Hello! If you're curious as to how long this chapter took to put together, because I imagine it'll be a while, I wrote the interlude part of this chapter on August 16th and 17th. As I am beginning the editing process, it's December 13th.
Also, side note, I referenced this in chapter 51 if you aren't aware, there's this thing called the "UNIT dating controversy". Here's a basic summary of the issue: The Doctor's time with UNIT either takes place during the early 70s or the early 80s.
The timeline from the Abominable Snowmen, the Web of Fear, to the Invasion would suggest the early 80s. Since the Invasion specifically taking place in 1979.
Here's the issue:
A fifth Doctor episode explicitly says that the Brigadier retired from UNIT in 1976 (at least three years before the events of the Invasion) and that Benton left in 1979 (right after the invasion). This can't be possible so the only thing that makes sense would be that, like most times the Doctor is on "modern-day earth" the episode takes place when it came out. In the 70s.
There are a lot more little contradictions that come from different writers trying to make their opinion known, but all that really does is create contradictions with other writers also trying to make their opinions known and when they're not trying to say "it was the 80s" or "it was the 70s" another common 'solution' was some variation of "something happened that may or may not be the Doctor's fault and basically the 60s, 70s, and 80s are super fucky timewise".
So my personal solution for it is [sounds of fog horns, broken glass, a garbage truck backing up, and a shelf full of ceramics falling over], and I that that makes the most sense for everyone.
Here is some art:
Bookworm drew Marion again:
superwholocked2016 [PUT A PERIOD HERE] tumblr [PUT A PERIOD HERE] com/post/697954691805560832
I drew Marion and Four:
deviantart (PUT A PERIOD HERE) com/lunammoon/art/Marion-and-Four-940680689
Here are some acknowledgments:
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"Are you okay?" Marion asked.
After they had come back inside, to the TARDIS for the shops, Marion showed Rose to her room. Well, more accurately, Marion asked the TARDIS to help them find a good room for Rose to stay in and a bemused Rose followed Marion following the humming to her destination. It wasn't that far, barely halfway through the hallway before Marion's hand was on a simple brass doorknob. She stepped aside to let Rose go through, and then.
Then Marion had gone back in the kitchen to put a few more of those food bars in her bag and also drink something. There was a dull but steady pain in the side of her head, that she easily recognized as a dehydration headache. She knew she was drinking nowhere near as much water as she probably should be, especially when she'd just been on fire.
She turned around a corner from Rose's room (into what had absolutely been a hallway a moment ago), and reached into a cabinet for a mug.
She filled it with water, from the sink and drank it just as quickly.
She had downed two mugs of water one after the other and then started on her third when the Doctor joined her in the TARDIS. He stared at her for a moment. He looked at something… His expression changed to something else too quick for Marion to identify, and then he sat down at the table.
Marion sat across from him with her mug in her hands. She had drunk enough for her headache to disappear and was slowly sipping on this last one, to make sure it wouldn't come back.
That's when she asked the question.
"Are you okay?"
Marion didn't know exactly how long it had been since the Time War. Nine was the Doctor that had stopped counting his age based on when he was born (as far as he knew) and had started counting based on when he first got in the TARDIS, so that made things even trickier.
But from the notes from the Associate, she knew two things. The first, before Rose, Marion had been with the Doctor for a few months. And the second, that before that, the Doctor had been alone for a while.
Marion didn't know how long a while was, but that wasn't important.
What was important was that whatever conversation her future self had had with the Doctor for those months hadn't happened to her yet. She had no memory of them and the Doctor knew that.
Marion wondered what that was like, and then quickly realized that there was no need to. She'd find out soon enough.
"How long are you staying this time?" The Doctor was sitting across from her, he had a light smile on his lips and if Marion wasn't mistaken, it even reached his eyes. That didn't answer her question though.
"No idea. I doubt it's going to be anywhere near as long as the Associate just was though. Sorry, she couldn't stick around for longer."
The Doctor looked off to the side towards a cabinet Marion hadn't opened. And Marion was unsure if he was looking at something or just away from her.
"It's fine. You're still her. Even if- even if an event is still far off in your future. You're still you. You'll still be you. Past, Present, and Future. Doesn't matter. You'll always be my best friend."
Best Friend.
Did Marion know the Doctor enough to call him a best friend? She'd like to. At some point in the past, did she call the Doctor her best friend and he wondered the same thing about himself.
