A Night out on the Town

Martha

"Nassau," Amy announced, sliding back into the chair next to Clara at the table they'd managed to acquire in what she supposed you might generously describe as a 'tavern.' "That's where we are. Nassau. The Bahamas. 1718, pirate haven. Best part about a pirate haven, though, is that they have their own special pirate laws." The place was bristling with the 18th Century's most undesirables; ex-soldiers, privateers, colonists, prostitutes – though, she supposed prostitutes existed everywhere – they were all packed into that dilapidated, tropical pub drinking dusty liquor, swearing and stinking. It was everything she expected a pirate utopia to be.

"Like what?" Martha prompted.

"Well, if we don't kill anyone, steal anything, or make any trouble, we should be left alone," she explained. It was at this point that Rose finished downing the bottle of rum she'd acquired from somewhere and slammed it loudly on the table, causing a silence to pass over the room.

"Who wants to buy me another drink!?" she shouted, and then she burped. Suddenly, she was awash with drinks, bought by filthy pirates all trying their luck with her.

"A drink for any of the other pretty ladies, perhaps?" one with more than a few black teeth said, leering towards Amy, who happened to be closest to him.

"No, thanks," she said awkwardly, "I'm doing dry January."

"It's September," the pirate said.

"Dry September, then," she shrugged. He frowned at her like he didn't understand the idea of somebody choosing not to drink, but then, 18th Century pirates were surely the worst sobriety advocates you could find. After showering Rose with more rum than she knew what to do with, they all crept away again to their stations, probably waiting for her to drink herself so silly they could make their untoward advances without her putting up much of a fight. That was why Martha wasn't going to let Rose out of her sight; who knew what could happen without their powers?

"This is so worrying," Clara whispered to Martha, eyeing Rose, "Who does this the day before their wedding? It's not even noon…" Martha couldn't help but agree. She'd had her own hen party three weeks before her wedding and hadn't even been half as drunk as Rose was at the moment. Drinking on her own, during the morning, definitely did not bode well for her future happiness. And where had the Tenth Doctor been? Why hadn't he tried to put a stop to this? Why hadn't anybody?

"I think our best bet is to just stay here until she's so drunk she can't complain about it, and then call someone to bring the TARDIS down and take her home," Donna said, Rose utterly incapable of listening to them.

"Because who doesn't want to be severely hungover for their own wedding?" Clara quipped, "Sounds like a dream come true."

"Could always dump her somewhere harmless to sleep it off," Martha suggested, "We do live in a time machine, after all. There's no real reason she has to get married tomorrow."

"I'm getting married tomorrow!" Rose shouted upon hearing this, then she cheered to herself and took another swig of rum.

"Why don't we just throw her into the sea and be done with it?" Amy grumbled, "She's bound to sober up if that happens."

"I don't know," said Clara, raising her eyebrow at Rose sceptically, "She might drown."

"Can she die, though?" asked Amy. "If she can control the universe."

"Is that your idea? Let's throw her into the sea to test if she dies or not?" Clara asked. Amy shrugged. "Can she even swim?" At that, Martha elbowed Rose sharply to get her attention.

"Can you swim?" she asked. It seemed like a sensible question, seeing as they were on a desert island surrounded by water (and Amy was threatening to try and drown her.)

Rose snort-laughed, "Of course I can swim, Martha. I'm from London."

"I'm… not sure what that means." Rose shook her head and went back to her drink.

"So we're all agreed? We're going to throw her into the sea?" Amy said, "All in favour, say aye."

"No," Donna said, "We're not going to drown Rose." Rose burped again and fell off her chair onto the floor at Clara's feet. Clara, as she was closest, went to help – only to be berated by Rose and, yet again, be called a 'pervert' for touching her. So Martha had to step in to drag Rose back to the table, so she could continue to drown her apparently non-existent sorrows in whatever liquid was put in front of her.

"You know, etymologically speaking, the word 'pervert' in this context has its origins as a homophobic slur," Clara said to Rose. Martha didn't think Rose cared about etymology on the best of days, however. "It's more than a little offensive that you keep calling me it. It's also generally used to refer to men." But she had lost Rose's attention.

"Are you offended?" Martha inquired.

"Me? Maybe. I'd be more so if she wasn't drunk, but don't think I'm not going to bring this up again when she's sober. But, you know, it's eleven in the morning – too early to teach identity politics to this train wreck," Clara said dismissively of Rose. "What else do we have to talk about? Other than, I don't know, queer activism."

"Are you sure you don't want to throw her in the sea?" Amy persisted.

