"I know that usually girls ask for jewelry from the guys they're dating, but I think they usually go for something a little less house arrest," I said as I examined the thick black bracelet that the Doctor had wrapped around my wrist. He looked up at me through his fringe in mild exasperation.
"My apologies for not being able to dig out my bedazzler in time," he said dryly, and I smiled.
"Apology accepted. Now what is this for?" I asked and twisted my wrist like I was trying to catch the light on the bracelet.
"Emergency transport. It'll automatically transport you back to this ship if something goes wrong," he said before moving over to Doctor Brown and slapping one on his wrist as well. I looked at the Doctor's bare wrist pointedly.
"You too. I'm not letting you stay behind somewhere," I said, and he rolled his eyes fondly before hooking one on his wrist as well. I bounced up to kiss his cheek. "Thank you."
"Doctor I am afraid I still do not understand," Doctor Brown said, and they were off again on the discussion of what was and was not possible until Doctor Brown quit mid sentence to cough harshly into his handkerchief. The Doctor's face furrowed into a frown and he subtly whipped out the sonic to scan him.
"Pardon me," Doctor Brown gasped once he had finished. I waved my hand at him nonchalantly even as I passed the Doctor a worried look. He leaned in close to my ear.
"Tuberculosis," he said softly, and I winced slightly.
"Doctor Brown why don't you wait here for a few moments while we go discover a few more pieces of information?" I suggested softly and he nodded weakly as he sat down on the jump seat.
"Yes, I appear to be a bit overwhelmed," he said. The Doctor hooked his hand around mine and squeezed my hand gently.
"Shall we?" He asked and I smiled.
"Lead the way." I waited until we were well out of earshot of the TARDIS before I squeezed the Doctor's hand back. "How bad is his TB?"
"Bad," he said without looking at me which made me think that the diagnosis was actually about as bad as it could have been. I also got the sense that he didn't want to talk about it, so I changed subjects.
"Exactly how many things have I been vaccinated against?" I asked and his face scrunched up like he was trying to do some hard-mental math.
"Just about every major epidemic that I could think of plus a few others," he said. "Barring the common cold. Still haven't worked that one out."
"I'm going to count that as a win all the same," I said as we came to a stop by a computer. I went to sit down on the floor again, but the Doctor shifted his hand to catch me by my upper arm and drag me back upright.
"Rule Two Emma. I'm not letting you skirt it this time," he said and pulled me bodily between himself and the computer. I laughed, rolled my eyes and set my fingers on the keys. His arms wrapped around me as he rested his chin on my shoulder.
"What am I typing?" I asked and he pressed a kiss to my cheek before telling me what to type. I was sure that I was going slower than he would have, but he didn't seem to mind. Either that or he just knew that I had a comeback ready to go if he complained.
"Name of the ship is 'Anne of Austria'. Odd how they've both been French Queens," he said, and I shrugged with one shoulder.
"Maybe it's the French line and there's an English line and a Russian one and so on," I said. He hummed in my ear and told me which folders to open.
"There we go. Exactly what we're looking for," he said.
"A crew member's diary?" I asked because that was certainly what it looked like.
"Transmission records," he said with a smile.
"Oh." I scrolled down to the bottom so that we could read the last transmission. "Anne of Austria being abandoned in light of crew deaths."
"That will be the Pnue Flu," the Doctor said, and I frowned.
"Why not just say so?" I asked.
"In an official transmission it would have meant that the entire crew would have probably not been rescued to prevent further spread of disease." I made a horrified noise. "Unofficial transmissions would have made everyone aware of the situation."
"Have I ever mentioned how much I hate my fellow humans sometimes?" I grumbled as I closed the transmission log and moved towards a different folder.
"You haven't," he said teasingly as he stepped away from me. "What are you looking at?"
"It was the most recently accessed folder. The dates of the last transmission and this folder don't match," I said as I opened it and checked to see who had accessed it. I'd been around an office enough to know how to figure that out.
"Who accessed it?" He asked.
