Chapter Text
“Okay,” she says aloud to the empty dressing room, “Show me what you got.”
She opens the wardrobe doors with a flourish, to reveal the TARDIS’s selection of costumes and a strong smell of camphor. Something cut long in royal blue rayon is on the first hanger. Pretty enough, but the outfit could be from her personal wardrobe, defeating the object of coming in here to play dress-up. She replaces it carefully and reaches inside for another choice.
This dress is satin, bottle green and butterfly sleeved, cool under her fingers. She checks the length against her body; floor skimming but not so long she’ll fall over. Perfect. Crossing to the dressing table she finds a selection of art-deco emerald jewellery scattered on the top. Magazine cuttings of elegantly curled up-dos are pinned around the mirror. She wonders idly where they come from; if the TARDIS has a huge scrapbook stored somewhere or if they are merely the collections of companions long gone.
She sweeps into the console room like Greta Garbo when she’s finally dressed. Her grand entrance goes unnoticed by the Doctor, typically engrossed in the console. He has merely added a fedora to his outfit in deference to their intended destination.
She coughs. “Will I do?”
He turns, removing his hat, every inch the considerate gentleman he consistently fails to be. “Very good, Miss Oswald.” He extends a bony elbow. “Shall we?”
They leave the TARDIS for the evening streets of the city. Her breath catches for a second as she takes in the boxy skyline, a stream of seemingly identical vehicles caught somewhere between handsome cab and car passing by. Stepping out onto the pages of history is something that will never, ever get old.
“Chicago, nineteen-thirty,” he says, “The boom years are over, the factories are closing, but the soup kitchens are busy.”
“Are we not a bit overdressed, then?” She suddenly feels crass in her film star finery.
“Not where we’re going. There’s one line of work that continued to pay throughout the Depression.”
“And what’s that?”
He brings them to a halt in front of a small door, set slightly back from the street. “Crime, of course.”
He raps smartly on the peeling paintwork and precisely nothing happens. She feels a smile tug at the corners of her mouth as his impressive moment falls flat. He coughs, a little theatrically, and tries again.
This time the door opens, to reveal a burly man in an ill-fitting suit. “Can I help you?” His tone suggests this is unlikely.
“Er, we’re…here to see a man about a dog,” says the Doctor, subtle as a brick. “My business card.” He hands over the psychic paper.
The doorman grunts as he reads, his frown easing. “Okay then. You can come in.”
She edges past, following the Doctor down the gloomy hallway and wondering exactly what kind of trouble he has planned. “Doctor?”
“Ssshh.” He cocks his head, listening to something she cannot hear, and smiles. She suddenly wishes she had thought to wear running shoes. Nothing good ever follows that grin. “This way.”
He opens the door to his right, revealing a similarly dark corridor, only now she can hear the sound of many overlapping voices. Realisation dawns. “Is this a speakeasy?” she whispers.
He opens the final door in reply, and she steps inside the hidden barroom. The flappers that once graced the stage are long gone; in their place a trumpet player, mid riff. Cigarette smoke coils in the air above packed out tables. The wood-panelled bar is thronged with people.
“I’ll get us some drinks,” he says, above the hubbub of the crowd. She gazes in open mouthed astonishment. “You mingle. And keep your ears open.”
She catches his arm. “For what? You said ‘go and pick an outfit from the TARDIS wardrobe and meet me here in fifteen minutes.’ You didn’t say what for.”
He frowns. “Well, you were gone for at least forty minutes so I had to revise the plan.”
“Revise the part of the plan where you tell me the plan?”
“Right, okay, fine.” He leans in to keep his words private. “The TARDIS picked up some unusual energy discharge signatures from near here. Probably alien.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“And that’s it?”
“Well, I checked the local newspaper reports, but the city is in thrall to the mob. It’s not surprising the details of any suspicious murders are being kept on the down low, is it?”
“Murders? Doctor! It’s never secret alien… charity shops or something nice, is it?”
