling her hair and the long robes of her costume fluttering out around her. The smell of the caves rose into her mind, paralyzing her as the shadows of the caves were torn away, the ground ripped out from beneath her, and the Pythia, the Oracle, was receding, fading like a ghost.
Fighting against the torrent, her eyes watering as she tried to keep them open, Rose shouted, "Wait! Who are you—"
But the illusion was gone.
"Rose?"
The ground seemed to tilt sharply beneath her. The air felt different, so much lighter, that for a second, she was near delirium with the sensation of weightlessness, and the colours, so much brighter—for a moment, all of it was lost in a blanket of blind whiteness as her eyes blinked and refocused.
"Rose?"
The sounds began to wash over her, in waves, rising and falling, crashing down on her ears. People were screaming.
People were screaming and running past her. The Colchis she had reawakened in wasn't the one she had left behind. A young woman knocked into her sharply, and Rose turned to see her disappear into a crowd of fleeing merchants and peasants. She shook her head, staggering slightly when she tried to move.
"Rose!"
The Doctor. Looking up, Rose searched for his face in the mass chaos of the crowd. But all around her, the mess of coloured robes, tanned flesh and hair obscured all else. A young couple running slammed into her, and Rose stumbled backwards. She tried to back up against the wall of the building behind her, but instead crashed into more of the fleeing merchants, and was knocked back into the crowd.
"Doctor?"
Rose felt her knees strike the earth and the air was momentarily knocked from her lungs as the crowd moved around her, over her, until it thinned and vanished. As the air began to still, she raised her head shakily—and found herself face to face with a battalion of armed warriors.
"You are not a maiden of Colchis," the warrior spoke in a bellowing voice, glaring down at her. Behind him, a dozen warriors bore lances, pointed menacingly at her, their steel blades glaring in the harsh light of the sun. "Who did you come with?" the knight demanded. "Where are the rest of the invaders?"
"I—Invaders?"
She looked from the man standing before her, back to the readied weapons, not daring to move to stand up. All men were dressed in steel chain-mail from head to foot, with shields and swords strapped to their arms and their backs.
"Don't play dumb with me, girl! King Aetes is not particularly fond of uninvited guests in his kingdom, as all the world well knows!"
"Well I didn't!" she snapped back as one of the men pointed the tip of his lance directly at her throat. "You can't just—"
"Oh, but I can!" the Colchian guard growled. Rose felt herself lifted off the ground, an iron-like grip around her throat. A moment of wild panic threatened to overwhelm her as she kicked her feet desperately and found only empty air, and her lungs burned in her chest as the sharp clench around her neck tightened.
"Unhand that maiden that wears Minoan dress, and has the golden hair of Aphrodite and Demeter!"
The world spun sharply as Rose fell back to the ground, the air rushing back into her lungs and her knees buckling against the earth. She gasped for breath, one hand instinctively moving to her throat.
"Who in Tartarus are you?" the officer spat angrily.
Still gasping slightly, Rose also raised her gaze to see who her defender was. For a moment, she thought she was looking at Dorian, but no, he was thinner, his long yellow hair lacked the radiant gleam of Erocia's golden curls, and his face was thinner, angular, his skin richly tanned. On his head he wore a helmet, and a large circular shield was fastened to his left arm. He had a sword drawn and ready. Behind him, a large group of men had gathered, each bearing swords or lances and looking prepared to fight.
"I am Jason, son of Aeson, and I have sailed from Iolcus with these men, the Argonauts."
"So you're the invading scum!" the Colchian warrior snarled. Without waiting for a reply, the warrior leapt forwards, lunging at Jason like a wild beast.
Jason nimbly side-stepped the attack, and brought his own sword down swiftly through the soldier's neck. The body fell suddenly limp to the ground, red blood splattering against the earth and tarnishing the blade of Jason's sword.
For a moment, Rose found herself staring numbly at the dead body, and the thick pool of blood forming beneath it. In her travels with the Doctor she had seen death before, she had seen people she had come to regard as friends die, but this was altogether different, brutal and filthy on an entirely different level of reality. It seemed that the Colchian guards had been stunned for a moment as well, as they watched their leader fall so easily to the alien youth.
