Here's another palette drawing of Marion:
deviantart (PUT A PERIOD HERE) com/lunammoon/art/You-can-t-hear-it-but-she-is-laughing-nervously-882504606.
Feel free to send me art prompts
I've put a few important bits in this chapter. Most of them won't make sense now, but they will. Oh. They will.
Something something I'm checking for typos and hoping to get rid of them, but you know how it is. Grammarly can only do so much.
Also, thank you Molly122 for favoriting.
And now, onto the story
She is sitting on a beach looking out into the horizon. Her feet sink slightly in the wet sand. The water surrounding her ankles glows a faint orange like a paintbrush being carefully rinsed out in the dark water. Her hands rest on soft light grey, silvery, wet sand as she stares out at the horizon. The sky is dark and clear and beautiful. It's an endless expanse of black-nearly-blue with a full moon shining overhead and illuminating everything.
She is not alone. She turns to where her companion is standing next to her.
"So, what do you think?" she asks.
"It's beautiful," her companion breathes. She sits down next to her. Her companion is smiling. The moon reflects off the deep brown nearly black of her iris as if it were a deep dark sea and the freckles that stand out against her dark skin shine like silvery pinpricks in the moonlight and they twinkle like nothing she has ever seen before.
"Beautiful," she repeats. But she is not talking about the sand or the sea or the sky. She looks away from her companion and back out to the horizon.
She is glad that her companion loves this place. She would be sad if she didn't. She creates such amazing things after all. Surely she deserves to see something wonderful that she didn't have to make herself.
She hears movement to the side of her and then, she feels something brush against her hand. She looks down. A silver-freckled hand is resting against hers, pinkie to pinkie. The owner of the hand is mostly looking straight ahead, but she is watching her out of the corner of her eye. She hesitates for a second, and closes the distance, and takes her companion's hand in hers.
It's warm.
Marion woke up slowly and calmly with a stretch and a yawn. She didn't remember much about the dream other than the fact that she had been sitting on a beach and that there had a whole lot of stars and that they had been so close that she could touch them. And they had felt warm, but not hot. She stretched, and rolled out of bed. She tapped the side of her bracelet making it blink green and then pulled her covers back on the bed and making it look neat again.
As soon as the music stopped and everyone was done dancing, Marion had excused herself to shower, brush her teeth, change into sleep clothes, and all but collapse into bed.
Maybe it was a little rude to just brush past them and go to sleep but like, she was tired and didn't know how long it would be before she got taken elsewhere, and the last thing that she wanted was to be sent elsewhere and end up too tired to be useful.
And come to think of it, she didn't want to end up anywhere in her pajamas.
Marion padded around to the drawers at the foot of her bed and went through them, looking for something to wear.
She took off her tank top and sleep shorts and changed into a pair of light grey canvas pants and a simple tank top. Nothing fancy, something that would be simple to move and run in.
Marion grabbed a pair of socks and the boots from yesterday and left her room. The door to a bathroom was right across the hall and ajar.
It wasn't worth noting that the door hadn't been there before and had in fact, been a corridor. But the TARDIS knew what she needed, and liked her.
Marion pushed through the door and turned to look into the mirror. Her hair was a mess. She sighed and turned on the shower, stuck her head in to wet her hair, and then combed it out until it looked fluffy instead of a mess then wiped her hands on a nearby towel.
She looked in the mirror. Her hair was good enough.
Marion looked on a nearby shelf and grabbed the recognizable bottle of makeup from the shelf and covered up the marks around her neck. She looked herself over in the mirror and then shrugged. It was as good as it was going to get.
Marion patted the side of her neck to make sure that none of the tan makeup was going to end up on her fingertips on her shirt and then sprayed it so that it would stay. She leaned down and tugged on the socks and the boots. She walked back out of the door and to her room and picked up her messenger bag from where she'd left it on the desk and slung it over her shoulder.
"Right, so I probably don't have much time before I get taken elsewhere, but I think I might have enough to make and maybe eat some breakfast. I just need to get to the-"
Marion opened the door to leave her room again but this time, and once again, there was a corridor. Not a bathroom door.
"Thanks!"
Marion put her hand to the wall and followed the humming under her fingertips until she came to an open doorway and walked inside.
