So you may be asking, Luna, how have you been releasing longer chapters lately. Couple of things. First thing, I've been trying to write at least 1000 words per day and also, I've been listening to gaming lets plays and ASMR videos in the background while I work.
Oh also, check my deviantart. I drew a picture of what Marion's room looks like.
Thanks to stroke33games for following and favoriting.
Thanks to iHateFridays for reviewing.
"Ow fuck,"
That settled it. The force that dragged Marion from place to place was clearly at least somewhat sentient and had, unfortunately, chosen to use its sentience to be a dick. Why else would it have dropped her off facing a wall and made her dizzy enough to slam her nose into it?
Marion attempted to get a good view of her surroundings.
The low humming under her feet let her know that she was on the TARDIS, but she hadn't ended up anywhere but the TARDIS thus far so that was a give. She knew at some point, she'd have to locate the Doctor, but that was nowhere near the top of her list. First order of business was to take a shower before she bumped into the Doctor and was forced to go on an adventure covered in dried Star Whale barf.
Marion brushed her fingertips lightly against the hallway wall.
"Hey Honey?" she said, "I don't know if you can tell, but kind of need a shower. I'm covered in barf. Could you please-"
Before Marion could complete the thought, she felt "movement" under her fingertips. She followed it. The TARDIS led her to make two lefts, a right, and another left, and soon, it led her to a door that looked somewhat familiar to her.
'Oh right, last time I was here, I was barely awake,'
The bathroom was shaped like a rectangle with a width of the span of Marion's arms. Its length was a little bit less than twice that. It wasn't huge, but it didn't need to be. It was just big enough to not feel cramped. There was a shower/bath combo thing against the wall, just long enough to cover the far wall and take up a quarter of the room. It had a pale red shower curtain and bath mats of the same color.
A bit closer to the door and against the wall, there was a counter made of stone with a sink built into it. Above the sink was a small shelf and above the small shelf was a mirror. Next to the sink, was a toilet and on the floor were bathroom mats the same color as the shower curtain.
Marion checked under the sink and found two towels, a washcloth, a brush, a bottle of soap, and a small bottle of shampoo.
"Honey," Marion said aloud, "Thank you so, so much. I love you,". Marion felt a brief hum through the floor. It felt like a "You're welcome,"
Marion took off her clothes and stepped into the shower. She washed her hair first, and the rest of her body. If she stayed in the shower for a little bit longer than necessary, well who could blame her. She didn't realize how much she had to have stunk until she stepped out of the shower and realized that the bad smell that'd been following her for the past couple hours was gone. Marion dried herself off and wrapped the towel around her body. She took the other towel, and wrapped it around her hair and squeezed. She unwrapped the hair towel and stood in front of the mirror. She went to brush out her still damp hair and noticed something on the shelf under the mirror.
'That wasn't there before,' Marion murmured.
On the shelf, there was a small bottle full of...Marion grabbed the bottle to look closer at it. Concealer? It had a symbol on it; some kind of logo maybe. The same symbol was also on a small round closed dish full of powder, a spray bottle the size of her palm, and a brush. It didn't look like a brand that Marion recognized. Then again, that wasn't exactly saying much.
Marion didn't regularly use or know much about makeup. This was less because of her being one of those I'm-Not-Like-Other-Girls types and more of the fact that her the skin on her face was sensitive enough that she would break out if she used any kind of soap on her face other than the kind designed for people whose face would become blotchy if someone in the company even THOUGHT the word "fragrance" too hard and even then, she had to dilute the bottle.
While she knew that there was such a thing as hypoallergenic makeup, it was normally expensive, and she hadn't bothered and she had always been scared that normal makeup would make her face burn and turn red, warm, and blotchy.
That being said...
Her neck wasn't AS sensitive as her face. The crew of the Sandminder had been too concerned about killer robots to notice the discoloration on her neck and if they had noticed it, they either hadn't said anything or assumed that perhaps some of the population of the Ross colony bruised a different color. On the Starship UK, between the low lighting and the Star Whale fiasco, people had more things to focus on. That didn't mean that no one would notice it, and if she didn't know how'd she explained it. Unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life wearing turtlenecks in public, it's in her best interest to cover it with makeup.