"Still, I can imagine it must suck that I don't remember any of the past few months or most of the time we've spent together." Another subtle attempt to ask if he was okay. "But y'know, on the bright side. I've only met you-this you. I've met a handful of others. Past and future. But this," Marion gestured to the man and his face with a lazy spin of her hand, "I mean. I met once before. And it was in your future. A little bit aways. So there's a chance that when I disappear and reappear, whichever me is next, she'll remember the past few months in a way that I don't."
"Maybe," the Doctor nodded.
The Doctor never answered her question about if he was okay. Marion chose not to ask it again.
Marion took another sip and looked into the Doctor's eyes.
She had never really understood the concept of a person having eyes that seemed older than their face. But seeing the same man hundreds of years apart and looking at his face was making her understand. If you looked at him, properly looked at him, there was no question that he was older than One. And if you kept looking, he was clearly younger than Eleven. Speaking of Eleven.
"Doctor, I've got a weird question?"
"Oh?"
"Is there someone else?"
"Someone else?"
"Yeah, someone else. You know?" Marion lightly knocked against the side of her head. "I talked to a psychic. An empath actually The story is spoilers, but anyway, she said that she could feel an extra set of emotions from me. Something that wasn't me, but was coming from me. You know? Do you know anything about that? Do you know what's going on? Can you tell me what's going on?"
"I might. But you know I can't tell you,"
Marion would have been shocked to get an answer other than that. "Can you at least tell me if it's dangerous?"
"Define dangerous."
"You know. Dangerous."
"You can't just define a word with itself, Marion."
What was once a slight smile was huge now. Good, at least he was having fun messing with her. Would be nice if she could get some real information out of it, but hey.
Marion groaned. "That's not the kind of answer I want to hear Doc. The woman said she felt something inside of me. Like embers. Like fire. And I need to know how much I should be worried about burning someone I care about. I need to know if I'm risking someone getting burned! If there's a sign I need to look out for to warn you or Susan or Jamie or Jo or Leela or Tegan or Peri or Ace or Charley or Rose or- or anyone to get away from me, I need to know what it is."
"It's not that sort of dangerous." The Doctor replied.
"What sort of dangerous "
"She's-"
Marion noticed the way the Doctor cut himself off there.
"So she's a she?"
"Trust me when I say, you don't need to worry about it. Or about you 'burning the people around you'" He put air quotes on that last bit.
"I don't need to worry about it, or you just don't want to talk about it?".
"You don't need to worry about it. I promise."
Did Rule One apply here? Was the Doctor lying?
"Are you sure?" Marion asked finally.
"If I wasn't sure, I'd tell you."
Marion finished her glass of water and stood up.
"Well, I'm going to go change into something that's not covered in burn holes- oh god damn it."
"What?" The Doctor stood up.
Marion glared down at her ankle.
"Really? You couldn't let me change my shirt? Why is it so important that I go right-"
And then, like a trap door had opened under her, Marion was gone.
Marion landed in a room. It was a familiar-looking room. Wall circle thingies combined with mint green. It took a second for Marion to realize where she was because something was missing that should have been in the room. The TARDIS console.
Marion looked around in confusion.
"What the hell?"
The TARDIS didn't respond which caused Marion to ask the question again.
"What the hell?"
Marion pulled open the TARDIS door. And there was her answer. And also the TARDIS console. The Doctor was working on it with Jo Grant looking over her shoulder.
The Doctor was there. He was wearing a red velvet smoking jacket.
Not black.
And he was standing upright and not swaying and he was alive as in not dead.
Oh boy.
Oh Boy.
"Only the second time you've met this old face and it'll be the last time this face'll see yours. You've only seen me without already knowing how I'm going to end once. I never would've guessed. You hid it well,"
It's not that Marion didn't know what that would mean. Even without the Doctor saying otherwise. The fact that when he'd met her moments before his-
Moments before Four's debut.
He hadn't mentioned the fact that he hadn't seen her in a while and the fact that she seemed to have a strong reputation around UNIT showed her that she would be stopping by Three's era multiple times while she was jumping around.
So like, she knew that the moment she saw Three die was not going to be the last time that she saw him.
That didn't make looking at him any less jarring.
She had seen him die and yet here he was, alive, breathing. He was hunched over the console because he was working on something. Not because he was swaying and barely clinging to life.