"Just says maintenance so I would assume our clockwork robot friends. This looks like a list of all the repairs they've been doing," I said as I skimmed my finger down a list of dates. It was longer than I would have thought it would be since the ship had been abandoned years ago.
"The ship is in perfect condition why would they keep going?" The Doctor asked as he raked his hands through his hair.
"But the ship isn't in perfect condition. They said the air was bad, it's full of Pnue Flu. Arguably if they fixed the filtration system then they would have been doing their job," I said slowly, and he stared at me for several moments before his face split into a wide smile.
"Emma Bradley you are brilliant!" He bounced forward and kissed my forehead before pulling away and kissing me properly. "Utterly Brilliant!"
"Thanks. Wait when you encountered something similar with Madame du Pompadour, they wanted her brain right?" I asked with a frown.
"That's correct," he said as he bent over the computer again and started typing madly.
"But that can't be what they're looking for this time right?" I said, mostly to myself, but the Doctor looked up at me with a dawning realization. "They would want something to fix the air. That means lungs."
"Emma," he said as he stood up fully straight. I smiled weakly at him.
"Am I still brilliant?" I teased weakly. He pressed another kiss to my forehead, though distantly this time.
"Of course, you are. Brilliance doesn't go away based on what the brilliance is," he said though he was staring over my head as he said it, intensely enough that I had to sneak a look behind me myself just in case there was something standing there. The hallway behind us was empty so I looked back at him with a questioning look.
"So, what's wrong?" I asked and he winced before he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
"Just got the mental image of those robots having cut out your lungs," he said, and I screwed my face up in disgust.
"Gross," I said, and he dropped me an exasperated look. I reached out and patted his hand. "Yes, I'm sure the idea of me lying dead outside the TARDIS was a bad one, but really there's no way that could have been clean. Especially what with the tools they seemed to have access to."
The Doctor burst out laughing at that as he bent over to rest his forehead on my shoulder, like he was laughing too hard to keep his head up. I smiled and ran the tips of my fingers over his scalp, just to enjoy the moment as much as I could.
"Of all the things to think about," he wheezed out a few moments later and I grinned.
"They probably weren't sanitary either," I said which set the Doctor off again and my smile widened. It wasn't often a person could get the Doctor to laugh this hard.
"You know what this means?" The Doctor asked and I lifted my arm so that he could see the bracelet.
"We're going to the past in a new and exciting fashion to stop Anne of Austria from getting her lungs cut out?" I asked and he laughed again.
"Emma what would I do without your succinct summaries of our situations," he said as he stepped away from me and wiped a few tears from his eyes that were still glimmering with mirth.
"Laugh less?" I suggested with a shoulder shrug. His grin widened somehow before he swooped down to kiss me.
"Oh, most definitely, my love."
"I thought I told you to stop calling me that," I said as I felt my ears pink up.
"Never," he said and nuzzled my nose with his. "Now we really should be getting back to Doctor Brown so that we can jet off to the past."
"Why are we bringing him along?" I asked before I realized how that sounded. "Not that I'm not mad that he is or anything I just was curious why."
"I don't want to leave him somewhere by himself," he said, and I nodded.
"That would suck a lot," I said. We walked in silence for a while until we were back outside the TARDIS. "Do you feel as anxious about this as I do?"
"Anxious?" he asked, and I shrugged.
"Just – I don't know it feels like something is going to go wrong," I said as I crossed one of my arms over my chest and rubbed my palm up and down my other arm. "Sorry I know that doesn't make any sense."
"Since when do things have to make sense?" He asked with an eyebrow quirk as he reached for the door.
"Good point." I decided to wait outside the TARDIS while the Doctor sauntered in to convince Doctor Brown to come with us. I rested my hand on the TARDIS. "Are you feeling nervous too or is it just me?"
I got a hesitant pulse in return which made me think that it wasn't just me and that definitely didn't really make me feel better, but I wasn't going to mention it to the Doctor just in case he did something crazy like try to leave me here in the TARDIS.