The Doctor mentioned that she'd normally had it covered anyway. She may not know much about makeup, but Marion was pretty sure that she knew how to use concealer at least. Just put the liquid stuff on the spot you wanted to conceal, spread it until it was even, and then put the powder over it, and then spray it so it set right? She could manage something simple like that probably.
The amount of time it took for Marion to cover up the evidence of that time she almost got strangled on her neck in a way that looked natural was a secret that Marion was going to take to her grave. It was embarrassing. On the plus side, her neck looked normal and that's all that really mattered.
Marion readjusted the towel around her body and went to grab the clothes she had worn previously. She found them gone.
"Thanks Honey!" Marion said aloud.
Marion cracked the door to the bathroom and looked through it in case anyone was in the hall. Ideally, no one would be out there, and she'd be able to make her way to room before something happened that led to her having to run from something (which considering how her day was going, would likely be a murderous robot) barefoot and only wearing a towel.
Luckily, despite the fact that she was about 90% sure that the door leading out of the bathroom had led to a hallway when she'd walked in, it was instead, a wall with a familiar orange door in it.
"Honey!" Marion said aloud, "If you had a physical form I would kiss you full on the mouth right now, I hope you know that,"
Marion turned the doorknob to her room and walked inside and shut the door behind her. She hadn't even noticed that she'd left her bag in the bathroom. But it either wasn't there anymore, or there were two of them. Either way, her bag was on her bed.
The rooms still looked like a model home, this time, even more so because the one thing that made the room look like someone lived in it, the whiteboard and corkboard barely had anything on it. Not that Marion could see if anything was on it. Trying to see what was on the board was like trying to read from a phone in the dark after waking up in the middle of the night with the brightness on max and the phone literally pressed against your nose.
Not advisable unless you wanted eye strain.
Marion looked away from the board, blinked her eyes a couple of times, and moved to the chest of drawers. She opened them and after looking through them for a moment, selected a pair of dark blue denim shorts, black leggings, and a light blue T-Shirt. Marion got dressed, grabbed her bag, and walked almost left her room before pivoting and going back to her desk.
'Shoot, I almost forgot!'
As usual, there was nothing in the "A" drawer, but the "M" drawer had a note a mini-roll of dark blue duct tape, a few hair ties Marion read the note:
"It's early enough in the Doctor's timeline that you can stash the autodrive somewhere in here so when the chance comes you're able to get it. Tape it somewhere. -A"
Marion reached into her bag and pulled out the blinking autodrive. She looked around the room, trying to think of a good place to put it. The tape would suggest that she could put it up somewhere. Marion glanced over at her bed. She moved away from the desk and walked towards it.
'I could, tape it under the bed,' she thought, 'It blinks, so I'd be able to see it, provided I don't forget it or something,'
She laid down on the floor next to the bed. There was about enough room for her to fit under. Marion tore off a strip of the tape. She taped it to one of the bed slats making sure that the sticky side wasn't touching the magnetic strip. Marion moved from under the bed and got to her feet. She grabbed a pair of socks. She considered wearing a pair of converse, but then reconsidered. She didn't want to wear anything with laces. If she tripped or something and cracked her skull. Even if it didn't kill her, she was just going to lie there until the heat death of the universe because otherwise, someone might walk up to her and say "Hey, aren't you the idiot who cracked her head from tripping on her own shoelaces while running from a monster?".
Marion, having done everything she had needed to do in her room, opened the door and left.
Marion brushed her fingers against the wall of the TARDIS. Marion had been walking for a while, and she was at least 90% sure that she'd made seven right turns in a row, but the hallways did look different enough each time. After turning down one hall, she heard the whirring-grinding noise of the moving TARDIS console. Marion followed the sound.
'The note said that this is early in the timeline. But how early I wonder,' Marion thought.
She made it to the console room just as someone left the TARDIS. She followed right behind them.
"Oh!" Marion said out aloud, "This is pretty early,"
Marion wasn't sure what she had expected when the Associate told her that she was early on in the timeline. Maybe a blonde eight-hundred-year-old single dad who only vaguely understood what a corsage was and knew that it involved vegetation but figured that any kind would do or the velvet-and-frill wearing answer to the question "What if James Bond was a nerd and also Blofeld's ex,".
