Hi guys.
Bookwork did more art. If you aren't following them by now, you should be.
superwholocked2016 [PUT A PERIOD HERE] tumblr [PUT A PERIOD HERE] com/707207648679952384
Here are some acknowledgments
thank you doctorwhofangirl1963, Draycu, and andre-papushi for following and favoriting.
thank you jansesu and a guest for reviewing
"JO!" the Doctor yelled as the last of the yellow light disappeared.
"Look, can't you do anything!" the Doctor turned to look imploringly at Anat and Boaz.
"No, it's too late."
"What happened to her?"
"She got sent to the 22nd century.." Marion said, still staring at the bit of floor that Jo Grant had been previously occupying, she thought of the fact that part of the reason that Jo Grant hadn't been killed instantly or otherwise hurt was that she was ignorant as to what was going on and her dislike of Anat, Boaz, and Shura made her a useful source of information to the controller and the Daleks.
She hoped that the bits and pieces of what she said hadn't screwed the chances of that over.
Actually, maybe it was for the best that Jo had felt so strongly about Marion getting hurt.
"Unless of course she got lucky and instead was disintegrated and dispersed around the Time Vortex."
"Unless she was what?!"
"Jo's fine Doctor."
"Fine?" Anat scoffed, "If she's in the 22nd century, she'd be better off dead."
"She's. Fine." Marion repeated. Marion looked away from the hardwood. "Doctor, I mean it. She's fine. They won't-they won't want to kill her right away or give any indication that they're anything less than benevolent. That gives us time."
"Time for what?"
"Time for us to go after her. Obviously."
"We can't leave the 20th century now! Not when Styles is so close!"
Marion pressed her palms against her eyes and let out a low groan.
"They're already on their way."
"Who?" the Doctor asked.
"The-," The name of the group that those cavemen were from escaped her. "That time machine sent out a signal, so the twenty-second century knows when and where you are. They're on their way and'll be here any second."
"So it's that girl's fault!"
"It's yours for shooting first, never asking questions, and holding everyone at gunpoint all of the time. Maybe if you LISTENED and chilled out for a second, Jo wouldn't have picked up the device and tried to threaten you. You held her and the Doctor at gunpoint. Honestly, what did you expect?! You should-"
"Should have what!" Boaz cut her off. "You're from the 21st century. You more than anyone should know what it's like. You know what's at stake."
"You haven't been listening to a thing I've said this whole time!"
"No. You're the one who's not listening."
The man held his gun up to Marion. And then, he hesitated for a moment. Her vision spun as he pointed the gun at the Doctor instead, still staring at her. Marion clenched and unclenched her fists.
"You know, at first I thought you were a liar, but now, I think you're tricky. You told us that Styles wasn't the one who set off the bomb, and do you know what else you told us."
Oh, if this man's train of thought was going where she thought it was going…it better not be. Marion grabbed the Doctor by the hand and pushed him behind her.
"Marion-"
"You told us that that man wasn't Reginald Styles."
Yeah, it was going there. Shit.
"Boaz!" Anat said sharply. "You shot her at the moor and I shot her in the cellar. We've confirmed her identity. She's not working with them. She wouldn't be working with them."
"That doesn't mean he isn't. Maybe she's being deceived. Maybe she's deceiving us! All I know is that-"
At that precise moment, the room began to swim faintly as there was a loud buzzing dinging sound, a flash of green light, and one of the large windows exploded into a rain of shrapnel.
Marion momentarily felt something sharp and something wet on the side of her cheek and the way she felt the wetness move back up her cheek and disappear along with the stinging told her it had been a shard of glass or something.
Anat fired one, two, three times through the window. Marion pushed the Doctor further back and towards the door.
"Where is Shura?" Boaz asked, firing once again. "He should be back by now."
"FALL BACK!" Anat ordered. "We can get through the library. Come!"
Anat opened the door. Boaz followed after them, his gun still remained pointed at the two until the door finally shut.
"Doctor, we need to leave."
"Yes, yes, one moment Marion."
The Doctor took a couple of seconds to retrieve his coat from the back side of the couch and swung it over his shoulders. Because of course, he did.
Marion heard the sound of broken glass and window panes being roughly shoved aside with a clatter as one of the beings charged through the window.
He was humanoid, but green, wore dark-colored armor, and had long hair everywhere but the top of his head.
"How do you do?" the Doctor said cheerfully as he charged through towards them. With a shout, the Doctor performed a high kick and shoved him to the ground. The green man recovered, quickly sat up, and reached out with his hand to trip the Doctor who fell with an oof.
Marion blinked hard and grabbed a vase from a side table near the couch with both her hands and before he could move enough to reach over and try to strangle the Doctor, she slammed it down as hard as she could on the green man's head, shattering it. The vase, not the man's skull.
Probably.
His gun fell out of his hands as he crumpled to the ground and remained there.
The Doctor grabbed a hold of the man's fallen gun and Marion pulled him to his feet.
