Because You're Special - Eight
Because Your Special
The Most Erratic and Enigmatic Soul
It was the oddest shop, Donna Noble had ever seen, weirder than the cluttered junk-shop where Gramps had found that lens-or whats-it-called-for his telescope and weirder than her friend Veena's favorite health food store. Reams of silken fabric flowed from large pillars and ceiling beams and there was at least twenty clusters of dangling strands of multi-colored ribbons, tied to clothes hangers that dangled from hooks on the beams. Along the edges of the great open space were dressing rooms with heavy wooden doors and numbered with gold letters and antique dress-forms lining each side like soldiers facing off for battle. Where there wasn't a dress-form or a dressing room, there were shelves filled with fabric bolts, needles, thread and small wrought-iron sewing machines and some metallic gadgets that Donna did not recognize. In the center of the room was a round table larger than a car and cluttered with patterns, fabric and scissors, with a hole in the center where a tall slim man, with golden hair and wearing dark-lensed metal edged spectacles and a welcoming smile, sat and waited.
"Doctor, I've been expecting you." He said in a musical, highly accented (though Donna could not place his origin) cadence. He squinted at the Doctor, "Though not you."
"Doctor?" Donna frowned. So he was really a physician rather than an explorer/spy. She felt this should make him less interesting but since he was the most erratic and enigmatic soul she'd ever met, it really didn't. But there was something else to that title. That nutter on the plane, had called himself the Doctor, too.
"'Ello, friar, this is Donna. Donna, Friar Celino of Barcelona." The Doctor, as he'd been newly christened, sat on the spacious table and was twisting a bit of paper-sketched with some design of a dress-in his hands as if trying to find which way was up. "Ah, clever. The Sol system's orbits in brocade. You know the humans will never get this."
"There is a message in all we do," Celino said, pulling the paper away, "even if it is not understood. I surmise you are not here for a time-rotator coupling."
"Course not." The Doctor said, "I have six of those in storage. Can never have too many. What do you think of that green one over there, Donna?"
"The Green what?" Donna tried to follow the Doctor's jabbing finger.
"The dress, stupid. It's what we're here for."
"Oi!"
"It was just a suggestion." Her friend said defensively. "Go on, pick something out."
Donna walked toward the dressforms, admiring their sloping lines and ornate details. They were not flashy and they were not modern and they were not very revealing. For all of that, Donna could not see these characteristics as negative. Instead, they were all exquisite and fit for princesses without being overly sentimental. As she perused them, fingers lightly trailing over silk sleeves and sucking in her breath at the prices. They were beautiful, almost worth the price, but her Mum would never forgive her if she actually spent that much on one dress. So Donna contented herself with looking and dreaming and keeping half of her attention on the two men's conversation.
"How about a few artron regulators? I can have them packaged in a nice-foam insulated box with the protective lead shielding by tomorrow evening." Celino offered, his golden hair pulled back into an impossibly long pony-tail that Donna didn't doubt reached the floor trembled as he nodded his head to himself. "Or I have a few sonic-device amplifier attachments."
"Can't be greedy, now can I?" The Doctor, said his arms crossed, "Business must be bad, Celino if you are offering such grand items."
"No sir, Doctor." Celino countered, tipping up a section of the round table, to let him exit the hole in the center and aiming a pen, glowing with golden light, at the front door. A mechanical sign flipped over, announcing the store was now closed, metal shutters snapped closed around the windows and the door bolted with a click. "As my most valuable repeat customer, I just want to be sure, you are well-supplied. After all, my friend, saving the galaxy must take its toll on your equipment."
Saving the galaxy. Donna shivered. That sounded terribly familiar.
Celino grabbed a dressform clothed in a scarlet evening gown and tipped it towards himself. At this, a large shelving unit slid backwards and to the side. An ominous looking stone staircase took its place.
"Blimey." Donna left the dresses and came to stand beside her friend. "For a monk, I think you would be more honest about your true business."
"Saving souls is my true profession. Dress-making and selling equipment are mere hobbies." Celino countered with a smile. "I hope to have you both leave with something you like."
Donna drew her eyes from the mysterious stairway, and gave the monk a raised eyebrow. "Sorry mate, not at your prices."
The Doctor, however, ignoring the banter had vanished down the staircase and was shouting something about "she's beautiful" and "I haven't seen one of these in ages. Oi, Celino, would you part with it?" from below.
