Vincent and the Doctor - Part One
I took in a deep breath as I woke up, stretching slightly before relaxing back into my freshly laundered bedsheets and pulling the lavender infused plush closer. I would've gone right back to sleep if not for a sudden and incessant knocking on my bedroom door.
"Up and at 'em, Ginny! We're going to the Musee D'Orsay!" Amy shouted excitedly, the door apparently opening for her. I offered an overdramatic grumble in response and sat up slowly in bed.
"What's got you all giddy about a museum? You weren't like this when we visited the Delirium Archive," I retorted, rubbing some of the sleep out of my eyes to see my fellow redhead leaning against the doorframe. She was already dressed in a black miniskirt and magenta sweater, but they were almost entirely covered by a teal peacoat.
"Because this time it's a museum I actually want to visit."
"Oi!" I heard the Doctor yell from further down the hall, followed by the distinct sound of his boots against the floor before he appeared in my doorway as well, "The Delirium Archive is the biggest museum in all of history so objectively it's much cooler!"
"Yeah, but it's also where you keep score at, Doc. So how can we trust you to be objective about it?" I asked as I descended from my loft bed.
"And there wasn't an exhibit dedicated to Vincent Van Gogh there either," Amy chimed in, "Musee D'Orsay one, Delirium Archive zero."
The Doctor sputtered for a moment, trying to form an argument in defense of the museum he loved but for some reason nothing seemed to come to mind. So with a huff he retreated back towards the control room, leaving me and Amy to giggle a bit at our victory.
"It never gets old, leaving him speechless like that," I mused, giving Amy a high-five before turning to my closet, "Right, now what exactly am I going to wear?"
It was like I'd uttered some kind of activation phrase because the moment after I uttered my rhetorical question, Amy had me by the wrist and was practically dragging me out of my bedroom towards the Tardis wardrobe.
"Did I say the magic word or something?" I asked as I was handed a pile of clothes.
As I sifted through them I found that a lot of pieces seemed more fitting for Amy's style than for mine; a couple miniskirts, one medium wash and another black, a bright red blouse with a white hearts on it, a deep blue sweater with a floral pattern, and an oversized black cardigan.
"I dunno about these, Amy. I've never been the biggest fan of skirts before," I said, holding the black one in front of me as I looked in a mirror. Amy came over and joined me in the reflection before handing me a pair of white mary janes and some sheer black tights.
"Just humor me a little bit, please?" she insisted, nudging me towards a dressing room. I sighed, accepting my fate and locking the dressing room door behind me.
I wound up settling on the black skirt and red blouse, purely because I'd been wearing lots of cool tones recently; and I wanted to spice things up a bit. To my surprise, the skirt didn't end up being as short as I thought, which I was very thankful for. The shoes on the other hand were much less accommodating. The moment I buckled them in place I knew they'd have given me blisters before we reached the museum; so I swapped them out for a pair of black ankle boots which were similar to the ones the Doctor wore and surprisingly comfortable.
"Okay, I'm coming out now. Don't laugh!" I announced, unlocking the dressing room door. Amy turned around from a jewelry display and beamed the moment she saw me, making me feel a little more confident in my outfit.
"Aw, you look adorable!" she said excitedly, causing me to blush a bit.
"Thanks! I was a bit worried about the skirt but it's not bothering me as much as I thought," I replied, skipping over to join her by the jewelry.
"Well I think it suits you."
I fastened my necklace and took notice of a really nice pair of bow-shaped earrings. Knowing my ears weren't pierced though I got a little bummed, but when I saw they were clip-ons I hastened to fasten them into place. Once we were content with our outfits we started to head back to the control room, but then I had a small realization; this was the episode where we meet Van Gogh.
"Hey, I'll meet y'all up there in a second. Just need to grab something from my room," I called to Amy as she continued down the corridor.
"Okie dokie. Just don't take too long!" she called back, waving a hand up in acknowledgement.
Once I was back in my room I tore open my desk drawers and hastily searched through the clutter until I found exactly what I was looking for and a little bit more; a standard-size sketchbook, a variety of drawing pencils, and a box of what looked like more sophisticated crayons.
"Oil pastels," I read from the box before packing everything into a black messenger bag, "Hopefully they aren't too out of place in the 1890s."
Finally having everything I needed, I jogged back to the control room and found the Doctor and Amy in the middle of some playful bickering.
"You've had your fun for almost a week now. When are you changing your hair back?" Amy asked, agitating the navy blue mop on the Doctor's head, "Are you going through a phase?"
"Not a phase, Pond. Just trying something new. And I think it's cool!" the Doctor shot back, fixing his hair before flipping some switches on the console.
