Health and Safety: Chapter 21 – Keep your Friends Close
Unintentionally, or at least I will claim it's unintentional, my grip on his hand becomes a little tighter at that thought.
The people we love…
I can feel the Doctor's body turn slightly even though I'm not looking at him, his free hand coming up to my forehead, grazing over it as if he is checking for a fever.
"I'm okay, just thinking." I assure him before he has a chance to ask.
He waits for a moment, mouth hanging open from his unasked query.
"You know that sometimes it is perfectly alright to not be okay, right?"
"Now might not be such a great time though..."
"Timing can be everything, but we don't always get to pick our times to feel things, even when we think we really shouldn't." He muses, letting his heels click together as they dangle over the back of the wagon.
"So, plan, we are supposed to be working on one of those, like Ria asked us to."
"Right, and I am working on it." He says as he pulls the sonic out. One of his fingers strokes the back of my knuckles before he eases out of my grasp, apparently needing both hands for whatever he's up to.
"The TARDIS is going to be properly cross with me for this, but I'll be getting an earful already; what is a bit more, right?" He asks, grimacing at the thought of his snogbox's displeasure.
"As long as she takes it out on you and not me." I quip in reply.
He laughs at that, before gently turning the end of the sonic a few degrees to the left, holding it up to his ear. He taps it a couple times, before making a flustered noise. This tinkering and disgruntled noise pattern continues for a while, before he finally makes a triumphant 'ha' as something audibly clicks into place.
He flourishes the sonic, and flips back the end to reveal the red button , turning to grin at me as he does.
"And what can we do now that we couldn't do before?" I ask curiously. That thing has never seemed to have much by way of limits before, unlocking, scanning, beating back sound wavy things…
"Now, we are going to absolutely scramble any device that can pick up on Artron Energy within a five mile radius. Like I said, the TARDIS isn't going to be happy, and will be grounded for at least the next twelve hours while she sorts herself out. But if it takes the old girl that long to right herself, imagine how bad it would be for something significantly less magnificent, yes?" His optimism at the end seems a little forced, like he genuinely needs me to agree with him about this.
"There's something else you haven't told me isn't there?"
He rocks his head back and forth, rolling his eyes.
"There is also a very high probability I am about to totally blow the circuits of the screwdriver. It's not supposed to be able to do this strictly speaking, but, well, I've managed without it before, here is hoping I can do it again… At least this way, Victoria's ruse will be more convincing considering they won't be able to play their scanning trick anymore."
So that's it then, his hesitation, he is about to probably destroy the only possession I've seen him carry, except for his TARDIS key and those glasses he wore a while back. Come to think of it I haven't seen them since Akhaten…
"Geronimo?" I propose, reaching up to place my thumb over the red button, awaiting the go ahead.
"Geronimo." He agrees, holding the device steady.
As I put pressure on the button, the whine vibrates loudly and the end glows an unfamiliar florescent blue. The screwdriver soon is wobbling in protest, making the Doctor reach up his other hand to keep control of it; this is a two person job after all…
Somewhere ahead of us, there comes a sound akin to that of a light bulb burning out, if the light bulb was roughly the size of a Christmas tree… At that exact moment, as the Doctor's face cracks into a grin, the sonic sputters, flickering on and off twice, before it begins to shower the air with sparks. The Doctor pulls my hand away, and tosses the sonic out of the wagon onto the dusty trail, where it flashes a few more times before exuding smoke and going dark.
The Doctor gets a melancholic look in his eyes, like he just lost a friend. Which he sort of has I suppose.
"No bowtie, no sonic screwdriver, a time machine that won't work, what are you still keeping me around for Clara?" He jokes, veiling his actual concern with attempted humor.
"For the big chin and really nice hugs of course. The time travel and seemingly magical tools are just a fringe benefit."
"My chin is not that large." He protests in mock defense, a smile crinkling the sides of his mouth.
"I can think of someone who went as far as to call you 'Chin Boy.'"
He runs his eyes over me again, in that same question-seeking manner as he had been, though there is a speck of approval to it this time.
"But you haven't ever called me that, have you?"
He emphasized 'you,' quite blatantly…
"Try to think about it." He coos gently, twining our fingers again. His hand is hot from where he held the sonic screwdriver, hot enough to have burnt human skin. But then, he isn't human. He makes a little sound to remind me of his question, which I had unintentionally distracted myself from… I'm doing a lot of things unintentionally right now it would seem.
"No, I haven't called you that have I?" I ask, which probably isn't what he wanted, me questioning my own answer… But while I think I'm right, there is still that niggling feeling that I might be wrong. It's like second guessing answers on an exam all over again.
"No, you haven't, Oswin did." He affirms contently, before dropping a kiss on my cheek, a little closer to my mouth than might be called 'usual.'
"So, what's the next part of our plan?"
"Not sure yet, messing with everyone's technology was about as far as I got to be honest."
"You can always walk up to them and ask to be taken to their leader." I tease.
"Tried it, doesn't always work so well. Also, we might disagree on who the leader really is, since oddly that distinction isn't always so obvious..."
Being the last group in the train, all of the other Enforcement Officers and the handful of paramedics they have brought with them are already standing in a formation on the street in front of Detective Inspector Amal and Walt by the time the Doctor and I roll into the center of Bordure.