The food fabrication machine or whatever that thing was that had been in 4's TARDIS was gone. Not ideal, but then again, it's not like she knew any codes other than that chicken dish. And somehow pressing random buttons on that kind of machine didn't sound like a good idea. It sounded like an easy way to get food poisoning. Marion's eyes glanced over to the stove. And then at a cabinet on top.
She was a grown woman. She could cook herself something to eat without the need for some special science machine. Breakfast food was one of the easiest things to cook quickly.
She'd nearly slept in too late to get to class on time enough to know how to throw something edible together.
Marion walked past the stove and opened the fridge and looked inside. If the green sticky notes stuck all over the different contents of the fridge were to be believed, pretty much everything in the fridge except for the bowl of fruits that looked like tiny blue strawberries growing off woody vines like grapes and a white paper bag with some alien logo on it was safe for human consumption.
Marion reached inside for a carton of eggs (cheerfully labeled as authentic earth chicken with a cartoon drawing of what the artists had probably thought was chicken based on the description they'd gotten secondhand from someone else), something that was probably butter, and a clear container full of pink cubes labeled cheerfully as "Koremelon (tastes like pomegranate, only slightly sweeter)". That last one sounded really really good actually. Marion put the box of fruit on the table and walked towards the cabinet. It looked a whole lot higher up than she had thought it would be at first glance.
Marion grabbed a chair from under the table and pushed it against the counter. She climbed on top of it so that she could reach the cabinet. She reached up towards one of the pa-
"Careful there!"
Marion didn't jump at the voice. She just didn't expect for the pans to shift the way that they had. The Doctor didn't surprise her.
Steadied herself, pulled the pan, reached down to set it on the stove, and climbed back off the chair
"Good…," Marion glanced at the stove expecting to see a clock and only found an unhelpful cooking timer "whatever time it is. I just woke up and was about to make some eggs. Are Jack and Rose still awake?"
"They popped off to bed a couple hours ago. I take it you haven't left yet then?"
The Doctor pushed the chair Marion had used as a stool back under the table.
"Nope. I'm the same Marion from earlier today when you met Jack. I just went to sleep. Speaking of sleep. Did you?"
"Nah," the Doctor waved her off, "I need far less sleep than you lot. While you've been in dreamland, I've been doing this and that. Read a bit in the library. Fixed up the TARDIS some. Tell me, how do you lot get anything done? Always snoozing your lives away. How old are you now?"
"Twenty-Three," Marion replied, cracking a pair of eggs into a bowl and tossing the shells in the trash.
"You've been asleep for almost a third the time you've been alive. You've only been fully conscious for about 16 years,"
"Pretty bold of you to assume I was regularly getting eight hours of sleep even before I got here,"
"Still. It's too long. You miss so much,"
"If I don't sleep then I'll be too zonked out to not miss literally everything," Marion noticed a shaker of something white on the table. "Salt, right? Not sugar? Or anything-"
"It's salt,"
"Great!" Marion nodded and shook some of it into the bowl and poured the egg into the hot pan with a loud sizzle.
"Did you want one?" Marion asked. "I can make a pretty decent egg. And I've had a lot of practice making them quickly,"
"No thanks," the Doctor reached up into the cabinet that Marion had needed a chair to reach and handed her a plate to put her finished food on. "I used to like them, but not anymore,"
"New face came with new taste buds?" Marion slid the finished eggs off the pan and onto her place. She grabbed a few of the fruit cubes to eat with it and reclosed the container. She went to put the rest of it away, but the Doctor took it from her.
"Yup!" he agreed, "Can't stand the taste of eggs anymore,"
"I'm sorry to hear that,"
"It's not all bad." He tossed one of the cubes into his mouth and then put it in the fridge himself. "Koremelon still tastes good. And I like cinnamon again. That was a nice surprise,"
He took a basket out of the fridge and leaned against the counter eating those blue strawberry things.
"What are those?" Marion asked.
"Podiord berries." The Doctor said as if that explained everything.
"And those are,"
"Incredibly delicious if you're a Time Lord. Not so much if you're human,"
Marion blinked and looked at them warily. "Are they..."
"Poisonous? No. Not really. It's just that humans don't have the right taste bud receptors for it so it makes the brain all confused. Doesn't know what to do with the signals, so it starts hitting random buttons. Gives you a bit of a headache and some killer nausea, but once you rinse the taste out of your mouth, you're fine. No long-term damage. You might even see a new color! Did you want to try a little?"