Marion hoped she didn't notice that she was staring. It was crucial that he didn't notice this.
Three said that she'd hidden the fact that she had been with him as he died. Knew exactly how his last breath would sound. Knew what his last words would be, and how (as far as he remembered) he hadn't even met the man he was going to say them to-
Marion shook her head. She needed to think about something else. She needed what the Doctor had told her to be true and not just him saying something he thought she might like to hear.
Jo noticed her looking over at the two of them first. She paused for a moment, taking in Marion's somewhat scorched appearance before seeming to decide that she Simply Wouldn't Ask.
"Marion!" She greeted. "Oh, you're just in time. The Doctor has been working on this thing for ages. Can't you get him to take break? He won't listen to me."
The Doctor didn't look up from the console. He gave him a wave of greeting. "It's maddening, you know. So nearly there. If I could only cut out their override on the dematerialisation circuit. Let me see those figures." He reached his hand out to Jo and she passed him the clipboard she'd been holding. He lifted a sheet and looked through it.
"Doctor?" Jo looked over at the man in confusion, "I thought the TARDIS was working again."
"I mean it is working, just not for him. The Time Lord Council is the only one who can control where she goes. The way the council has it set up, the ship can't go anywhere they don't send it to."
"Oh," Jo nodded her head. "Oh, all that business with the miners and the colonists…" Jo trailed off and looked at Marion with wide eyes.
"Yeah, I remember. I was there for that." Marion nodded.
"So when we were dragged off to an alien planet five hundred years in the future, for example-"
"Exactly! Time Lords wanted the TARDIS somewhere. They took it somewhere."
"Well, if it worked for them-"
The Doctor looked up from his clipboard.
"I don't want it to work for them. I want it to work for me. No one's going to turn me into an interplanetary puppet," He looked down at something on the clipboard and tapped it twice with a finger. "Yes, of course. Why didn't I think of that before?"
He passed the clipboard over to Marion and ducked down under the TARDIS console. Marion looked down at it in curiosity.
She recognized some of the words on the sheet. Separately at least. She had no idea what they meant together and the more she looked at them, the more she could feel a headache coming on. She lowered the clipboard.
The double doors to the lab opened. On the other side of the door was the Doctor, his hands on his hips, Jo with her hands by her side, and Marion with her arms crossed.
The Other Doctor was the one who spoke.
"Yes, of course, I remember now. Look, don't worry, my dear. I know you're alarmed but you needn't be."
"Yes, well I think that should do it," The Doctor stood up from under the console. Marion pointed towards the figures standing in the doorway. "Why on Earth I never realised that…" The Doctor noticed where her finger was pointing and turned around to see himself standing there.
"Oh, no. What are you doing here?" He called out to himself.
"Well, I'm not here. Don't worry. Well, that is, in a sense, I am here, but you are not there," The Doctor in the Doorway scratched the side of his head, "Yes, well, it's a bit difficult to explain really."
"This won't do at all. We can't have two of us running about!"
"Yes, well don't worry. It will all sort itself"
The TARDIS console made a humming noise (and it was so weird to hear the TARDIS make a noise, but not Feel it) and there was a flash of bright red and then the figures in the doorway disappeared. Smoke billowed from the console. The Doctor fanned it away with his hand.
"What happened?" Jo shouted.
"Well, it's a very complicated thing, time, Jo," The Doctor started flicking and clicking different switches, buttons, and levers on the console. "Once you've begun tampering with it, the oddest things start happening."
"But there was another you and another me and another her. Well, where've they gone?"
"Back into their own time stream, of course. Or do I mean forward?"
"But, Doctor, I don't understand-"
"That's fine," Marion said, fanning away some of the smoke that had floated near her face. She coughed. "time's weird, confusing, and contradictory."
"But-"
"Jo, don't worry about it. It was a freak effect. It's very unlikely to happen again," The Doctor walked around the side of the console and handed Marion the dematerialization circuit. "Hold that and give me those papers,"
Marion passed him the clipboard.
The Brigadier walked into the lab.
"Ah, Doctor. Glad you're still here. Oh and Marion, great. I need your help."
"Sorry, Brigadier. We're busy." The Doctor looked down at his clipboard and started writing more notes on the board.
"Yeah, so am I, Doctor, so am I. Now then, you've heard of Sir Reginald Styles?"
"No," the Doctor said, still not looking up "can't say that I have."