This was someone else entirely.
This version of the Doctor was an old man. Technically, so was the version that she had just come from and the version before that, and both the Doctor's that she had guessed she was going to meet. However, they didn't have white hair that went to just under their ears, a receding hairline or look like they'd die if you shoved them too hard.
The TARDIS had landed in a large fenced area, likely a stable or something. As for the Doctor he had just sat down on a barrel, holding a handkerchief to his mouth with Steven, looking down at him. The person who Marion had followed behind must've been Dodo then.
"Oh, I've got the most ghastly toothache. It's paralysing pain,"
"It serves you right for eating that sweet. Marion told you not to bite into it," Steven scolded.
The Doctor groaned
"Well, aren't there any painkillers on the TARDIS?"
"If there's anything I can get you..." Dodo offered.
Steven turned to look at Marion, "You wouldn't happen to have anything in your bag would you,"
Marion shook her head, "Sorry, no. Nothing like that in my bag. The Associate didn't leave me any either," She looked at the old man, "Sorry about that Doctor,"
The Doctor sighed, "I shall have to have it out. We've got to find a dentist,"
"Where are we?" Steven asked, looking around.
"Let's see..." Marion said, resting her chin on her palm.
Marion made a big show of putting her thumb in her mouth and holding it up to the air as if she was somehow using the angle and direction of the air to determine the year. There was no real reason for this other than the fact that she thought that it'd look impressive. If the Doctor could eat dirt and declare that they were in Norway, Marion could at least do this.
"Late 19th century," she paused as if she was thinking, "definitely post-civil war. I'd say around Eighteen eighty? Eighteen eighty-one? Yes, eighteen eighty-one. About a month or so into fall it'd say,"
"Yes, yes, that might be when we are," said the Doctor, "but Where are we?"
"I know!" said Dodo suddenly.
"Where?"
"Check outside Steven," Marion responded.
Steven walked over to the ajar door and stuck his head through it.
"Tombstone! The OK. Well, that sounds like..."
"The Wild West!" finished Dodo grabbed Steven by the arm and excitedly swung him around.
"It can't be, can it?" Steven said in disbelief.
"This is a TARDIS, not an ARDIS. Why couldn't we travel through time?"
"Fat I've got finding a dentist in the middle of the-"
The Doctor was cut off by Dodo and Steven's whoop of excitement.
"Must you?"
Steven, Dodo, and Marion moved to the TARDIS to change into something that better fit the occasion.
"Look, I've always wanted to be a cowboy, see what it was like in the Wild West," said Steven defensively.
"Hey, they had cowgirls too, didn't they?" Dodo asked.
Marion wasn't sure if there had been female Vaccaros (or would that be Vaccaras), but Dodo probably was thinking about the archetypal cowboy with a hat and a gun and a horse and the boots and they most certainly had female versions of them. So, she gave the answer Dodo would likely like to hear.
"'Course they did Dodo,".
"Ya-hoo!" Dodo shouted excitedly, walking into the TARDIS. Before Marion could fully walk through the door, the Doctor shouted to them.
"What about my tooth!"
"It's the 1880's Doctor!" Marion called from the doorway, "There's no medical treatment that's easier to find than removing what's ailing you!"
Rather than a large spiral with multiple levels, like, for Ten, the TARDIS closet was a room the size of a child's bedroom with clothing on racks and in boxes. Marion rummaged through the clothes. Carol Ann Ford and therefore, Susan, was roughly Marion's size, so she was confident that, even this early on, she'd find something her size. After looking through the shelves, Marion grabbed an outfit and moved to the changing room.
Marion kept the leggings but changed out of the denim shorts and into a tan ankle-length pleated prairie skit. She traded the t-shirt for a white long-sleeve blouse tucked in her skirt and put on a coffee-colored waistcoat over it all. She traded her slip-on shoes for a set of mid-calf boots and had put a cattleman cowboy hat on top of her head. It went with the outfit, looked cool, and, most importantly, covered up the discolored patch on the back of her head. Instead of going back to her room, Marion bundled up the clothes that she'd been wearing and used a couple of hair ties to keep it in place. She dropped the bundle in her bag in case she'd need a change of clothes.
