Chapter 12 The One where the Stranger Returns
Hello! Me again, another chapter! This one was funnnnnn to write! Hope you all got excited when you read the chapter title...
(In the last chapter I said 13 instead of 12, don't worry, my bad you're not missing any chapters!)
I own nothing recognisable!
Florence lightly jogged up to the TARDIS with a grin, ready to greet whichever Doctor was on the other side, her hand reached out to push the handle… Only for the door to be wedged stubbornly in place. She rattled it impatiently, before rapping on it with her other hand, her knuckles roughly scrapping the blue wood. "Doctor!" She called out. "Let me in!" She sighed and turned her back to the door, clearly the Time Lord wasn't home this time around, blowing a stray piece of hair that fell across her forehead in annoyance. "Now what?" She scanned the plaza, hoping to catch sight of either her trench coat or tweed Doctor finishing up whatever he was doing and ready for the next adventure. She squinted in the sunlight and paused when she saw something that was unexpected but not unwelcome to find in Cardiff city centre. A World War Two greatcoat heading towards the pier and almost out of eyesight.
"Hey!" She yelled out, abandoning her place in front of the TARDIS and sprinting across the plaza, she was not letting this man slip through her fingers again. "Hey!" She couldn't quite tell if he was purposefully ignoring her or if he genuinely didn't hear her shouting at him, as he turned to bound down a set of stairs leading to the pier. She followed quickly now only a handful of feet behind him. "Stop! JACK!" She screeched, finally calling his name and hoping, deeply hoping, that it was in fact Captain Jack Harkness that she had been pestering. The man in question turned with a flourish and grinned down at the girl, hands on knees catching her breath, and clapped his hands together,
"Oh I've missed that resilience, Flo." Her response was a simple middle finger. "Now that's not nice, what can I do for ya, doll?" Florence straightened and tried to speak through her panting, hands now firmly on her hips, trying to appear stern.
"Where… the fuck… have you been?" She asked him, and the smarmy grin remained on his face,
"Oh, around… shouldn't you be up there soon," he gestured the way they had both come, "with Doc?"
"Right so you know the Doctor, do you?" Jack's grin faltered at this.
"What do you mean?" He asked, and Florence let out a disdainful scoff,
"What I mean, Captain…" She mocked. "Is that I met you, and next thing I know I'm being thrown each and every way throughout time and space for your information, and I don't know why!" She thrust a finger in his shocked face. "So you, doll, are gonna tell me!"
"Flo, I-"
"It's Florence." She interrupted, crossing her arms across her chest, indignantly, and he held his hands in surrender.
"Okay, Florence, gotcha. Look, how long have you travelled with the Doctor?"
"I dunno," she frowned at him, "a week or two? I'm not sure…" Jack ran a hand down the side of his face,
"Right okay, so when did you meet me?"
"Hey! I'm asking the questions, you're answering them." She told him, trying to sound more stern than she felt.
"Just, tell me, please."
"I met you at work. You kept coming in, all vague and friendly… next thing I know I'm blacking out and ending up random places." She looked up at him, desperate for answers. "What's happening to me?"
"Look, doll." Jack placed his hands on her shoulders, bending to look her in the eye. "You need to understand, time, especially for you and I, isn't linear. I haven't visited you yet." She opened her mouth in confusion, but he stopped her. "I know it's confusing but listen to me. You're gonna go up there, and meet me again. I'll know you a bit but not much, so don't tell me anything. I'm sorry, Flo." She let the nickname slide with the gentle way he stroked her hair slightly in comfort. "But I didn't bring you here, I don't know what's happening to you either, I guess, I just wanted to visit a dear friend."
"But I don't know you." Florence told him quietly, and he smiled down at her, before backing off slightly.