Marion blinked. "No thanks. I'm fine with," Marion looked down at the pink fruit, "whatever this stuff is. Koremelon?" She popped one of the squares in her mouth. It had the texture of cantaloupe. The fresh kind, not the mushy kind. "Wow that's good," Marion said under her breath. "I hate nausea. It makes high-pitched noises more unbearable than they already are. And that's saying something" Marion took another bite out of her food. "Y'know I've been getting nauseous a lot lately. It always happens at the worst times too,"
Marion paused. "Actually, would you mind giving me a quick scan? It got pretty bad back at the lot with the nanogenes. I wouldn't want to carry anything bad into another time zone,"
The Doctor held up his sonic with a simple wrist flick. It buzzed for a second as he waved it in front of him.
"Nothing out of the ordinary," the Doctor said after a moment.
"That's good. I didn't think it was nanogenes but better know it isn't than not know that it is. I don't suppose you know what's going on,"
"Tell me about it," The Doctor sat down on the table across from her.
Marion rested a hand on her cheek. "Come to think of it. It doesn't happen out of nowhere. I can tell when it's about to happen because I'll start feeling kind of funny. Like something bad is about to happen. And then I start feeling kind of lopsided and like the room is shifting. And then that feeling is what makes me start feeling nauseous. After a while, it clears up for a while until it happens again. I don't suppose you'd be willing to explain to me what it.."
"Spoilers!" The Doctor grinned.
Marion groaned, "That's a cop-out. This sucks. You can't just claim everything's a spoiler,"
"Maybe keep that in mind yourself. It's not my fault." The Doctor said with a shrug. "You can't be friends with a person for 900 years without noticing how they sometimes become unsteady on their feet and start looking a little green even when they were fine just a few seconds before. I've asked the Associate several times. But you never told me! You're the one who called it 'spoilers' and refused to talk,"
Marion ate another bite of food and put her head in her hands in frustration. "I wonder how much of these 'spoilers' are the Associate wanting to make sure that I get the 'thrill of finding answers myself' and how many of them are me making sure my past self suffers just because they had to,"
"I don't think anyone knows the answer to that but you,"
"Yeah, yeah. That's how I know it's probably both. Did I at least give you a hint? Something? Anything?"
"I know it's got something to do with something that happened the first time we met,"
"On my end or on your end. And the first time I met this face or in general,"
Marion was not blind to the fact that either of these questions was something that she felt the need to ask was absurd. But like, her life was already pretty absurd up to this point.
"The first time you met any version of me from your point of view. When you arrived here,"
Marion tossed another piece of fruit in her mouth. She chewed thoroughly.
"So…,"
"So what?"
"That hint the Associate left for you. Do you know what it means?"
Marion shrugged. "I mean….I don't know, a lot of stuff happened that day. Maybe it's got something to do with me dying? Or, maybe it's because I was terrified? I don't know. It'll probably hit me suddenly later today. If it does, I'll let you know," Marion snapped her fingers. "Hey! When I first met you, I had literally just been taken to this dimension. Maybe it has to do with me traveling through the time vortex,"
"Well, it's definitely not that last one,"
"How can you be so sure?"
"I don't know how you travel around my personal timeline, but you definitely aren't phasing through the TARDIS bounds and ending up in the vortex. That's for certain,"
"Did the Associate tell me this or…,"
The Doctor got a far-off look in his eyes, refocusing back on her. "Trust me," he finally said, "If you were flying around the time vortex itself, you'd know,"
"That's ominous,"
The Doctor hadn't absorbed the time vortex yet. Marion knew that for certain. Hearing this specific incarnation of him mentioning it in this context made Marion feel uncomfortable. It would be like if Four had told her to watch her step on top of something high up. Or joking about Time Cops with Two.
"What happened," Marion asked instead of bringing up any of that.
"Spoilers!"
"Goddammit," Marion groaned.
The Doctor was smiling now. Which was somewhat of a good sign. Marion doubted he'd be smiling if it had been something too awful.
"No one died or got hurt," the Doctor clarified. "If that's what you're worried about,"
"Good to know. I guess I'll have to find out when I find out then," Marion pushed away from the table and picked up her plate to clean it off in the sink. She set the plate down on the counter and turned the water on. As she went to grab the plate, she found herself unable to move her hand. Marion knew that there would be no point, but she still tried to jerk her hand away. It didn't move.