"C'mon," she said. "We gotta get to the tunnels."
The only thing worse than vertigo was having vertigo and having to run while surrounded by the sounds of gunfire and loud mechanical beeping and booping and warping and bright flashing lights.
It sucked so much.
At some point as they were running, the Doctor had grabbed ahold of Marion's hand and that made things significantly easier. She appreciated it. Nine had mentioned that he'd noticed her randomly feeling sick, but Marion didn't know how soon or late that observation would come.
Holding the Doctor's hand meant she didn't have to pay much attention to where she was going with the Doctor guiding her in the right direction. All she really had to do was make sure that she didn't trip and she could focus on not throwing up.
Marion heard a noise coming from the left, a pain in her shoulder began to flair and she yanked the Doctor backward just as a beam of green light soared past.
The Doctor turned around the corner and shot at another one of those green soldier men. He glowed green and then disappeared.
Marion wondered how Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve felt about Three.
The Doctor aimed to fire at a second soldier but nothing happened.
Before the soldier could fire at the Doctor and have his bolt intercepted by Marion, the sound of machine gun fire grew closer. Marion let go of the Doctor's hand for a moment to cover her ears.
The entrance of the Brigadier and co came with the complete disappearance of her arm pain and all she was left with was the vague feeling of dread. It wasn't something that she enjoyed, but she'd take it over the vertigo any day.
"Doctor, Miss Henson, what on earth's going on?"
"Thank you, Brigadier, for that timely intervention." the Doctor said, explaining nothing.
"Time-traveling freedom fighters," Marion said as if that explained everything.
Marion grabbed a hold of the side of the rover and climbed in the back.
"Who is that creature?" the Brigadier asked.
"Yes, well, I'll explain about him later. Excuse me, old chap, I'm in a hurry."
The Doctor opened the driver side door and climbed inside and started to drive off as the Doctor shouted at him to "Come Back At Once"
Naturally, he was ignored.
The Doctor's driving was less of a harrowing experience than it had been on Uxarieus. But the Doctor was still driving rather fast and making sharp turns that made Marion have to brace herself on the side for fear of being knocked off.
The Doctor drove through the tall grasses and finally came to a stop right outside of the tunnel. Marion lept off the side of the truck bed, wincing at the momentary pain in her ankle, and hurried alongside the Doctor who had only seemed to just barely remember to shut the door behind him as he ran out.
The inside of the tunnel was dark. The only light in the place came from the sunlight that was bouncing off the smooth cement floor and that was fading the deeper they went inside.
Marion heard a faint buzzing noise and the faintest bit of light. Marion could see the beginning of a yellow sphere of light. She grabbed the Doctor's arm and tugged him through another tunnel. Hopefully, they were out of sight before the Daleks could see them,
"Marion," the Doctor asked in a nearly inaudible whisper. "Do you know where they are?"
"Anat and Boaz or the pair of Daleks that just teleported in."
"The- The time travelers."
"Trust your gut," Marion said quietly.
The Doctor started walking more purposely. Marion could hear the sound of something sliding against the concrete somewhere around the corner and the sudden wave of worry worry worry it was most certainly the Dalek.
Finally, they turned around another corner and came face to face of Boaz holding a gun at them.
"Oh, there you are!" Marion greeted.
"Get back! Get back!" he ordered. A time box of his own was held in his hands.
"Please wait," the Doctor tried, "I've got to talk to you."
"Keep away!"
"EXTERMINATE!"
Ah. So the Daleks had been following behind them closer than Marion had thought. Or maybe it just could hear them and was able to follow the sound of their voices.
"You'll get caught in the time field!" Anat warned.
And then there was a buzzing noise and Marion's vision went yellow.
Marion was a water slide person. Not a roller coaster person. She was willing to get on pretty much any water slide and went on everyone that was available to her over and over again. The height, the number of curved, the steepness, none of that mattered to her.
Roller coasters were something completely different. She couldn't stand those. She hadn't been able to stand them when she was a six-year-old at a birthday party. She hadn't been able to stand them at an elementary school trip to Hershey park. She hadn't been able to stand them in middle school when after the Incident her parents had decided that that year, they were going to an amusement park that DIDN'T have a sizable water portion this time. She couldn't stand them in high school to a local part with friends after graduation and hadn't been able to stand them when her roommates and some of the neighbors decided to take advantage of the fact that the county fair was only half a mile away from campus.
Every time, she'd been willing to give them a chance. Because surely, she'd aged and grown and matured and she'd actually have some fun this time.
And every time, she'd get off the ride with shaking legs having to hold onto her parent or her friend or her brother or her classmates or her roommates and the only thing that really changed was that her first words after getting out of the coaster car and rejoining the group gradually became more colorful and expletive-filled after she left for university.
Speaking of university. The side of her south class's studio constantly smelled of varnish and spray paint and the smell was even stronger when models were due and especially strong near the door to one fo the building's exit stairwells.
