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Bill navigated the room with some caution. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't what made her nervous. It was the see of moving alien bodies that made her feel like she was the odd one out tonight. Everyone was dancing and Bill wasn't even sure there was the right dance partner for her out here – wherever the hell here was, really.
“Not supposed to be here,” the Doctor had told her and then grinned like an imp.
“Technically you're not supposed to be anywhere but in your stuffy little study,” she had reminded him. Nardole had been very insistent about that and the Doctor, ancient child that he was, had promised Bill that Nardole would never even know they'd been gone.
“Time machine, Bill! We'll be back in the blink of an eye.”
She pondered what exactly it was that had led them here if the Doctor wasn't supposed to leave Earth, but also wasn't supposed to be here for other reasons that he hadn't disclosed. “Excitement, I hope,” she muttered. Although she had to admit as much as she loved travelling with the Doctor, there were days when less excitement was a welcome change of pace.
Dancing at the discotheque had not been on her “meet alien cultures” agenda, but it was what she was getting.
Just now, some artificial life form that looked like a slightly disproportionate Storm Trooper walked past her, and she could hear the hydraulics move and whine as it did. The room was full of these robotic life forms, bringing up her recent unpleasant experiences on a colony full of emoji bots.
“Don't be daft, Bill Potts. That's prejudice at work. One unpleasant experience with a robot and you can't give artificial life a chance? They made peace, didn't they?”
She had asked: “Is that what happened?” In all honesty she still wasn't sure that was an accurate description of what had transpired.
An android with metallic skin, but eerily animated features smiled at her and said: “Is the lady interested in a good time?”
Bill did her best to turn her grimace into some sort of smile. “Wow,” she said, “how many centuries down the line and pick up lines haven't improved a bit, have they?”
The android cocked its head to side and then huffed, before stomping off, leaving Bill standing in the bustle of the party in a bar at the end of the universe – or whatever really. She had no idea where she was, but around her androids were dancing with... sentient trees? To alien music.
Damn, she felt out of her depth here. All the humanoids around her, strange and alien, but some of them so familiar and human in their expression of emotion and excitement, so inhuman in the ways the moved together on the dance floor, didn't seem to mind her, but Bill still felt like she didn't belong.
Where the hell was the Doctor anyway?
She moved along the edge of the dancing crowd, happy that nobody tried to talk to her. But there was no glimpse of the Doctor. She watched the dancing going on around her, her ears ringing with the heavy beats of melodies that seemed foreign and just a bit too loud. But people were moving in a hopping rhythm, all dancing by themselves but together.
Bill smiled.
Some things seemed like universal constants.
Life.
It was infectious.
And while she watched a bark skinned young man bow suddenly and against the rhythm to a beautiful yellow Storm-Trooper-like person, watched their hands touch and the pair fall into a closer dance, scanning the room for the Doctor absent-mindedly, her eyes fell on a shock of hair, that was neither bark, nor metal, not synthetic coloured fibre...
A lady in a red leather jacket was making her way through the sea of moving bodies to get to the bar.
Human.
And gorgeous.
High cheekbones, wonderful dark skin and a confident walk.
Bill was right in the middle of dancing bodies before she knew it, pushing her way through in pursuit.
She found the woman at the bar and after the merest moment of hesitation took the chair beside her, saying: “Hi!”
The woman turned, looked at her, eyes widening. Wow, her eyes were amazing.
“Hi,” the woman said and grinned. “I was beginning to think there were no humans here.”
“We're everywhere. At least it seems that way.”
“So I'm told.”
They grinned at each other, feeling that special connection of strangers who had just recognized a kindred spirit.
Bill cleared her throat. “I was just looking for the Doctor.”
The woman frowned. “The doctor? You're here with a doctor...”
She knew how strange it sounded. “Yeah, he's... I was looking for... him. Then I saw you.”
“Lucky you,” her new friend told Bill. “You found me. I'm a doctor.”
“Wow? Really? Every mother's dream,” she smiled and tried no to think about Moira, who had no clue that Bill was into women. “My friend... eh... He kind of ran out on me and I'm stuck here for a while. Want to dance? I'd buy you a drink, but I have no idea if any of these cocktails work for humans.”
The woman laughed, throaty and happy.
“Wow. My travelling companion ran out on me too. Another doctor. What is it with that?”