And then in a rage, they attacked. The Argonauts were strong men, more than capable of defending themselves in a fight, and the sound of steel clashing rang out clearly as weapons met and men gave bestial cries of battle. Rose stared at it all in confusion and horror, she cringed from the piercing screams of the Colchian warriors as their arms were hewn crudely off by the Greek swords, and lances broke through leather cuirasses and tore apart men's shoulders in a thick spray of blood.
Then, one of the warriors caught sight of her. She felt it first, with a sort of primitive survival instinct, and twisted around in time to see him lunge for her. Crawling out of the way, she heard the soldier grunt as he sprawled in the dirt and began towards her, the sounds of the battle still raging all around them. Desperately, Rose crawled to where the body of the Colchian officer lay, and grasped the handle of his broad sword in both hands.
By this time, the warrior was almost upon her, she turned back to face him with the sword clasped unconfidently in front of her. The brute grinned at her, a sick sort of demented smile, several of his teeth were missing, and a trail of spit dribbled down his chin.
"Now, now sweetie, no need to be so—"
She slammed the flat edge of the blade into the side of his head with all her might. The resounding ring rang up shrilly over the marketplace, and he toppled to the ground. Taking a shaky breath, Rose allowed the weapon to slide from her grasp, as she stood.
Instantly, an arm grabbed her around the waist, hauling her backwards, and she felt the bitingly cold steel of a sword against her throat. Panic seized her as she felt the blade bite into her skin, and her heart slammed painfully and then—
"Let her go," a familiar German voice commanded loudly. "Now."
"You want to fight me?" the man holding her laughed shrilly. "You don't even have a sword!"
Rose finally opened her eyes in time to see the Major smirk. It was possibly the most unsettling sight she had ever seen. A moment later, the Colchian released his grip on her and turned to the Major.
It happened so quickly, Rose barely saw any of it. The warrior swung widely with his weapon, and the Major caught the arm in a tight grasp, twisting it back until the Colchian dropped his sword. The Major's fist smashed into the warrior's jaw, and sent the man sprawling backwards, a thick spray of blood erupting from his shattered mouth. He crashed against the earth and lay still.
By this time, the fighting around them had mostly stopped, and the Major barely even glanced at her to see if she was alright. Feeling a little snubbed, Rose frowned as Jason approached them. "You are not from Colchis," the handsome young man said, it was not a question. "Nor are you from Iolcus."
She smiled uneasily. "No…well, that is, you see, I came here with some friends—"
"Travellers this far into the world of heroes is rare," the young warrior said musingly. "And who is your companion, who fights like the son of an immortal?"
The Major fixed Jason with a level glare. "I am Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach."
"…And I'm Rose Tyler," she added, looking uneasily from the Major back to Jason.
"Strange names…" he commented, giving them a curious glance. "And you," he added, looking pointedly at Klaus, "Your clothes are very odd."
"What!" the Major sputtered, looking thoroughly outraged. "This is a standard—"
"NATO uniform?" a silky voice purred behind them. "Darling, they aren't going to understand that. After all, NATO won't exist for another couple millennia."
"Eroica," the Major acknowledged dryly, not even turning to look at the thief.
"There you all are!" the Doctor added, and Rose turned to see him walking towards them. "Sorry to have missed all the action. Have you ever tried running in one direction while a few hundred panicked civilians are running in the other? 'S not fun."
"No, I wouldn't recommend it, either," the Earl mused, brushing some dirt off his robes. When he raised his head, he caught sight of the Argonauts and smiled widely. "Ooh, my handsome lad must be Jason," he all but purred.
"Eroica!" the Major growled.
"I was just saying 'hello,'" the Earl replied, looking slightly put-off.
"You were—"
They were interrupted by the sound of chariot wheels grinding over the roadway, and horses hooves crashing against the dirt. "What is that?" Rose asked, as the entire group turned to see the approach of a dozen golden chariots drawn by snow-white stallions, an armed guard surrounding them.