The reason for this was simple:
The building with the dedicated and ventilated spray booth was across the street. The stairwell that partially opened to the outside on the other hand, was across the room despite there being a white sign with big red letters clearly saying that "THIS IS NOT A SPRAY BOOTH. THERE IS A SPRAY BOOTH ACROSS THE STREET IN LEAPO HALL. DO NOT USE SPRAY PAINT IN THIS STAIRWELL" people continued to use it anyway.
The only real reason Marion hadn't used it as well is that she wasn't a spray paint person. Se couldn't stand the smell of it. She had always managed to get a workspace that was on the North side of the room next to several windows, as far away from that stairwell as possible
Anyway. Traveling through the Time Vortex without a TARDIS felt like being on a seemingly endless roller coaster that someone had gone through several cans of paint inside of.
Her eyes burned, she had a migraine that made her feel like her head was a balloon with a rock inside that kept getting jumbled around her head as she got snapped back and forth and it didn't help that everything was a bright and painful shade of yellow. Not ever gold which might've been easier on the eyes. It was yellow.
Nine was right when he'd said that if she was traveling around in the Time Vortex directly. She'd know.
Because this sucked.
When Marion's feet were finally on solid ground, she continued to feel light-headed and woozy. She didn't feel nauseous. Just unsteady. She took a step forward and nearly tripped. Before she could fall flat on her face, she felt an arm supporting her. There was something tickling the back of her throat. She tried to cough it out. Whatever it was in her throat, felt weirdly warm but no matter how many times she coughed, nothing happened.
"Are you alright Marion," that was the Doctor, but it didn't sound like the right Doctor? His voice was a bit higher towards the start and then it gradually changed, and then finally settled on something that sounded Scottish? His r's were rolling. Kind of like Seven. But she was with Three. Not Seven. And Three didn't do that.
Marion's coughing fit had left her vision slightly dark. She looked up towards the Doctor and around the room, trying to see if she had suddenly been taken away mid-adventure and somewhere else as her vision came back into focus.
"Wa-"
Marion stared up at the Doctor for a moment.
That was odd.
He was older and then he was younger and his hair was blonder and then it was browner and then it was straighter and then it was curly and for a moment she was a woman and then he was a man and their nose was long and then it was broad and then it was a button and her eyes were blue and then brown and then blue and then green and then blue and then brown and then grey and then blue and then blue again, but a slightly different blue.
It wasn't like the Doctor was morphing and it was nothing like watching Three's features shift into Four's. It was like moving back and forth one of those 3D notebook covers.
Marion's agenda book in middle school had had one of those. It had a silly-looking cat on it. She hadn't thought about that in a while.
Marion heard soft laughter and it took her a moment to realize that the laughter was coming from herself. She covered her mouth until it subsided.
"I've never seen that reaction before."
Marion turned her head toward Anat and Boaz. Anat's voice had remained the same throughout her entire statement. She expected turning her head to be painful, but instead, she felt floaty.
The two of them were shifting too. It was nowhere near as much as the Doctor, but some of the wrinkles on their faces were smoothing in and out and Anat's looked shorter one moment and then was loose around her shoulders
She decided to look down at the tunnel floor instead. She liked the tunnel. It wasn't moving. It couldn't move at all. It was a floor.
She laughed again.
"Doctor. I warned you that something might happen. I'm afraid that your friend's lost her mind."
Marion shook her head. "I can't've lost my mind cuz it's still inside of my sckull." She knocked her knuckles against her head for emphasis. "Besides, you couldn't function without a brain, so if had lost it it, I would've got it back after a quick trip to the clock zone."
"The…clockzone." Anat said slowly.
"Hmm hmmm. I call it that cuz it's dark and all you can hear is the tick-tok tick-tock of a giant clock."
"What are you-"
" 're coming…"
Marion shouldn't have talked as much as she had. She probably should be talking less and so should they.
"Who's coming?" the Doctor asked. He. She. They knew how to keep their voice down. So she didn't feel the need to shush them. Marion could hear Eight's voice, but it was like an undertone for to Eleven's
"The green men with the long hair. Dunno what they're called. Hard to remember. And the D'leks."
"The Daleks?" The Doctor asked. Twelve's accent peaking through Two's voice. "You mean the Dalek from before followed us?"
"Mm-hmm" Marion nodded.
"You know the Daleks?" Boaz asked incredulously.
"Indeed I do. I know them only too well." For a moment, Marion expected to hear them finish the sentence with One's little laugh." They've been our bitterest enemy for many years."
"Then you're a fool to have let yourself be brought here." Boaz scoffed.
"I won' let them hurt the Doctor. Or Jo." Marion insisted.
"I told you, Jo Grant's already dead."
Marion felt so angry both that they refused to listen to her when she said things and at the idea that Jo Grant might be dead.
"You're wrong 'bout a lot of things Anat. Like this. An' Styles."
"Marion, where are they."
"Why would she know?"