Jo spoke up. "Well, isn't he the chief representative at the UN?"
"That's right. Key figure at the latest summit conference."
"My dear chap," the Doctor reminded, "I'm a scientist, not a politician."
"You know, Doctor, if you didn't spend so much time tinkering around with this wretched contraption, you'd realise just how bad the international situation's become."
"Humans are always squabbling over something, Brigadier."
"Yes, well, this particular squabble looks like ending up in a third world war. The Chinese delegation has refused to attend." This was seemingly enough to get the Doctor to look up from his board. "Without them, the conference can't even begin. Now Styles is flying to Peking in a few hours. There's just a chance that he can persuade them to change their minds."
"All right, Brigadier. So what's his problem?"
"Well, he was working late last night, down at Auderly."
"Where's that?" Jo asked.
"Auderly, Miss Grant, is a Government owned country house about fifty miles north of London where the conference is due to be held."
"Oh?"
The Brigadier turned his head to the Doctor. "He suddenly started behaving rather oddly. Seemed to think that someone was trying to assassinate him. But this morning, he denied the whole thing. That's the problem you see. If Styles doesn't fly to Peking, the conference may fail. But how can we let him go if he's cracking up?"
"Suppose he isn't cracking up?" said Jo. "Suppose his story's true?"
"That's just it. My men can't find anything to say that a person could be there."
"That doesn't mean there wasn't anyone there though. Just that something's screwy."
"Any idea, who?"
"He said something about some sort of ghost, apparently." The Brigadier turned to Marion. "Is that possible Ms. Henson? Are ghosts real?"
"Ah- depends on how you're defining ghosts, to be honest."
"And how are you defining ghosts?"
Marion shrugged. "Dunno," Marion thought about the haunting at Caliburn house. And she thought about the Gelth. And she for a moment, wondered if considering she had seen him die, if the Doctor could be thought of a ghost. None of these were good answers to the Brigadier's questions, Marion realized.
"I'd have to think about it. It's a philosophical thing at this point. Anyway, regardless of how I define ghosts, what Styles saw was real. You were right to come here. We should go over there." Marion started to walk towards the door.
"Ah, Miss Henson,"
Marion stopped in place. The Brigadier was looking at her, or more specifically, her scorched shirt.
"It might be prudent of you to clean up a bit first. UNIT does have a reputation to maintain, and you can't go on official UNIT business like that."
"Ah." Marion looked down at her scorched sleeves, "Right."
Marion had tuned out the smell of burnt cotton around the time she and Rose were standing next to each other on Platform One and when she looked down at her arm, she could see that they were smeared with soot around her forearm. She had meant to change clothes before she was taken, and then right after, but the absence of a TARDIS console had distracted her.
"Doctor, are you sure it's safe for you to be tinkering with the TARDIS? What if that happened to you or Miss Grant?"
"What? That's not-"
"Oh!" Marion shook her head. "No, no, no, I arrived here like this. Yeah no, the console didn't blow up on me while the Doctor was messing with it. It's perfectly safe."
"Can I ask what happened?"
"Sunburn,"
"An alien sun? I presume."
"No. Ours."
The Brigadier stared at her in silence.
"How did it-"
"Exploded. Don't worry about it, it shouldn't be a problem for you for at least a few billion years. I'll be right back."
Marion didn't want to keep them waiting for too long. But her eyes flickered over the M drawer. Inside were a pair of thick plaid pants and a thin long-sleeved shirt made out of some materials that Marion identify, but they felt soft and nice, and she figured that if the Associate had left them for her, she might as well put them on.
She took those with her into the bathroom, took a speedy shower, changed into the clothes in the drawer, and tugged on the boots.
Once she was out of the shower and dressed, it was only a matter of a left and two rights and she was back in what would've been the TARDIS console room if the console hadn't been removed and then back in the UNIT lab.
"Right," Marion said, stepping out of the TARDIS. It closed with a soft click behind her. "Hope I didn't take too long. We're off to Orderly."
"Auderly Ms. Henson," the Brigadier corrected.
"Right. That."
The ride to Auderly House wasn't super long. Marion was in the passenger seat of Bessie, with the Doctor driving and Jo Grant in the back seat.
Marion did her best not to think about the last time she'd seen Three.
Perhaps this was how Clara had felt when she'd watched the Earth from birth to death and then had to come back to Earth knowing how it would end.