"Oh but you will, and the pleasure will be all mine." He repeated similar words that she had heard from him all those weeks ago in her little coffee shop, the same cheeky smile on his face. "You gotta go, I'm hiding out until the excitement's over… head to the cafe on the bay." He left her with a wink and began to walk away, toward the door at the end of the walkway, and Florence hesitated before turning around herself and heading to the stairs. So maybe her conversation with Captain Jack Harkness hadn't given her the answers she had hoped for, but at least she had some reassurance that she wasn't mad for feeling uneasy the first time she met him. While she supposed she could no longer blame him for her presence in the Doctor's life, she most definitely could blame him for the headache she would inevitably have when she met him for the third time in a few short minutes.
Florence heard the quick witted, entertaining voice of the frankly insane American before she saw him, telling some story to an enraptured blonde and young black man that was sitting with him. She grinned when she recognised her friends and waltzed up to the table, and straight passed a man standing in a leather jacket reading a newspaper intently.
"Rose! Mickey!" She called as she stopped beside them, and the young pair yelled out in pleased greeting when they saw her, Rose clapping her hands together.
"Florence! You're here! Come sit, Jack was telling us about the, uh, Klanthrax?" She finished looking to Jack for approval,
"Yea-huh! So I picked him up-"
"Wait," Florence interrupted, looking round at the other restaurant goers, "where's the Doctor, then?" Rose waved a hand over at another table,
"Oh, somewhere." Jack opened his mouth to continue his story when the strange man in the leather jacket came over to their table looking intently at the newspaper in his hands.
"And I was having such a nice day." He held up the front page of the local paper, where a picture half obscured by a hand to the camera revealed a middle aged woman glaring towards them. Florence looked up at the man next to her, taking in his cropped dark hair, slightly large ears and nose, and the scowl etched on his face. From the faces of the other three at the table, especially Rose who had snatched the paper to see the picture more closely, she could only assume that the man was in fact-
"Doctor?" It was spoken half as a question half as a statement, and the man turned to smile at her, despite the annoyance clearly in his eyes,
"Florence! Wondered when you'd arrive! Come on, off we go." He grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her away from the table, the sounds of chairs scraping behind them as the three companions stood and followed.
"Hang on, just how many faces of yours do I meet?" The Doctor gave her a look, eyebrows raised in indignation,
"Well how am I supposed to know? You're the one from my future!" Florence frowned at his cheek,
"No you're the one from mine!"
"Well right now I'm not, if you don't recognise this face!"
"I'm not the one changing my face!"
"No, of course not, you just jump around willy nilly and expect me to catch you!" Florence yanked her wrist out of his grip, speeding up to be able to cut in front of him and poke him in the chest when he came to a stop.
"Hey!" She poked him again. "I resent that, that is not my fault and you know it." Rose stepped between the two to break them up,
"Ooookay, now now, children." They both glared at the blonde. "We've got a mayor to visit, don't we?" The Doctor huffed slightly and folded his leather clad arms across his chest, planting a fake smile on his face.
"Yep, come on." He grabbed Florence's wrist once more, gently this time, and led the group across the plaza and in, which Florence presumed to be, the direction of the mayoral office.
"According to intelligence," Jack was informing the rest of the group, as they strolled up the steps of Cardiff City Hall as if they owned the place, the Doctor's psychic paper once more coming in handing to even get through the security at the door, "the target is the last surviving member of the Slitheen family, a criminal sect from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious," Florence attempted to repeated the mouthful of a word quietly to herself, another new planet she was unfamiliar with, and another earth invasion with the Doctor, "masquerading as a human being, zipped inside a skin suit."
"And when you say 'skin suit'?" Jack smiled at her as he unwound his black scarf from his neck,
"I mean a skin casing, yes. Okay, plan of attack, we assume a basic fifty seven fifty six strategy, covering all available exits on the ground floor." Florence looked up at the Doctor as Jack took control, unused to seeing the alien almost seem useless, and received a side eye down at her, clearly he was just as baffled with the development. "Doctor, Florence, you two go face to face. That'll designate Exit One, I'll cover Exit Two. Rose, you Exit Three. Mickey Smith, you take Exit Four. Have you got that?"
Florence almost laughed at the look on the Doctor's face. He looked utterly insulted. "Excuse me. Who's in charge?" He asked.