Marion ignored Boaz and addressed the Doctor. She made the mistake of looking at them straight on and in the brief glimpse, she got they looked like Twelve but with Eleven's eyes. Looking at the Doctor was hard, but she didn't want to lose them. She reached out and grabbed the Doctor's hand in hers. Much better. They could only be so far away from her now.
"Main building," she said. "Talkin' with what's his name."
"I don't know which name you're talking about," the Doctor said, in Thirteen's mildly amused voice which was good since if she was dying, then she doubted that the Doctor would be talking to her like that. Unless of course they were trying to put on a brave face.
Best check.
"Doctor," she asked softly, "am I dying."
"No my dear." said the Doctor, with Ten's voice but Scottish. Like how David Tennant normally sounded.
"Oh." She let out another little laugh. "Good. I didn't think I was. If I'm being honest I feel Great."
Although hearing the Doctor sound like that brought up an interesting point. Who would play Crowley in this universe's Good Omens?
"I thought we should take her with us," began Boaz, "But look at her! She's barely coherent."
Marion wouldn't say that, she felt relatively fine. She felt lightheaded, sure, and the Doctor's voice and appearance kept changing, and so did the two travelers.
But like, the Doctor had TOLD her she wasn't dying and she didn't think the Doctor would lie about something so serious. And lightheadedness aside she felt. Great. Better than ever really.
Boaz scoffed again. "Come on Anat."
"We can't just leave them!"
"I can!" replied Boaz. "C'mon."
Marion winced as she heard a high-pitched whistling noise that felt like it was burrowing itself in between her eyes.
"Run," Anat shouted, "Run!"
Marion was already pushing the Doctor towards a side tunnel in the opposite direction as where Anat and Boaz were going. She moved her hand from his hand to his wrist as she tugged the Doctor along behind her. Running would make too much noise, so she just walked as fast as she could manage.
Marion knew where she was going, but she also didn't. It was hard to explain. Whenever they came to a fork in the road, some of the paths Felt Wrong. So Marion didn't take the Doctor down there.
For the Doctor's credit, they seemed willing to go along with Marion wherever she dragged them
Or maybe she was holding onto them too hard. She hoped she wasn't. She loosened his grip on him just in case and continued to walk quickly and purposefully.
Marion could still hear footprints from somewhere behind them, but she couldn't tell if they could see them, or if they were looking. Either way, towards the side of a hall, she spotted an alcove with a light and a metal ladder leading up to a manhole cover. She tugged the Doctor into an alcove. She turned them around so that they were facing the ladder and then faced out towards the tunnel and stepped back a bit in order to push them forward.
"Marion?" They sounded mostly like Three this time.
"Shhhh," Marion hushed. She heard the sounds of loud footsteps getting louder and louder. Marion stood with her muscles tensed. The green soldiers shouldn't go down this way, but if they did, Marion would get rid of them so the Doctor could escape. Didn't matter how many times they killed her, she only needed to hit them hard enough once and they would be dead and unlike her, they wouldn't be getting back up.
"Marion, I'm not-"
"Shhhhhhhhh,"
It came out like a hiss.
There was that tickle in her throat again. She didn't want to risk trying to talk. If she opened her mouth, she might start coughing trying to get whatever that was out and the noise would be loud.
The sound of the soldiers got louder and louder. Marion tensed as she saw the silhouettes approach, but they passed by without an issue.
Marion relaxed. The Doctor was safe. Safer anyway. They just needed to get back up to the surface where there was sunlight. The air quality probably wasn't the best, but with his respiratory bypass, he'd be fine.
"All-" Marion let out a cough. She felt something warm in her mouth as she did, but it wasn't wet. She brought a hand to her mouth and then tried to look at it again in the faint light.
Nothing.
"All clear," Marion repeated.
She gestured up toward the trapdoor with her head and then over to the Doctor.
The Doctor climbed up the ladder as Marion carefully watched after them to make sure they didn't double back.
The Doctor pushed up the trapdoor and Marion got a wave of light and some air.
Climbing a ladder while severely lightheaded wasn't the most fun thing that Marion had ever done. And in fact, she rather hated the experience. It felt bad and wrong.
The Doctor reached down to grab her hand and helped her up the rest of the way. The Doctor was thoughtful like that
"Thank you, Marion."
They sounded like One, but if One was from, but Yorkshire.
A moment later, Marion got one look at the outside and then instantly decided to close her eyes instead.
The grass kept living and dying and growing and fading and that tickling sensation in her throat increased and finally it was at her throat and Marion started another coughing fit. This one was stronger than the one from when she had first arrived in the 22nd century and it sent her to her knees.
"Marion!"
The Doctor sounded alarmed, but They. She. He also only sounded like Three. Marion felt an arm holding her up and a loose fist lightly pounding her on the back. She continued to cough up something warm and smokey. Her vision became sharper and she stopped feeling lightheaded and floaty and instead felt grounded in a way she didn't notice that she hadn't been before.
Finally, she let out one more cough and when she opened her eyes again, she for a moment saw something shimmery floating in the air.