They met with Styles' secretary in a large wood-paneled study. The woman, who introduced herself as Miss Paget, wore a buttoned red blazer and greeted them as they walked into the room. She seemed like a professional sort of woman, but she seemed shaken. Although, it was unclear what made her more worried. The fact that her boss might've been assassinated, or that her boss might've hallucinated an assassination.
The Doctor sat down on the side of her desk while Jo and Marion stood nearby listening carefully.
"And you're absolutely certain that he used the word ghost?" The Doctor repeated the woman's words.
"Oh yes. But afterwards he-"
And speaking of her boss, Sir Styles walked into the office. The woman stopped talking abruptly.
The man's eyes darted from the Brigadier to Marion to Jo to the Doctor and finally, to his secretary.
"Miss Paget. What's going on here?" the man demanded.
"These people are from UNIT, sir." she tried to explain.
"Who asked them to come here?"
"I did, because of what happened yesterday."
"Nothing happened yesterday," the man took the paper the woman was holding out of her hand.
"There seems to have been some sort of incident, Sir Reginald?" the Brigadier tried.
The man looked down sharply at the papers in his hands.
"Nothing of any importance,"
"Ah c'mon," Marion crossed her arms "We know there was something,"
"You can tell us!" Jo added. Showing off an incredibly charming smile.
The man sighed and then straightened up, holding the paper in front of him.
"I was working late. I must have dropped off. Freak gust of wind blew some papers off my desk. I woke up rather confused. I was picking up the papers when Miss Paget came in. This is just a lot of fuss about nothing."
"But you did mention ghosts." The Brigadier reminded carefully.
"Did I?" His eyes flickered around the room in a way where he might as well have cheerfully declared "I am lying. Engaging in deceit even." "Must have been having a nightmare."
Miss Paget's eyes flickered towards the windows and then back at the group. "But the French windows were shut. I closed them before I went to bed."
"Then I must have opened them." He said quickly, his voice raised.
The Doctor gestured to the floor across from the desk. "Did you also make those marks on the floor over there? Muddy feet, Sir Reginald. Someone was in here, you know."
"Are you accusing me of lying, sir?"
Before the Doctor could say anything, in response and possibly make things worse, the Brigadier cut in.
"Sir Reginald, you've obviously been under considerable strain recently. Were you feeling at all unwell last night?"
"I felt, and feel, perfectly well. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've a lot to do. I'm due at the airport in an hour. Now, Miss Paget, where's that car."
"It's waiting for you now," she said simply.
"Then we mustn't detain you further. Sir Reginald" The Doctor remarked. "Allow us to wish you a very successful mission"
For a moment, the man seemed taken aback that the Doctor had been willing to drop his line of questioning so easily. And then Sir Reginald left the room just a little bit too fast to pass off as being a natural stride.
Moments later, Captain Yates peaked his head through the doorway. "Call for you in the RT sir. Sergeant Benton."
As the Brigadier walked out of the room, Jo turned to the Doctor. "'What was all that about?" she asked. Something did happen last night, didn't it?'"
"Oh yeah. 100%."
"Then, why did Sir Reginald say that it didn't?"
"When I first met the Doctor, I thought I was dreaming." And then she had thought she'd been kidnapped by a deranged cosplayer but that might take a little bit to explain. "I only realized that things were real because none of my reality-checking techniques worked and I had the foresight to send a message to my past self with the secret code. The point is that people love denial."
"My dear Jo," said the Doctor gently, "whatever happened was so extraordinary that Sir Reginald can't believe it. He thinks he's been having hallucinations."
"So why doesn't he admit it?"
"Because he's about to go to an important summit conference and he can't have the delegates thinking that he's losing it."
"I see," Jo said with a nod. "So that's why you pretended to believe him!"
"Nothing else to be done," the Doctor shook his head. He's been shaken up, but he's still perfectly capable. And at the moment this little planet of yours needs his talents very badly."
The Brigadier, back from his call, ducked back into the office. "Doctor, Miss Grant, Miss Henson, will you come with me, please? There's been some kind of shooting incident just outside the grounds."
As their group made it down the stairs of the manor, they could see Sir Reginald's car speeding away to the airport. The Brigadier stared after it for a moment, before ushering the three of them into a waiting jeep. Captain Yates started the engine and they sped off.