"Sorry." Jack apologised, clearly half heartedly. "Awaiting orders, Sir."
"Right, here's the plan." The Doctor paused before his face brightened and relaxed. "Like he said. Nice plan. Anything else?"
"Present arms." Florence looked around in confusion as the rest of the group whipped out mobile phones, while the Doctor reached into Florence's jacket and grabbed hers, messing with the battery for a moment (something about sorting out the timezones with his screwdriver, ignoring her cry of "Oi!") before joining the others in keying in each of their numbers and pressing some buttons that she couldn't see.
"What are you doing?" The Doctor nudged her with his arm,
"Don't worry, universal roaming." He whispered before turning to Jack. "Ready."
"Ready." Rose confirmed, followed by Mickey.
Ready. Speed dial?" Jack asked, and they pressed more buttons.
"Yup."
"Ready."
"Check." Florence looked between them all,
"I'm sorry are you mind reading now?" Jack laughed and winked at her.
"See you in hell." He headed off in his designated direction before Florence found herself once more tugged along by the Doctor and away from a, thankfully making her not the only one, slightly perplexed Mickey Smith. She kept up with the still too-long-for-her-height legs of the Doctor as he strode towards the office of the Mayor, barely given a chance to look at her surroundings as she scurried alongside.
"So… what have you guys been up to?" The Doctor chuckled lightly at her awkwardness,
"You never get better at the small talk, you know that?" Florence glared up at him,
"Right, got it. I suppose you can't tell me anyway."
"Nah, why not? We were in the Blitz." Florence blinked.
"The Blitz? Really?" The Doctor scoffed slightly.
"You seem surprised at my use of a time machine for its purpose, Florence."
"This face is quite sassy, int it?" He grinned down at her and winked, still pulling her with him along the carpeted corridors. "The Blitz, eh? That's mad, that. World War Two… I mean, we've done Van Gogh," she ignored the 'spoilers' spoken in a sing-song voice from the man next to her, "oh shut up, and we've done Queen Vic but like, World War Two… that's big."
"Big and dangerous, a little forewarning for you there I guess." Florence chuckled,
"When's it not?"
"Oi! I do try 'safe'! Less fun though." Florence laughed louder. "How are you? With all this." She stopped laughing and shook her head with a small sigh.
"It's… fine. I'm fine." He looked at her in disbelief. "No really, I'm fine, Doctor. It's just… what it is now, I guess. I wouldn't mind going back to see Sally and Sarah, but I know I wouldn't be able to stay long." She paused as something occurred to her. "Hm, hang on. Would I disappear in front of them if I jumped? Like, would I still jump with them around, wouldn't that expose, like, the secrecy of time travel?" The Doctor pulled a face,
"It's not Harry Potter, Florence. I'm not gonna snap your time ID for jumping in front of your mates." Florence frowned,
"How would I even explain it to them?"
"Well, it hasn't happened and might not, so stop thinking about it." The Doctor told her sternly, and she nodded. They turned a corner that had a gold plaque on the wall saying 'Mayor's Office' with an arrow pointing down the hallway, but Florence pulled him to a stop just before they could approach the secretary's desk.
"Hang on, you've read Harry Potter?" The Doctor gave her a look and carried on towards the desk. "Is there really a time travel ID? Do you make me a little plastic card? That's cute." He groaned at her inquisition, ignoring her as he plastered a smile on his face at the young man in front of them.
"Hello. We've come to see the Lord Mayor."
"Have you got an appointment?" The young man asked, polite but clearly ready to turn them away. Florence and the Doctor shared a look, before he replied,
"No, just some old friends passing by. Bit of a surprise. Can't wait to see her face!" He told the secretary, faux excitement brightening the oh so moody face Florence had seen so far. The secretary suddenly looked uncomfortable at their presence,
"Well," he was clearly searching for a reason for them to leave, "she's just having a cup of tea." The Doctor's smile never faltered,
"Just go in there and tell her the Doctor would like to see her." He told him plainly, and the secretary held up a finger,
"Hang on a tick." He disappeared into the office and Florence turned to the Doctor,
"Who is this woman? She can't actually be a friend, right? I mean, it's in a skin suit…" The Doctor smirked, and shushed her slightly,
"Just wait." She quieted and listened out for the conversation in the office, but the room was relatively silent until suddenly, a tea cup smashed on the floor. The secretary reappeared moments later.