"Are you about to go now, Marion?"
"Seems like it,"
Marion would've waved her hand, but her hand wasn't really doing the moving thing at the moment.
"It was nice talking to you," she said. Then she remembered something "Oh! And you were right. When I said I didn't like you very much, I was joking!"
As if it had been waiting for her to finish speaking, her arm yanked her to the side in such a way that would've sent her colliding against the sink if not for the fact that by the time she would have, she had already disappeared.
This time, the Bitch Force chose to shake things up and toss her into the side of a person instead of a wall or a table.
Fantastic.
Before she could fall to the ground. The Doctor turned slightly and caught her. He continued to hold her until she was firmly on her feet. Marion didn't need to hear his voice or even his face to know who she was with. The brown pinstripes gave it away.
"Ah! Marion! There you are! Donna! Marion's here. She's just in time. Marion, you're just in time,"
He leaned down, his hand still on her shoulders and looking her in the eye.
"Where'd you come from then? Or is that spoilers?"
"The Blitz. Nanogenes, gas masks, dancing, bombs. All that stuff,"
Marion didn't know if Rose was still a sore spot. Or if Rose had ever even been a sore spot? It was possible that Marion had done something! She didn't want to ask.
"Ah," the Doctor nodded. "You should probably set that band of yours to show that you've eaten then,"
"That...is a good point. I'll do that now,"
Marion pressed the button to reset the timer. The Doctor backed away from her.
"So!" Marion said. "I heard you call for Donna, that does narrow things down somewhat as for where you are. Where are we going?"
"Oh like he even knows," a louder voice called from the hallway leading into the console room proper.
"Oi!" The Doctor walked back to the console and began to flip some switches.
"Well, it's true!" Donna shot back. "You never know where we're going!"
"Of course I know where we're going." The Doctor said. He glanced at something on the TARDIS console. "Earth! Early 20th century," He grabbed a hold of another lever and pulled down.
The TARDIS ground until it landed with a dull thud.
He pushed away from the console and towards the door.
"Oh really?" Donna asked.
"See for yourself!"
The Doctor pulled aside the door to the TARDIS. He ducked his head outside and then gestured for them to join him.
He put his hands in his pockets and sauntered forward.
"Oh, smell that air. Grass and lemonade. And a little bit of mint. A hint of mint. Must be the nineteen twenties."
"You can tell what year it is just by smelling?" Donna said in disbelief.
"Who knows. Maybe he can. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing,"
"Or maybe that big vintage car coming up the drive gave it away,"
Donna pointed to a man driving a black car that looked like it had just come off the Ford assembly line a day before. Was it a Ford Model-T? Marion didn't know very much about cars. Whatever it was, its engine hummed noisily as the car came to a dirt driveway in front of a large weathered brick mansion that looked like it'd been around for at least a hundred years and probably more.
Two men exited the mansion to greet him.
Marion, the Doctor, and Donna moved near a wall that was mostly covered by shrubbery and plants. They could peek around the side of it and listen in without being noticed, especially by people who didn't expect them to be there.
"The Professor's baggage, Richard," one of the men who exited the house said to the other, "Step lively. Good afternoon, Professor Peach," the man who had spoken greeted the driver.
"Ah, Reverend."
The people were standing outside of the mansion and talking with one another. They called out to him. A man on a bike rode up around the path with a loud ringing of his bike's bell.
"Professor Peach," The man greeted, "Beautiful day. The Lord's in his heaven, all's right with the world,"
"Reverend Golightly," Greeves nodded, "Lady Eddison requests you make yourselves comfortable in your rooms. Cocktails will be served on the lawn from half-past four,"
The Reverend took off his hat.
"You go on up," Peach said with a nod, "I need check something in the library,"
"Oh?"
"Alone,"
"It's supposed to be a party. All this work will be the death of you,"
The two men went into the mansion with Greeves and the other man walking close behind them.
"Never mind Planet Zog," Donna said in excitement, "A party in the nineteen twenties, that's more like it,
"The trouble is, we haven't been invited. Unless…."
The Doctor glanced at Marion who reached into her bag.
"Unless…," Marion repeated.
Marion reached into her bag and the Doctor reached into the inner pocket of his coat. They at the same time pulled out their psychic paper.