She looked down at the grass, it was just grass. Marion felt the Doctor's hands on her shoulders and she looked up at him.
He had curly white hair and blue eyes and a strong nose and his features were remaining still and not shifting one way or another.
"Marion, are you okay?" The Doctor asked clearly.
"I'm fine." Marion said, her voice momentarily hoarse from coughing.
"Marion, are you sure?"
"Yeah," Marion stood up to her feet. The ground felt so much more stable under her feet now. "I mean, I've got a bit of a headache. But besides that, I don't know what was wrong with me earlier. I felt floaty and your face and the grass and Anat and Boaz kept changing I felt weird and-"
The Doctor nodded as if that made sense. "It's the Time Vortex."
"Am I dying?"
"No. I told you that before."
"Doctor, it's the Time Vortex. That kills people."
It had literally killed Nine.
"Was I dying, but I'm fine now?"
"Something about the Time Vortex interacts with your physiology in such a way that rather than destroy your cells, causes you to temporarily enter an altered state of mind."
"Altered state of-" Marion remembered what Eleven had said back when he told her that she shouldn't be the one holding onto the side of the TARDIS because there was no telling how long it would take for her to come down. "You mean like being high?"
"Or drunk."
"How do yo- wait do you hear that?"
Marion crouched down in the overgrown grasses and the Doctor came down with her.
A clinking noise rang out through the moor. It sounded like someone walking with a carabiner full of keys or something.
The Doctor gestured with his head towards a broken part of a wall.
They quickly moved to the other side of it with Marion crouched down and the Doctor next to her with his arm partially over her, bracing against the side of the crumbling wall.
Two rows of human soldiers marching in lock stepped walked past them, seemingly not noticing them but they remained low to the ground and didn't say a word. As soon as they fully passed, the Doctor lifted off of Marion and stood to his feet.
"I don't think they're going to turn around," Marion said, her voice still low. She slowly rose to her feet.
Marion looked over in the direction that the soldiers had come from. In the distance, past where Auderly house had been were a series of frankly ugly highrise buildings. They looked soulless and plain. Like the kind of thing that people throw together quickly and efficiently with no thought to style, flair, or emotional impact.
Exactly the sort of thing that she'd expect from the Daleks.
"This way Marion." the Doctor said, already walking in that direction.
Marion kept pace next to him, her hands resting behind her head as they walked.
"How do you know that the Time Vortex Does That?"
"The Associate told me after what happened last time." the Doctor explained.
"Last time?"
"There was an incident a few years back. You were a bit out of it for a while."
"How long is a while?"
"A few hours."
"Oh no. Did you know what was going on,"
"I thought that maybe you had several faces, and I had only ever met one, and I was getting the privilege of meeting her for the first time."
Marion caught his meaning. "You thought I was freshly regenerated. And that was why I was acting the way that I was."
"In a word, yes."
Marion blinked slowly. "Doctor. You know I'm not a Time Lord right? Or a Time Lady. Or even from Gallifrey."
The Doctor rubbed the side of his neck. "Yes well…"
"Doctor." Marion lightly pounded on her chest, "I only have one heart."
"Well so did Susan and I, the first go around. It's fairly common."
"Yeah, but if- that would've been my second face, at least."
"It's not unheard of for a Time Lord to regenerate with a mono-vascular system. It's not especially common, but it happens enough from time to time."
"I'm sure I mentioned a few times that I was human. I mean it had to have come up. Did you think that I was lying to your face or something?"
The Doctor looked away from Marion for a moment he was staring off into space. "There are a few reasons that a Renegade Time Lord traveling through time 'interfering', especially the way you and I do might want to keep the fact that they're a Time Lord to themselves. Even around someone they trust. Letting that spread around, it's not always the best idea. You never know who might be listening." the Doctor trailed off.
Oh. The gentle, neutral smile on her face dropped.
Marion had been so busy looking at Three and thinking about Four that she'd almost overlooked something incredibly important about Three. And it was a wonder that it hadn't come to mind because when she'd met with him and Jo today, he was trying to undo the blocks that kept him exiled to Earth.
Just like Three had died and turned into Four, Two had died and turned into Three.
And Two hadn't just died either. He'd been caught and- If everything had gone the same here as it had in the Omega Timeline (and frankly, since Three was exiled on Earth with neither Jamie or Zoe to be seen that seemed like the most likely outcome) then that meant…
All Two had wanted to do was cause a little mischief and help anyone he came across that needed it.
And for that "crime" the Time Lords had executed him.
A part of Marion wondered if it had been the same sort of technology that Tectun had used to kill him when he was just a lost child over and over and over and over again or if technology had improved or evolved since then and the thought made that same part of her furious.
A dull pain let Marion know she'd been clenching her fists too hard. For a moment, she saw crescent moon dents in her palm that faded away just as quickly.
"I'm sorry," Marion said quietly.
The Doctor seemed to know that it wasn't her species she was apologizing for.