He gives her the look he reserves for when he finds her especially stupid. “What, you think they might have come here to start a soup kitchen? Using ion emissions to do the cooking?”
“No,” she replies, grumpily, “I’m fully aware it will be something nasty and probably dangerous.”
“Good. Now, you go find us a table and I’ll go get us some drinks.”
“You’re with him aren’t you? The older guy with the accent.”
She turns to smile at the speaker, a woman perhaps a little younger than she is, also waiting at the bar.
“Yeah, we’re here together,” she replies, “I’m Clara.”
The stranger pulls her fur coat a little tighter around her shoulders. “You could do much better than him, you know.”
“Not if I searched all of time and space,” Clara replies softly, in place of the question she meant to ask. She clamps her lips together. The hooch here is strong, for sure, but she’s a long way from drunk enough to start spilling secrets to strangers.
The girl shakes her head in response. “You got it bad. But take it from me: love like that don’t last in this business.”
“What business is that?”
“Every crooked kind there is.” Now it’s the girl’s turn to look perturbed, as if she’s said more than she intended.
“Tell me,” Clara says, needing to confirm her burgeoning suspicion, “What do you think of my dress?”
“Great colour, shame the style don’t work so good on a broad as short as you are.” The girl clamps her hands over her mouth, blushing. “I’m sorry,” she stutters, “I- I didn’t want…”
It’s ok, Clara wants to say, but she suspects opening her mouth will let something far more acerbic loose into the room. She leaves the girl with an apologetic grimace instead, and crosses to where the Doctor is losing badly at cards.
“Clara! I wondered where you’d got to. These are my new friends Razor and Johno.” He indicates the two men sat opposite, who look anything but friendly.
“Charmed,” she lies, cringing a little inside as they leer at her. “Doctor, would you come to the bar? I just… erm, got so confused with the dollars, you see...”
“Ah, it’s easily done,” he says, and she really really hopes he’s playing along rather than believing her pathetic lie. “Why don’t I come and help you?” He stands, nodding to his companions, and lets her walk him over to the bar.
“Have you found out who the alien is yet?” she whispers.
“No,” he replies, “I’m beginning to think it was a faulty readout on the TARDIS, to be honest.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Really, what have you found?”
“Oh… it’s more what I’ve heard.” They are standing at the bar now and she opens her mouth to ask the same question about her outfit. The truth field, however, strips away all subtlety. “Doctor, do you think I look pretty?”
She feels the heat rise into her face as he stares at her in surprise.
“I always think you look beautiful.” The expression on his face suggests this was no more what he planned to say than she. He blinks owlishly in confusion, putting the pieces together. “...A truth field? Aaaah. Pretty clever putting it behind the bar. Patrons will put the loose lips down to the moonshine. So, who owns the bar?”
“He’s over by the stage.” She points to the landlord, a giant of a man playing poker with some of the musicians from earlier in the evening. “Apparently he’s called Big Jim Stink. Been running this place about six months. Or so Harry the saxophonist told me.”
“Big Jim Stink?” He looks incredulous.
“Truth field, remember? I’m not making this up. Harry said it’s because he wears too much cologne but I think that was a joke from the way the others were laughing… What? What do you know?”
For the Doctor has started to laugh too. “Are you not thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Almost certainly not.”
“A big man with a flatulence problem, running a bar in gangland Chicago with its own truth field?” He shakes his head at her continued blank look. “He’s Slitheen.”
“Oh!” She’s heard his stories about the notorious crime family from Raxacoricofallapatorius, but never seen a Slitheen in the flesh before. Her stomach lollops queasily at her poor choice of wording. “Then is that… is he wearing…?”
“A skin suit, yes.”
She swallows the rising bile. “So, what do we do?”
“I’d say we start by looking for the generator powering that truth field.”
Gunfire is always considerably louder in person than it ever sounded on television.
“Doctor, are you nearly done?” she hisses.