"Looks like we are!"
"Course I can't go to a party dressed like this, can I?" Donna said, looking down at herself. "I'll have to change,"
"Ah! Yes. I suppose you might stand out a bit. You probably should as well Marion. Tell you what. I'll wait outside the TARDIS. Donna, have Marion show you where the wardrobe is. I'll wait out here,"
"Right!" Marion stepped towards the TARDIS, "Actually, I have no idea where the closet is,"
The Doctor pushed open the door to the TARDIS and called after her. "Just ask the TARDIS and she'll show you. She'll probably even move it. You are her favorite after all,"
"Lies and falsehoods," Marion shouted back, "The TARDIS's favorite passenger is you. Everyone knows it and I won't hear otherwise" Marion said over her shoulder. "Come on, Donna,".
"Honey," Marion said, putting her palm on the wall. "We're looking for the closet. Could you please-"
The wall began buzzing under her fingertips and the feeling moved as she walked.
"This way!" Marion said, walking confidently.
"How do you do that?" Donna asked.
Marion stopped walking. "Do what?"
"You just ask a question and touch the wall and suddenly you know where to go,"
"Kind of? I ask Honey where something is and there's kind of…do you feel the ship humming sometimes? I don't know if that's something everyone can do or if it's just something me and the Doctor can do. Actually, you know what? Romana could proba-. Nevermind. The point is that the ship starts to hum and I follow along with my fingertips until I get where I'm going. Oh! Before I forget. It's nice to meet you, by the way, Donna,"
This time Donna stopped. "Nice to meet me?"
Marion turned around, walking backward with her hand still on the wall.
"Of course it's nice to meet you you're-wait that's not what you meant,"
Marion followed a flickering light learning to another side of a corridor and put her hand back against the wall.
"I mean, know who you are, but this is the first time I've met you in person. Every other time we've met, as far as you've seen, hasn't happened to me. Not yet at least. I'm younger than the other me's you've met if that makes sense. It's nice to finally meet you!"
"Nice to meet you too I suppose. Now, where's this wardrobe supposed to be then?"
"It should be somewhere nearby-here we go,". Marion's next turn took her to a familiar large multilevel place covered in clothes of different sizes and cuts and colors. Marion pressed her hand carefully against the wall. "Thank you!" She let go and turned to look at Donna.
"Well. The Doctor's been collecting clothes from every time and place for literal centuries. There's bound to be something. Start looking around!"
"What about you?"
Marion looked down at herself. "Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. I'll change also,"
Marion picked a direction and a floor and started walking towards it. This wasn't the first time it'd been here, but Marion was thankful that the TARDIS had randomly put stuff in the drawers in her room that fit her. Marion didn't know what organizational method that the place was using, but it made no sense. Marion basically just looked around until she found something interesting.
Then, she saw something interesting; a purplish-blue thing with swirls of brown and white and green as if the person who designed it had started off by drawing random lines until someone had commented that it looked kind of like a tree in spring and despite it not being the original plan, the artists had decided to continue on with that in mind.
Marion picked it up off the spiraling rack and shook it and held it up to her body.
It went down to just below her knees. It was a...Marion didn't know what this cut was called. Straight? Formless? One of those. Anyway, Marion didn't know a whole lot about 1920's fashion, but she had once all but forced one of her friends into telling her about early 20th-century clothing because Marion had rambled to them enough about obscure Doctor Who lore that she would've felt bad if she couldn't get them to talk about the stuff that they had been into.
The point is that Marion was pretty sure that the dress was fine.
The hanger the dress was on had a pair of shorts draped along it and a thin scarf that matched the dress was placed over its shoulders.
Marion found a nearby small side room and changed into the dress. She folded up the clothes that she had been wearing before and put them into her bag along with the boots
There! Another "just in case" change of clothes.
Marion tugged the dress over her head and stepped forward experimentally. The material was lightweight and swished softly over her leg as she moved. Marion wasn't sure what the material was, but it wasn't cotton, so that meant that it was unlikely to be too annoying to deal with if it got wet. Also, her little lunge test meant that it would be easy to move around in. That was another point in the "wear this skirt today" column. Putting her hands near her sides showed off another fun extra. The dress had pockets. Deep ones. Perfect.
Marion stepped out of the small changing room and looked to the side.