She, Dodo, and Steven left the TARDIS. Steven walked out first and nearly tripped over the ridiculous spurs he insisted on wearing on the back of his boots.
"How do we look?" Dodo asked, gesturing to herself.
"Oh, good gracious," said the Doctor turned away, "Absolutely absurd,"
"Oh," said Dodo, sounding offended.
"Don't be rude. We look amazing," said Marion, tapping the side of her hat, "'Absurd' indeed, I've got no idea what you're on about,"
"Why you have to dress yourselves up like Tom Mix I can't imagine. You're asking for trouble. Why can't you wear inconspicuous clothes as I do?"
Marion did her best not to scoff. Sure he was dressing relatively normal now, but just give him a bit.
"Oh, what about me? Don't you like it?" Dodo did a little twirl as she spoke.
"Oh, that hat is certainly wrong with it,"
Dodo took that hat off her head, "Oh, it's not supposed to be. That's for you," she put in on the Doctor's head and patted it into place.
"For me, my dear child?" the Doctor was surprised, "Oh, that's very thoughtful of you, thank you," the Doctor took the hat off and examined it, "Yes, at least it'll keep the rain off," he put it back on his head, "Yes, it's most suitable. Ow!"
"Doctor, if you chipped your tooth biting into something you shouldn't have, try not talking as much. When you talk, air goes into your mouth and the pain is coming from it brushing against your tooth," Marion recommended.
"Buffalo Bill to the lions," Steven said softly to Dodo.
"What was that?"
'Oh, dear,'
The phrase "cringe-inducing" gets thrown around a whole lot these days but what happened next made every muscle in Marion's body contract. On one hand, Marion understood that the current American accent was what British people sounded like in the 1760's-1708's. On the other hand, if an Englishman had tried that kind of accent and she had been a Colonial American, well an extra point or two might've been added to the grievance portion of the Declaration of Independence.
"Nothin' pardner!" said Steven in what had to be the worst American accent Marion had ever heard, "I was just a-practising mah quick-draw!"
Steven tried to do a quick draw with his gun which might have looked cool if he hadn't fumbled it and also, hadn't been talking Like That.
"Is this how English people feel when Americans try their accents? Because if so, I definitely owe a few people some apologies,"
"Oh, do be careful, dear boy," said the Doctor, "And remember that belongs to my favourite collection!"
Steven ignored the Doctor.
"Now see here, stranger. I reckon you don't know who I is! Deadeye Steve. The fastest, meanest gun in the West," he managed to successfully perform a quick draw and pointed the gun at the Doctor. Marion quickly grabbed Steven's gun arm and forced him to point the gun to the floor.
"Rule one of gun safety 'Deadeye'," Marion scolded, "Do not point a gun at anything that you aren't okay with shooting on accident,". She let go of his arm.
"You best listen to the lady," a voice called from the entrance to the wooden enclosure or whatever it was that the TARDIS and her passengers were inside of. Marion turned her head to the voice to see a man in a black hat, suit jacket, a string tie, and a gun. The gun was in his hand and pointed at the wall near where they stood. Marion knew that if she hadn't had as much knowledge about gun safety shoved into her head and a knee jerk reaction to someone disregarding it, he would've shot at Stevens's hand.
"And who might you be?" the Doctor asked.
The man didn't let go of his gun, "You wanna find out, try movin' fast! Now get over!" The four of them moved forward with Marion and Steven towards the front and Dodo (smartly) making sure Steven was between her and the man with a gun.
"I don't know who you are or what right you have-"
The man cut the Doctor off, "Marshall of Tombstone's my right and Wyatt Earp's my name,"
"Wyatt Earp!" Dodo said, excitedly.
"Oh, something wrong, ma'am?"
"Oh no, it's just that, well, I always wanted to meet you and here we are face to face,"
"Well, the Lord sure do move in mysterious ways, ma'am. Now maybe you'll all come along to Sheriff's office?"
"Lead the way," Marion responded.
"Hold on," said Steven, "Why would we need to do something like that?"
