Hey, did you know that sometimes, when I have trouble choosing between two minor details I'll post a tumblr poll with little to no context? Because I will and I have.
Yet another reason to follow me lunammoon on tumblr.
partial-bouquet did fanart of Marion with her oc Attorney What. You can find it at
tumblr [PUT A PERIOD HERE] com/partial-bouquet/729117354934583296/fanart-of-my-friends-oc-marion-henson-from-their
thank you Riverrose3 for favoriting
thank you xXxAngel-With-A-ShotgunxXx for following and favoriting
thank you Waiting Companion, andre-papushi, and thank you Lady Shalpha for reviewing
Marion came to lying face down in the middle of the yellow and grey corridor to the feeling of something nudging at the side of her head and something else shaking her. She was pretty sure that she hadn't died. Or not-died. Or not-not-not died.
She hadn't done that thing where she received a would-be fatal injury and then passed out.
She'd blacked out yeah, well, blued out. But she hadn't heard any clock noises. She was pretty sure that she had been unconscious and not dead. So the Doctor was probably fine.
If he wasn't fine, then she would be either in pain or back in the control room. There was a third option, but Marion wasn't going to think too hard about that one because just thinking about it lightly was making her breathing feel a little funny.
"-s"
Marion considered that she should probably pay attention to whatever was nudging the side of her head.
"-ss?"
Marion opened her eyes and winced at the light.
"Boss!"
"Hello K9."
Marion fully sat up. "Hello, Romana." Marion looked around.
"Where's the Doctor?"
"I thought he was with you!"
"And I hoped that he would be with you."
"Well, if he's not here then where is he? He wasn't caught in the explosion was-"
"No," Marion replied quickly in a way that didn't sound frantic. "Because if that had happened, he would be dead. And he's not dead so that can't have happened."
K9 started to whirr and his ears wiggled back and forth for a bit before they stopped.
"Sensors indicate that master is not aboard the ship,"
"He must be on Dymond's ship then." Marion remarked getting to her feet, "The two of us got caught close to the interface when it closed. I ended up on the Empres's side, he must've ended up on the Hecate's side."
Romana looked concerned. "Is he going to be alright?"
"I mean…he should be. He was fine in the Omega timeline." Marion wondered for a moment if he'd wonder where she was, but she figured that he'd figure that she was fine, just still on the Empress. "He'll be here soon. Have you seen Captain Rigg?"
"Yes," Romana replied. "I met him in the control room when I was separating the ships."
In the show, Captain Rigg slowly starting to come off Vraxion and getting really aggressive about it had tried to kill Romana and had then been shot by one of the men from the space corps.
Marion had changed things but she'd been with the Doctor when most of those changes would have had their more visible end results.
"I thought he was staying with Secker?"
"The med staff kicked him out."
"What? Why?"
"There hasn't been any change in Secker's condition. And the Captain wasn't helping out by hovering about his bed. On top of that, there's a lot of new patients in the med bay, and they needed the room."
"Mandrel injuries?"
Romana nodded. "They kept the doors locked, so most of them should survive. But…,"
"Yeah, I can imagine those injuries couldn't be good. Have you told Della that Stott's alive yet?"
"No." Romana replied, "Haven't had the time."
"She's in the sickbay now. We should tell her. She deserves to know."
The sickbay had two doors that swung back and forth. Marion assumed that this was to make it easier to get a gurney in and out. On each of the doors was a large large square window. Two medics carried a man inside of the room, and when the door swung she could see Della moving the contents of a cart onto a shelf.
Marion pushed open the door.
"Hello, Della!" Marion asked, "Have you seen Tryst anywhere?"
In the original, Romana had asked Della about the Doctor. But Romana knew where the Doctor was so she didn't need to ask. And Marion wanted to know where Tryst was.
"No," Della shook her head, "I've been too busy with the casualties,"
Right. The mandrels coming out of the walls. Just anywhere at any time. And despite it being Tryst's fault, he couldn't be bothered to at least try to help out.
Almost every bed in the sickbay had a person in it. Thankfully, none of them were covered with a white sheet yet.
Della snapped her fingers, seeming to remember something. "The Excisemen have been looking for you three."
Marion hoped that they weren't looking for them to kill them for lying. That would be a pain. She grimaced.
"I wonder," asked Romana, "could you bear to talk about Stott?"
"Why?" Della asked slowly.
"Well, Tryst told us that you and he might be implicated in the drug smuggling. Now, we know it's not you and Stott, but it would help if you could tell us what happened."
"Did anything stand out about Stott? Especially the day it happened. The day he disappeared"
"All right," the woman said slowly, she closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them. "Stott and I were together. He was acting very strangely. He kept telling me to go back to the shuttle. I could see he was worried. There were mandrels prowling about, but I know it wasn't that. He was looking for someone."
"And you didn't know who?"
"No," the woman shook her head. Her eyes were slightly unfocused and she stared off into space. "Then it happened. A shot came from the forest. He was only stunned, but a mandrel came out from behind. I ran. I ran. I couldn't help myself, I just ran. I was so afraid."
Marion nodded. "That's understandable. He wouldn't have wanted the mandrel to attack you too."
"Attack?" Della shook her head. "It killed him!"
"How do you know?" asked Romana.
"Tryst told me. He showed me a visprint. It was horrible."
"Well," Marion said, "I'm not sure how he got ahold of that visprint" or what a visprint was for that matter, "but he had to have faked it."
"How do you know?"
"Stott didn't die," Romana explained.
"What?" Della's voice was breathy with shock. "He can't."
"He is. We met him. He survived getting attacked by the mandrel, but he got caught in the CET transmat machine," Marion wondered if he met to trap the man in the CET machine. Or if it had been unintentional. And if it had been unintentional, did he think that Stott had died at first? Or did he hope that he had died? "He figured out how to leave Eden and get in the Empress. He's somewhere around here."
"But where? I must see him." Della asked desperately.
"I mean he's around here somewhere," Marion said, "You'll see him soon enough."
