Because You're Special - Six
Because Your Special
The Daft Inconsiderate Circus-freak
Donna relaxed, crossing her ankles and staring out the window. Off to Spain on her first ever plane-ride. It was nutty really. Insane. Bonkers with a capital B, mixed with a heavy dose of pure craziness-just like her Mum had spent all of last month trying to tell her-but Donna didn't care. For too much of her life had she been trapped in her Mum's expectations and wishes, boxed in, limited by what her Mum thought she was and was not capable of. Maybe, this little trip into insanity was the first step into a better future. Something more than work and telly and loneliness.
Or it could just be one more failed attempt to be something more than the average-looking big-mouthed Donna Noble, a simple temp from Chisick.
Donna promptly ordered a dessert and decided to enjoy her own lunacy. No use doubting the entire escapade, now.
"Peri!" The loud voice came from the back. A man who was wearing some ridiculous rainbow-colored raiment was brandishing an umbrella at a stewardess and addressing a young woman at his side. "Peri, tell the horribly-ill-mannered hostess how displeased you are with your accommodations." He appeared to whisper to his friend, but the words were easily heard throughout the room, possibly even audible to the pilots' in the cockpit.
He put a hand on her shoulder, "Act a bit more petulant, perturbed and perplexed. Make some whining noises," he hissed, "you are quite skilled at that… aren't you?"
The young woman at the man's side wore bright blue mini-shorts, a busy blouse full of mottled colors and some sort of silver circlet beneath her dark bob-like haircut. She looked at her friend, and said sourly in a sweet, somewhat American voice. "I'll…I'll say what I like, thank you very much."
"Hah. That was rather ideal. Now! Turn all that annoyance on the proper target." The man pushed her forward, still maneuvering his umbrella like a barricade between him and the unhappy stewardess.
"My problem, sir, is not with the young lady but with you. It is not the company's policy to allow umbrellas as carry-ons…"
"And it is not my policy to obey silly, frivolous and ridiculous rules. I don't obey my own people' rules. So why ever on Gallifrey, would I then obey any of yours?"
"Really…" Peri interjected, hugging herself nervously, "Don't you think I should stay up here with you… you're always getting into trouble…"
The flight-attendant stared at the man with an expression that was partially frozen politeness and partially icy disdain. "That seems rather obvious."
"I suppose you had best obey the hostile hostess, my dear Perpugilliam…" He said in a low-key voice, looking at the stewardess with more reserve than earlier. "She seems to have taken a dislike to you. Enough, enough belligerency, Peri, second-class is all right for you, after all. But I'm the…"
"Sir, please give me the umbrella or I'll have to get security." The flight-attendant said firmly.
"Security? Security? Security! Brain-boggled humo-sapiens, one overweight guard is no match for the burning brightness of a…" He sighed, handing over the umbrella to the uniformed woman, "This is all your fault, Peri."
"My fault, Doctor? That's a laugh." Peri spoke in a soft petulant whine. "I'm not the one who purchased seats in different compartments of the plane!"
Her friend, the Doctor, was a rather large intimidating man, or he would be if his outfit was less ridiculous. He put his hands in his pockets, and looked down at her with a vast amount of arrogance, annoyance and aggravation. "Really, Peri, you can't expect me to go less than first-class. I am a Time Lord, after all."
And with that, he tromped forward, leaving the two women behind him to gossip about his behavior rather noisily. He plopped down next to Donna-it figured the nutter would pick her-and began to arrange his hideous coat around his lap.
"Oi." Donna said, her version of a greeting. "Sounds like your girlfriend is angry. She's got every right to be, rainbow-boy. Buying your date a cheap plane ticket is like…well sort of like, giving her paperclips for earrings. Great big daft inconsiderate circus-freak that you are, what were you thinking?"
"High and lofty magnificent thoughts much above yours, if you actually care to know. You humans are never interested in my vast reservoirs of wisdom." He said grandly, shifting in his seat to observe her.
He wasn't bad looking, nice face, although she doubted his own actual face was anything like the one he seemed to think he had. Ego bigger than… was there even a word? At least her Mr. Ego, at least from what she could remember, had the tall dark and handsome going for him. Mr. Blond-Afro-Crayola-Coat was just weird. And apparently, by his tossing about of the word Time Lord-whatever that meant, and his use of the word human, he thought he was an alien. So all in all, a genuine nutter. But it was like she'd seen him a million times, and never known him, like an actor or announcer on the telly. Perhaps he was one of those girly fashion-designers…it would explain his bizarre attire.
The man, whoever he was, hesitated, finally asking, "Do I know you?"
"No. Not personally, anyway…Believe me," She eyed the cheap-looking white cat-pin on his jacket, "I'd remember you, halo-boy."
"Halo-boy? Halo-boy? Halo-boy!" Each repetition of the words grew louder and more exaggeratedly pronounced until he was almost shouting. His blue eyes almost bulged. "That's uncalled for, young lady! The sheer cheek, the audacious nerve! Me? Halo-boy? That is simply not me… Ha! I have been called some rude things in my lifetimes, but that! That cannot be allowed to go…"
She cut through the babble with the sharp nigh-meaningless cry of "oi" and, grinned, feeling slightly superior mainly because she was dressed normally and would never treat someone she was romantically involved with like he had his girlfriend. She eyed the golden perm-curled tufts on his head. "Don't you think you're being a little sensitive about your hair?"