Five or so minutes later, they got out of the jeep onto an overgrown grassy field overlooking a railroad bridge. Benton met them and guided them along a path.
"Morning, Sergeant Benton!" Jo created cheerily.
Benton gave her a quick nod and then explained what had happened on the way over.
Guy appears out of nowhere pursued by neanderthal looking men wielding guns. UNIT had chased them into a tunnel and blocked both ends, but somehow, when they went to the tunnel, instead of seeing gun-wielding cavemen, they saw no one at all.
So just a typical Wednesday. Or Monday. Or whatever day it was.
"You saw them go in, you sealed off both ends, and the tunnel was empty?' said the Brigadier incredulously."
Benton nodded.
"Some kind of trap-door," said the Brigadier hopefully. "Maybe a secret passage?"
Benton shook his head. "We checked, sir. Every inch. It's just a plain, ordinary railway tunnel. Not even used anymore. This line was shut down years ago.'"
Benton led them the rest of the way there. Before he was called off. There was a man lying on the ground, pale and unconscious with a raygun lying next to him as if he'd dropped it as he fell.
The Doctor checked the man's pulse and he was alive. He used his thumb to lift his eyelids, looked at him for a moment, and then took his hands back.
How long would he be alive, Marion wasn't certain. She also wasn't certain as to what his name might've been. She knew why he was here, what he was up to. She was pretty sure. A solid 90%, 95 even.
"This chap's in a pretty bad way," he finally said, "Concussion, I think. He should be in hospital."
"Captain Yates!"
"Right away sir!"
The man went off.
Marion picked up the ray gun, pointedly pointing it toward the ground. She held it over towards the Doctor and the Brigadier.
"It's a new one on me," the Brigadier remarked. He turned his head to look at the Doctor, "What do you make of it?"
"I'm not sure,"
"It's a ray gun," Marion said carefully.
Benton emerged from under the tunnel holding a metal box with a strap tied around it.
"Sir!" He held it out to the Brigadier.
"What've you got there Benton?"
"I've no idea, sir. It was hidden about fifty feet inside the tunnel. Must have been put there recently, I reckon."
The Brigadier handed the box to the Doctor, who held it slightly so that Marion could examine it as well. It looked like something straight out of radioshack until the Doctor flipped open a side panel to reveal bronze circuitry.
Marion wondered if it was more 22nd-century human technology or humanity that's been influenced heavily by Dalek technology, or just purely Dalek technology altogether.
Did it matter?
The Doctor looked down at it curiously.
"What do you make of this?"
"Time travel." Marion said simply, "Don't know much more than that. I don't know anything about that device that you couldn't figure out yourself after a few moments in the lab."
"Will the man be alright," Jo asked.
"Oh, I think so Jo,"
Jo turned to look at Marion.
"Probably?" Marion said carefully."Hopefully?"
"But you can't be sure,"
"I can't be sure about a lot of things. But I do my best with what I am."
Marion tried to put herself into Sir. Reginald's shoes. Imagine you were attacked the night before by a mysterious figure that teleported into your home and pointed a futuristic gun at you. Imagine that you manage to convince yourself that you aren't in any danger and that the guy who appeared out of nowhere with a gun pointing at your face was nothing more than a hallucination.
Then some people from the part of the British Military in charge of investigating weird stuff come to your office asking you about the report that you made thinking that you were seeing a ghost when in fact it was nothing more than a hallucination.
You finally get them to understand that you were mistaken and they seem to agree. And you're comforted by the fact that the situation is all sorted and you're safe.
Marion wasn't sure what reason the man could be for coming back to his office when the last time she'd seen him, he was being driven to an airport so that he could catch his flight. Maybe he'd realized he'd forgotten something important.
But anyway, you come back to your office and then Brigadier Lethbridge-Stuart is back in your office and in his hands is the gun that your hallucination from the night prior was holding.
"Fucking wild" was the only thing that came to mind. Sir Reginald was certainly having "a day"
"Have you seen this before?" the Brigadier held up the gun.
"Really, Brigadier!" Sir Reginald sounded angry in a way a person who is scared will try to sound in order to hide the fact that they are scared. "What sort of games are you playing!"
"It's not a game, sir." The Brigadier insisted, "It's our duty to protect you."
"I don't need your protection." The man walked away and opened up a black suitcase and started to pile files into it. That's why he'd come back, Marion figured. He'd been in such a rush to get out of his conversation with the four of them that he'd left it behind.