A pair of shoes that absolutely hadn't been there before on top of a table that also absolutely had not been there before.
"Thanks, Honey!"
Marion carefully slipped them on and stepped lightly in them, and stepped a little harder.
Good. Good, these would work just fine.
"Donna!" Marion called as she looked into a mirror and tied the scarf around her head like a headband and tied the ends together into a bow on the side of her temple. "You find anything?"
Marion pulled open the doors to the TARDIS just as the Doctor began to knock on it.
"We'll be late for cocktails," The Doctor complained.
"We're out. We're out," Marion walked through the door. "Not all of us can wear the same thing pretty much everywhere and not stick out like a sore thumb,"
Donna walked out the door after her and showed off her dress. It was brown and covered in black and darker brown and white lines. Marion was sure that the pattern had a name, even if she wasn't what it was called, but it reminded Marion of a moth's wings.
"What do you think?" Donna asked, showing off her dress, "Flapper or slapper?"
"Flapper. You look lovely,"
"You look, great Donna," Marion gave her a thumbs up. "Let's go to the party,"
They followed the sound of the music to the back of the house. The lawn had been decorated with brown woven chairs placed around small circular tables and large rectangular tables covered in tables with plates of fruit sitting on top.
A woman noticed the three of them approaching and called out to the rest of the staff.
"Look sharp!" she clapped her hands, "We have guests,"
One of the servers walked up to them.
"Good afternoon!" the Doctor greeted him.
"Drinks, sir? Ma'am?"
"Sidecar, please,"
"Lime and soda, thank you,"
"And you Miss?" the man looked at Marion.
"Oh. A ginger ale please?" Marion asked? The man nodded and then left to retrieve the drinks.
Greeves, the man from in front of the house escorted a blonde woman with a long dress only slightly more blue than Marion's.
"May I announce Lady Clemency Eddison,"
"Lady Eddison!" The Doctor held out a hand to the woman. She walked forward and shook it enthusiastically.
"Forgive me, but who exactly might you be, and what are you doing here?"
"I'm the Doctor. This is Miss Marion Henson,"
Marion shook that woman's hand politely.
"And this is Miss Donna Noble, of the Chiswick Nobles," Donna curtsied.
"Good afternoon, my lady. Topping day, what? Spiffing. Top hole,"
Marion winced.
"No, no, no, no, no," the Doctor said, "No, don't do that. Don't,"
The Doctor flashed his psychic paper at Lady Eddison. Marion did the same.
"We were thrilled to receive your invitation, my lady. We met at the Ambassador's reception,"
"Doctor, how could I forget you?" The woman said in that tone you use when you're talking to people who you absolutely do not remember and have forgotten, but the people in question have evidence to suggest that you should know who they are so you pretend that you do in hopes that you eventually remember who they are before they start to bring up specifics. "But one must be sure with the Unicorn on the loose,"
"A unicorn? Brilliant. Where?"
"Not A unicorn," Marion corrected. "The Unicorn. A famous jewel thief,"
"Nobody knows who he is," Lady Eddison said with a nod, "He's just struck again. Snatched Lady Babbington's pearls right from under her nose,"
Another waiter holding a plate of glasses walked towards them holding three drinks atop a platter. He stopped so that they could take their drinks and then continued to walk. Marion sipped lightly on her ginger ale.
Marion didn't drink very often and when she did, it was normally in someone's house with just her and a couple of friends. Not at a party. Ginger ale could be found at any bar and it tasted good.
"Funny place to wear pearls," Donna commented.
Further away, a man pushed a much older man towards their group in a wheelchair.
"May I announce Colonel Hugh Curbishley, the Honourable Roger Curbishley," Greeves called as they approached. Roger pushed his father towards their group. Roger was a taller man with blond hair, and the Colonel was a much older balding man in a wheelchair.
"My husband and my son," Lady Eddison introduced.
"Lovely to meet you," Marion replied.
"Forgive me for not rising," The Colonel said, "Never been the same ever since that flu epidemic back in eighteen,"
"My word, you are a super lady," The son, Roger said, shaking her hand.
"Oh, I like the cut of your jib. Chin, chin,"
The Doctor held out his hand to the man to shake.
"Hello. I'm the Doctor,"
"And I'm Marion," she tipped her glass to him.
"How do you do?"