The largest, most elaborate chariot stopped before their group, and a tall broad-shouldered man dressed in robes made of a rich golden fabric stepped down. He carried a jewelled sceptre in one large hand, and the rays of his crown flashed like fire in the hot light of the sun.
"I am Aetes," he spoke in a loud rumbling voice, a voice that could command armies. "King of Colchis. Word of the trouble you are causing in my lands has spread to my palace, and I have come to see for myself what sort of fool would dare to land at the shore of Cutaia, knowing my laws against invaders and my noble warriors who never tire of battle."
"Your men are hardly 'noble' when they're attacking defenceless maidens!" Jason replied, drawing himself up to face King Aetes with the proud stance of a warrior. "But you have no cause to attack my party, we are not savage barbarians here to slaughter your peasants and enslave your women-folk. We are travellers sent by my uncle Pelias, the Minoan king, Lord of Iolcus."
"Oh really? And what has King Pelias sent you here to accomplish, idiot youth? Can you not see that my men greatly outnumber yours—if you try to attack us, you won't have crew enough to make it back to Iolcus, even if you should survive!"
Eroica was watching the growing argument with obvious delight, apparently too caught up in the history and the grandeur—and, Rose noticed, eyeing the Sun King's sparkling crown—to notice the danger they were in, caught in the middle between the two groups.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, King Aetes turned his gaze in their direction. "And who are you, strange foreign woman that my men are accused of assaulting?" he took a step towards her, menacingly. "Then again, maybe they had the right idea," he reached out and grabbed her chin, jerking her face towards his. She felt a rush of revulsion and tried to back away, but he held on fast.
Unexpectedly, it was the Major who stepped between them, knocking the large king's arm to the side as though it were a twig. "Back off. There's nothing more pathetic than a perverted old fool like you harassing an unarmed civilian."
"Who do you think you are? Don't you realize who I am?" the king demanded angrily.
"Ja…" the Major said slowly, studying the ostentatious monarch and his soldiers for a long moment. "…A loud, blithering idiot."
Rose had to bite down on her lip to keep from laughing out loud, but then she saw the unusually grave expression on the Doctor's face, and even Eroica looked a bit horrified. "Major, darling, he is the King, you know…" the Earl attempted, looking a little weakly at the offended army, many of whom were drawing their swords.
The King himself was clearly bursting with anger, he had probably never been so insulted in his entire life. His face was burning and his fists shook with rage. "You…bastards. I'll have you skinned alive! I'll have you cut up and fed to the dragon! I'll feed you alive to the dragon! I'll—"
"Father, wait—!" a young woman stepped down from one of the golden chariots. Another girl stood in the chariot, watching her pensively. Beside them, stood a tall man entirely cloaked in a long black cape with a hood hiding his face, but he was clearly observing everything closely.
"Sister, don't be foolish—"
"Be quiet, Calciope!" the princess turned back to her father, looking at him imploringly. She was very beautiful, long raven-black hair falling thickly over her shoulders and framing a pale ivory face, her eyes large, dark and soft. Numerous veils of different colours were wound about her shoulders and head, but they had slipped loose when she leapt from the chariot and were caught in the wind rising all around her. "Please, father, you mustn't kill them—they are only poor travellers, ignorant of our customs and ways…"
Rose saw the princess' gaze move over them and rest longingly on Jason for a long minute before she returned her attention to her father, the king. "Please, father, at least hear them out. We do not yet know why they have sailed from Iolcus, and Pelias is a son of Poseidon, it would not do to murder his nephew without reason."
King Aetes regarded his daughter for a long moment. "Medea," he spoke finally. "You have always been a wise child, and I know you have special knowledge of the gods and their ways…therefore," he turned to glare at Jason and the Argonauts. "I shall listen to your advice. Why then, Minoan warriors, have you come to these lands?"
"As I've said, we are not here to fight!" Jason shouted. "We come for the Golden Fleece, a treasure that rightfully belongs to the people of Iolcus." Jason did look handsome as he spoke in a commanding tone, the rays of sunlight blazing off his long golden hair, and slick, tanned chest. For a minute, Rose could fully understand the princess' obvious infatuation with the warrior, until she remembered the Doctor standing beside her, and reached out to hold his hand tightly.