"The Lord Mayor says, um, thank you for popping by." He told them, still standing protectively in front of the closed door behind him. "She'd love to have a chat, but, er, she's up to her eyes in paperwork." Florence and Doctor shared an exaggerated sad look with each other. "Perhaps, if you could make an appointment for next week?" There was a pause. The Doctor smiled cheerily once more,
"She's climbing out the window, isn't she?"
The secretary nodded immediately. "Yes, she is." The Doctor pushed past the young man and into the office, Florence following behind, the grand office was empty save for a delicate china set and some scattered files sitting on the table. Oh, Florence supposed, and a half open window with just the heel of a woman's shoe visible as the mayor snuck out the window. The Doctor pulled his phone (well, her own, stolen one) from his pocket and called the others.
"Slitheen heading north." He said quickly before hanging up and running over to the window to follow after the mayor, he held a hand out to help Florence jump up onto the windowsill and gave her a boost, just as the secretary ran in to stop them. He grabbed at the Doctor's jacket as he was attempting to follow Florence out,
"Leave the Mayor alone!" Florence saw the large woman smartly dressed in a women's suit begin to climb down the scaffolding ladder, she turned back to the Doctor as she started after her,
"Doctor, come on!" Florence got to the edge just as the 'Slitheen' reached the bottom, she seemed to be desperately removing her jewellery as she tried to find an escape route. She felt the leather of the Doctor's jacket come up behind her as he finally finished his brawl with the young man, shouting down at the Mayor as he began to climb down the ladder after her,
"Margaret!" Florence groaned when she realised that the Doctor expected her to follow him down, which she of course did with little hesitation. She could see the figures of Jack and Rose chasing after the woman, joining her and the Doctor at the bottom of the ladder, Margaret managing to make her escape through a hole in their defence. A rather Mickey Smith shaped hole.
"Who's on exit four?" Jack asked, catching his breath for a moment.
"That was Mickey!" Rose complained as they watched Margaret run in the distance, with the man of the hour running out of the doorway nearby, foot still half attached to a mop bucket.
"I'm here, I'm here, sorry." The Doctor scowled at the young man,
"Mickey the Idiot." Being the second occasion she had found herself in the company of both men, and the second time the Doctor had rather spitefully spoken to the younger man, Florence also found she didn't like his attitude all that much. So, she hit him, roughly on the arm.
"Don't be rude." She told him, no nonsense. He rolled his eyes in response,
"I'll stop being rude when he stops being useless." Florence shook her head,
"God, you're a dick."
"Oi!" Florence took a little bit of pleasure in the genuinely affronted look on his face.
"To be fair." Rose interrupted the bickering pair. "She's not exactly gonna outrun us, is she?" Florence had to agree with the blonde, as the woman who was a good fifteen feet away from them didn't quite look like a cross country running, especially in her little heels. She supposed Margaret agreed with her about not being a runner, because moments later she had removed both her earrings and pressed the bits of jewellery together, disappearing with a blue flash.
"What? That's not fair!" Florence called out, pulling the same disgruntled face that Jack had next to her,
"She's got a teleport?! That's cheating! Now we're never going to get her." Florence looked up at the Doctor, who didn't seem concerned by the new developments, in fact he looked a little bit smug.