"Now," said Romana, "we must find out who is smuggling the Vraxoin. We know it's something to do with the Eden projection. Stott may be able to help us."
"I knew it was him looking at me." the woman's eyes lit up. "In the Eden picture, someone staring out, only, I couldn't believe it. I thought I was seeing a ghost. Romana, Marion, what can I do to help?"
"The Doctor should be back soon." Marion replied, "And once he's here, we can dig deeper."
They just had to make it to the shuttle bay in order to find the Doctor again. Marion was super glad that there weren't a bunch of trigger-happy Space Soldiers wanting to make a name for themselves by shooting them in the head.
Marion waved to one such non-trigger-happy soldier as she passed by them. The man waved back.
Marion had been shot enough by soldiers thank you very much and she humbly requested that the universe not do that again until she had gotten at least eight hours of sleep. Ideally more, but she wasn't going to push her luck.
Marion heard a loud whirring noise and she, Romana, and Della moved back as Dymond exited the shuttle bay. A few moments after the man walked past K9 made a whirring noise and his ears wiggled back and forth. Without a word, he rode forward and the Doctor emerged from just around the corner looking around frantically until he zeroed in on her. The two of them met in the middle. The man put his arms on Marion's shoulders and looked her in the eye.
"Marion! There you are! Are you alright?"
"Am I alright? You're the one who got caught in the interface!"
"You were with me when I got caught in the interface. Marion. You also got caught in the interface. And when I came to on Dymond's ship you weren't there. I was worried that you might have been torn to bits in the separation!"
"I would've pulled myself together."
"Pull yourself to-" The Doctor stared at her for a moment. He opened and closed his eyes slowly and let go of her. "Marion, that was awful!"
Marion smiled. "Wasn't it!"
"I don't know why I bothered being worried."
"I'm glad that you're alright then Doctor," Romana said.
Two more of the soldiers approached. They stopped in front of their group.
"Inspector Henson!" one of them greeted.
"Yes," Marion replied, trying to channel the role.
Inspector Henson had been a fairly varied role. She was a largely lawful individual. Lawful Good to Lawful Neutral. Sometimes settling in the middle. Marion wondered what a Chaotic Inspector Henson would be like, but she then again, being chaotic, sort of defeated the purpose of the role.
On the Sandminer, Inspector Henson had been an enthusiastic bureaucrat with slightly skewed priorities.
In 60s (or 70s) London, she had been a safety inspector who just wanted to get in, look in the sewers, and get out. Quick and no-nonsense.
On Platform Five, she had been heroic and polite. She had done her best to warn people, while also doing her best to keep what was going down hush-hush so as to not alert too many people that something was going wrong and possibly cost the company. The sort of person who was loyal to her company, but could be easily convinced to change sides if given the right sort of evidence.
The Empress Inspector Henson she'd established so far was a slightly frazzled and mildly exhausted woman who was trying her best to get to the bottom of the mystery without snapping or shouting at anyone. A bit by the book. Did her best to be polite. She looked at the man and smiled lightly.
"You know my name, but it's a shame, I don't know yours."
"Office Victor Willingham."
"Lovely to meet you, Office Willingham. Is something the matter? Has something happened? The navigator hasn't died, has he? Is Captain Riggs doing alright? He hasn't been acting strange, has he?"
"The Captain's the person I came to talk to you about! We think we've made a lead on the smuggling case."
"Oh?" asked Romana, "What have you learned?"
"We believe that we've figured out who's behind the smuggling."
"Oh really?" Marion replied, "Well that's great! We've been doing our investigation too. What have you found?"
"Captain Rigg was behind the whole thing. He-"
Marion pinched the bridge of her nose. She didn't have to fake the annoyance that caused her eyes to close and urged her to exhale slowly.
"No," she replied. She opened her eyes again. "Just no. Captain Rigg isn't behind the smuggling ring. Why do your commanding officers- Fisk right? Watergurad Fisk and Landing Officer Costa."
"Yes," replied Willingham.
"Why do they think that Rigg is responsible?"
"Well, his navigator is currently in the sick bay in part due to the consumption of Vraxion. And you've said yourself that you suspect the smugglers might've been drugging people who got too close to figuring the source out. And Dr. Tryst said-"
Of fucking course.
Marion sighed again. Her eyes still shut. Her fingers were still on her nose. She did her best to channel as much "woman in charge who's very annoyed at you getting something obviously wrong but as chosen to be kind about it" energy as she could.
"Ok, so, I'm going to have to ask you to let him go. Quick as you can."
"Why?"
"Because Rigg couldn't have done it and Tryst is one of my main suspects. And if he's trying to pin this on the captain then he'd be the third person I know of that he's tried to pin this on."
"Oh." replied Willingham.
"Oh." Marion replied in the same tone of voice.
"Marion," Della exclaimed, "you think Tryst was the one smuggling the Vraxion?"
"Well he faked evidence that someone on his crew had died so that's absolutely a point against him. And while, I can't be 100% sure that he was smuggling with the evidence I currently have available. That detail combined with the fact he's been pointing fingers and changing their direction every other minute seemingly based on nothing but vibes causes me to strongly suspect him."
Marion more than strongly suspected him. She knew for a fact that it was him. But she didn't exactly have real solid proof outside of the fact that she just knew what she knew. And with that, she couldn't have Tryst trying to pin the crime on her.
"Willingham, do you know where Tryst is right now?"
"Yes." he replied, "He's in the Captain's Quarters. He was talking to Fisk last I knew."
"Alright. This is Della. He's on Tryst's research team."
The officer reached for his gun. "Was she involved in the smuggling?"
"Absolutely not." Marion said sternly, "Get your hand off that gun. Don't be ridiculous, Della would never No, Tryst knows her. She might be able to talk to him, you know? Pick his brain" Marion pat Della on the back "What do you say? Are you up for it."
"Well, of course." said Della, "I have a few things I want to figure out myself.""
"Should I escort you to the Captain's deck as well?"
"That won't be necessary," said the Doctor. "We haven't fully finished our investigations on this side of the ship. We'll join you when we're finished here."