"Ugh, it's not a phase, Pond! I've always been like this!" I parroted in a mocking tone as I hopped down the stairs to join them. This earned a giggle from Amy and an eye-roll from the Doctor.
"Oh sure laugh it up now, but if we ended up stuck on planet Azu I'd blend right in. Everything there is blue from the buildings to the wildlife," he responded, "They actually bar you from the planet if you don't have anything blue on you, too. Had to change suits last time I visited."
"And how long did it take you to find the Tardis in—"
The ship in question lurched violently, causing me and Amy to grip tightly onto the console for support. I turned in time to see the Doctor deactivating one of the stabilizers and smirking impishly.
"Sorry, were you saying something?" he asked.
I brushed some hair away from my face and glared daggers his way, which he returned with an ear-to-ear grin. I staggered my way across the jostling control room and brought my hand down on the bright blue buttons, sighing in relief as the Tardis quickly steadied her flight.
"Next time you want to make everything go looney, give us a bit of a warning please," I huffed, flopping down into one of the chairs only to immediately be pulled to my feet and guided to the doors. "Oh come on! I haven't even had breakfast yet and we're already heading out?"
"We'll go to a café or something while we're out. Now come on!" Amy replied, continuing to pull me out to a mid-winter Paris, France.
Psychic Paper once again proved to be our admission inside, and while I would've liked to peruse the works from other artists before seeing the ones by Van Gogh, Amy was hellbent on seeing those first. She practically dragged the Doctor and I up the stairs and through all kinds of exhibits before we finally made it to the exhibition all about the man of the hour.
We slowed our pace to a more acceptable stroll as we walked past a screen showing various sketches on a slideshow.
"Those final months of his life were probably the most astonishing artistic outpouring in history," an older gentleman in a bowtie and thick-framed glasses said, addressing a small group of patrons, "It was like Shakespeare knocking off Othello, Macbeth and King Lear over the summer hols."
I would've kept following Amy and the Doctor as they continued through the exhibit, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed something that stopped me dead in my tracks. Right there, mere inches away from me, was The Starry Night. Sure, call me unoriginal, but that painting had always been one of my favorite pieces by Van Gogh. And now it was right in front of me. Not a poster of it, not a digital image; the actual painting itself. My eyes crept from corner to corner of the canvas, taking in every brush stroke and marveling in every minute detail of the piece.
"Pictures really don't do you justice, do they?" I mused, taking a step back to take in the full portrait, "Oh look at me, I'm flirting with a painting. That's definitely a new low."
In an attempt to draw my attention away from my favorite portrait, I decided to listen in on what the man talking to the crowd was saying.
"Each of these pictures now is worth tens of millions of pounds, yet in his lifetime he was a commercial disaster. Sold only one painting, and that to the sister of a friend," he professed, "We have here possibly the greatest artist of all time, but when he died you could sold his entire body of work and got about enough money to buy a sofa and a couple of chairs."
That final comment of his got a few chuckles out of the patrons he was speaking to, then he promptly guided them towards the other side of the exhibit. When the crowd parted they revealed my another one of my favorite Van Gogh pieces: The Siesta. I'd barely taken a couple steps forward to further marvel in it when I was sharply pulled aside by none other than my fellow redhead, who also spun me around so I was facing the same painting as her and the Doctor.
"Look Ginny! There it is. The actual one!" Amy exclaimed, opening up her postcard booklet so that it was displaying the same painting as the one she'd led us to.
"Yes. You can almost feel his hand painting it right in front of us," the Doctor mused as we looked at The Church at Auvers, "Carving the colors into shapes…" His voice trailed off suddenly when he noticed something peculiar in the painting, "Wait a minute."
I followed his gaze to the center of the portrait and saw exactly what he was worried about; the Krafayis. Its feathered, dragon-like head melded with the blues of the interior but the bright white of its eye stuck out like a sore thumb.
"Well that's unusual," I said, "Unusual and certainly out of place."
"What is it?" Amy asked.
"Something very not good, indeed," the Doctor replied, ruffling his hair a bit.
"What thing very not good?"
"Right there in the middle of the church. Behind one of the windows," I said, pointing right at the monstrous addition. Amy leaned in close before backing away slightly when she took notice of it.
"Is it a face?" she asked.
"Yes, and not a nice face at all," the Doctor clarified, "I know evil when I see it and I see it in that window."
Suddenly the Time Lord spun on his heel and made a beeline for the gentleman who'd been talking earlier, quickly retrieving the Psychic Paper and holding it up to the crowd in front of him.
"Excuse me, if I can just interrupt for one second. Sorry everyone, routine inspection. Ministry of Art and…" the Doctor trailed off for a moment as he pocketed the wallet, "Artiness."