"My hair? Lovely, isn't it-it was a timely, comely change from my last identity. An extraordinary handsome improvement! Ha…"He smiled, an arrogant snotty smile that, in spite of that, seemed full of good-humor and something like that slow realization that you've finally understood a joke even though its minutes after everyone in the room laughed. A moment of uncertainty in his eyes and squareish face, and Donna wondered, if all this bluster was some-sort of over-compensation for hidden flaws. Not that she knew anything about that.
He spoke rapidly, his voice dipping into the higher registers in excitement and then lower again with increased confidence. "My hair being like a halo-as in angelic halo-yes, in that regard I quite agree with you. There is something divine about it." He paused, "So you weren't speaking Micropherian a moment ago?"
"Nah. I just speak English." She said, trying to place Microphera on a map. Sounded vaguely like it belonged in South America. "Travel a lot?"
"Oh yes. On and on. Planets fade, universes collapse and I still ramble on. Ever considered a life of hermiting?"
Totally bonkers. He was completely convinced that he was an alien. "I thought a hermit was a person, not an action."
"Hermit, someone who refuses social contact. Hermiting, someone in the act of refusing social contact. Preferrably out of doors. Like a nice cave. I could make a cave quite comfortable." He broke into song, "Let the world burn beyond the door, in my cave I'll stay nice and warm."
"Blimey, I can't believe she's letting you sit up here by yourself." Donna said, muttering, "Very irresponsible of your nurse. Must be you're a harmless loon, eh?"
"Harmless? Loon? Harmless?" He bounced from his seat to stare down at her. Somehow, the man managed to spout nonsense at her angrily while maintaining the look and tone of damaged innocence and reputation. "You wretched red-haired fiend, I extend the hand of friendship only to be repeatedly bitten! A wild ginger tabby, is what you are! You do speak Micopherian, don't you! Admit it! Hah! I have seen through your disguised deceit!"
No man was going to intimidate Donna Noble with his height and his voice. Men feared her, not the other way around. So, Donna slapped him. "Sit down, mate!"
"You hit me? You hit me. You hit me…" He sank into his seat, rubbing at his cheek. "How rude to slap the person sitting next to you who is merely trying to be friendly… you hit me…It'll bruise with my luck…"
"Shut up, you prawn." She pulled his hand away, examining the pink skin. "Your cheek is fine."
"Why did you hit me?" He looked at her sullenly, woundedly.
"Because you were talking… I don't even know the word… crazy stuff. Paranoid ramblings. Now," She smiled, pleased at how she now had the upper hand in the situation. She stood, pulling two pillows from a hatch above her head and offering one to her seat-mate. "Why don't you bring things down from crazy-town with a nice nap, huh?"
"Bring things down from crazy-town. Pop classic in the year…" He stopped, accepting the pillow. "Right. Well, first things first to hermiting. Stop having social contact."
"Lovely." She dropped into her seat, tucked the pillow against the wall and closed her eyes. Donna was fairly certain she could stop the lunatic beside her if he got aggressive again, if a little slap was enough to put him in line.
She awoke to find a face pressed closed to hers. "Oh my God, what do you think you are doing!"
"Something isn't right about you." The blond-man said cryptically, and Donna's skin began to crawl. His eyes were intense, so cold and piercing that she felt her heart begin to pound.
"Back off, bucko!"
"I wish I had my sonic. I could discover so much more. " He dropped back in his seat, folding his fingers together on his stomach and staring down at the tip of his shoes. His thick face-not quite pudgy-but not exactly slim, was like frozen plastic, a strange dazed little half-smile paused as his eyes flickered and darted back and forth. Snapping out of it, he began lecturing in his languid grandiose voice, "The powers of observation and deduction will have to serve me instead. And I am quite clever, brilliant, genius, so I do have that in my favor." He paused, turning completely sidewise to state grandly, "You are a temporal enigma, Donna, that says it all..."
"I'm just a temp and you're batty and-how do you know my name?"
"Thank you. I shall catalog that bit of riddle, the name Donna, under the bit known as destiny." He went back to staring at his shoes and, in that high-pitched melodramatic egotistical voice that Donna was learning to despise, murmured, "Yes…"
"Did you say destiny? There's no such thing." Except crazy men kept popping up in her neat normal life using that word.
"No. But there is temporal manipulation." He frowned, "But why? Why you? You're nothing special. Although with your charming personality, I can see why someone would like to destroy your future… hah. But why the entire galaxy's future, hmmm? Just because a horrid human girl is slap-happy?"
"I didn't catch most of that." She started speaking slowly, and then built up steam and anger, "but I believe there was a request for another slap in there somewhere!"
"Stop threatening me when I'm trying to save the whole of creation! I've been threatened by experts; it gets rather old!" He said crossly, not moving from his contemplative position, except to tap his fingers together in rhythm to whatever bonkers song he was hearing in the spongy brain beneath his heavy golden mop of "handsome" hair." Now, what do we know? One, it is emanating from you, a pulse, a throb, a heartbeat of something…something wrong…like one of those silly flashing lures for gumblejacks…drawing something to you."
"That's it, I'm going to the loo. Hopefully, I can get the stewardess to give me one of those empty seats over there." She crawled over him, banging his leg on purpose against the seat.
Next Chapter: {Another Nutter Standing Next to Me}