"Plus, we're going in opposite directions. And you need to stick by Della. Keep her from getting hurt with that gun you're so eager to wave around. There's monsters coming out of the walls, you know. And some of them are walking around the corridors already. Keep her safe, will you."
"Alright then," the officer nodded, "We'll be off then."
"Watch out for mandrels!" Marion called after him. "They're getting in via a weakness in Tryst's machine. They could come out of the walls at any moment. Keep a hand on your gun and be careful."
Willingham and Della left, leaving the four of them in the corridor. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
"You're rather good at that." Romana remarked.
"What?"
'Lying?'
"Pretending to be the kind of person the person you're talking to will listen to. So that they'll listen to what you have to say instead of ignoring you outright."
That was a nice way of wording it.
"Thank you." Marion said.
The Doctor turned to look at Romana.
"Romana, what would you use an inchuka laser for,"
"An inchuka laser can be used to carry thousands of telecom messages-"
The Doctor held up a hand and cut her off.
"Could it carry a CET projection crystal?"
Romana's eyes flickered to the side as if in thought before she answered. "From what I've seen of Tryst's set up, I should think so. Why?"
"Because Dymond's got a CET projection machine aboard the Hecate with an inchuka laser attached."
"Then Tryst and Dymond are the smugglers?
Marion nodded. "Yup."
"So you weren't just saying that to get Fisk off Rigg's back?"
"No." Marion replied. "I wouldn't try to pin the crime on someone I knew was innocent. Not with the guards being as trigger happy as they are. Someone might hurt. Plus, false accusations make people trust you less. Dymond's the mastermind behind it all, and Tryst's going along with it so he can fund his research."
"That's not an excuse."
"Obviously not." Marion replied, "I wasn't trying to imply that it was," Marion couldn't verbalize how angry she was with Tryst and Dymond without admitting to things she didn't want to admit to.
"And anyway, I know that he did it, but I need proof. Witnesses. Him getting caught in the act. Or him admitting to it. Because right now it's his word against mine. Which is fine on this ship, at least in the short term, but if the goal is to make sure he faces consequences for his crimes that don't cause larger problems in the long run, then there's going to need to be something more substantial than a woman who claimed to be a narcotics inspector who we can't seem to fi-"
"Boss, detect units approaching."
Marion heard the sound of footsteps followed by louder footprints. Stott backed up with his gun aimed forwards firing at the mandrel that was close by.
"Stott," the Doctor ordered, "leave it to K9!"
K9 fired at the monster. The red light of his laser flashing on it over and over and over again until it collapsed to the ground. Marion hadn't realized that she had raised up her arm as if it could be a shield between the monster, the Doctor, and Romana, and she slowly lowered it. Romana's palm rested between her hearts and the woman breathed in and out slowly.
"What happened to you two?" Stott asked.
"Never mind about us." the Doctor deflected, "We know who the smugglers are."
"Who?"
"Dymond's the pick-up man, and the smuggler's Tryst himself."
"Tryst?" Stott's eyes widened.
"Yes. The Vraxoin's kept on the Eden crystal. They're about to transfer that crystal to the Hecate."
"Do you know what the source is?"
"Yes, those things," Romana nodded towards the fallen monster.
"The mandrels?"
"Yes. The mandrel that was in the power room with us woke up and started to attack. The Doctor managed to get it to crash into some wiring and shock itself. And then when it burned it left behind this pile of chunky greyish-white powder."
"A powder, you mean-"
"Yup." Marion nodded.
"No wonder I couldn't find it."
"Don't feel bad. I think the only way you could've found out is if you had tried to kill and cook them. Wonder how Tryst discovered it."
Perhaps some sort of incident with an electric fence.
"They can make the transference across space by means of the inchuka laser." the Doctor explained.
"Can you prove that?" Stott asked.
"How?"
"By letting them do it!"
Romana and K9 went off to find Della, Dymond and Tryst to get them back to the VIP lounge.
Marion, the Doctor and Stott went there ahead of them. Stott jumped back into the projection to test something while the Doctor hunched over the machine and started to put different dials that he'd removed back into place so that his plan could work. Meanwhile, Marion kept watch, both for the mandrel, and Fisk's men.
A part of her wished that she had had a gun like Stotts. Her aim was bad, but surely she'd be able to successfully aim at a mandrel. They were large and slow moving, and if she was aiming at one, it was safe to assume that it was in fairly close proximity. So she'd probably be able to hit one? Hopefully.
Marion fidgeted with her hand.
A mandrel hadn't jumped out at the Doctor while he was working at the VIP lounge. It hadn't happened in the omega timeline. There was no reason to believe that it would happen now.
But the problem with being paranoid is that knowing that what you're feeling is paranoia does very little to make you not feel paranoid.
Also, if part of your way of knowing in advance when danger might befall your friend is suddenly feeling extremely anxious, any level of anxiety led to more anxiety.
The Doctor continued doing whatever he was doing and he continued to do it as several officers poured into the room, with Fisk leading him. Captain Rigg had been dragged along. He looked fine.
"Waterguard Fisk!" Marion greeted, her eyes flickered towards Rigg, "I thought I sent Willingham to tell you that Riggs was unlikely to be the culprit. Why are you dragging him around? He did make it to you? Didn't he? He was supposed to meet you back in the control room."
"I'm afraid that we must have just missed them, Inspector. I'm sure you've done your own investigations, but we can't just rule out a suspect like that. Why, if I didn't know you and your companions were investigating the source of the Vraxion, I might have suspected you."
Marion was so thankful that he hadn't attempted to look her up.
"Well then, it's a good thing that I know how to keep track of my belongings then isn't it. And anyway, I'm telling you, Captain Rigg isn't the culprit."
"Then who is?"
"Tryst and Dymond." Marion's eyes flickered to the officer holding onto Riggs. "So you ought to let him go."
"Tryst and Dymond? Are you certain?"