"Doctor, we've got the TARDIS back where we hid her last time." Jenny says, appearing as the Doctor helps me down. Ardist, who followed us all the way back, plods along down the little side street, back to the stable of her own accord.
"How is she?" The Doctor asks nervously.
"What do you mean?" Jenny asks, obviously confused as to his meaning.
"Well-"
"He thinks the TARDIS will be angry with him." I answer for him.
"Right…" Jenny replies hesitantly.
"Better get this over with." The Doctor says in a resigned tone, making a start for the little back street and the stable. He makes it a few feet before knocking shoulder to shoulder with someone quite tall, sending them both staggering back.
"You had best watch yourself earthling." A bitter and familiar voice grunts at him as they both regain their balance.
My heart sinks; the voice belongs to Naveesis, the creep with Kelvia, who is right beside him.
They weren't just talking about investigating something out on the prairie, they meant right in town... Ria is going to waltz back in here, and they'll be waiting, they won't have to go find her.
Instead of telling them that he isn't from Earth, the Doctor takes a step out of their path, motioning politely for them to carry on their way. Kelvia huffs, glaring at us before striding along.
"Any word on Jocaal and the others? Have they found that blasted girl yet? She can't have gotten far." She asks Naveesis.
"No word Captain, yet." He replies.
"Well, this complicates things…" The Doctor gulps.
"We need to make sure someone catches Victoria and Émeric before they just trot right in here on their own." I assert quickly.
"We can do that Doctor, there's only two ways into the town. Madam and I can keep watch on one, and Strax can take the other right?" Jenny offers.
"Okay, but be very careful yourselves, this isn't good, there is nowhere to hide here, too little space, this is really going to get complicated." The Doctor worries, eyes flicking back and forth, obviously reassessing whatever thoughts he had about how to make this work.
"Doctor?" I ask, trying to bring him back as Jenny runs to find her wife and their butler.
"We need to find out how Victoria might be trying to get here , who would know that?"
"Walt, Daniel, maybe Hikaru?" I suggest.
"I don't want to deal with Walt right now, so Hikaru it is." He says, sweeping up my hand and making for the old hotel.
Across the street, the half doors to the saloon have been propped open, and the cowering bartender waddles out, carrying a crate which he drops clumsily on the front walkway. He looks over his shoulder in fright expectedly.
"Larry Dean Alejandro Thompson! You's lucky that that glass was already broken! If it weren't Betman would have had your hide, and I would have a go at whatever was left of you! Hurry up; we gotta get the upper booths cleared for that pompous off worlder!" A rough female voice, likely belonging to someone who has smoked for a decade or so shouts out to him.
"Yes my sweet." He answers meekly, heaving the box back into his grasp and continuing around the corner of the building.
As we step onto the front stairs of Hikaru's converted hotel, a new sign, which had certainly not been there when we departed, catches my attention. In large hand painted letters it proclaims 'building for sale, see inside for details.' That doesn't make any sense to me, but what doesn't make sense is a rather long list right now and reality isn't very high on it…
The grumpy cook who tried to deny the Doctor food the day before directs us to an office on the second floor, where we find Hikaru reclining comfortably in a leather chair and sipping tea from one of her fine cups. This room is utterly mismatched with the rest of the building; whereas all the other walls we've seen are simple wood, this room is lined with a sophisticated black and white wall paper, decked with impressionist paintings and lacquered plates.
Despite facing the door, Hikaru doesn't notice us straight away , as her undivided attention is on the guest sitting in her office, obscured from our view by the high back of the chair.
"Doctor Smith, Clara, we didn't expect to see you back so soon." She says happily once we step in a bit farther, interrupting her conversation and setting her cup down on it s saucer.
"Change of plans, happens more than I like to admit." The Doctor tells her.
"Please, let me introduce my guest to you. This is Margrave Solland, you came into town with some of his fellows, and his human business partners." She says, gesturing to the chair.
The person sitting with his back to us pushes the seat out, and stands with an easy grace as he faces us.
The Doctor's arm is around me in an instant. Standing before us is another Etulian, older than the ones we had met in the warehouse. There are faint aged lines on his sculpted face, and tiredness to his eyes, but he still has the inhumane beauty and an air of authority as well.
"Please, there is no need for that sir, and no need to use proper titles Ms. Shun. I have waited a very long time to meet you my dear, a very long time indeed." He says to me in a deep voice.
A/N: I am SO sorry that I have been gone so long! Life has gotten incredibly hectic. I also made the mistake of starting another very different story which distracted me from working on this one a bit. Whoops... Hopefully you can forgive me! To the lovely anon reviewer, my best guess is that there are 8-10 chapters left to go here, but I'm not finished editing/writing yet so that number could easily change. The next few chapters do exist in a draft form though, so hopefully I can get the rest of this to you all in a timelier manner. All non-anon reviewers, I am sorry if my replies/thanks came to you garbled, happened to be having major issues with its PM system when I sent those!
Finally, I need to say a BIG thank you to the ever amazing spaceslayer (formerly known as internalspatialdistortion) over on tumblr for the fantastic new cover image!