"Oh," Rose mentioned, "the Doctor's very good at teleports." Florence watched the Doctor pull his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket (it was the same blue as her pinstripe Doctor but looked slightly smaller) and held it up in front of them. He pressed a button and Margaret suddenly reappeared in front of them in a flash, a shocked expression on her face as she saw them. She turned on her heel and began to run in the opposite direction, teleporting and, with another press of the Doctor's screwdriver, reappeared again. She scowled and turned around, running and teleporting, before reappearing seconds later. As she turned to run once more, Florence tugged on the Doctor's leather jacket lightly,
"Oh lemme have a go!" He grinned at her, and she was pleased to see that neither of them seemed to be able to hold a grudge on the other for very long. He held out the screwdriver for her to take, placing his warm hand over her own as she held it, helping her find the right button. She pressed it with a grin as Margaret reappeared once more with a flash, groaning as she saw the amused faces of the group, hands on her knees and gasping for breath.
"We could do this all day, Margaret. I think Florence is getting the hang of it."
"Oh I could use a bit more practice though." Florence answered cheekily, causing the mayor of Cardiff to scowl at her.
"This is persecution. Why can't you leave me alone? What did I ever do to you?"
"You tried to kill me and destroy this entire planet." Florence didn't quite know what a 'Slitheen' was exactly, but she couldn't help but think that that sentence summed up most of the aliens that the Doctor and she had encountered so far.
"Apart from that." Margaret conceded, finally replacing her jewellery and holding her hands up in mocking surrender.
"So, you're a Slitheen, you're on Earth, you're trapped." The Doctor spoke quickly as they all entered the City Hall meeting room, he led them all with Florence closely at his side, hand once more firmly wrapped around her wrist, as if worried she may get lost. "Florence, close your ears, your family gets killed," Florence rolled her eyes at his attempt to hide spoilers from her, "but you teleport out just in the nick of time." The six of them gathered around the white scale model design of the city on the table in front of them, two great nuclear towers looking rather out of place in the centre. "You have no means of escape. What do you do? You build a nuclear power station. But what for?" Margaret gave him a cold look,
"A philanthropic gesture." The Doctor smiled and nodded mockingly, as if expecting her answer, while Florence and Rose caught each other's eyes with a disbelieving scoff. "I've learnt the error of my ways."
"And it just so happens to be right on top of the rift." The Doctor finished for her, Florence frowned,
"What rift?" Margaret latched onto the younger girl's confusion,
"I agree, what rift would that be?" Jack ignored Margaret in favour of explaining to Florence,
"A rift in space and time. Like, a wormhole, where free floating spacetime and radiation gets sucked in and spat out. You see, Flo, if this power station went into meltdown, this entire planet would go…" He sucked in a breath and mimed a collision followed by a 'boom' explosion with his hands, startling Florence slightly.
"That is… bad. Very bad." She commented lightly, and the Doctor nodded at her.
"Extremely bad. This station is designed to explode the minute it reaches capacity." Rose frowned and looked around the table for answers,
"Didn't anyone notice? Isn't there someone in London checking this sort of stuff?" Margaret scoffed,
"We're in Cardiff. London doesn't care. The South Wales coast could fall into the sea and they wouldn't notice." Florence snorted lightly, well she's not wrong, "Oh, I sound like a welshman. God help me, I've gone native."
"But why would she do that?" Mickey asked the question Florence herself was wondering. "A great big explosion, she'd only end up killing herself?"
"She has a name you know." Margaret interjected, bitterly.
"She's not even a she." Mickey informed her, smiling mockingly. "She's a thing."
"Oh but she's clever." The Doctor told them, pulling out the middle section of the grey scale model of the city, a large broad piece of what looked like plastic at first, but was revealed to be a covering for the electronics and flashing lights of the other side. "Fantastic."
"What on earth is that?" Florence asked, just as Jack sprang forward to grab the space surfboard,
"Is that a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator?"
"Couldn't have put it better myself." The Doctor laughed, while Rose and Florence shared an incredulous look with each other.
"Ooo, genius!" Jack complemented the piece of technology, turning to Margaret. "You didn't build this."
"I have my hobbies, a little tinkering." She told him, but Jack just shook his head,
"No, no, no. I mean, you really didn't built this." He told her, making Florence laugh slightly. "Way beyond you."