"The Doctor found records on Dymond's ship and a device that would allow him to use CET crystals. Tryst with his CET machine would have the means to transport the drugs through customs unnoticed and it's awfully suspicious that an undercover agent disappeared and was declared dead after an expedition on Eden."
"Why do you suspect Tryst over Della? They were both on that expedition, weren't they."
"Tryst presented Della with a forged visprint claiming that the agent in question had died on Eden."
"And how do you know it was forged?" Fisk asked.
"Because I have proof that the reports of his demise have been greatly exaggerated. Stott, could you please-"
Stott emerged from the hole in the side of the Eden projection. He presented Fisk with his identification plaque. The man took it, looked at it for a moment, and then nodded.
"Like she said," Stott remarked as he slid his ID back into his vest pocket. "It's Tryst and Dymond you want. You should let the Captain go. The only thing he's guilty of is being in charge of the wrong ship at the wrong time and having a compromised navigator."
Marion honestly didn't know if Secker had been drugged without his consent, but considering Dymond and Tryst's track record in the Omega Timeline, well, him being drugged was enough of a possibility for her to suggest it. Just in case. If that wasn't what happened, then it wasn't what happened. But she figured it ought to at least be looked into.
The guards holding onto Rigg glanced at Fisk who seemed rather annoyed, but nodded. He let go.
Marion walked over to the Captain and pushed him in the direction of one of the nearby chairs.
"You should sit down for a bit," she said not unkindly. It's been a day. "Now, all we need is for Tryst and Dymond to-"
She heard something muffled in the distance a little bit away from the corridor. It was loud and high pitched. And then a voice that was just loud enough for Marion to identify as a voice but too far away for her to make out a word.
"-to what?"
Marion held up a hand, wordlessly requesting that Costa stop talking. She met the Doctor's eyes. He was looking up too. She knew that the Doctor's ears were better than hers. He could probably tell who's voice it was and what they were saying. As if her looking at him confirmed that she had heard it too he stepped away from the CET machine and took off out of the VIP lounge with Marion following close behind him.
The Doctor knew the way better than she did. She had just heard a noise, but he'd heard it clear enough to know where the noise had come from. The sound of a blaster firing again just as they turned a corridor, and then more words that Marion could recognize the tone of well enough to know that it was K9, but not enough to know what he was saying. Something about meters.
Romana was on the floor leaned back against the wall holding onto Della. The woman's eyes were closed, and there was a terrible second where Marion hadn't been looking at her long enough to see her chest rise and fall that she feared the worst. But then she saw the woman's mouth twitch. Just to be sure, she reached for the woman's wrist and pressed her fingers against her pulse point. She heard a steady, but gentle thump. She let out a sigh of relief and lowered the woman's hand back on her lap.
"Romana what happened," the Doctor asked quickly, "We heard firing."
"What happened to Willingham?"
"He was chasing off a mandrel." Romana explained, "And then when he was gone, Dymond shot at Della. She's wounded, but she'll be all right."
"The callous wretches," the Doctor said, tapping Della on the leg and in a tone of voice that suggested he meant something a lot more harsh than wretches. He stood up. "They'll be making the transfer to the Hecate by now. Marion,"
The Doctor raced off again, with Marion following close behind him.
As they ran, Marion heard Fisk's voice coming over the intercom.
"All personnel locate and apprehend passenger Tryst and pilot Dymond. They may try to leave the ship. And with reference to the previous order regarding Captain Rigg, cancel it."
"Marion, they're not already off of the ship are they?"
"Nope. They've suited up into the grey metallic outfits, but they aren't going to leave without that Eden crystal. They have, however, destroyed the main console room."
"They've what?" the Doctor asked as he turned around a corner. "Surely it can't be that-" he came to a stop in the doorway to the captain's room. Stott and Fisk were already inside. The Doctor brushed past them and stared at the console in silence. He sat down in front of the chair, picked up something covered in black scorch marks and set it back down. He brushed his soot covered hands off on his coat.
"What happened?" the Doctor asked, looking up at the two men.
"Tryst and Dymond have got away." Stott said glumly.
"Cheer up," replied Marion, "They aren't going to leave without the Eden crystal. That was the whole point of them doing all of this."
"So that means we have some time then, right?" the Doctor asked.
"To do what?" asked Fisk.
"Well, now that the ships are separated, we can at last stabilise the CET properly."
"Good, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Yes, but what does it mean?"
"It means, Fisk, that we can finally clear this marauding menagerie back into the projection, which is exactly where Dymond will want it!"
"Yes. But what are we going to do?"
"Well, we've got the cheese. We just need to set the trap."
"And once they've taken the bait." Marion clapped her hands together loudly. "SNAP!"
Marion had remembered that the Doctor had some kind of plan to lure the mandrels inside.
The problem was that she hadn't remembered exactly what the plan was. Now, she knew what the plan was and that it had worked in the show, but that didn't make her not hate it.
Just thinking about the Doctor's plan fired off alarm bells. But she knew that was just her anxiety talking. Didn't make them any quieter.
She crossed her arms hoping that the tight grip on her forearms wouldn't make it obvious that her hands were shaking. Because the Doctor kept calling attention to the fact that her hands were shaking seeming uncaring about the fact that she knew that her hands were shaking and that it was a tell that she was anxious and that the fact that she wasn't saying anything about it should make it clear that she didn't want to talk about it.
She also hoped that the Doctor hadn't caught on that her gripping her forearms was an attempt to hide the fact that her hands were shaking.
Or at the very least, if he had caught on, he wouldn't bring it up. Which would be functionally the same.
Step One: Fisk's men all the mandrel corralled into one place using their guns.
And you see. Marion was fine with this part of the plan. The men would have their guns. Everything would be peachy.
Step Two, and this was where the plan started getting concerning, the Doctor would get the mandrel's attention by playing a tune on K9's whistle (this was not an idea that she was a fan of).
Step Three was to get the mandrels to follow the Doctor into the VIP lounge and through the projection. (also not fond)
Step Four, the Doctor would lure the mandrels deep inside, and then as soon as he had lost them, run like hell out of the projection. (she liked this last bit, not the part that came before)
Step Five: Close the projection behind the Doctor, sealing the mandrel's inside.