"Sir Reginald," the Doctor tried, "we've just found a very severely injured man down by the canal tunnel."
"Oh really?" the man looked up, "And what did he look like?"
"Thirty-five-ish, average build. He was wearing a sort of guerilla combat suit."
"And," Marion added, "holding that gun,"
Sir Reginald didn't look up. He knew that they were right, and didn't want to meet their eyes.
"I am very sorry, gentlemen," Reginald said quickly and loudly, "but I have rather more important things on my mind at the moment. If you'll excuse me."
"I'll arrange an escort to take you to the airport, sir." The Brigadier called after him as he opened the door.
"Thank you, but it shouldn't be necessary"
"I'm sorry sir, but I think it will!"
Sir Reginald seemed to realize that the quickest way to end the conversation would be to agree and then leave and so he stopped arguing, agreed, and left.
"Marion. What's going on here."
Despite a stronger part of her somehow knowing she wasn't supposed to answer Marion tried anyway.
"The guerilla guy is a part of a group of people trying to-," Marion stopped talking. She forgot where she was going with that. Wait there it was. "Trying to…" FUCK what was she going to say? It was like having one of those nightmares where you're trying to run but you can't move your legs.
"Marion?"
The woman held up a finger slowly.
"Brigadier. They. Are. After. Sir. Reginald Because They Think… DAMMIT,"
It was like the moment she was about to finish the thought, she forgot the end of the sentence. They were under the impression that Sir Reginald Styles had caused the series of events that led to mass war and the Daleks had used that chaos to take over the Earth. She knew that. Why couldn't she say it? That hadn't ever happened before. Although, she also hadn't ever tried to just straight up give spoilers before.
The Brigadier looked at Marion exasperated. While Marion took a deep breath.
The Doctor tried.
"Marion, are the people after Sir Reginald dangerous, or is this just a big misunderstanding?"
A yes or no question. Good.
"Yes."
"That's enlightening," the Brigadier remarked.
"Marion is that a yes to if the assassins are dangerous or was that a yes to it being a big misunderstanding."
"Yes to both. I wish I could say more, but I can't. And that's apparently more literal than I thought it would be."
"So I suppose that we'll just have to sit and wait hope that our would-be assassin regains consciousness." The Doctor said after a momment. "Come along Marion, Brigadier. I'd like to get that gun down to the lab and run a few tests on it."
"Is there anything else we can do?"
"Not for the moment Brigadier"
Marion hauled a large straw dummy from some storage room into the laboratory. It wasn't heavy, not really, not to her, but it was large and bulky and difficult to maneuver. She lightly dropped it into a chair against the side of the wall and situated it so that it was unlikely to fall over.
"Bit early for Guy Fawkes' Night, Miss Henson," remarked the Brigadier. The man paused for a moment. "Guy Fawkes Night is-"
"I know what it is," Marion cut him off.
"The Doctor wanted it," Jo explained.
"Needs something to shoot the gun at. Unless you want him firing at your walls."
"How's the poor man you found?"
The Brigadier shrugged. "Benton's will him in sick bay now. Chap's still out cold, apparently. Will be for some time."
The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, with the ray gun in one hand and that black box in the other.
"Splendid, Marion." He sounded cheerful, excited to be doing something else after trying and failing to get his TARDIS off the ground. "Just what I wanted. Most lifelike, isn't it?"
Marion's eyes flicked from the Doctor to the now once again slumped-over dummy made of discarded denim fabric and a pillowcase and back again.
"Sure…" she said slowly.
"Now then," the Doctor beckoned them to the other side of the laboratory opposite from the wall. He mounted the gun on a tripod-type device and aimed it at the dummy, carefully looking through the viewfinder.
"What in the blazes is that thing?" The Brigadier asked.
"Well, basically it's a form of ultrasonic disintegrator."
Jo thought for a moment. "You mean a ray gun?"
"That's right, Jo," the Doctor nodded, "I mean a ray gun. Only it's far more sophisticated than any weapon yet invented on Earth. Now take a look at this."
The Doctor pulled the trigger on the side of the gun. There was a bright yellow beam of light, a high pitch whining noise that made her flinch, the smell of ozone, then the dummy was nothing more than a bunch of smoldering fabric.
"Quite an effective little weapon, eh?" the Doctor put his hand in his pocket.