"So as that you can identify yourself in decent law abiding manner,"
"Ah. No, you see, I'm, er, I'm not really a gunman. I was just-"
"Huh. You did kinda make that look obvious didn't ya, boy?" Marshal Earp really liked interrupting folks Marion noticed. "That's why I'm doin' you favor taking you on in,"
"Why?" Steven asked.
"Cos of the Clantons are in town, and, boy, that's mighty unhealthy for a stranger that calls himself the fastest gun in town. Now pick up yer peashooter and let's get movin,"
Wyatt Earp led the four of them down mainstreet along the porches of the storefront. They didn't speak as they walked. Marion was busy trying to figure out how she would prevent the mob from accusing the Doctor of being Doc Holiday without shouting that the real Doc Holiday was at the dentist office. She was vaguely aware of the Doctor telling Marshall Wyatt that the four of them were traveling performers, but she had bigger things on her mind.
'Perhaps the best thing to do would be to stick with Steven and Dodo?'. Maybe she'd be able to nip the suspicion at the bud? It was worth a shot.
Eventually, a man called out to Earp.
"So, you finally got back,"
"Howdy, Bat. Everythin' quiet in town?" Earp responded.
"Everything excepting that rattlesnake friend of yours Holliday blew in this mornin'. Who're your friends, Wyatt?"
"Well I, er..."
"Oh, quite, quite so. Allow me, sir, to introduce Miss Dodo Dupont, wizard of the ivory keys, Miss Marion Bluebird, soprano, and er Steven Regret, tenor," Dodo and Steven looked at each other in confusion, "And lastly sir, your humble servant Doctor Caligari,"
"Doctor Who?"
"Yes, you're quite right," the Doctor said, quickly, "I've just been satisfying the Sheriff here that we are a humble troupe of travelling players. Unfortunately, sir, at the moment between engagements,"
"Well if I was you I'd keep a-travellin'. There ain't no theatre in Tombstone," replied the man. He spoke as if he personally ran each and every performer out of town.
"Oh don't worry," Marion said, trying to show as much charm as she could, "We weren't planning on staying for too long now. We just stopped through here looking for the dentist. Doctor Cal chipped his tooth last place we were at and we were hoping that y'all had a dentist,"
"A dentist?" confirmed Wyatt.
"Yes,"
"Well, then, Doc Holliday's your man," he turned to "Bat" "Where is the Doc, Bat?"
"Opened his-self a surgery right along the Street," Bat pointed down the road, "Walk thatta way, friend. You can't miss it,"
"Oh, I'm vastly obliged to you, Sheriff," the Doctor let out the little laugh that his current incarnation was known for and turned to his companions and sort of pushed them forward, "Come, fellow thespians!", before joining them, he turned back to Wyatt, "No doubt I shall be very glad to see you, meet you later on, Mister, Mister Werp,"
Doc Holliday's dentist's office was pretty easy to find. Marion was able to see it from a distance seeing as it had a huge molar hanging over the doorway and this could be seen in the distance. Steven complained about the cover that the Doctor used.
"Look I don't know why you wanted to say it in the first place. Steven Regret? What kind of a name's that for a singer anyway?"
"Oh, my dear young man, can't you sing a little?"
"At least it's not 'Bluebird', I mean honestly Doctor? BLUEBIRD?"
"Don't think I don't hear you singing to yourself nearly constantly singing to yourself on the- on my might as well use it in your cover!"
Marion wondered when it would be appropriate to inform the Doctor that she hadn't done any of that and in fact, she hadn't met his current face yet or his companions. But at this point, that was a kind of awkward thing to say.
It was kind of like how when you meet a new person, you have a two conversation window during which it's acceptable to ask the person what their name is. After that, you just have to hope that their amazon package gets delivered to you by mistake or they use their real name on twitter because there was no acceptable way for you to find out otherwise.
Marion was pretty sure that there was literally no way she could get away with saying "By the way, nice to meet you," at this point. That ship had sailed and was currently on its way to Indonesia.
Instead of voicing these thoughts, Marion said instead, "Well, at least you didn't say that I was some kind of dancer,"
"Why say we're performers at all?" asked Steven.