The plan was fairly simple and she would've said that it was good if she was the one being chased by the Mandrels. But the problem was that the Doctor was the only one who knew how to play a tune on a dog whistle.
Something that might've made the plan less stress-inducing would be if she was running with the belief that the Doctor would always succeed no matter what. Unfortunately, she could feel the last of her ability to be in denial about what exactly had happened in the version of events where she had gone with Romana slowly fading away.
She tried to keep her mind from wandering away from giant insects and stingers and ripping sounds and slowly growing dark stains and-
Marion felt a weight on her shoulder. Like a hand pressed down. Or someone leaning on her. It was grounding. She could feel a rumbling. Someone was talking to her. A man's voice. Could be the Doctor? Was probably the Doctor. The Doctor was asking her something. She could feel it, she could feel the rumble of words and the rise in tone at the end. A verbal question mark.
The question was directed at her, she knew that. And she wanted to answer. But she didn't know what she was asked. But she couldn't ASK him to repeat himself. Because he'd been right next to her, and if she hadn't been in her own head, she would have heard him.
Still, the normal, calm, reasonable thing to do would be to ask him to repeat himself.
"Sure thing!" Marion said brightly, not doing that.
"Good!"
The Doctor nodded. "So Marion agrees then. That'll be our plan!"
Ah fuck.
Marion couldn't think of another solution. She was sure that there had to be one. But she couldn't think of one that would work.
"You're sure Marion," said Romana carefully. She seemed to be searching her expression for something. Whatever it was, she didn't see it. "Well, something happens and you change your mind. Don't hesitate to tell us."
"I won't." Marion insisted.
You know a robot arm was nice (mostly for prop comedy reasons, but nice) but with the benefit of hindsight, Marion was wishing that she had thought to take that laser drill with her, but she supposed that the gun she'd been given wasn't that bad.
Oh yes. She'd been given a gun. She had been afraid that she would have had to come up with some excuse as to why she didn't have a gun, but they just asked her if she had hers with her, she said no, and then they just gave her one.
Concerning that it had been that easy, but whatever.
The gun was fairly easy to operate, at least as far as she could tell from looking at it and from watching the officers fire them. Pointer finger goes on the trigger. Thumb rests on a little red spot on the back. Gun doesn't fire unless the thumb is in place. Don't point it at anything you don't want to destroy. Basic gun safety stuff.
At the Doctor's insistence, the guns were just set to stun the mandrels, and couldn't kill them.
Marion's job was to stay in the VIP lounge, gun in hand, and fire at the mandrel enough to stun them if it seemed like they were getting too close to actually injuring the Doctor or if when the Doctor started running out of the projection, one decided to follow him.
Also, she was going to run into the projection herself if she heard the Doctor shout and she started to experience chest pains. That one admittedly, wasn't part of the plan that the Doctor had created, but it didn't need to be.
She would need to keep a fairly close eye on the Doctor because the last thing that she would want would be for her to shoot and stun the Doctor by mistake. So she'd have to make sure that an aggressive mandrel didn't get close enough to him for that to be a concern.
Marion didn't like this plan. There were so many little things to focus on.
Marion squeezed the inside of her arm. The skin was red with five crescent moon divots. The divots faded just as quickly leaving behind smooth skin but Marion was focused again. She could not afford to have the Doctor die doing a plan Marion had encouraged him to do because she had been too deep into her own head about all the little things that stressed her out to warn him against it.
She needed to be calm and collected.
If the Associate decided that, despite the fact that everything had gone fine (because things were going to go fine if she had anything to fucking say about it) she wanted to spiral and have a freak out about it, that was her prerogative. But right now, Marion had to focus.
She knew that she was being silly and over dramatic but she was scared. She was scared because the Doctor, this Doctor moments after regenerating, said he trusted her to be there when he needed her because she always had been and she'd never let him down. To the point that he was willing to do things he knew might be risky for no reason other than the fact, he trusted that Marion would be there to save him in time.
She'd failed at least once today and she couldn't bring herself to fail twice.
She could hear mandrels. Several of them. Together they made a cacophonous groaning noise. Marion could hear the occasional blast of laser fire that got closer and closer and closer until the noise abruptly stopped and was replaced by more sedate-sounding mandrel noises and the windy noise of someone blowing into a dog whistle.
A few moments later, she could see the Doctor's back as he slowly walked into the VIP lounge. The mandrels followed close behind him, shambling slowly. Marion shook her head slightly and noted the distinct lack of spinny vision on nausea. Still, she didn't relax and she didn't let go of her gun. Stott and Fisk followed close after him, also holding guns, and Romana remained in the doorway. This allowed her to both be close to the CET machine and have a good distance in between her and the mandrels.
Good choice. Marion knew that there was something out there that was willing to give her at least a second try to save the Doctor. She had no reason to believe that such a thing would extend out to the Doctor's companions. And if she had any say in it, she would never find out.
The Doctor slowly backed up further and further into the projection with the mandrels following close behind him, still entranced by whatever music he was playing.
She wondered if the Doctor was just hitting notes that he had memorized, or if he and Romana could actually hear the whistle. She supposed that she could ask. She made a note to do that later. The Doctor continued to play as he slowly disappeared into the jungle. Marion positioned herself so that she could see him as he disappeared into the brush. A few moments later the mandrels had disappeared as well.
Neither the Doctor nor the mandrels were in view for at least a minute or so. And just as Marion was starting to get concerned that the Doctor had someone gotten lost Marion's vision spun for a moment and then steadied itself.
And then the Doctor emerged from the foliage. His coat was torn up. And in several spaces the lining was visible. His scarf in his hands and frayed at the ends and twigs and leaves were sticking out of his hair. Marion thought that she could make out a scratch or two on his cheek, but none of them were wide enough to be a mandrel. He breathed in slowly, and then Marion's vision swam once more as he seemed to catch a glimpse of something just out of view.
"TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF."
The Doctor didn't stop shouting until he had lept out of the Eden projection. Now that he was closer, Marion could see that his sleeves were straight up gone and the back of his coat was pretty much just shreds from the waist down.
Marion was thankful, but she was genuinely baffled that he managed his outfit that messed up without getting severely injured himself. Outside of the couple on his face, none of the many scratches he'd gotten had gone deep enough to get past a single layer of clothing let alone the skin.
Romana flipped a switch on the CET controls. It was hard to describe how she knew that the Eden gateway had been closed because the window was still there, and it still looked like you could just walk into it. But there was something different about it. The way the air moved in the room had changed. Marion lowered her gun and set it down on one of the couches. She was thankful that she hadn't had to use it and that, at least in this case, her anxiety had been for nothing.
She was self-aware of herself to know that she was going to be vividly imagining scenarios in which things had gone south for a while, but the fact that they would be based on her mind flickering to worst-case scenarios instead of averted timelines was a very good thing.
The Doctor was hunched forward breathing heavily. She looked at him in concern. He slowly rose back up, his breathing slowly but still faster than normal, and checked his own pulse before turning to look at Romana.
"Romana," the Doctor said quickly, "you've got two minutes fifty-eight seconds to rebuild this machine."
"What?" Romana stared at the Doctor in shock. "This?"
"Yes."
"CET?!"
"Yes!"
"Are you joking?"
"Do I look as if I'm joking? Well?"
Romana looked down at the machine and sighed deeply.
"Well, I'll need a screwdriver."
The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver from what was left of his coat and handed it to her.
"All right, Doctor. What do you want me to do?"
Marion wondered if she would think that what Romana and the Doctor were doing was more or less impressive if she knew anything about 22nd-century electrical engineering. As it was, with her current skill level, she was mostly just standing by and holding out her hands to hold whatever it was the two of them wanted them to hold and pressing down things that needed to be pressed down so that they could be welded.
It was kind of like standing next to her da-
…
It was kind of like standing next to someone who was working on fixing his car. Only she wasn't holding a flashlight and listening to an adult man constantly cutting himself off trying to avoid swearing in frustration within earshot of a young girl who had, in all likelihood, heard every single word he was tempted to use and worse in a dozen or so inventive ways just by nature of going to a school with other children.
The Doctor pushed a wire back into place and the TARDIS made a hissing noise. "Increase the gain on the matrix modulator." he turned to look at Romana, "Well?"
Romana brought the sonic closer to the machine. The noise it made changed as if it was sensing something. She frowned.
"Up five points."
"Five points. That's not enough. We're going to need some more power from somewhere."
Romana snapped her fingers. "We could put the jump leads on K9."
"Good, Marion?"
Marion hadn't realized that she had been handed jumper cables. Marion had just held out her arms and he had draped them over her like a scarf.
"On it!" Marion held up the alligator clips and paused.
"Red on the left. Yellow on the right."
"Thank you."
Marion clipped the wires into place on the top of the metal dog's ears.
"That alright K9?"
"Affirmative Boss!"
"Are you connected?"
"Affirmative Mistress."
Marion lightly patt K9 on the cheek.
"What are you hoping to achieve?" Stott finally asked.
"I want to increase the range and power of this machine," the Doctor replied, his voice low, "How many points now, Romana?"
Romana brought the sonic back to the side of the machine. It made a buzzing noise, but a slightly different one, and rather than maintaining a steady tone like it had before, its pitch gradually changed.
"Ten and building."
"Ten and building." the Doctor repeated under his breath. He laughed. "That's much better. We're going to be alright."
A beam of blue light shined on the orb. The Doctor jerked back with a shout and stared down at his hands.
"You good Doc?"
"Yes, yes. It was just a little shock, that's all." the Doctor wiped his hands off on the side of his jacket.
"They're making the transfer."
"That means they'll get away-"
The Doctor cut Stott off. "Shush! Quiet, quiet," he blew on his hand and then pointed at Romana. "Reverse the setting on the transmutation reflex. It's all right, it's all right, it's quite safe."
Romana brought the screwdriver to the machine and then hesitated.
"They've made the transfer."
"So?"
"They'll get away!"
"No, they won't," Marion replied quickly.
"See? Now Romana, will you please reverse the setting on the transmutation reflex!"
Romana went to work and the Doctor crouched down in front of K9.
"K9"
"Yes, master?"
"I want you to find the Hecate. Give me her position."
"Affirmative!"
"Good dog!"
K9's ears wiggled back and forth for a few moments, and then he began to speak. "Forty-seven point three, vector seven niner niner in seven seconds."
"Forty-seven point three vector seven niner niner," the Doctor repeated, "I hope you're right, K9."
The Doctor started to mess with a dial on the side of the machine and then the air felt weird and fuzzy. Marion started seeing double, and then triple, and then things swung back into place.
"Well, good." The Doctor smiled. "That worked didn't it?"
"It should have!"
"What's happened?" Stott asked.
"Have you ever heard the expression, hoist by his own petard?"
"Yes," Stott nodded, "but you haven't done anything."
"Good but what-"
FIsk and his officers had run out at some point to try to catch Dymond and Fisk and they had chosen that moment to run back into the room.
"So, Doctor, your plan has failed miserably. There's no way we can catch them now."
"Why would he need to catch them?"
Marion asked a light smile on her face.
"What do you mean 'why would he need to catch them?'" the man demanded. His face red.
"I mean why would he need to catch them? They've already been caught!"
The Doctor flicked something on the side of the machine. It buzzed for a moment, and then Marion felt the air in the main lounge change. And then right in the place where the gateway into Eden had been was a brown dimly lit control room. And in the control room, sitting across from each other, were Dymond and Fisk dressed in silver space suits.
The two of them seemed to realize that the room they were in was brighter than it had been previously, and they turned to look out at them in horror.
"There they are!" the Doctor said with a wide grin at Fisk. "All yours!"