"How's your speech going?" Clara ignored Amy and asked Donna.

"I shouldn't say, not with the bride right here."

"I doubt she'll remember," Martha said, glancing at Rose briefly.

"SHOTS!" she shouted, then took another large swig of her rum.

"You're not even drinking shots!" Amy protested, but Rose wasn't paying her the slightest bit of notice. "Urgh! Why can't we just go home and get brunch like normal people?"

"It's a liquid brunch," Clara quipped, referring to Rose. Amy wasn't amused.

"You're hilarious."

"I do try."

"It's not going well," Donna eventually answered, satisfied that Rose really was in another world entirely, "I'm not a public speaker. And especially not when I have to warm everyone up for Jack's speech. He could write a best man speech in his sleep."

"I wanted the Doctor to make a speech at my wedding," said Amy, "But he showed up late."

"He wasn't even at mine," said Martha, echoing the conversation she'd had with Mickey that morning.

"He came to mine to drop off the winning lottery ticket I got," Donna explained, "But I didn't remember him at the time. Or recognise him." They all turned to Clara, awaiting her absent-Doctor wedding anecdote, failing to realise the obvious.

"Well obviously he was there when I got married, since he was the one I was marrying," she said, which ruined the whole conversation, really. "Enough about brides, anyway. How's the groom faring? The Doctor – Eleven, I mean – is getting really sick of Ten asking him weird questions all the time."

"Questions like what?" Martha was intrigued.

"He asked him something like, 'do you ever feel trapped by having to wear a wedding ring?'" Clara repeated.

"Does he?"

"No."

"It's worrying," said Amy, "If Ten thinks that's what a marriage is like."

"This is much more worrying," Donna said, indicating Rose, "If any behaviour screams 'I don't want to get married', it's running away to an inescapable tropical island and binge-drinking. What if she drinks herself sick?"

"I'm keeping an eye on her," Martha said, "I think you lot all forgot I'm a doctor. If there's a stomach somewhere needs pumping, I'll be there to do it."

"How reassuring," said Amy. "Alternatively, may I suggest we just let her get on with it? Drinking herself to death, I mean."

"And people say I'm sarcastic," Clara muttered.

"Rose, are you alright?" Donna questioned, having to raise her voice so that Rose could hear anything over her stupor. "Like, do you actually want to get married…?"

"Of course I want to get married!" Rose argued very passionately, "Why wouldn't I? When I'm engaged to the most amazing man in the entire-" hiccup "-universe?"

If their day hadn't taken a turn for the worse when Rose had first announced her drunkenness in the corridor earlier, it certainly did once their conversation dwindled, and a handful of interlopers dragged – in synchronicity – an additional set of chairs to the edge of their table. Two women and two men were suddenly seated in between them all, Rose oblivious but the other four very ill at ease by the change.

"Sorry for the interruption," said one of the two girls, "But we couldn't help overhearing your friend discussing her fiancé."

"This isn't the sort of place to be talking so openly about one's personal attachments," said the other. The girls, both dressed boyishly in the standard male pirate clothes and who certainly did not fall into the other two categories of woman present in the tavern (those being 'barmaid' or 'whore'), were quite obviously in charge. The portly, toothless men were little more than lackeys, but probably still knew more about how to handle the swords around their waists than any of them did if they had a weapon.

"The wrong person might overhear," said the first girl again, a red-head with an Irish accent, "And we couldn't have that. It might put you at risk."

"What makes you the 'right person'?" Clara asked the Irish one, who was wedged in next to her. The girl leant her elbow on the table and leant towards Clara, a motion which may be described as a 'leer' by someone being particularly ungenerous – Clara, at least, didn't seem to appreciate it, and leant the opposite direction, back towards Martha.

"Wouldn't you say I'm the right person?"

"I'd say I haven't a clue what kind of person you are, other than one who interrupts groups of old friends while they try to celebrate," Clara said.

"Maybe we want to celebrate too."

"Aye, I'd never turn down a chance to celebrate," said the second girl, distinctly English, though with a regional accent that had faded into something ambiguous Martha couldn't place. "What's say we do that by hearing more about your fiancé?"

"And how about another round? On us?" the Irish girl said to Rose, knowing the way straight to her heart. Or straight to her liver, as the case may be. Attracting the attention of pirates was the last thing they'd wanted to do, but now it seemed they would struggle to escape it. A fresh bottle of rum was brought over for Rose, paid for in pennies by the women.

"He's fantastic," Rose slurred, "He's the best man I've ever known."