Men outside the doors are shouting; she can hear them rushing past down the corridor. Another rattle of gunshots makes her flinch.
“I’ll be honest…”
“Mmm, because you have to be, until you get the truth field disabled.”
“Well, yes. Honestly, I have no idea. It could take me three minutes or three hours.”
He is lying on his back, hands in the guts of an alien generator cunningly built into the bottom of a grand piano. She is crouched beside him; always frustrated in situations such as this where the most use she can be is handing him a spanner.
“We don’t have three hours.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“I’m aware that you’re aware of that,” she counters, “What I’m less sure about is what you plan to do about us not getting shot.”
“Same thing I always do,” he says, sounding strained as he tugs at a particularly recalcitrant piece of wiring. “Hope for the best.”
She sighs. “I always suspected as much. Do you need help?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to admit it to you,” he says, and scowls.
She shuffles under the piano next to him. “The blue wires, yes?”
“Yes. Quietly. On three. One, two, three!”
Their combined strength is enough and the wires are pulled loose. They are immediately plunged into darkness. The yelling outside redoubles.
“Did you mean for that to happen?” she whispers.
“Yes,” he says.
“…That’s a lie, isn’t it?”
“Well, the important fact to take away at this point is that the truth field is no longer in operation.”
“And neither are the lights.”
“Inconsequential side effect.”
She shakes her head, pointlessly, in the dark. “Maybe for you, mister superior species. I’m sure you’ve got… special magic eyes or something. But I can’t see a thing.”
“Special magic eyes?” he repeats, sounding incredulous, “Why would I have special-?”
He is cut off by the creak of the door opening. She reacts instinctively, reaching for where she remembers his mouth is to hush him. Apparently he has the same idea; she almost squeaks as his fingers cover her lips.
There is a long moment in the dark where neither of them dare to move. Awkwardness at the ridiculousness of their position battles fear, over who or what is now moving around the room. She tries to keep her mouth perfectly still under his hand, to not think about the prickle of his stubble against her palm.
A click, and light returns; flat white and artificial. Not the yellowish colour of the bulbs of nineteen-thirty, but something altogether more modern. A beam of torchlight tracks towards them across the floor.
He releases her mouth in the same instant she does, pushing urgently on her shoulder. She understands his intent, sliding further under the belly of the piano and out towards the other side. Patent shoes click across the tiles towards their former hiding place.
She rolls to her feet, keeping low, as the bearer of the torch bends to see what has happened to the generator. Even as a silhouette, the scale of the man is such she is certain of his identity. He swears, standing up, broken wires in his hand.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” says Big Jim Stink.
“Unfortunately not,” says the Doctor, rising from his new hiding place behind a convenient chaise longue. His eyes narrow like a cat’s as Big Jim trains torchlight on him. In his hand the sonic screwdriver casts its own greenish glow. She prays the big mobster doesn’t open fire on the intruder.
“Worse luck,” Jim replies instead, dropping the torchlight out of eye line at least, “The Doctor. How deeply unpleasant it is to see you.”
“The displeasure’s all mine. You didn’t really think ion emissions were going to go unnoticed now, did you?”
“I certainly hoped they might. I crashed here, never thinking I’d want to stay. But the people in this town, Doctor?” Jim shakes his head in admiration, “They’ve got stuff going on at scales syndicates back home can only dream of.”
She edges round the penumbra of a large cabinet, trying to get behind the big gangster as they spar.
“You don’t belong in this time and place.”
“No, no; you see, that’s where you’re wrong. I fit in better here than I ever did on Raxacoricofallapatorius. Don’t give me that ‘delicate balance of the forces of history’ rubbish. This place I was made for. They saw my skills and they invited me in. Now doesn’t that give me as much a right to stay here and play out my part as any human mobster?”
The Doctor’s lip curls slightly. “And that person you’re wearing now. Did he invite you in?”
Jim has the decency at least to look chagrined. “Okay, you got me there Doctor, I’ll admit. But please, consider my proposal at least.”