"Well, I had to find some sort of suitable cover," reasoned the Doctor, "After all, you can't walk into the middle of a Western town and say that you've come from outer space. Good gracious me, we'd all be arrested on a vagrancy charge,"
"And you, for some reason, couldn't just say, we were just passing through on our way elsewhere huh? No, you HAD to say that we were a group of traveling performers. It's the Wild West in America. Unless you're a criminal, no one really cares. Everyone's got their own problems,"
"And what about our little wizard of the keys?" Steven tipped his hat at Dodo, "Miss Dupont, can you play?"
"I'll have a bash!" Dodo replied.
"There will be no necessity to have a bash, because tomorrow morning we're going to leave Tombstone and we should be back in the TARDIS in for lunch," the Doctor turned, looked up, and got a proper look at the roughly carved dangling tooth with it's chipped paint, "You know, I don't think that that is a very subtle form of advertising, do you? Yes, come to think of it, my dear, you know I think my toothache's better," the Doctor turned to walk away from the dentist,
'Yes, I don't think it's going to be at all necessary,"
Steven grabbed the Doctor by the shoulders and pushed him towards the front door and pat him on the back.
"Come on, Doctor. Straight into the surgery. I'll go to the hotel and book the rooms,"
"Please, Doctor. You'll feel so much better afterwards," Dodo convinced.
"Oh, I only wish I shared your confidence, my dear. However, I suppose I'll meet you both back in the hotel lounge," the Doctor winced, "Oh! There it goes again,"
Before the Doctor could fully walk through the door, Marion, remembering something, ran up the Doctor and grabbed his sleeve.
"Did you need something Marion," the Doctor asked.
"No, I just needed to tell you something,"
"Hm? And what is that?"
"Don't take the gun," she said simply before joining Steven and Dodo.
"What was that about?" Steven asked her.
"Don't worry about it," Marion responded, "I just needed to let the Doctor know something before he went to the dentist,"
Dodo started laughing.
"What's so funny?" Steven asked.
"I was just thinking, I hope he's not expecting an injection!"
"It's the Wild West Dodo," Marion said blithely, "if there's one kind of medicine that they do have, it's painkillers. Let's just get to the hotel,"
As they approached the saloon, Marion heard the sound of gunfire and a few moments later, two men walked out of the building. Marion, Steven, and Dodo were right behind them. Marion pushed through the doors.
"Oh, we got company," said one of the men who were sitting at the table in the middle of the room.
"Well, lookie here," said another man, "if it isn't Calamity Jane, Pearl Hart, and Sam Bass,"
As the man spoke, Marion and Dodo stepped down from the entrance into the saloon proper. The Last Chance Saloon looked about how Marion had remembered it looking. The only real difference was that everything wasn't grey black and white and was maybe a little bit dustier near the doors. Steven tried to join them, but once again, he tripped. Marion couldn't help but wonder if it was because his shoes were too big.
The men began to laugh. Marion didn't pay attention to them and walked towards the bar. Marion lightly tapped on the bell and leaned over the counter. Steven joined her and Dodo leaned with her back against it. The barman poked his head out from behind the bar. His name was "Charlie" if Marion remembered correctly. Charlie seemed shaken from when someone shot one of the bottles. That reminded Marion, she had to do something to keep him from acknowledging that he recognized Ringo.
"What'll it be stranger?" the shaking man asked.
"Oh, nothing to drink, thanks. We just want to book four rooms," replied Steven.
"Four rooms? For the three of you,"
Marion shook her head, "Nah. We're waiting on a friend of ours. Said he'd meet us here and for us to book the rooms,"
"Oh, well, I'll have to ask you to sign the book here,"
"Sure,"
Steven signed the book with their names. Marion looked over Steven's shoulder as he wrote.
"Say, are you really a piano player lady?" the barkeep asked Dodo. He sounded excited by this.
"You're darn tootin' I am,"
"And a couple of singers too. Well, I'll be"
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Steven.
"Well nothin' in the wide world, friend. I just might be able to offer you a job is all. I got no pianist on account he was shot last week,"
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that," said Marion.
"Thank you," Charlie dipped his head towards Marion and then turned back to the rest of them "I do have a singer, but she's always out someplace," Charlie gave them a wink that Marion imagined that she was supposed to get some kind of meaning from, but even though she knew that the singer was out with her Holiday, she couldn't fathom what it meant. Unless he was suggesting that he would fire her and hire them in her place. "Understand?"