“Yeah,” Bill said and grinned, not really caring about their runaway doctor friends, drawn in even more by the beauty of the smile. “Two beautiful women like us. It's so rude”
“Also, yes,” the woman said.
“Yes?” She was too focused on the smile to catch the meaning of that right away.
“I want to dance,” her new friend clarified. “With you.”
Bill's heart skipped a beat, but without hesitation she grabbed the offered hand and led her beauty to the dance floor.
* * *
They dance, they touched, they kissed – and ended up at a table that was slightly out of sight of the main dance floor and offered some privacy.
“I'm Martha,” the lovely kisser whispered against Bill's lips.
“Bill,” she whispered back and let her hands wander, careful not to move too fast, too far.
Martha pulled away to look at her. “It's nice to meet you Bill.” She held up her golden-yellow cocktails and said: “Here's to meeting in unlikely places.”
The music changed back to something else. To Bill it sounded like there were no songs, like all the pieces of music were just bleeding together.
“Sounds like they are playing our song,” Martha joked and scrunched up her nose at some notes that sounded like planned dissonance.
Bill laughed and caught her lips in a kiss.
Later Martha would kiss her good-bye and look sad. “Not sure I'll be back.”
“Ah,” Bill said and fidgeted, equally sad. “I'm not from around here. There doctor...”
Something about Martha changed. She looked thoughtful, looked Bill up and down and then said: “If you ever need a real doctor, come and meet me here. Who knows I might find my way back.”
It was unlikely that Bill would ever come back, but she smiled and nodded.
* * *
“So, who did you run after?” Bill demanded from the Doctor
“Hmmmm,” the Doctor said and set their coordinates for the exact moment after they'd slipped out from under Nardole's nose. “Bit of my past. Did you find a lovely droid to chat with?”
“Found someone lovely, yeah.” She thought of Martha and butterflies rose in her stomach. She tried to stomp down on them. It wasn't like she'd be back in that bar tomorrow to see Martha. Nothing at all she could do to make that work. There was more than enough complication in her life. She remembered her crush on Heather and what had happened back then and hoped she wasn't developing a pattern of unhappy crushes. “What was the planet's name?”
“56-899-B-Garola-IV.”
“Okay. That's a mouthful.”
“Works as designation. The inhabitants aren't the most imaginative bunch when it come to naming things.”
Glad, that he wasn't looking at her and wouldn't see her far away look, she hummed her agreement. “I'll remember it anyway.” In case I need a real doctor.
* * *
Bill Potts nearly dies, but doesn't.
Bill Potts nearly vanishes into a Cyberform – but doesn't. Not completely.
Bill Pott dies and yet doesn't.
* * *
Bill travelled among the stars, her form solid when she wanted it to be. She had changed, but she still wanted to be Bill. Bill Potts hadn't been finished. Her life hadn't been over. There was so much she still wanted to do and as a pilot she got to see impossible things, but her heart told her she did not want to give up on being human. She followed her own heart and after a time, she found herself sitting at a bar on 56-899-B-Garola-IV.
Waiting for the right doctor.
“Fancy meeting you here,” a familiar voice said.
Blinking she turned. She hadn't expected to actually be this lucky. Martha Jones stood behind her, a little older, just as beautiful and alive, a Vortex Manipulator strapped around her wrist. She was wearing black leather and her hair was in little braids. Bill loved it.
“Hi,” Bill said.
So much had changed. And yet this was so easy.
“I had hoped to find you again,” Martha said and smiled very softly. “Life has been... a roller coaster. But I never forgot this.”
“Can't have been as wild as my ride here,” Bill said and chuckled, careful to not dissolve into droplets.
“Tell me all about it,” Martha urged. “I'll buy you a drink?”
They hadn't exchanged much information that first time around. This time Bill wanted to hear everything, learn everything, listen – and tell. This time, she wasn't going to leave alone.
She was a pilot and she wanted the company. Martha was the doctor and Bill would be the space ship.
Yes, this time, she wanted to know more about Martha - all about Martha.
All about herself and her possibilities.
Wanted to extend that invitation to the beautiful woman she'd let go once already.
But not right now.
She had time to uncover this layer by layer.
The music droned on in that endless hard-driving rhythm that never seemed to change.
“Yes,” she said. “But listen to that.” She held out her hand in invitation.
Martha took it. “They're playing our song.”
They grinned at each other, closer already than Bill had been with most of her lovers.
Together they walked into the crowd – and towards whatever their life would bring.