“I have.”
Jim shakes his head again. “And, uh, just how did you imagine this little scenario between us playing out? You tell me I’ve been a bad monster and I say ‘It’s a fair cop, guv,’ and go back to face the music at home?” He reaches into his jacket, pulling out a small pistol from his vest pocket. “’Cos that’s not how I picture this going down.”
Sensing this might be her cue, she firms her grip on an ornamental desk lamp and swings with all her might. It makes an unpleasant crunching noise as it smashes into the back of Jim’s head, and he collapses forwards, dropping the light and his gun.
The torch rolls across the floor, coming to a rest under the Doctor’s outstretched foot. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says, picking it up.
“Well, next time I’ll just watch you get shot, then,” she snaps, still brandishing the lamp. She knows all too well that head injuries can be fatal. “Is he…?”
He flicks the screwdriver. “Just unconscious, apparently.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she says, finally putting down the weapon.
“Yes. Not sure how we’re going to carry him back to the TARDIS though.”
She considers the problem. “We’re not,” she concludes, “Have to re-materialise here and drag him inside.”
“Well, come on then,” he says, after a moment’s consideration. “We’d better hurry.”
She does not accompany him out of the doors when they reach Raxacoricofallapatorius, leaving him to drag the big Slitheen to justice himself. I’m not sulking, she tells herself, as she sits instead in at the dressing table in the TARDIS wardrobe, unpinning her curls. The pout her face wears in the mirror might suggest otherwise. The beautiful green dress is returned to the wardrobe, replaced by a dressing gown. She wonders if she’ll ever see it again.
“Are you cross with me?”
She jumps at the sound of his voice, almost jabbing herself with a hairpin. “Doctor!” She was expecting to have to go and rescue him from whatever disaster his materialisation with an unconscious criminal caused. “I’m not dressed.”
He frowns. “Then what’s that you’re wearing?”
“It’s a dressing gown.”
He rolls his eyes, coming to lean against the dressing table and play with the discarded pins. “Clothes for wearing while you pick clothes to wear. Huh. Humans.”
She pulls the pins out of his hands primly. “It’s a dressing gown I found in your wardrobe, Doctor.”
“So?”
“So, some incarnation of you must have enjoyed them enough to collect.” She swallows, trying not to think about whether this enjoyment was based on personal experience or mere observation.
His scowl deepens. “I don’t waste time picking up all these pieces of frippery. The TARDIS does it.”
“Why?”
He reflects on the question, playing with a blusher brush now instead. She lets this slide, considering him less dangerous with a powder-puff than a pin. “Because it helps, perhaps, with camouflage? Or maybe she just enjoys it.”
She smiles at the thought of that, just a little. The idea of the TARDIS picking clothes for his companions like a child might choose outfits for a doll. Easy to forget his ship is almost as much symbiont with him as she is vessel.
“Anyway, you didn’t answer my question.”
The final curl is released, hair returning to its usual bob. She reaches for a hairbrush to smooth away the residual kinks. “What question?”
“Are you cross with me?”
“I was, a bit,” she admits, as she brushes out her hair.
“Why?” He looks as if he may well be preparing his own annoyance in retaliation.
“Because you were cross with me,” she replies, hoping to head off a toxic crossfire of retaliatory irritation before it begins.
“I didn’t want you to hit him. It’s too dangerous.”
To my safety or my soul? she wants to ask, glad that these days he considers either. “Well, what did you want me to do?” she says instead.
“I don’t know. Wait until I thought of something cleverer.”
She snorts. “I didn’t want to hit him either. But I thought he was going to shoot you.”
“Oh.” He twirls the brush, unable to find a better reply.
“I should, um,” she says, mostly to break the increasingly awkward silence, “…Probably be getting back. Marking.”
“Oh right. Yes. Marking. Of course.”
“I’ll see you soon?”
“I should think so.”
“Good.”