"Very new ministry. They're still working on an official name," I added, jogging over with Amy in tow, "And sir, you would be?"
"Doctor Black," the older gentleman introduced himself.
"Pleasure to meet you. Now, this might seem like an obvious question but when," I pointed over to The Church at Auvers, "would you say that beauty over there was painted?"
"Ah, what an interesting question. Most people imagine—" Dr Black would've probably launched into a very detailed dialog about the painting if he hadn't been interrupted by the Doctor.
"I'm going to have to hurry you. When was it?" he asked hurriedly.
"Exactly?" Dr Black asked in return.
"As exactly as you can without a long speech, if poss. I'm in a hurry," the Doctor said.
"Hey, don't be rude!" I hissed, elbowing him. He didn't pay me any mind though and neither did Dr Black.
"Well in that case, probably somewhere between the first and third of June," the gentleman said.
"What year?" the Doctor asked.
"1890. Less than a year before…" Dr Black paused a moment, clearly trying to choose his words carefully, "Before he killed himself."
The Doctor nodded somberly before offering a slight smile, clearly grateful for the information but still wanting to be respectful of the current subject. "Thank you, sir. Very helpful indeed." And then any seriousness flew right out the window with his very next statement.
"Nice bowtie," he said, complimenting Dr Black's polka-dot choice in neckwear before turning to me and Amy. "Bowties are cool!"
"Heck yes they are!" I added, holding my hand up for a hi-five which was quickly reciprocated.
"Thank you," Dr Black said, his gaze lowering to rest on the Doctor's bowtie. "Yours is very…"
"Oh, thank you!" he replied, laughing slightly. I'm sure the pair of them would've gone down an entire rabbit hole about bowties if the Doctor hadn't stopped himself, giving Dr Black a quick pat on the shoulder. "Keep telling them stuff."
"Time to go, then?" I asked as he took mine and Amy's hands and pulled us away from the exhibit.
"What about the other pictures?" Amy added, trying to wriggle free from the Time Lord's grasp.
"Amy, art can wait. This is life and death," the Doctor said, giving us a gentle nudge past The Starry Night, "We need to talk to Vincent Van Gogh."
One rather bumpy ride through the Time Vortex later, we found ourselves in midsummer France during the 1890s. It was late in the evening when we landed, and as I poked my head out the Tardis' doors I turned to see a cat running down the cobblestone street.
"Oh, baby come back! We didn't mean to scare you!" I called to the feline, making kissing noises and crouching down a bit to make myself less intimidating. It seemed to end up working because within seconds of calling to it, the brown tabby came trotting up the street and quickly began rubbing against my legs.
"Well aren't you a sweetheart!" I exclaimed, petting the cat a bit before someone pulled me back upright and spun me around to walk in the other direction.
"Ginny Parks, we're smack bang in the middle of history and your first instinct is to pet a cat?" the Doctor asked, sounding only slightly annoyed. I threw up my hands defensively, turning my head back and grinning when I saw that the cat was following us.
"Hey man, you try resisting something that cute and then we'll talk, okay?" I retorted, "So, what's the plan Doc?"
"We find Vincent and he leads us straight to the church and our nasty friend."
"Easy peasy!" Amy said.
"Well, no. I suspect nothing will be easy with Mr Van Gogh. Now, he'll probably be in the local café."
"Ooo, a café sounds nice. Well, actually anywhere that could have food sounds nice. I'm starving!" I said.
"Ginny, please focus. We're looking for sort of orangey light. Chairs and tables outside maybe?"
Amy quickly flipped through her museum booklet until she finally found what she was looking for.
"Like this?" she asked, showing us a photocopy of Café Terrace at Night.
"That's the one," the Doctor said affirmatively.
Amy suddenly looked up from her book, a stunned smile gracing her lips. I looked up as well and became equally as enamored by what I saw. The actual café from the painting stood only a few steps in front of us, guests sat at tables outside with the sound of more patrons pouring out from the open doors.
"Or indeed like that," Amy said, almost sounding starstruck.
"That's incredible!" I exclaimed, walking up to have a closer look around the terrace. "I mean it's one thing to see it painted on canvas but seeing the actual building that's… that's just something else entirely! It's amazing really!" I turned on my heel to find a man in a suit staring at me in confusion. "Oh, um, apologies sir, but do you know a gentleman by the name Vincent Van Gogh?"
He rolled his eyes before hurrying back inside, saying something under his breath but unfortunately I couldn't catch it. I blinked, taken back by the sudden standoffishness and turned to face Amy and the Doctor.
"Are people in this timeframe always this rude?" I asked.
"Well, I should hope not," the Doctor said, turning to two ladies outside with us who were cleaning the tables and smiling politely. "Do you know Vincent Van Gogh?"