"I-I-,"
"All I did was increase the range of this machine and brought them back. Matter transmutation, you see. And because the projection's still unstable, all you have to do is pluck them out."
Fisk smiled and looked back at his subordinates. "You heard him. Pluck them out."
The two men dragged the two fugitives out.
Tryst jerked away from the officer tugging him away
"Doctor! Doctor, I didn't want to be involved in all this. Tell them. Tell them that I only did it for the sake of funding my research. You understand all this! You're a scientist!"
He didn't turn to look at the man.
"Go Away!" the Doctor said under his break in the same tone of voice that Marion might use to say "fuck off."
"What?" said Tryst.
"Fuck off!" Marion said in the same tone that the Doctor had used to say go away.
Lazarus had fallen to his death from a cathedral.
The Bishop had drowned.
Tryst had been arrested. He was still alive. His machine had killed the Doctor, and he was still-
Marion stared at Tryst as one of the officers dragged him further out of the room and he disappeared.
Maybe she needed more sleep than she thought she needed. Sleep deprivation always made intrusive thoughts worse, and just because she somehow wasn't feeling tired despite having been awake for an amount of time she didn't want to check, but was sure that it was at least 36 hours.
She. She didn't actually want to kill Tryst. Did she?
No. No? No? No!
No. She probably just needed to go to sleep and eat something that wasn't a food bar.
She would probably still want to punch him a little bit afterward though. She couldn't be blamed for that.
They packed up all of the different crystals in white boxes and stacked them carefully on top of each other to take them back to the TARDIS. Stott and Della joined them, and Marion caught them staring at each other when they thought that the other wasn't looking. It was kind of adorable.
She hoped that the two of them could end up being happy together.
"How are you two holding up?" Marion asked.
"I'm fine now, thank you, Marion. I'm relieved the nightmare's over." Della said with a smile.
"And how about you Stott? Are you going to be alright?"
"I'm better than I was," he replied, "That's for certain. I'll be happy if I never see a jungle again in my life."
"Understandable!" Marion said with a careful nod.
"The nightmare's here," the Doctor said, holding up the Eden crystal.
"And here's the rest of Tryst's electric zoo." Romana held up another set of boxes and Marion rummaged into her bag to retrieve her TARDIS key. The door to the TARDIS opened with a soft click.
"It never was meant to be a zoo," Della explained, "It really was a conservation exercise for most of us."
Most good Zoos were basically that, but maybe things were different in the 22nd century.
The Doctor held up one of the crystals and looked closely at it. As if he could somehow catch a glimpse of one of the animals. "I think the best way of conserving the poor creatures trapped in these crystals is to project them back to their own planets, don't you?"
"But you've dismantled the CET!"
"Oh, we've got far more sophisticated stuff in the TARDIS," Romana said with a bright smile, "Do it in no time."
"What about the mandrels and the Vraxoin?"
"The mandrels have a perfect right to exist. In one way Tryst was right. Humans do have some kind of choice. Let's just hope that no one else discovers the secret."
Romana looked down at her box. "I can only think of one animal who'd be comfortably at home in an electric zoo."
"You could probably get them to pay for the 'privilege' come to think of it," Marion remarked as she pushed open the TARDIS door and walked inside.
The TARDIS fridge had a few full tupperware containers and various baskets full of fruit and various produce. There was a white box up near the top that just said "Doctor" in the worst handwriting she'd ever seen. And a clear box with some food she didn't recognize with a design of a circle with chunks taken out of and circles resting inside with dots and a few lines connecting parts to another written with ink pen so neatly that for a moment, Marion thought that it might be printed.
When she squinted at it, she was pretty sure it was Romana's name.
Next to that were several glass containers of something that had been labeled with her name in her handwriting.
There was plenty of food that didn't have anyone's name on it. But most of the contents inside had little printed label maker stickers with things like:
"HUMAN SAFE!"
"GALLIFREYAN SAFE!"
Or.
"TOXIC TO HUMANS!"
"TOXIC TO GALLIFREYANS!"
Which made sense but, some of the food was labeled with longer, more specific labels that raised a few questions and made Marion wonder what the story behind them could be,
A basket of something that looked a lot like oranges but with translucent flesh that was vaguely light blue in color. "ROMANA YOU'RE ALLERGIC TO THIS NOW. DO NOT TOUCH"
"THIS WILL NOT KILL YOU MARION BUT IT WILL MAKE YOU THROW UP" was written on a sealed bowl of something that vaguely resemble mashed potatoes.
"DOCTOR FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, THESE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SPICY!" was written on a bowl and yellow and red fruits that looked like- no.
Marion grabbed on and took a bite. Her teeth stuck on something hard. She spit out the pit.
Yeah, no that was just a bowl of cherries. Just normal Earth rainier cherries with a note written in her handwriting in bright red marker underlined multiple times. It told a story.
"MARION DON'T EAT THIS IT. CONTAINS CILANTRO"
Fair enough, if Marion wanted to taste soap she'd just save some time and put dish soap on her food directly.
Marion looked away from that bowl seeing as that clearly wasn't something that she could eat either and took out the bowl of cherries.
She put that on the counter along with one of the glass containers that had her name on it. It looked like it had been leftovers from something. It was a glass bowl with rice with chunks of some kind of poultry and covered in something thick and green that smelled vaguely of spices and tomatoes. Her fingers brushed against something on the bottom of the container. The container buzzed for a moment and then steam emerged from the inside. She lightly touched it with her finger. It definitely had been cold before. But now it was warm.
"Huh…"
She lifted up the container to see what she had brushed against. The bottom of the glass was thicker than she had figured it should have been and there looked to be some kind of wiring in the base. Around where she had brushed her finger was a button. Marion rummaged through a drawer until she found the one with the silverware (and it seemed to be a different one every time she got on the TARDIS) and took a fork. She sat at the table and put a forkful of the dish into her mouth.
It tasted amazing. She could only imagine how good it would have been if she had eaten it fresh.
Marion put a hand on her cheek as she continued to eat. She reached for the band around her shoulder to remind herself that she had eaten and took another bite.