"I think so," said Dodo.
"Sure," said Marion with a tone of voice that, rather than suggesting that she knew what he was talking about, suggested that she had NO idea what he was talking about, but also, didn't care enough to have it explained to her.
"Don't get me wrong," said Marion, holding up her hands, "it's a very kind offer but..."
"But we gotta leave town in the mornin',"
"Oh," the barkeep sounded disappointed, "Well, let me know if you change your mind. Just up the stairs, three, six, seven, and nine," He placed four keys into Steven's outstretched hand.
"Why thanks. Come on Dodo," Steven grabbed Dodo by the arm and swiftly moved towards the stairs.
"Ah, but Steven..."
"It's no good, Dodo. The Doctor would never forgive me if anything happened to you," he looked at Marion as if to say, "Back me up here,"
Marion was busy kicking herself for not telling Steven to maybe not mention the Doctor in the Saloon. She could hear one of the patrons speaking to another,
"You all hear what I heard?"
'Well damn,'
She tried to salvage it. Marion prided herself at being good enough at improv to "yes and" and think of things to say on the spot and smart enough to never join an improv troupe. Maybe if the "the Doctor" wasn't just known as "the Doctor" that might fix things and keep the patrons from assuming that his full name was "Doctor Holliday".
"He's right you know," Marion said, her eyes glancing towards the people at the table in a way that she hoped wasn't too noticeable, "You know how Doc Caligari can be Dodo. Best go upstairs,"
There. Marion said, hopefully, the patrons would get that they were speaking about different people, and as long and the Doctor didn't take the gun, everything would be fine and dandy.
Halfway up the stairs, the three of them stopped.
"Ah well. Hey, what about his key?" asked Dodo.
"Oh, that's a point, yes. Leave it downstairs for him, okay?"
Steven walked the rest of the way up the stairs, but Marion remained where she was. She watched Dodo bring one of the keys to Charlie.
"Give this to our friend the Doctor with my compliments," she said cheerfully.
"Sure, ma'am," replied Charlie.
Then men took notice of Dodo and Marion took notice of them and she continued to watch them until Dodo joined Marion back on the stairs.
"What's the hold-up?" Dodo asked.
"Thought I heard some people talking," Marion replied, "Don't worry, it was probably nothing,"
Dodo went back up the stairs. Marion took one last look at the lower floor, before joining her two companions on the second floor.
Marion sat down on her bed and took out her phone. She hadn't used it since the incident with the spiders. The phone was surprisingly not dead. Marion opened the camera app to see if the neck makeup was holding up.
'Looks fine. Good thing too, I didn't take any makeup with me,'
That brought up a thought. Should she start taking her makeup with her? If she got shot in the chest it would suck, but it wouldn't be a serious issue. Then again, what if she got shot in the face or some other visible place? It wasn't like her bag had a limit on room. Marion wasn't quite sure how big her bag was nor how much could fit in it, but seeing as she had already filled it with pretty much everything that she could get ahold of that seemed useful, and yet the bag insisted on looking like she had just got it...she figured that it was a lot.
Marion looked back at the camera. Her hair looked nice the way that it always did when she first got out of the shower and the Arizona air had dried it nicely in a way that made the thousands of tiny curls in her hair look more defined and less frizzy. She snapped a picture. She heard movement outside of her room. She jumped and put her phone back into her bag and got to her feet.
There was a loud knocking noise against her door. Marion stood up and opened it. Marion didn't know that man's name, but she knew who he was.
'Christ,'
Marion opened the door, preparing to grab the small knife out of her bag on the slim chance that her plan had worked, but the man was at the door for unrelated reasons. Actually, forget the knife. She was probably strong enough to give him a hard shove over the railing. But then again seeing as Steven and Dodo were behind him she didn't think it was anything worse than in the episode; even if the man had angled himself in such a way that the two of them wouldn't be able to slink down the stairs and abscond away. Even if there weren't a bunch of his friends sitting between the stairwell and the exit holding guns.