"You want…the Golden Fleece?" King Aetes replied, clearly to surprised to be angry. "The sacred fleece that I hung in the garden of Ares, have guarded by a dragon, a maze of poisonous wood, and a grand fortress with walls nine ells high? And you expect me to just…give it to you? You, an ignorant stranger who has appeared from nowhere on some woebegone quest?"
Jason looked genuinely surprised at hearing his heroic journey so surmised. He stared at the grand son of Helios and his army with wide eyes and said simply: "Yes."
The King stared back at him for a moment, and fire flashed in his eyes, but then the anger seemed to be overwhelmed by the absolute idiocy of the entire situation, and the Colchian king's shoulders trembled as he laughed loudly in the Argonaut's face.
Jason looked stunned, he turned to his men in confusion, but it was Eroica who spoke up to him.
"We could help, you know," Dorian offered, flipping a wave of golden curls back over his shoulder.
"No, we need to help," Rose said quickly, earning inquisitive looks from her friends. In a hushed voice she told them what she had seen before the Colchian soldiers attacked. "I don't know how to explain it, but there was this woman…"
"What? Who was she?" the Major demanded. "Was she with the enemy?"
"I don't know!" Rose gave him an exasperated look. "I don't know who she was, or how she knew what did, but she said that our enemy would be waiting for us in Colchis!"
"I don't like this," the Doctor said quietly. "Time is being tampered with. We have to find this man soon, and if he is me from the future…."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Eroica interjected, turning back to the waiting Argonauts. "We will help you!"
"Yes, I think you could," said Jason thoughtfully.
One of the Argonauts, a long-haired youth with a cape and a lyre clasped under his arm stepped forwards. "I think this youth looks like he could be a son of the Cyprian herself, or Apollo, perhaps" he said, gesturing to Dorian and echoing the sentiments of the old priest they had met earlier. "And this other warrior, the oddly dressed one, we've seen him fight like an offshoot of Ares. We've already lost many of our original party, having these four join us would not be a bad idea."
"Well put, Orpheus. Very well," Jason said, turning back to Eroica. "We will allow you to join us, if you can help us retrieve the Golden Fleece for my people."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Meanwhile, Princess Medea was speaking with her father. "It would be cruel and barbaric to slaughter them—and what will the people say if you turn this brave warrior away without giving him a chance to fulfill his journey? They'll say you are a coward, for there is no way he could succeed even if you did give him a chance."
For a second, Aetes looked as though he were once again becoming possessed with a rage, but then he controlled himself and asked through gritted teeth, "And what do you suggest I do, daughter?"
Medea looked thoughtful and spoke slowly. "I think you should tell Jason that…you will give him a set of labours to accomplish, and as a reward for the labours you will grant him the Golden Fleece!"
"But I can't—"
"My king, if I may interrupt…" the cloaked man spoke for the first time. Aetes and his daughter both turned to regard the stranger, whose dark hood hid his face. The stranger had appeared to them only a few days earlier. Medea shivered when he spoke, there was something abnormal about the man, his spirit felt cold and alien, and the aura she perceived around him was entirely black, heartless and dark. But her father had taken to the mysterious stranger and listened eagerly to his advice.
"Yes, yes, do you have an idea? Out with it!"
The cloaked man seemed to be smiling, even if they could not see his face. "You will tell Jason to complete a set of tasks…but the tasks will be impossible! Don't worry, I'll take care of that."
King Aetes smiled.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Come to my palace tomorrow at sunrise, Jason," King Aetes told the Argonauts with a dark smile. "I will give you a set of tasks to complete by dark and should you be successful in them, I will give you the fleece as a reward."
So saying, the Sun King climbed back into his golden chariot and his daughters and the cloaked advisor followed. A moment later, the King gave loud ringing orders, and the horses and chariots turned and rode away from the town.