Marion thought about how the last couple of times she had stopped to get something to eat she had been quickly dragged away and frowned.
"Heads up," Marion said aloud to the air with a bright smile. She didn't know if the Bitch Force had ears that could listen. But she thought that it might be worth a shot."If after I finish eating I get dragged away on some wild adventure without getting any sleep I am going to hurt someone."
"Ah- I take it to mean then that you don't want to put the CET's back in place with Romana and I."
Marion turned her head around to see the Doctor entering into the room. He had changed out of his coat. But his head still looked like a bird's nest. Marion quickly glanced to the side. She- she had been PRETTY sure that the door to the kitchen had been to the side of the food-making machine and not next to the fridge but Marion was used to the TARDIS doing weird things with doors.
"That- that wasn't directed at you," Marion said quickly. "It was aimed at them."
"Them?"
"Them, you know-,"
"The force that's been taking you from place to place in my timeline. You know, the Powers That Be." the Doctor smiled, "Unless you're mad at it. In which case I think you call it something a bit more-"
"Yes." Marion replied, "I do."
Marion took another bite of her food.
The Doctor sat down across from her for a moment. He seemed like he was looking for something, and then he frowned.
"Marion? Where were you last?"
"UNIT, Jo, Sir Styles. The mansion. The future."
"The Daleks."
"MM hmm." Marion nodded. Not wanting to speak with a bite of rice in her mouth. Well, something that she was pretty sure was rice. It was definitely some kind of rice adjacent grain.
"When you died three times."
She swallowed. "I don't know if the clock zone really counts as death. It feels like more of a liminal space a few towns over."
Also, it had been four times. But judging from the man's expression, she was pretty sure that telling him that would be when had tried to placate her m- someone who had been concerned by the fact that her nose had been constantly bleeding on and off all spring by saying that "it wasn't that big of a deal" because "her nose bled all of time time."
The Doctor stared at her for a moment. He sounded serious. "Whether or not what you experienced qualified as true death, you suffered three major injuries back to back that would have been fatal had it not been for your unique set of circumstances concerning your mortality, and then, if I'm remembering correctly, got thrown into a swimming pool without so much as a tea break. Have you slept at all since then?"
Marion wanted to make a joke about how she had gotten knocked out by both Stott and the ship's separating and how surely that might count as a nap in order to lighten the mood. But the Doctor's tone of voice was serious.
Four was a largely silly and goofy sort of man. It didn't mean he was incapable of taking things seriously. He could be very serious even when he acted like he was joking. This made the moments when he got quiet and serious all the more- well? Serious. This wasn't the time to joke. She could tell that much.
"No." Marion said, "You're right on the money. Pretty much as soon as I walked back into the TARDIS I started falling and landed in the pool."
The Doctor's mouth was in a hard line.
"After you finish eating, you should put that bowl on that shelf over there and go to sleep then. You may not fully feel it, " and how did the Doctor know that? "But you're exhausted."
"Are you and Romana going to put the projections back where they belong while I'm asleep?"
The Doctor seemed to think for a second. "Well- some of them. Some of the planets might be a bit boring. But we can save some of the more interesting ones for last."
"Hopefully they aren't too interesting. You've had enough excitement today speaking of which" Marion held up her hand and gestured to the Doctor, "You've still got a whole bunch of stuff in your hair. Let me-"
Marion reached over to the Doctor and pulled away a leaf and a few strands of grass. She held the debris in her palm up where the Doctor could see. The Doctor stared at it incredulously.
"I could've sworn that I got all of that out?"
"You can not have possibly thought that."
"Is there more?"
Marion shoveled the last of the food in her mouth and put it on the shelf the Doctor had mentioned. A lid closed shut and some lights blinked before it opened again and her plate was gone.
"Yeah, lots. Sit down, you're like a giraffe. My arms aren't that long"
The Doctor sat down in the chair where Marion had been sitting. The woman looked through Doctor's curls for a moment, she found more grass, some kind of spiky seed pods, and more leaves. She took out each bit she found and placed it on the table.
"Can I ask what happened? You weren't out of sight for that long and when you came back you looked-"
"Dishevelled?"
"I was going to say that you looked like you got in a fight with the woods and only barely won, but sure. We can go with disheveled. Honestly, it's a wonder you only get a few superficial scratches."
The Doctor shrugged. "I tripped."
"You tripped."
"Down a hill. Into a bush."
Whatever expression Marion was making pushed the Doctor to continue.
"It was a big bush." he insisted, his eyes wide, "More of a tree with a very low trunk. Plenty of spines and cones and that sort of thing."
"Ah". Marion nodded. "I see"
Marion ruffled through the Doctor's hair one last time just to make sure she got the last of it. She plucked out a twig. His hair was ever so slightly thicker than a human's. The strands were ever so slightly larger. But it was very soft. She hummed and took her hands back.
"Yup, that's definitely the last of it. I still would recommend that you wash your hair though. Who knows what kind of dirt and stuff might be on your scalp."
"I'll do that later." The Doctor said, "For now, I'm going to make a couple of fixes to the TARDIS, just to make sure that we end up in the right places in the right order."
"Are you sure you want to do the repairs? Maybe let Romana handle it."
"..."
"..."
"Marion, why don't you go to your room and get some rest?"
Marion took a very quick shower, and changed into a pair of sleep shorts, an oversized t-shirt, and a pair of striped socks that went up to her knees.
She climbed into bed and the TARDIS's lights dimmed to the point where she could see her hand in front of her face, but only just. She didn't feel tired, but when she crawled under the covers, wrapped her arms around the pillow and closed her eyes, she was out like a light. In moments, she was deep, deep, asleep. So deep that she didn't even notice when she sunk into the bed and disappeared and then appeared just above that same bed, centuries later. Her nose wrinkled for a moment in her sleep, and then she reached for the pillow once again and went back under.
Next Chapter: Doesn't Repeat, But Does Rhyme
Marion: Hey by the way there's just a loose pile of drugs just chilling in the power room. Someone should probably do something about that.