"It's not your fault."
The emptiness of the field and the vast size of the buildings made Marion severely underestimate the amount of time it would take to get there.
As they got closer to the building, the grass transitioned into hard pavement. The building as a whole didn't look any nicer up close. But Marion could see some potential in it.
Give it a couple of years, let the walls crumble a bit, add some moss, some flowering ivy, and maybe some berry vines.
It'd look nice.
But that was probably Marion's love of eco-brutalism talking.
"Smile," Marion said offhandedly, "You're on camera!"
The Doctor looked around.
"Where?"
Marion shrugged. She pointed back the way they came. "Somewhere around there ish."
Marion looked back towards the wall. There was a white and black symbol above the doorway, and the door was outlined with a nearly undetectable seam in the cement.
Marion reached out and lightly pressed on the top. It sunk into the wall with a low click.
"Marion did you-"
"They opened the door for us."
"They know we're here."
"Yup."
"There goes the element of surprise."
"I don't think that was on the table to begin with."
As soon as they were on the other side of the room wall, Marion the sound of moving rocks and footsteps and shouting. The shouting echoed around the plain concrete walls and it made it difficult to tell where exactly the noise was coming from.
The shout was aimed at lines of downtrodden-looking people all dressed in tunics in various shades of brown holding large metal trash cans on their shoulders.
"They could handle this all with machines." the Doctor said. His voice was low and furious. "But they must've thought it would be simpler and cheaper to wear out human beings."
Marion made a soft hum of acknowledgment. She was looking for the guards dressed in black. They had to be here somewhere. The pit in her stomach was too strong for them not to be.
Or maybe that was a side effect of close proximity to the Daleks. It honestly had to be 50/50.
Marion spotted two men completely dressed in black in the distance. They miraculously hadn't noticed them yet. Still looking in that direction. She lightly tugged on the side of the Doctor's shirt and gestured with her head to the side.
Marion backed up slightly and bumped into something else.
Marion pushed the Doctor forward and slammed her elbow back. Whoever she slammed into fell to the ground with a loud oof and Marion backed away from them. She turned her head to her left to see if she could see anyone else, and then, she felt a rush of air from her left as something (either a fist or an arm or the back of a hand or something) slammed hard into the side of her head and she fell to the concrete floor with a bounce making her see stars. She felt sick and dizzy and it wasn't until the warm wetness in her ear receded that she realized that it wasn't entirely because of the Doctor being endangered.
Marion rolled over to her side to start to push herself and she felt a firm steel-toed kick to her side knocking her back over. She felt something in her side snap.
Her ribs? Probably her ribs.
Marion let out a strangled gurgly yell out of reflex.
"MARION!" she heard the Doctor shout.
At the Doctor's shout, Marion tried to push herself up again, this time with more urgency, a foot against the small of her back pressed down. The ribs that had started to shift back into place continued to groan with the strain.
"Stay down."
Marion chose to do just that. The room was spinning and she lacked the leverage to push the foot off. At least without getting kicked again. If she lied still for a bit, some healing might be able to happen.
In her peripheral, Marion could see another guard pulling out a gun, and then she heard an unfamiliar voice from above her.
"No!" rapid footsteps ran towards them "The orders were to take them alive."
Moments later, there was a thud, a red blur, and a shout as the Doctor shoved the guard near her to the ground and slammed and send a kick into the chest of the man with his boot on her ribs. The Doctor pulled her to her feet.
Marion hissed and brought her hand to her chest as her bones melded back into place.
Marion's blinked the fuzz out of her vision as a dark and blurry shape lunged at her friend. She shouted his name to warn him but it was too late.
One of the alien guards slammed a gun against the side of his head and he crumbled. Marion braced his weight.
"Doctor?" the man groaned but said nothing, "Doctor? Doctor…"
Fuck fuck.
Marion felt dizzy but she was just dizzy. Her arm didn't hurt, and she didn't have chest pain. The Doctor was fine.
He was going to be fine he was going to be fine he was going to be fine he was going to be fine he was going to be fine he was going to be-
Marion felt something sharp jab into the side of her neck.
Her version swam and she felt herself starting to sway.
She crouched down because the room was darkening and she felt sick and tired and woozy and she knew that if the Doctor was in her arms if she was standing she was going to drop him and she didn't want to drop-
Marion woke up in a small room with a concrete floor and sheet metal wall what felt like moments later. She felt the side of her neck where she'd been jabbed. There was something there. Her fingers came back wet and covered in something slightly tacky, but whatever it was was clear and not red.
Speaking of red.
"Doctor?" Marion called out. No response.
'Shit'
Marion whipped her head around as if she had somehow missed him in the tiny room. She hoped that whatever they had injected her and her turning and moving her head too fast was the reason that the room was spinny.
It wasn't, she knew that it wasn't but that didn't stop her from being hopeful. Marion reached to fidget with the strap of her bag and found it missing.
