Because You're Special - Seven
Because Your Special
Another Nutter Standing Next to Me
He stood before her, hands in jacket pockets, legs apart, daft confident pleased grin on his face. Like this was all normal. Like she hadn't traveled all this way to meet a stranger she'd met in a bar, on a night she barely remembered, at a place she hadn't been sure he'd even be at.
Donna dragged her carry-on, which hadn't seemed this heavy earlier, and dropped it with a loud thud before his feet. She looked up into his eyes, expecting to give him a rude comment or wipe his foolish impish grin off with a sharp slap, but instead found her lips trembling and inching into a grin.
"Right then. Off we go." He turned on his heel and ambled away in his long-legged stride.
"Off where?" Donna yanked her bag from the floor and flung it over her shoulder, chasing after him. "Oi! Is it always like this with you-such an awful lot of running?"
"Sort, of yeah." He whirled in a circle to make eye-contact, shot her another grin, and turned around again to keep marching away. Donna almost stopped, berating herself for thinking that she even entered into his considerations-he was just like everyone else-paying no attention to her existence unless she demanded it; when he shot his hand out to the side, wraggling his fingers, expecting and demanding that she take his hand.
"Blimey." She took it.
"Scuba-diving should be fantastic this time of year. Tomorrow, yeah?"
He dragged her along, past the security checks with a wave of his paper and wallet. Out the door, down to the curb and stopping breathlessly in front of a police-at least it looked like a police-car where her strange seat-companion from the plane was being shoved inside by armed men.
The blond freak caught sight of Donna, his eyes widening and his mouth opening to scream, "Wait, wait, time is fracturing! Time is fracturing around you, Donna Noble! This is more important than a mere enigma-I've worked it out! Unhand me, I have to save time itself!" He struggled against the cop's grip, trying to pop up as the men were trying to shove him down and into the vehicle. "Someone is corrupting the time-stream and it is breaking apart! Why don't you listen? Why don't you stupid ungrateful homo-sapiens ever listen to your betters!" The door slammed in his face, his face red with exertion and pressed against the glass, eyes drilling into Donna's and mouth still chattering inaudibly about time-stream nonsense.
"I can feel it." James Bond said suddenly.
"What?"
"I need a bigger head." He rubbed at his temples, staring down at her. "I can't remember this. Why can't I…?"
"Are you all right? Please tell me there is not another nutter standing next to me."
"Nope. Same one."
He grinned, which seemed a rather savage expression all of a sudden. Like one of those pretty plants on the nature shows that looks so innocent and then swallows an innocent passing fly. Adrenaline laced through her body and she took a step back.
"You asked me once. If it was always like this. It is, yeah, yep, completely. Are you scared, Donna Noble? 'Cause you can get back on that plane and go home to Christmas goose and watching telly and unwrapping useless meaningless trinkets for your mantle from relative you can't remember and care nothing for-or…" And he gave her that grin that made her feel brave and special and completely mad right along with him, "you can come with me."
"Don't be daft. I'm here, aren't I?"
His eyes flickered downward over her rather wrinkled gray business suit and sneakers. "Shopping! We'll make it fast, eh? Not worry about matching skin-tones and the right eye-shadow-just pop in and out!" Her friend grabbed her hand and dragged her into a cab, ignoring her protests about her luggage, evasive about what he'd meant early about "feeling it" and rambling on and on about some big assembly of explorers and vagabonds at the hotel tonight.
"You knew that man, that man in the police car, didn't you?" She cut him off mid-sentence about the dinner's seating arrangements being planned by Yustaphi of Shrilit and how he had to remind him about not sitting the Vitagoriq next to Mr. Benjamin Huddle.
"Me? Possibly, probably, perfectly-listen, it's all in the past. Whatever issues are at work-he's clever enough to solve them and he undoubtedly will-its the forgetting how he solves them that has me baffled." He leaned back, thoughtful and silent, for once. And there was something about her friend's expression that was unsettling. Perhaps it was how closely it resembled Halo-Boy's thinking pose before he continued spouting Time and destiny rubbish. He looked at her, those blue eyes so intense. "And you know what? I don't like being baffled."
"But he's just crazy, isn't he? You can't be really believe all that nonsense about time-rivers and fracturing? It's not real. Probably just some prank, maybe a hidden camera show-you think that's it? Nerys getting me back for last summer? I mean that outfit he was wearing does have Nerys written all over it."
"Who is Nerys-never mind, don't answer that-don't care-what I do care about is my vacation. Right then, shopping and then supper with the Guild."
Donna sank back against the car seat. "Can I ask you something?"
"That's a change."
"What?"
"You being polite. Last time you were both rude and ginger." He wriggled on the seat as if the car wasn't going fast enough-or he had difficulty sitting still. "Go on then, Donna."
"Last time-that's just it. I was a bit drunk."
"Quite a bit." He replied gleefully.
"And so I really can't remember…I mean, normally, I am good with names but-"
"You can call me James Bond."
"Seriously?" Donna squeaked and yet somehow, she did hazily remember calling him that last Christmas. "You having me on or what?"
"It's what the hotel rooms are under. You can check when we get there, if you like." He shrugged, bounding out of the car as soon as it rolled to a stop. "Here we are. The only shop in Spain ran by a renegade Barcelonaian monk-that's Barcelona the planet, by the way-are you coming?"
"James Bond. Barcelona the planet. Space Explorers' Guild. Rainbow-vomit-coat-wearing nutters." She muttered under her breath, clutching her bag to her as she clambered out of the car. She paid the cabbie-since her friend made no move to do so-and then stared up at the sign. Barcelona Renegade it read in bright gold above the traditional-style wood entrance.