"Must be, to be marrying a girl like you." It became clear to Martha as they started coaxing information out of the incredibly inebriated Rose: she was their mark. And without any powers at their disposal, a mystery they had yet to really look into, there wasn't an awful lot they could do. The pirates were all armed with swords and pistols, and they weren't armed with anything at all; perhaps she used to carry a gun, back when she was freelancing or working with UNIT or Torchwood, but that had been months ago, before she'd re-adopted the Doctor's no-weapons policy (and because, with pyrokinesis, she didn't need one.)

Rose went on and on about how phenomenally wonderful the Doctor was – which made her desire to drink herself into oblivion all the more unusual, if she really was happy – which made the pirates more and more interested. They became especially interested when Rose mentioned his ship, which they took to mean a real ship.

"Rose, maybe you shouldn't-" Clara tried to stop her.

"Shush," Rose waved a hand in Clara's face.

"Let her talk if she wants to talk," said the English girl.

"I just don't think-"

"I said shush," said Rose, "Just because you're obsessed with women," she slurred.

"I'm-!? I just don't want you to-"

"She's a lesbian," Rose told the Irish girl.

"Hate to bring us back to etymology again," Clara began, "But first of all, the word isn't used in that context in this era, and second of all, it's technically not true."

"It's true you sleep with women," Rose reiterated.

"Which you seem to have a problem with, even though I've never actually tried to sleep with you," Clara snapped at her, clearly reaching the end of her tether with these constant, borderline-homophobic jabs. There was only so far drunkenness would go as an excuse.

"This fiancé," the English pirate continued, while the Irish girl appeared preoccupied with the revelation about Clara, whose personal space she continued trying to invade, "Does he… have a lot of money? I'd hate the idea of a nice girl like you marrying someone who couldn't provide."

"That's such a loaded question," Amy said, then told Rose firmly, "Don't answer."

Indignant, Rose declared, "I'll answer who I like!" Martha wanted to curl up and die. She was supposed to be having a baby, for god's sake, not getting on the wrong side of a group of pirates. "We've got loads of money at the moment. Well, it's sort of, like, stolen, but we're basically rich." Simultaneously, the four pirates drew their guns: the men had one each, while the women both had two, meaning all five of the TARDIS companions had a loaded pistol aimed straight at them.

"I can see by those nice rings that you're all married women, too," said the English girl, "So you'll be coming along as well. Or we could chop off your hands right here and just take the shine – though your husbands will definitely want to retrieve you, I'm sure."

"Don't move a muscle," the Irish one said, pressing the muzzle of her gun into Clara's temple. Clara had been fidgeting with something at Martha's side, which Martha now realised was her phone. "What's that?" The Irish girl snatched it, Clara powerless to stop her (literally).

"Nothing, it's just-"

"Is it valuable? It looks valuable."

"No, it isn't-" The Irish girl pressed the gun against Clara's head even more, and Clara shut up completely.

"The rest of you, turn out your pockets. We'll be holding onto these things."

Good going, Martha thought, glaring at Clara. Now what were they going to do? They were ultimately forced to hand over their phones, despite the pirates not knowing what to do with them. Rose obliged very easily, apparently unaware that they were being robbed and in the process of being kidnapped because she'd duped the pirates into thinking the Doctor was affluent.

"Where is this fiancé? Is he in Nassau? Havana? Can't be too far if you're getting married tomorrow," the English girl asked.

"Suppose he's up at the fort," the Irish one said, "Some poncey commodore or the like." Rose laughed like they'd told her a joke. Martha was despairing, giving her phone – which wasn't cheap – to the English pirate. "Alas, where's my manners?"

"Same place as your personal hygiene, I assume," Amy quipped, making the Irish girl point her other gun – the one not aimed at Clara's skull – in her direction instead.

"I'm Anne. And my less-charming friend is Mary."

"Hang on," Amy suddenly started, apparently not worrying about the pistol threatening to gut her, "You mean-!? You're-!? Anne Bonny? And Mary Read? Two of the most notorious pirates in history!?"

"Why don't we just put the whole kidnapping on pause, so you can get an autograph," Donna snapped at her.

"I'm flattered, really," said Anne Bonny, whom Martha had certainly heard of despite her general disinterest in history, "But it doesn't change that you're all going to come with us to our ship so that we can notify the husband-to-be of the ransom on his girly's head."

"If you cooperate, nobody has to die," said Mary Read, "And we won't have to waste any gunpowder shooting you. So we'll all win."

"I, uh… suppose we'll be coming with you, then…" Martha said, very aware that any of them could meet their deaths at any second.

Anne Bonny smiled, "That's the spirit."