Of course. Marion didn't know what she had expected. They had taken Three's jacket. There was no way they wouldn't have taken her messenger bag as well.
Marion brought a hand to her head and lightly tugged on it instead.
"DOCTOR!" she called out.
Just because the Doctor wasn't in the room didn't mean he wasn't close enough to hear her.
But then again, she didn't know how long she'd been out for. Unless whatever cell she was in had been literally just around the corner in a side closet, she had to have been out for several minutes at least.
"DOCTOR!"
She screamed again.
Wherever the Doctor was, he was hurt. She knew that, she remembered that much. He was hurt and she was stuck in here and what if her nausea turned into arm pain turned into chest pressure, and then she blacked out and she woke up in here again and she couldn't get out and-
Marion felt lightheaded and she realized that she was breathing too fast.
"Okay okay." Marion covered her eyes and focused on counting.
She could have as many thought spirals and panic attacks as she wanted to later. That would be the Associate's problem. Right now she needed to focus and get herself under control.
"Breath in for four, hold for seven, breathe out for eight."
"Breath in for four, hold for seven, breathe out for eight."
"Breath in for four, hold for seven, breathe out for eight."
For a moment, she just focused on doing that.
The human controller was curious about who she and the Doctor were and why the Daleks had responded so strongly to at the very least, the Doctor. The Doctor was going to be fine, or at least fine enough and even he wasn't panicking wasn't going to help anything,
She just had to repeat that over and over again until it stuck.
In a slightly calmer state of mind, Marion wondered if she should try picking a wall and breaking it down. Maybe she could find a seam or something and try prying it? It's not like she had to worry about a ripped fingernail.
Just as Marion started to press her finger against the side of the walls trying to find a seam of some kind, another part of the wall clicked. Marion turned towards the source of the noise as the wall clicked back to reveal a man dressed in a black armored vest over what looked like a puffy red jacket and a black helmet.
A tiny part of her wanted to launch herself at him, send him to the ground and run for the Doctor.
But the more rational side of her knew that that was a bad idea. Especially when there were other guards nearby who might give her more of whatever it was that had knocked her out for a while. She knew for sure that there was at least one of them, but she couldn't be sure if there was more due to the way that her vision was spinning.
And also when despite knowing where the Doctor was, as in the room, she had no clue how to get there from where she currently was.
"Fascinating," the man said in a tone that showed he was talking about her and not to her. "The dosage of that drug would've downed an adult Orgon for an hour at least, let alone a young girl."
Normally, Marion would've addressed the young girl comment, but that was small potatoes at the moment.
"Where's the Doctor!" she demanded.
"Oh you'll be with him soon enough. He's already told us everything after all.."
"Really?" Marion asked, "Everything."
"Oh yes. He told us all about your mission. About the resistance. About your part in it."
"I can't believe it."
"You can't believe that your friend gave you two up? He understood that being cooperative with us would be the best way to spare his life. It's not too late for you to-"
"No. I can't believe that you expect me to believe any of what you just said. Neither the Doctor nor I are spies for anyone."
"I can respect the sense of loyalty you hold to your friend. But he doesn't hold the same for you. He's already told us every detail he knows."
"Which wouldn't have been anything at all since we are not-"
Marion had already seen the hand moving and she braced on her back foot so that she wouldn't get sent to the ground when he swung the back of his hand against her cheek with a loud slap.
Marion brought a hand to her cheek and lightly brushed her fingers past it as the stinging slowly disappeared. She barely felt it at all.
All the man had really done was make her vision a little bit more spiny and even that was fading. She figured that the controller had already come for the Doctor or something and was heading over here which meant that she had to stall until the controller or whatever the man dressed in black was called would be there, and when that happened, he'd do the whole good cop routine and then, and then he'd take her to the Doctor.
In between then and now, Marion had decided to be annoying.
"That was rude," she remarked. "And here I thought that the two of us were having a pleasant conversation about how much of an IDIOT you were for thinking that either me or the Doctor are spies for the resistance OR that if I was a spy, I'd believed you that-"
The guard backhanded her again.
Marion didn't even bother to bring her hand to her face again. She could feel the swelling disappear already. She wondered if he could see it as well. What did he think about it?
"Wow." Marion deadpanned. "I almost felt it that time. Did you want to try again?"
"Do you think this is a game?"
"Well if it is, I'm not having very much fun. Are you?"
The man's face was turning an unflattering red. She supposed the answer to her question was no.
"Do you expect that I'll go easy on you because you're a woman?"
"You mean to tell me that those slaps were you going all out?" Marion clicked her tongue dismissively. "Y'know, if it were me, I would not admit to that. Didn't even leave a mark."
"Do you know who I am?"
"A bitch?"
The expression on the man's face was very funny, but also told her that she might've gone a bit too far.
Oh well, what was the worst that he could do?
Kill her?
"You-"
The man's hand was closed this time. He looked like he might be going for a punch, but before he could, someone grabbed his arm.
"What exactly do you think that you are doing?"