In for a penny, as her Gran used to say, in for a pound. She pushed past her lanky friend and swore to herself that she was going to live-really live-no more fear and doubt. She'd wasted too much life to that already.
The Doctor began humming an old Gallifreyan school chant, mumbling the words, "what I wouldn't give for a sonic," as he went. A sonic screwdriver really would be so utterly helpful. Why didn't he ever take a moment and make one or go buy one. That might be a fun trip with Peri-to the Sontarran-Judoon Black Market for a screwdriver. Provided he ever did get out of these handcuffs and found Peri again.
"She is," He stated dramatically, "probably sipping lemonade at the café unaware of her poor Doctor's plight. Well, I hope its sour, my girl! I hope you choke on a seed!" He shouted in the empty interrogation room. "Serves you right for insisting to stay in a completely different compartment of the airplane. Women and their sense of privacy and all that."
The door opened a crack, spilling white light across the floor and his table and splashing it into his eyes. After blinking, he found he was facing a woman in a business suit. Her face and hands were wrinkled and mottled with age but her frame was straight and her blue eyes clear. Hair pulled back into a pony-tail and a gun clipped to her stylish belt, he had the feeling she wasn't the compassionate or the understanding type.
"I was framed." He stated bluntly and inaccurately.
"Its good to see you again, Doctor. After all this time…" Her voice was softer than expected but presently, she removed the gun from her belt and unlatched the tip, triggering a mechanism that brought a long thin needle to full extension. A few elegant taps of her fingers and there was a slight hiss as the gun began to glow a sickening lime-color.
"Now, now, now, now! There is no need to torture me. I am quite capable of talking on my own-more than capable-as every Dalek and Sontarran from here til the end of time can attest!" He squirmed, rattling the cuffs behind his back and thinking furiously of something witty to stave off the end. If only he'd paid better attention when he'd met Houdini… of course, he had been busy saving the galaxy at that point, but regardless…
"Just a relaxer, Doctor." The woman stepped closer. Ignoring his multiple protests, which were all elegantly phrased and rippling off his silver tongue faster than a canoe over the Dixiori Cascades, she deftly inserted the needle into the side of his throat.
A warm rush of heaviness spread up and down from the insertion point and the Doctor tried to combat it. Perhaps a detox would… but his brain, his glorious brilliant brain was acting more like a bowl-full of mush than his finest tool. The warmth curled about his toes and flooded his ears making them feel hot and red and pounded out a peaceful thrum in his brain. Oh it was very relaxing. Terrifying. But relaxing.
"Scream if you like." The woman tipped his head back, it lolled to the side as if he was half-dead and the Doctor found he couldn't care less about what was going to happen next. Probably it mattered-maybe Peri would be sad when she found him-but he was so very content with his fate at the moment. The woman dropped the gun back into its holster at her side and lifted gnarled white fingers, with neat polished nails, to his face. Slipping them on either side of his face, the Doctor could feel the light telepathic pressure of another psychic being and then the outpouring of will and determination to alter him. Fighting off the nauseating peacefulness, he tried to maintain some barriers, tried to ascertain her agenda, tried to build up energy for a counterattack.
"Saving worlds, rescuing civilizations," she intoned from above him, her white hair glowing in the harsh florescent lighting, her face shadowed, "sometimes calls for hard decisions."
The Doctor screamed as her will blasted through his sleepily-constructed barriers and tamped down on him like a hammer on a nail. Squeezing him into a tiny-hole and then slowly retreating with something…something…and then…
A sharp slap to the face brought his eyes open.
There was a woman above him, in a business suit. Her face and hands were wrinkled and mottled with age but her frame was straight and her blue eyes clear. Hair pulled back into a pony-tail and a gun clipped to her stylish belt, but her eyes were kind and her smile welcoming. He had the feeling she was one of the more compassionate or understanding types of human.
"Hello, Doctor, is it? Your American friend is waiting outside."
She moved gracefully behind him and released his sore hands from their captivity-although, they seemed bruised and raw-strange, he didn't remember any rough handling or extreme struggling. He rubbed at his wrist briefly and rose from the chair, brushing his coat off as if to remove the fingerprints of his captors. "Is she now? And I'm free to join her?"
"Are you calm enough, Doctor? Not going to make another scene, again-are you?" The woman eyed him, prompting him to agree with her clear blue eyes and her maternal tones.
He racked his enormous cavernous brain for the memory of "making a scene" and came up with only a brief exchange with a stewardess over his umbrella. "Pressed charges, did she? Irritating little woman not even qualified for real inter-spacial travel and exploration. Oh no, I do not intend," He waved his arms about grandly, "to give up my umbrella to anyone ever again. If that means I must thrust my way past every single guard you have to preserve my possession and my right to carry it-"
"Doctor."
"Hmm? No, of course not. What do you take me for? Some maniac who enjoys trouble? Hah. And again, I say to you, hah!" He whirled on his toes, barging out of the door and into Peri's frantic arms. "Stop your hugging-I just promised I wouldn't make a scene. I've been drugged-and hugged-enough for one day. Idiot stewardess. Have I told you Peri? How much I dislike stewardesses?"
He opened his umbrella that his companion had been carrying, shook it slightly as if to shake out the wrinkles and flaunt it before his captors. "Now. Off we are to find Friar Celino. He'll have the part we need for the TARDIS and then we can get off this back-wards, back-woods, back-brained planet and into the stars again."
"I'm so glad you're all right, Doctor." She said, clinging to his arm. "They said, they said, you were raving something fierce."
"I do not rave, my dear young Peri," he said haughtily, snapping his umbrella closed as they stepped outside of the nondescript building. "I rhapsodize."
Next Chapter: {The Most Erratic and Enigmatic Soul}