"Hello there. Is there something you needed?" Marion said calmly with the phony-polite and cheerful tone normally found in a retail worker who just KNOWS that the middle-aged woman that she's talking to is definitely going to demand to speak to the manager before the conversation ended.
"Well Miss," the man said, "I thought that while you waited for your friend, y'all might provide a bit of music for the fine folks by the bar,"
Internally, Marion was kicking herself for not telling Steven and Dodo to not mention the Doctor. She wondered if the Associate was out there somewhere, ready to kick her in the back of the head. She considered grabbing Steven and Dodo and then making a run for it, grabbing the Doctor, and then beating feet to the TARDIS. Marion glanced at the gun on the man's hip and sighed. Maybe, just maybe, it was possible that this had nothing to do with the Doctor, and they just wanted music and were willing to bully the nearby performers into providing it.
Marion didn't think a universe was kind enough for that to be the case but hey, she had to have some hope. Right?
"Well. I suppose it couldn't hurt," she said.
The man stepped away from the door allowing Marion to walk through and she followed behind the man, Dodo, and Steven. They walked towards the set of stairs leading down to the main floor and stopped. A man walked through the saloon doors.
"Okay, Clanton, I found Holliday. He'll be here in about five minutes,"
'Well, there goes anything I had resembling hope,'
"Great!" called another man. Marion thought that maybe his name was Clanton. But wait no, that was the family's last name right? They were the Clanton brothers.
The man "leading" them down the stairwell turned to them.
"Now then, Mister Regret, you and the ladies step right down to the piano and give us a song,"
"Ah, yeah, well, the thing is we're kind of a little bit out of practice, y'know," Steven attempted to get out of the situation and let out a nervous laugh, "It's-" He was interrupted.
"So here's your chance to warm up a little,"
Marion let out a loud, long-suffering sigh and sat down on a nearby chair.
'Silver lining,' Marion thought, 'the Doctor didn't say that you were a dancer. That's something,'
"Hey, couldn't we rehearse on our own first?" Dodo tried.
"Yeah," Steven chimed in.
"How about that. They wanna be alone," he looked at the rest of the men in the saloon as if Steven had claimed to be a comedian and not a singer, "You'll sing here, now and fast."
"Well, why?"
All the men pulled their guns out and pointed them at Steven.
"On account of we're all music lovers,"
One of them fired off a warning shot. Dodo screamed and Marion flinched.
Dodo walked to the piano and examined some sheet music. Steven went to look at it as well, and at that moment, one of the men stole Steven's guns.
"Hey, now come on, what do you-"
"Shut up and sing, friend," Marion didn't know what his name was, but this was the man that had brought them downstairs.
Steven said something Marion couldn't quite hear from where she was.
"What's the trouble?" said the man who claimed that the saloon was full of, let's say, passionate music lovers. He started pointing a gun at Steven's head.
"Nothin'", he said quickly, "we just choosin' a song,"
"Here's one," said Dodo finally.
"Let's hope the piano knows it,"
Marion took one of the note sheets from Dodo and a deep breath.
"Well, Dodo. Start playing,"
Marion had to hand it to Dodo. She was able to play the song quite well considering that this had to be her first time seeing the sheet music.
Steven began to sing,
"With rings on their fingers,"
Marion took the next line,
"And bells on their toes,"
Steven realizing what Marion was doing, took the next line.
"The women come to Tombstone,"
"In their high silk hose,"
"They'll dance on the tables,"
"OR give you a tune,"
Marion and Steven sang this last part at the same time.
"For whatever's in your wallet, At the Last Chance Saloon!"
(Next Chapter: A Series of Frustrating Events)
Marion upon hearing Steven's American accent: For the love of God. Either stop talking or shoot me.
Okay so. Two things I was considering doing in this chapter but didn't. I was going to imply that Marion sees everything in black and white during these chapters. I didn't do it because Marion seeing only in black and white for 1st and 2nd Doctor episodes would ruin a plot point for one of the 2nd Doctor serials I've been working on an outline for. The other thing that I was going to do was make these chapters into a "songfic" with the song being "The Last Chance Saloon," with a few original lyrics. I didn't do it because I couldn't write it in a way that didn't seem stupid.
As always, give me a comment and let me know if I missed a typo.