"Doctor, you say that this wasn't made on Earth. Do you mean it came from another planet?"
"Well, that was my theory at first, yes, but the metallurgical analysis shows that the iron constituent is very much of this world. In fact, it was mined not very far from here. North Wales."
"How do you explain that?"
"The ghosts!"
"Miss Henson…"
"Well, not real ghosts. Not the classic kind made from lost souls. Although, I supposed they are lost-"
"Miss Henson!"
"Do you believe in ghosts Brigadier?" the Doctor asked.
"Let's be serious."
"I am, you heard what Marion said earlier."
"Oh come along Doctor, come along."
"Oh, my mistake. I was forgetting the unimaginative nature of the military mind. But we saw a trio of amicas seperatas a few moments ago, didn't we?"
"Did we?" Jo looked up from the ray gun. She hadn't taken it off the tripod, but she had been messing with it a little.
"Yes, here in this laboratory-"
It took a moment for Jo to realize what he was talking about, but once she did, here eyes lit up and she snapped her fingers. "Oh! You mean when we-"
"Mind you, they were manifestations of a much more benevolent kind. None of your clanking chains and chilly fingers, but ghosts, none the less."
"That was because you were playing around with the time mechanism on the TARDIS, wasn't it?" Jo asked.
"Still can't get it to work eh?" the Brigadier remarked.
The Doctor held up the black box and turned it over and over in his hands.
"Well, I can't get this thing to work, either. But this is a form of time machine, of a very crude kind."
"How do you know?"
Marion pointed to the small shelf where the Doctor had put a tiny piece of circuitry.
"Look familiar?"
"Oh," said Jo slowly. "It's a…mini dematerialization circuit!"
"Top of the class, Jo. Now then," the Doctor popped the circuit back into place with a low click and then slid another clicking thing to the side. He slid the whole mechanism shut.
"Now, as far as I can gather, when you push this button, it should."
The box was surrounded by a bright yellow light holographic sphere and Marion could hear it buzzing faintly.
"Doctor, turn that off,"
Marion reached over to do it herself, but before she could, the light faded and the buzzing stopped.
"Well, the thing's completely dead now," the Doctor remarked. He opened the back panel of the device again and looked inside.
"But it was working," Jo said, looking in as well.
"Yes, and I think it might've been broadcasting a signal somewhere."
The Doctor probably heard Marion, but he didn't reply. He opened the back panel of the thing all the way to get a closer look.
"Oh, I see, yes," he said slowly, "Yes, the temporal feedback circuit has overloaded."
"The what's done what?"
"Blew a fuse," Marion replied absentmindedly.
She knew Daleks and time travel were involved here. And she was fairly certain that that box was able to send a signal out. But what she couldn't quite put her finger on, was if it was signaling the freedom fighters or the Dalek command.
As Marion was thinking this, the intercom buzzed and the Doctor picked up the phone.
"Lethbridge Stewart?" The Doctor answered. "Yes, Sergeant. Really. You're sure? Yes, I see. All right, Sergeant, you'd better report back to Captain Yates. Goodbye." The Brigadier hung up the phone. That was Benton. He was in the ambulance with the man we found."
"Well?" the Doctor asked.
"Well, according to him, that man just vanished. Faded away like a ghost"
"Oh no." said Jo.
"Now that is interesting," remarked the Doctor, "What's more it proves I was right. The thing's definitely a time transmitter. Somehow, I managed to shoot the poor chap back to where he came from."
The Brigadier stared at the Doctor in exasperation. "I'm glad you find it interesting, Doctor- but it's not particularly helpful is it?"
"Well, we know that he and his friends, or at the very least, his friends are going to be coming back to the Stiles mansion to try again,"
"Do we know that?"
"Well, I know that. And now you know that. So yes."
"Well Jo," the Doctor turned to the woman, "how about it?"
"How about what?"
"How would you like to spend the night in a haunted house?"
Next Chapter: Maybe Stop and Think For A Sec
The Brigadier: Marion can you please give me a straight answer about anything for once.
Marion: Sure. No.
Either this chapter or the next, I get to establish something about Marion that I hinted at earlier, but I'd like to double down on so that when I do something with her I've been really looking forward to way down the line, it doesn't come out of nowhere.
Y'all know the drill. The next chapter should be in two weeks. Then school will be back in again and who fucking knows if I'll have time to update. Certainly not me.
*SCREAMS*