"Ready Emma?" The Doctor asked as he and Doctor Brown stepped out next to me. Doctor Brown had better colour already which seemed a little improbable, so I assumed the TARDIS had something to do with it.
"Of course," I said as I slipped my hand off the TARDIS. We walked back to the portal and to my surprise Doctor Brown squared his shoulders and walked through first.
"Ladies first I insist," the Doctor said with a sweep of his arm. I gave him a half curtsey in response.
"Well if you insist." I stepped through and felt an odd sort of suction against me before my foot landed on the wooden floor of a small gathering room.
"Wow this is so cool," I said as I looked around us and then back through the portal we had stepped through. It just looked like a normal painting from this angle and I opened my mouth to ask about it but was cut off by the Doctor's hand coming down to grasp my shoulder tightly.
"Emma," he breathed in horror as he jerked me to face him. He was as white as a sheet and I gave him a confused, concerned look.
"What's wrong?" I asked and his hand tightened.
"Do you feel alright?" He asked.
"I feel fine," I said with growing confusion. "Do I not look fine?"
"You flickered," he said, and I frowned at him.
"I did what?" At my question his memory flashed across my vision, me turning to look back at the painting and my physical form seemed to flicker. "Well that's weird."
"Alarming was the word I was thinking of," he said dryly before his expression contorted again.
"Oh, I don't like that look. What's wrong?" I asked as I arched up on my tip toes to get a good look at his facial expression. It wasn't one that I recognized immediately which was pretty much always a bad sign in my opinion.
"Time is creaking," he said as he squished his eyes shut and I blinked at him to see if he would expand.
"Creaking?" I clarified. He nodded.
"Imagine a piece of glass that's cracked so much it's almost ready to shatter. The noise it makes is very similar to creaking," he said and opened his eyes to look down at me before reaching down to fiddle with the bracelet on my wrist. "The clockwork robots did a sloppy job setting up the portals, didn't take the care they should have when they were trying to find the right year."
"They poked too many holes in time, and it's all centered here?" I guessed and he nodded. "Well that explains how Doctor Brown ended up on the ship. How bad is the creaking?"
"The TARDIS couldn't come within a century of here," he said gravely, and a shiver raced up my spine.
"Glad we have these then," I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster and gave my wrist a little shake to knock the bracelet against his fingers. He smiled weakly. "We should catch up with Doctor Brown."
"What!?" The Doctor said as he cranked his neck around just in time to watch Doctor Brown walk dazedly out of the room and I laughed.
"See it's not just me who wanders off," I said, and he rolled his eyes as he grabbed my hand and led me out of the room.
"Which of the two of you actually knows the rules?" He grumbled teasingly and I beamed at him.
"You say that like you always follow the rules," I said.
"Not fair," he said as he gave me a disgruntled look. I smiled as I shook my head.
"Who said I have to be fair?" I asked as I scanned the room until the Doctor caught my attention again by tapping something against the palm of my hand. I wrapped my hand around it automatically and brought it up so that I could look at it and shot him a questioning look.
"Handheld EMP. Very small range, just enough to permanently disable the clockwork creatures," he said. I tilted my head at him.
"Is this blanket permission to wander off?" I asked with a teasing wink and he sighed deeply.
"This is a permission this time because we are going to have to split up to find Doctor Brown," he said and reached in my pocket to dig out my phone. He soniced it quickly before setting it in my free hand. "Please don't get your lungs cut out."
"Same to you Doctor. Although I think the bigger concern is making sure that Anne of Austria doesn't get her lungs cut out," I said as I held up my hand with the phone. "What did you do?"
"Floorplans. X marks the portal we just came through." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to demonstrate and I nodded before I lifted the EMP up.
"How do I use this?" He tapped one end.
"Point." Then his fingers shifted to rest my thumb on a button. "And shoot."
"Simple. I like it," I said as I shoved my phone back in my pocket before hooking my now free hand around the back of the Doctor's skull and pulling him in for a kiss. "Good luck. I love you."