"Very well thanks,"
The man who had handed them their drinks stood next to Roger and offered him something.
"Your usual, sir?"
"Ah. Thank you, Davenport. Just how I like it," He took the drink and sipped on it.
There was a little feeling in the back of Marion's head that there was something important that she needed to remember, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. It was on the tip of her tongue.
"How come she's an Eddison, but her husband and son are Curbishleys?" Donna asked.
"The Eddison title descends through her," The Doctor explained, "One day Roger will be a lord,"
Greeves introduced another woman. "Robina Redmond,". He gestured to an attractive woman dressed in black and red with dark brown hair and a string of red pearls around her neck.
'Hello Miss Unicorn,'
Lady Eddison beckoned the woman towards her and introduced her to them.
"She's the absolute hit of the social scene. A must. Miss Redmond,"
The woman smiled, stepped forwards, and shook her hand.
"Spiffing to meet you at last, my lady. What super fun,"
Another person approached. Marion remembered him from earlier when he rode here on the bike. Greeves announced the man as "Reverend Arnold Golightly,"
There was yet another feeling in the back of her brain. Something that would smack her over the head once she noticed it she was certain.
Out of the side of her eye, she noticed Roger and Davenport standing next to each other and glancing at one another. That wasn't the thing that Marion had forgotten, but it was something else.
Lady Eddison held out a hand to her. "Ah, Reverend. How are you? I heard about the church last Thursday night. Those ruffians breaking in."
"You apprehended them, I hear,"
"As the Christian Fathers taught me, we must forgive them their trespasses. Quite literally," he laughed lightly.
"Some of these young boys deserve a decent thrashing,"
Davenport took his unfinished drink. "Couldn't agree more, sir,"
Roger cleared his throat and looked away.
"Typical," Donna sighed, "All the decent men are on the other bus,"
"Or Time Lords," The Doctor added.
"Eh," Marion sipped on her ginger ale, "I'm happy for them, it can't be-" Marion stopped. Ah. Well. Now she remembered.
If she didn't do anything, Roger was going to die.
So she'd have to do something. The answer was what.
"Marion what's wrong,"
"I just remembered something. 'Snot important right now. I'll let you know when it is. Finish your drink, Doc,"
Marion took another sip of hers, both wishing it was something stronger and being thankful that it wasn't.
"Now, my lady," Roger said, changing the subject, "What about this special guest you promised us?"
Lady Eddison looked around the yard for a moment, and then saw someone and smiled brightly as the woman approached.
"Here she is. A lady who needs no introduction," Agathe Christie was a taller blonde woman. She wore a long blue dress with brown and gold repairing designs. It kind of reminded Marion of a fancy rug or nice curtains or peacock feathers. Not in a negative or tacky way. It looked nice.
"No, no, please, don't,". The woman was clearly embarrassed by the applause and sudden attention. "Thank you, Lady Eddison. Honestly, there's no need,"
The woman turned to the three of them.
"Agatha Christie,"
"What about her?" Donna asked.
"That's me!"
"No. You're kidding!"
"Marion Henson. It's nice to meet such a wonderful author!" Marion shook the woman's hand. She was very careful not to shake it too hard.
Marion wasn't bouncing on the balls of her feet. Who told you that? You shouldn't trust someone who'd lie to your face like that. And even if she had been, it wasn't nearly enough to be noticeable. So let's change the subject.
"Agatha Christie," The Doctor took her hand in both of his and shook it enthusiastically. "I was just talking about you the other day. I said, I bet she's brilliant. I'm the Doctor. This is Donna. You met Marion. Oh, I love your stuff. What a mind. You fool me every time. Well, almost every time. Well, once or twice. Well, once. But it was a good once,"
"You make a rather unusual couple,"
Both the Doctor and Donna began sputtering.
"Oh, no, no, no, no. We're not-," "Oh, no, no, no, no. We're not-,"
"I can see that," said Agatha. She looked at Donna. "But I wasn't talking about you,"
Marion sputtered on her drink.
"Who- me? I-no. We're not- Or a- He's not- I'm-. We're not,"
"We're not married,"
"Or a couple!"
"Or a couple!"
"Well, obviously not," Agatha nodded, "No wedding ring,"
"Well yes and-,"
"Oh. Oh," The Doctor somewhat cut Marion off, "you don't miss a trick,"
"I'd stay that way if I were you," Agatha advised, "The thrill is in the chase, never in the capture,"
"Wise advice!" Marion nodded.
