Chapter Text
‘What the devil did you mean by it, boy?’ demanded Lord Tamworth, all walrus moustache and bristling indignation.
Charlie knew that look, remembered it from a thousand gentlemen and ladies galled by his insistence on not being neatly quiet and invisible. There was no quick and easy answer. No few words would encompass his dad with his soldier’s pension, and mum with her stubborn dignity, sisters married off into the best families they could, and he who’d only wanted to do things, to have adventures and see more of the world than the world wanted to let him.
So instead of answering, he ran.
~~~~~~~~~~
‘Sir! Marm, sir! Er.’ Charlie cursed as his accent slipped. As if the accent was the most important thing when he’d just barrelled headlong into one of the queerest-looking women he’d ever seen. Because it was a woman, despite his initial, rather embarrassing confusion. Only a little shorter than him, with shockingly short blonde hair pinned into curls, and an outfit that looked like something a gentleman of his father’s time might have worn, breeches and boots and a strangely-cut tailcoat. If he’d truly been the gentleman he was pretending to be, he might’ve blushed at how revealing it was, but he was in too much of a hurry to bother.
The woman seemed quite unperturbed by having been collided with, and was merely watching him with patient, lively eyes. Quite suddenly, she grinned. ‘Just Doctor will do. All these sirs and marms, gets confusing, don’t you think? Trying to remember what goes with which, you silly humans with your petty little social roles. I don’t usually bother.’
‘What?’
‘Running from something, are you? Or so I would assume, otherwise you wouldn’t have ploughed into me in quite such a—’
‘Someone, actually,’ Charlie corrected, riding confusedly over the woman’s babble.
‘Mm, no, definitely something. I can see it, you see, just behind your eyes.’
The woman— the Doctor’s eyes were dark blue, and in the moment he met them, it was easy to imagine that she could see any number of things that lay behind his. ‘Well, yes, all right, if you want to get metaphysical about it.’
‘Frequently!’ said the Doctor cheerily. ‘But not now. Now, we need somewhere to hide.’
And with that, she grabbed Charlie’s hand and tugged him behind a set of heavy, floor-length curtains. In the muffled silence that descended as she twitched the drapes closed around them, he could hear the heavy tread and grumbling of the Chief Steward. It seemed to take a much longer time than it actually must have been, as they stood in the musty closeness trying to breathe quietly; Charlie was very aware of the closeness of the woman, the thumping of his own heart, the surprising coolness of the Doctor’s fingers still at his wrist. There was a faint scent of honey from somewhere. Eventually, the sound of his muttering faded away, and the Doctor poked her head out between the gap in the curtains.
‘All clear!’ she announced, stepping out with another of those dazzling grins. ‘You know, I never know why they don’t look behind the curtains; you’d think they would. It really is the first obvious place, don’t you think?’
Charlie, who’d emerged after the Doctor a little more carefully, burst into laughter. It was the adrenaline, he rationalised to himself; the excitement and terror of being found out, and now this, this absurd woman. He couldn’t help himself.
‘You have got to be the strangest woman I’ve ever met,’ he decided through his laughter.
The Doctor looked as though this was a great compliment. ‘Do you know, that’s exactly what Tsaritsa Alexandra said!’
‘You know the Empress of Russia?’
‘Oh, I should say. Intimately, even. Remarkable woman, very sharp, you know; surpassingly fond of games; we used to play chess of an evening. I don’t think you ever introduced yourself.’
There was so little segue between the talk of how intimately she knew Tsaritsa Alexandra and the question of introductions that it took Charlie a few moments to actually register it. When he did, he tipped the Doctor a wry little glance.
‘I don’t think you did either; Doctor’s a title, not a name.’
‘Is it?’ She affected a look of shock. ‘Goodness, my parents must have missed the memo. Nope! I am just the Doctor, no other names necessary.’ She stuck out her hand. ‘A very great pleasure to meet you, I’m sure, Mr…?’
‘Pollard. Charleston Pollard.’ And then, because she really was one of the queerest women he’d ever met, and it had only been about five minutes, he smiled and added, ‘But my friends call me Charlie.’
‘Then Charlie it shall be! Tell you what, Charlie, you fancy taking a nose around? There is something very peculiar going on here.’
Charlie was left standing there for a moment as the Doctor ambled off, keeping up a steady monologue to apparently no-one but herself; something about a Lusitania, whatever that was. He stared after her, a slow smile growing on his face. Well, he’d wanted adventure, hadn’t he? The half-smile solidified into a proper grin, and he jogged off after the Doctor to catch up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beneath them, the ship was sinking in a maelstrom of lashing tentacles and bright electricity and whipped-up spume. Careless of dignity, Charlie clung to the Doctor, who sat astride the vortisaur with the sort of thoughtless ease one saw on gentlewomen who’d been riding horses since before they could walk. Only with a giant flying reptile, rather than a horse. Buffeted by the wind and rain, Charlie felt much less secure.
‘It’s awful,’ he murmured, arms tight around the Doctor’s waist and chin pressed to her shoulder. ‘God, all those people.’
‘That’s history,’ the Doctor sighed. ‘The Heron went missing with a full complement of crew and passengers, they never knew why. They’ll find her in 2012, and hypothesise that she must have been struck by lightning. The scorch marks, you see? And now we know why.’
Charlie did see. The tentacles that had wound themselves around the great steamer flickered and crackled with electric charge, eldritch through the water. ‘And there was nothing you could do.’ The Doctor had tried, so determined that it had frightened Charlie at times, but nothing had come of it in the end. The Doctor didn’t say anything, just tightened her knees around the great beast and steered them away from the wreck. Its wings beat in great, ear-battering claps, and the speed made the rain sting all the more.
Soaked, freezing, half-shocked and half-elated after all the had happened, Charlie became aware after a few moments that he was laughing. The shoulder he was pressing his chin into twisted as the Doctor peered around, eyebrows up, her curls plastered down to her head. ‘And what’re you laughing about?’
‘Nothing!’ gasped Charlie, ‘It’s just— my first attempt at getting out and actually doing something with my life, and I nearly get myself killed.’ He inhaled rainwater with a gulp. ‘Hope that’s not a precedent.’
The Doctor chuckled, shouting to be heard over the storm. ‘If you’re hanging around with me? I should think not! I mean, I do nearly get myself killed on a fairly frequent basis, but it’s rare that I actually die. Come on, let’s find the TARDIS and get you into some dry clothes, eh? I think I’ve got a few things sitting around that’d fit you. Right period too, more or less.’
It ought to have been wrong, to feel glad after seeing so much death, but Charlie couldn’t help his smile as he held tight to the Doctor. Somehow, she made it infectious.
Well, he thought, as they soared off out of the reach of the storm and into a clear, starry night, he had wanted adventure. Here it was.