Celino smiled and led Donna down to the cavernous room, lit with purple-light spewing crystal vases bolted to the wall and filled with piles and piles of neatly categorized junk. A few shopping carts, large flat-wheelbarrows and what appeared to be a combination of a bull-dozer and an octopus were by the staircase. Long rows of neatly sorted mini-gadgets were stored on shelves lined with black-velvet.
"So," Donna said softly and then asked rather loudly, "are you like spy-support? You know like in those films, James Bond, that-what's his name-W? Some lower letter of the alphabet. Gives Bond all his save-the-world toys. Bombs in watches and stuff."
Celino opened his mouth, looking like he was having trouble processing all of her statements. Finally, he shook his head. "I am a man of peace. I sell no bombs, no weapons, just a few items for ship-repair and some tools to a few trusted and valued customers."
"When you say ship repair…"
Her skinny friend distracted her by giving a little happy grunt-like sound. He was in a corner of the basement, stroking a rather shabby looking metal box as if it was a beloved puppy. He looked up at her, babbling excitedly in his northern accent. "One of only five in existence, Donna. She was the most sought-model for almost 450 years. A beautiful fantastic classic."
"And completely impractical for a Barcelonian sized humanoid." Celino added, regretfully. "Still, she is beautiful."
"It's a box."
Celino tapped Donna's shoulder and nodded at the box. "That's all a matter of taste."
Donna raised an eyebrow, glanced back at the box and watched it transform into the most beautiful sports-car rocket-ship, all painted in platinum silver and glittering in the purple light.
"Can't fail to be impressed by it. Anyone. Except for you, who had made you mind up not to see it in all it's fantastic glory. You, Donna, decided it looked like a box." The Doctor stood, "It takes the image of whatever the dream vehicle is of the beholder. Rudimentary telepathy wrapped in a level 320 chameleon circuit. The supreme luxury vehicle."
"You gonna snog it then?" She said, a little amused at the loving look he was giving to the mini-vehicle.
"I might." He retorted. "Where's your dress?"
"I can't afford one. I would have had something to wear in my bags but someone dragged me away before getting them all."
Celino interrupted. "Artron converters?"
Her friend looked back at the what-its-called-ship and then nodded. "Sounds practical. But only if you throw in one of those dresses."
"Naturally, I shall package the converters up tomorrow morning. Come, Donna, let's find you a dress."
A half-hour later, Donna was leaving the Barcelona Renegade with the dress of her dreams, a blue and white dress that her friend had found "adequate" and a silver and pearl haircomb. "I still can't believe you paid him in Barcelona Newspapers and religious pamphlets."
"He's in exile. Who wouldn't want news from home?" Her friend shrugged. "Well, me excluded. Come on, room 206."
Leaping past the uniformed hotel-workers and vacationers, he hopped into the elevator. Donna followed, lugging her bag and her dress-box and wondering if her friend had ever heard of chivalry. Inside the elevator, the Doctor hummed along with the cheesy music and practically dragged her into the hallway as soon as the doors slid back.
"Dinners in ten minutes. I'll pick you up in five."
"Listen, you big-eared biker, I can't get ready in five minutes! My hair's a mess and I need to reapply my makeup…"
"You earth women!" He began walking down the hall, entering a room next to her with a flash of his keycard. "Five minutes."
"Oi, keys!"
He flicked her keycard at her like a frisbee and vanished into his own room. A second later, as she tried to decide what to drop from her arms, so she could unlock her door, her friend's head popped out of his door. "Donna?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't bother my TARDIS, will you? Had to put her in your room."
"The What?"
"The TARDIS. Blue-box. Bigger on the inside." And he vanished again.
"The world has gone… bonkers." She hissed, finally unlatching the door. Donna felt a little triumphant at the feat, having done it without having to call for her friend's help or put down a single item. She dumped her armload on the bed and then she saw it.
Big. Blue. Box. It looked like it was made of wood and painted a dark blue and was slightly taller and larger than her closet back home. It had police-box written all over it and it was parked in the middle of her hotel room like a silent, and somewhat frightening, observer. "Blimey." She patted every wall, wondering at how he'd gotten it into the room, through that little door. Donna couldn't stop the feeling, crawling up her arms like little marching ants that had been dipped in electrical current, that there was something special about this box and that she had always known about it. Like the moment her friend had said TARDIS, she pictured something blue.
"Now, how am I gonna sleep with you staring at me?"
She changed in the bathroom.
Next Chapter: {Good, Brave and Fearless Insanity}