"Mrs. Christie," Lady Eddison ducked down as if she was sneaking into the conversation that had blessedly ended, "I'm so glad you could come!" She wrapped an arm around her and gently pulled her into another conversation, "I'm one of your greatest followers. I've read all six of your books. Er, is, er, Mister Christie not joining us?"
The gentle smile that had been on Agatha's face slipped away like someone had flipped a switch. Or you know, had brought up her cheating husband.
"Is he needed?" she began smiling again, but it looked far more forced than it had before, "Can't a woman make her own way in the world?"
"Don't give my wife ideas," The Colonel laughed. Some people joined in, some sounding more uncomfortable than others.
"Now Mrs. Christie," Roger put a hand in his pocket, "I have a question. Why a Belgian detective?"
Marion saw the Doctor's eyes flicker to the newspaper on the Colonel's lap.
"Excuse me, Colonel,"
"Belgians make such lovely buns,"
At this, the group actually laughed.
The Doctor leaned forward and picked up the newspaper.
"I say, where on Earth's Professor Peach? He'd love to meet Mrs. Christie,"
"Said he was going to the library,"
"Miss Chandrakala, would you go and collect the Professor?"
"At once milady,"
The housekeeper turned and walked purposely towards the estate.
The Doctor beckoned Marion and Donna towards him and held up the newspaper where they could see.
"The date on this newspaper," the Doctor said, pointing to it.
December 3rd, 1926.
"What about it?" Donna asked.
"It's the day she went missing," Marion said, lightly brushing fingertips on the newspaper. "December third, she leaves her house. December fourth, her car is found empty. It was like she had vanished into thin air,"
"She'd just discovered her husband was having an affair,"
"Not to mention, the death of her mother,"
Donna looked at where Agatha stood, surrounded by the other partygoers and laughing at something someone else said.
"You'd never think to look at her, smiling away," Donna observed.
"Well, she's British and moneyed. That's what they do. They carry on. Except for this one time,"
"This one time," Marion continued. "The woman disappears without a trace. She's gone for ten days. No one knows where she is or when she's coming back. The whole country is searchin' for her. The whole thing gets a lot of press. It's not every day that a famous mystery writer becomes a mystery herself, you know? But then, ten days later, she checks into a hotel. To make things even stranger, Agatha, even SHE doesn't know what happened during those ten days. She claims that she lost her memory. Doesn't matter if she was telling the truth or not. If she did know, she took the details of what really happened to her grave,"
"But whatever it was..."
"It's about to happen,"
"Right here, right now,"
As if waiting for the Doctor to speak, the housekeeper ran out of the house in a panic.
"PROFESSOR! THE LIBRARY! MURDER! MURDER!"
'Fuck!'
Marion downed the last of ginger ale and set her glass back down on the table and joined the rest of them in running into the mansion.
As she ran, Marion wondered what it would be like to have brain cells that weren't only just slightly more reliable than a horror movie flashlight.
Next Chapter: Murder Hornets! Er...Wasps
The Doctor: Hey, Marion? I've noticed you sometimes act strange. What's up with that?
The Associate: Spoilers!
The Doctor:...
Centuries Later
Marion: Hey Doctor? I think there's something strange about me. What's up with that?
The Doctor: Spoilers!
Marion:...
I hoped you liked the little scene with Marion and Nine. I think it was my favorite part. Btw, don't bother looking up the fruits, I made them up.
So. Originally, I had planned to have Nine give more explanations than he did, and then I remembered that Ten didn't know in chapter 4. Don't worry, I'm going to use this arc to have Marion find out some of the mysteries. I promise.
Also, I don't know if I've said this before and I don't want to check. But you know how both Seven and Nine claim to be 900 despite the fact that due to the existence of Eight and War and the fact that all three of them lived for a decent amount of time each it's impossible? No clue if this is canon or not, but the way I've rectified this discrepancy is this: starting with Nine, the Doctor counts their age not from when they were loomed (as far as they know) but when they first started traveling in the TARDIS. Doing that allows for about four and half centuries of wiggle room for the lives of Seven, Eight, War, and however long there was between the end of "The Day of the Doctor" and when Nine met Rose under the shop.