And right on time, there was the other guy. He was dressed in all dark blue pants and a long-sleeved shirt whose collar completely covered his neck. His brown hair was slicked back and he had the easy smile and crinkled eyes of a person who was trying to appear as genuine and trustworthy as possible, but was, in fact, not that.
The man turned to look at her.
"Oh, I'm very very sorry about all of this. Please permit me to apologize, Miss Henson-"
How did he know her last name?
Right. Jo. Jo, who clearly trusted him enough to tell him stuff since she didn't know what was really going on.
Marion might have to make a mental note to keep things from Jo when she met her in the past actually.
Well, Jo already at least kinda knew that she knew the future, so that ship had sailed already.
The man introduced himself. "I'm the Controller of this Sector. You and the Doctor were rather elusive, you know. I've had quite a job tracking you down."
Ok.
"You two are honored guests of the government. I have to say, I've been ever so excited to meet you."
That…actually came out as sounding genuine. Interesting.
"Oh?"
Marion stepped fully out of the cell and closer to the controller.
The rest of the hall looked barely different from the cell and it was making Marion wonder if she'd been put in a cell at all, or if it'd just been a large storage closet.
"Miss Grant has told me so much about you. And the Doctor of course. Ah," the man said. He Marion had somehow not noticed the fact that he was carrying her bag over his shoulder until he took it off and held it out to her.
"Here is your bag! I'm so sorry for the trouble."
A peace offering of some sort.
"Where is the Doctor?" Marion asked.
It was nice to have a comforting weight back on her shoulder. Not to mention something she could squeeze.
"Oh he's already with Miss Grant in one of our guest suites. I thought it might be best to bring the Doctor there first, and then come to this wing and find you. Again, I am so, so, sorry about that."
"What did they inject me with?" Marion asked as they walked, getting straight to the point.
"Oh," the Controller waved her off, "It was just a mild sedative. You're alright now, aren't you? No long-term side guards are only supposed to use it in case someone is acting especially. Easy way to make sure no one gets hurt."
"Ah," Marion nodded. "A good non-violent solution." She said, pretending that she hadn't just been told not ten minutes prior that she'd been given a high enough dosage of whatever that was too down one of those tall green-skinned men for an hour. Her hand still felt sticky from when whatever was oozed out the injection site. She absent-mindedly whipped her hand off on her hand.
"Miss Grant said you'd be understanding."
"Oh? She did, did she?"
Sometime in the Doctor's past and somewhere in Marion's future.
The Associate, absolutely off her shits on Time Vortex Energy with her shirt covered in blood: Hi! Doc :)
The Doctor, completely misunderstanding the situation: Wow! Have I met your predecessor before? What were they like?
Next Chapter: Cool Mint Flavored Lies
Hey, so fun fact about the Doctor and his origins. While we know from the start that the Doctor (and Susan) aren't from 20th century London, the information we get about what they are exactly is given gradually.
We don't get full confirmation that they're not from Earth until season two where Susan remarks that she and the Doctor are from a place. "quite like Earth, but at night the sky is a burned orange, and the leaves on the trees are bright silver." But even then, it's ambiguous whether they are human or some kind of alien One regenerates into Two. And we aren't told EXPLICITLY what kind of Alien they are until the end of Season Six where we learn that the Doctor is One: A Time Lord and Two: Has been on the run from the Timelords for at least a few centuries.
ALSO BEHIND THE SCENES.
Originally, Marion was a Time Lady. Like, when I was first writing the story. There were a couple of reasons for this.
First: I was having trouble fulling fleshing them all out. You can read more details about them here.
lunammoon [PUT A PERIOD HERE] tumblr [PUT A PERIOD HERE] com/707733413251186688
The second reason was, as I said before, I wanted to do something different with my story. (That's also why Marion and the Doctor's relationship is not, and will not be romantic. Queerplatonic? Perhaps. But not romantic.) So I decided to make Marion human(?).
But you see, making Marion a "normal" [citation needed] human meant that I couldn't do something I had been looking forward to:
Writing regeneration sequences where Marion's loopy as hell afterwards.
But you see, I'm the one with the google doc, the google sheet, the denik notebook, and the bluetooth keyboard. I make the rules. So, in order to get to write a similar experience to a freshly regenerated Marion:
Marion + Time Vortex = More or less the same thing.
Her thoughts being even more rambly, Slight Hallucinations, Decreased Vocal Filter, Slurring of words, and some other things that were present, but I didn't think Marion had been in the vortex long enough for them to be apparent.
Traveling via a TARDIS or other mostly enclosed methods doesn't really have an issue. Using a vortex manipulation might make the room seem to spin for a little bit and might make her a bit unsteady for a while. Traveling via the device that the rebels use is a bit worse than that and left Marion a bit high for a while but it wore off once she managed to cough the last bit of it out of her system.
"But what if Marion were to end up DIRECTLY in the Time Vortex no device no nothing."
To that question I have only one answer:
:)