"Ouch." Florence muttered light, while Mickey nodded his head in thought.
"I bet she stole it." He accused, correctly it seemed, at Margaret's slight shrug.
"It… fell into my hands."
"So what is it?" Florence asked, at the same time Rose guessed,
"Is it a weapon?"
Jack shook his head, "It's transport. You see, if the reactor blows, the rift opens. Phenomenal cosmic disaster. But this thing," he rapped on the space surfboard with his knuckle, "shrouds you in a forcefield. You have this energy bubble, so you're safe. Then you feed it coordinates, stand on top, and ride the concussion all the way out of the solar system." Florence smirked,
"So it's a surfboard." Jack gave her a grin,
"A pan-dimensional surfboard, yeah."
"And it would've." Margaret told the group of them, bitterly. "I'd have surfed away from this dead end dump and back to civilisation!" For all the jokes, Florence really didn't think Cardiff was as bad as the alien was making it out to be, nor was Earth - for all it was worth she (surprisingly) thought her home planet was quite nice.
"You'd blow up a whole planet just to get a lift?" Mickey asked, incredulously, but Margaret merely smirked,
"Like stepping on an anthill." Meanwhile, the Doctor had turned from the group, his eye caught by the larger green and blue banner at the back of the room, The Blaidd Drwg Project written across it.
"How'd you think of the name?"
"What?" Margaret asked, looking confused at the interruption. "'Blaidd Drwg'? It's Welsh."
"I know." The Doctor stated plainly, still looking concerned, and Florence stepped into line beside him, tilting her head as if to see what he saw. "But how did you think of it?"
"I chose it at random, that's all." Margaret told him, likely hoping to get back her planet wide destruction plans. "I don't know, it just sounded good. Does it matter?"
"Blaidd Drwg." The Doctor repeated, and Florence tugged at his sleeve,
"Doctor… what is it? What does it mean?"
"Bad Wolf." He told them all, and Rose between him and the sign in sudden similar concern,
"But… I've heard that before. Bad Wolf. We've heard that loads of time?"
"Everywhere we go. Two words following us. Bad Wolf." The Doctor said, and Florence began to worry about the future, not for the first time either. She had no idea what Bad Wolf was, but she did remember a certain wolf that they had encountered with her pinstripe Doctor, who had told Rose he had seen The Wolf within her. Was this what he meant? Was Florence unwittingly leading Rose into danger by not telling her this? Or was it more dangerous to try and change it now?
"How can they be following us?" Rose asked, but Florence was worried to hear the answer. Luck seemed to be on her side, as the Doctor brushed the dark foreboding message to the side as quickly as he had brushed past their argument earlier in the day.
"Nah, just coincidence." He told them. "Like hearing a word on the radio then hearing it all day. Never mind. Things to do." He clapped his hands and turned back to the matter at hand. "Margaret, we're going to take you home."
"Hold on, isn't that the easy option," Jack asked, "like letting her go?" While Rose just looked excited at the prospect,
"I don't believe it! We actually get to go to Raxa." She hesitated on the name. "Wait a minute! Raxacor-"
"Raxacoricofallapatorius." The Doctor told her, in one breath, Florence hated a gloater.
"Raxacorico…" Rose tried again.
"Fallapatorius." The Doctor repeated for her.
"Raxacoricofallapatorius." She threw her arms up in the earth and Florence gave her a double high five while everyone else cheered. "That's it! I did it!" Florence mouthed the eleven syllabic word to herself, the sudden ridiculous task was now the most important thing to her. However, the mood was solemnly ruined by Margaret in a sentence.
"They have the death penalty." She interrupted. "The family Slitheen was tried in its absence many years ago and found guilty with no chance of appeal. According to the statutes of government, the moment I return, I am to be executed. What do you make of that, Doctor? Take me home and you take me to my death."
"Not my problem." The Doctor told her, firmly, and Florence knew he was serious.
Slitheen, two Jack's, AND a new Doctor in Cardiff, poor Flo...
See you for (the real) chapter 13! xo