The Argonauts had fallen silent at the strange announcement and now turned to their young leader in confusion. "What do we do now?" Orpheus asked, sitting on the ground and arranging the lyre in his lap, his brow furrowed in thought.
"The tasks are sure to be extremely hard, probably requiring the strength of ten men or so," another of the warriors pointed out, most unhelpfully.
"If only we hadn't left Herakles on that island when he went to rescue his friend from certain death…" another of the Argonauts added, looking significantly at their leader for a moment. "You know, he could have done the labours in a snap. It was sort of his area, after all."
"Now, now, there's no need to get nasty, boys," Eroica smiled. "I have a fairly good idea of what we can expect, and who will help you…"
"…Medea," Rose said softly, and Dorian looked at her in surprise.
"I thought you didn't know the story of Jason and the Argonauts!"
"Well, I mean…the way she looked at him, like you said about…" me and the Doctor. She's in love with him.
The Minoans were watching with a sort of perplexed expression, but then Orpheus spoke. "Medea? I have heard of her, she is supposedly a great and powerful witch."
"That princess?" Jason asked, a grin slowly appearing on his face. "You think she could be persuaded to help us…?"
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Dorian walked down the slightly sloping trail that led from the small Colchian town to the seashore. The path wound its way along the side of a cliff that cut sharply away, and was overgrown with tall grasses and tangled bushes that crawled over the smooth rocks that broke out of the dirt. The sun was setting over the Black Sea, casting shimmering reds and oranges to dance in the water and the sky. There was a slight wind rising up from the water, that blew his golden curls over his shoulders pleasantly.
Somewhere, the Doctor and Rose were making camp with the Argonauts, and the Major was reluctantly following him. "I want to make sure you don't do something stupid. Like try and steal Aetes' crown."
"Darling, I'm touched!"
"Don't be an idiot! You're likely to cause trouble for all of us!"
"Hmmm…" Dorian came to a stop on a small ledge, watching the brilliant red sunset and feeling the wind in his hair. "You know," he gave the Major a coy glance. "The ancient Greeks were a unique culture in many ways…did you know that rather than persecuting or shunning homosexuals, the ancient Greeks actually encouraged—"
"Shut up! I don't want to hear your perverted babbling!" the Major snapped, tossing one cigarette to the ground and quickly fishing in his pocket for a replacement.
"Now, now, darling, there's no need to be so stroppy," Dorian objected, putting on his best pouting face. "You're the one who kissed me last time, after all."
That did it. The Major's face instantly lost all its colour, and the mosel-green eyes became both small and wide. For a second, Dorian was afraid Klaus was going to fall right off the edge of the cliff, but then the Major began to breathe again, and quickly fixed the Earl with an angry glare. "That was—that wasn't—"
"What?" Dorian asked, leaning very intentionally into Klaus' personal space, near enough to feel his beloved's breath on his face…near enough to kiss.
"A mistake!" the Major yelled, looking thoroughly panicked. He began to turn sharply away, but Dorian caught him by the shoulders roughly.
"No, it wasn't, and neither is this." Dorian reached forwards and, catching the Major's neck in his hands, drew him into a deep kiss. He felt the thick raven-hair tangled beneath his hands, and held tightly as he pressed his mouth hungrily into the Major', devouring his lower lip and slowly pressing his tongue against the Major's mouth. To his surprise, the lips parted for him, and he found himself completely lost in the warm taste of cigarettes and skin and…
When he finally forced himself to pull back, he reluctantly released his hold on Klaus and found himself waiting for a minute, to see if the Major was going to hit him. But the expected blow never came, and Dorian finally opened his eyes to see the Major looking at him with a pale face, an expression more blank than frightened, but more alarmed than angry.
"Major…Klaus…"
"Dorian, Major!" the Doctor's voice called from the top of the path.
"Damn it, not now," Dorian muttered, but when he turned to see the Doctor he found the Time Lord looking pale and worried. He hurried down the path towards them. "It's Rose—"
"What?"
"She's gone," the Doctor's face looked grave and his eyes were dark and worried. "King Aetes' men have got her."
To be Continued in Episode 09: All That Glitters Part I