"Unfortunately," one of them said, sighing irritably.
"Unfortunately?" Amy repeated, looking up from her booklet.
"He's drunk, he's mad, and he never pays his bills."
"Good painter though, eh?" the Doctor asked, but instead of the agreement he was hoping for all he received was a ridiculing laughter from the two ladies. I sat down at one of the tables and looked up at the pair of them.
"Y'know, I probably wouldn't pay my bills either if I knew this was how the staff talks about their patrons," I mused, turning to an older couple sitting by one of the windows and looking rather appalled, "Wouldn't you agree?"
The couple wordlessly gathered their belongings and departed from the café in a hurry. When I turned back to the workers, I found that they were already halfway through the doors and were making quite an effort to avoid my eye contact. Rather confused by this outcome, I tilted my head and looked to the Doctor, who was in the process of sitting down across from me.
"Was I being rude just then?" I asked.
"Maybe a bit, but they were being rather rude as well, so I think your rudeness got cancelled out," he replied, chuckling slightly before his gaze locked onto something behind me.
"Come on! Come on! One painting for one drink. That's not a bad deal!" a voice proposed from just beyond the café's doorframe.
"It wouldn't be a bad deal if the painting were any good," the man from earlier said, leading his apparently broke patron outside.
When I turned slightly in my chair to see what was going on, I instantly became starstruck as I found myself a mere arms length away from Vincent Van Gogh himself. Well, maybe I should clarify. I was an arms length away from Vincent Van Gogh's back; the artist was facing the other direction, only allowing me to look up at his paint-stained overcoat and faded red hair; and when I looked down at his hands and saw his signature straw hat, I nearly lost it. I leaned heavily in my chair to look past Vincent and the café employee to see that Amy was just as, if not more, starstruck than I was.
'It's Vincent Van Gogh!' I mouthed to her, pointing up at him rather excitedly. So excitedly in fact, that before I could catch myself I felt my chair slide out from under me due to how I was leaning in it; and with a bit of a thud I fell to the hardwood terrace beneath me. Gosh, why did I have to be such a klutz?
"Are you alright Miss?" Vincent asked as I moved to get back on my feet. I stared at his outstretched hand for a second, not making any attempts to hide the shocked look on my face as I accepted his help up.
"Yes, yes I'm fine. Thanks!" I squeaked out, my voice unnaturally high-pitched before I cleared my throat. "Always been a bit… clumsy is all, but I'm okay."
Wanting to end this interaction as quickly as it began, I busied myself with setting the chair I fell out of back onto its legs and then quickly sat back down.
"Right, as I was saying. You pay money, or you get out," the staff member said, resuming his kicking-out of Van Gogh.
"I'll pay, if you like," the Doctor chimed in.
"What?"
"Well, I'll pay for the drink. Or if you like, I'll pay for the painting and you can use that money to pay for the drink."
Vincent turned his head slowly to look at us, a puzzled expression plastered across his face as his eyes darted from me to the Doctor.
"And exactly who are you?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm… new in town," the Doctor and I said together, pausing briefly and sharing a look when we realized we were talking at the same time. Nothing like quoting a show you're living out to help calm you down from meeting your favorite artist. Speaking of my favorite artist, Vincent smiled slightly before turning around entirely to face us.
"Well in that case, you don't know three things. One, I pay for my own drinks, thank you," he said, followed quickly by a quick burst of laughter from the staff members outside. "Two, no one ever buys my paintings or they would be laughed out of town. So if you want to stay in town, I suggest you keep your cash to yourself. And three, your friend over there is cute." Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shocked smile creep onto Amy's face. "But you should keep your big nose out of other people's business." And with that, Vincent went right back to bartering with the café staff.
"Come on, just one more drink. I'll pay tomorrow!" he insisted.
"No."
"Or, on the other hand, slightly more compassionately, yes?"
"Or, on the other hand, to protect my business from madmen, no!"
"Or, on—"
"Oh look, just shut up the pair of you!" Amy exclaimed suddenly, striding towards the pair of gobsmacked men with all the confidence in the world. "I would like a bottle of wine, please, which I will then share with whomever I choose."
"That could be good," Vincent agreed, marveling at how flirtatious my friend was being.
"That's good by me," the staff member said begrudgingly.
"Good!" Amy said before entering into the café. I rose from my seat and quickly followed after her.
"Hey can we also get something to eat with that wine? We still haven't had breakfast!"
Sorry about the wait for this chapter! Had a very busy past few weeks (went to a Fall out Boy and Waterparks show in the same week so that was draining) but hopefully things should be back on schedule... If there ever was a schedule to begin with. Anyways, I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter! Feel free to leave a review if you want!