"What's taking so long? And why do I never learn not to send women to wardrobes? Jessica, I'm disappointed in you. River can't help herself, Clara gets overwhelmed with the universal selection. You, I thought, had your head screwed on. And yet here we are, and me disappointed, and-"
That's him. Finally, Lizzie can stop trying to argue with this tactless girl and be saved. She rushes to the doorway, looking both ways into the corridor. This labyrinth is the reason she didn't dare run. Finding her way back to the main door seemed a task that might require more than her usual intuition, and how, then, was she to get out of the sky even if she found it?
"Doctor?" she says to the left.
His voice continues, "It's really rather bad form, you know. Reinforcing stereotypes and gender binaries, making me think you don't know what's really important and-"
"Doctor?" Lizzie asks to the right.
"Honestly, the very best thing you could say, my dear, is that you were trying to cheer Elizabeth up, and even then this is barely more than admirable, given that she obviously won't-" and here he appears through a hatch in the ceiling, swinging his feet down from a ladder to hang like an ape. Slowly, looking into her frightened eyes, he concludes, "-understand the gesture. Hello, Lizzie."
"Doctor! Doctor, your assistant would have me saved from the fire only to be thrown in an asylum!"
"I'm sure that's the last thing she'd have," he murmurs uncertainly. Cranes, looking over Lizzie's shoulder. His beloved fool is trying on a brown coat so long on her it gathers on the floor.
Lizzie puts aside her own humiliation to step back into his line of sight, forcing him to see her. "There is not enough of this dress that it might be called a dress. And these breeches! Like another layer of skin!"
"Am being called leggends. Even Jessica is to be knowing that…"
The Doctor peers at her. For a moment, Lizzie even dreams that he might say something sensible. Instead, "You look like someone."
"Claraperson am teaching Jessica about fashionings."
Lizzie stamps her foot. "I do not know where you come from, or who this Clara may be, but in Virginia I will be taken for a harlot and clapped in irons!"
"Oh, absolutely. In Virginia, in the year of our Lord 1654, you would almost undoubtedly be taken for a harlot and clapped in irons."
"Isn't that what I said?"
The foolish girl creeps up at Lizzie's shoulder. Perhaps she is finally beginning to suspect that she may have made a mistake. There is a sort of hope, but only for a moment. "That's not quite," the Doctor informs her, "what you said."
"No. You added an extraneous reference to the date."
"Interesting you should use the word, 'extraneous', Elizabeth…"
They're mad. Both of them. Obviously her earlier trust was misguided and misplaced. So often that's the way with lunatics. They can be so charismatic until their true natures show. Lizzie opens her mouth to argue, but never gets a chance to speak; the girl puts out her arm and eases her to one side. As small as she is, there's an incredible strength. Lizzie can't help but get out of the way.
She is now wearing a soft, wide hat, and with the coat on and her hands on her hips, she is of a particularly ridiculous silhouette. "Doctor, what am meaning 'extry-neouss'?"
"Well done. That's very good pronunciation for a first attempt. And do keep that hat on. Suits you."
"But what am meaning? Because is having 'extry' in, and extry am meaning not nessysary. And Doctor am having said that him not does anything for scaring of WitchElizabeth unless absolutely nessysary."
The Doctor joins his hands as if in prayer. Points them at her and opens his mouth. The girl gives him the mildest look and he closes it again. Waves a finger as though he has a very good point to make. Jessica raises an eyebrow and this too disappears into silence. In the end he sighs, "Yeah, but the Tardis doesn't want to. Anyway, I think I've already been banished from Jamestown by 1654. Long story, all about a man named John Smith, and not the John Smith you're thinking of. To cut it short, we're not in 1654, probably for the best, Lizzie will do exactly as she is, and I wasn't just flattering you about that hat. Consider it yours, and both of you follow me."
No. No, they will not follow. Jessica is free to do as she likes – this, it seems, mostly involves preening herself in the new hat and scampering happily off in his wake. Lizzie, however, is neither so happy nor so gullible. She will stand exactly where she is, thank you very much.
But they're not stopping. And that door did seem to be a great many twists and turns away from here.
She runs the few steps to catch up. They're having an argument, repeating the last word Lizzie didn't understand. Tardis. It's strange to her. She's never heard it before, of this she is sure. And yet, doesn't it sound like English? Doesn't it sound wonderful?
And what is that sound in the back of her mind, that little voice? Time, it whispers, and relative dimensions in space.
"Why am Tardis not wanting to land in 1654?"
"I don't think she has anything against 1654. I think she really likes the idea of 2086."
"Doctor!" the girl cries, scandalized. Grabs by the arm to turn him toward Lizzie; "Her am to be meeting car? Him am having rememberings for last time?"
He grabs a handful of Jessica's hood. This, and the fear in his eyes, he's being really quite serious. Half-growls, half-pleads; "We said we would never mention the Boadicea event again!"
"Then not repeats!"
"Will you stop worrying? Lizzie knows what a car is, don't you, Lizzie?" Naturally. It's like a coach, but noisier, and without horses. It must be fed oil like a lamp, and taken care of like the mechanics of a German press. Faster than even Mayor Borden's fine mare. A key opens it, and wakes it from slumber, and when the key is removed it sleeps again. Slowly, teasing, the Doctor begins to smile, "Yeah she does. Lizzie can drive, too. Lizzie can change a tyre, or a carburettor, or the left front indicator bulb of a VW Beetle, though I'm told that's an awkward job and I'm sure she'd rather not."
No. You have to pull out half the engine to change a bulb on those cursed things. It's because they're so small, so much machinery crushed into no space at all, and that makes it-
Lizzie breathes out, "What's going on?"
"With you? Nothing." He's a madman. He said that about the girl as well. He couldn't possibly know what's in her head, what horrors he's triggering. He just grins. "Out in Virginia, 2086? Probably loads."
He stretches out a hand to her. Not for support this time. Not for comfort. This time it's an invitation.
This time, with him pulling her along, she knows that 'Tardis' ought to be in capitals, and that it stands for all those other words she thought of. She doesn't recognize the machine in the centre of the first room any more than she did before, but then again nobody does. The technology of the Time Lords is a gap in universal knowledge. They kept it to themselves and then they disappeared so…
Time Lord. Lizzie knows what a Time Lord is. Now that she's thinking again, she knows it so clearly. It's as if she can look into his chest and see both of his hearts.
Lizzie stares. His fingers squeeze around hers. "Don't be scared. Accept it. Let it in."
Shaking her head, "I don't understand."
Far away from them, leaning on the door, Jessica raises her hand. "Not understanding either, but if is to be helping, Doctor am mosttimes knows what is doing."
The Doctor, who had been nodding along, glad of the girl's support, now wheels round and demands, "What do you mean, mosttimes?"
Lizzie knows. Plain as the written word, mosttimes means 'usually'. But that's not really what he was asking. It's another one of their happy little spats, pretty banter, quick wit slowed down only by the girl's inhibited language.
She trusted them. With the smell of burning torches clinging in her old clothes, she trusted them. When she couldn't think of anything about the pyre, Lizzie trusted.
She takes a deep breath, nods past them, and with still only the vaguest most terrified idea of what '2086' might mean, "Open the door, then."
[A/N – For all those who were confused, Jessica is an old bud of mine. The quickest way to get to know her would be the first few chapters of 'No Place For Scholars' by the same author. Or you can just hear from me now that she's a lovely little thing who likes very much hanging around with Eleven. She was deaf for a vast portion of her life; her dubious skill in English comes from lip-reading and limited written word. Much love, Sal.]