He manages forty-eight hours, at least from her perspective. She is performing the awkward ceremony of unlocking the front door to her flat whilst laden with shopping bags, when he opens it from the inside.
“Glad you’re back,” he says, taking a proffered bag, “I’ve finished recalibrating your washing machine radio.”
She puts down the shopping on the kitchen counter, extracting the milk to put away. “I don’t have a washing machine radio.” The contents of her fridge have been re-organised too, although she isn’t quite sure under what criteria. Avocadoes have replaced the eggs normally stored in the door compartment.
“Oh. Well, you do now.”
She smiles in spite of herself, moving to fill the kettle. “Why would I need two, Doctor?”
“I don’t know. You’ve got three mirrors, and a room just for not being awake in. I can’t be held accountable for your human eccentricities.”
“Says the man who just invented the washing machine radio,” she chuckles. “I haven’t eaten yet, are you hungry?”
He inspects the contents of her shopping bags and makes a face. “Not for anything in there.”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, you’d better take me out for dinner then.”
“I’ve something better planned,” he replies, raising a hand to stop her protests before she can give them voice. “Trust me. You’ll love it.”
“Hmm.” She probably will, but not for whatever reason he thinks.
“Come on, come on,” he says, making shooing motions with his hands. “TARDIS.”
“Tea,” she answers firmly. “It’s been a long day for me. Then TARDIS.” He grudgingly allows her this, taking a hot cup for himself, to which he adds a ludicrous amount of sugar. “So, tell me. Do I need to wear my running shoes?”
“The TARDIS will provide,” he says gravely, under the mistaken impression it makes him appear mysterious.
She can’t quite supress her excited grin in response.
Her eyes widen as she takes in the costume the TARDIS has selected for her. “Historic adventure, is it?”
There are layers of patterned damasks, curling designs picked out in golden thread. The skirt comes with its own scaffolding. The bodice is a snug triangle, erupting into puffed sleeves that trail to points. Most eye catching is the ruff, less a fine collar than it is frame for her face; angular, and taller than her head.
“I’m not going to spoil the surprise. Hurry up and get dressed,” he answers, making for the far end of the wardrobe.
“Hey, where are you going? Don’t tell me you’re getting dressed up too?” He does not deign to reply, leaving her frowning in front of the astonishing dress. She shakes her head. “Wherever we’re going, I bet the women that wear these things have people to help them get in.”
She heaves the dress off the stand with some difficulty, and drags it behind a modesty screen; lest the Doctor return before she has figured out quite how to tie herself into the corsetry. Twenty minutes later she emerges.
“Doctor?”
There is no reply. She surreptitiously tugs at the neckline, not entirely convinced she has managed to lace everything up correctly. Of course, he would invent a washing machine radio, but a future technology for tying awkward knots? No chance. She pads in silk slippers towards the console room.
“Doctor, are you-?” The words die in her throat as he steps out from behind the rotor. She stares in open mouthed astonishment for a full five seconds before catching herself, and closing her mouth.
“What do you think?” he says, swishing his cape.
He is dressed in leather. A lot of leather. Patterned leather jerkin, and knee high leather boots. His doublet is black velvet; his cape the sort of thing Vampire enthusiasts probably dream of owning. There is a rapier at his waist. He looks like he may buckle some swash at any moment.
“What happened to your spoon?” she asks, indicating his sword.
“Ah,” he replies, “I’m afraid where we’re going, I need to be a little more formal.”
“Where are we going? To captain the Jolly Roger?”
“Hah, no, I’m not a buccaneer. You’re in the right sort of time period though.” He turns and pulls the handle that sends the TARDIS spinning into the Vortex. She lands with her customary thump moments later. He extends his hand. “My lady?”
She suspects he is rather enjoying this. Still suspicious, she places her finger over his. “Lead on…” There’s no way she’s calling him ‘my lord’, not in this life or the next. She hesitates, and then continues: “…Lord of Time.” He grins at her phrasing, and they step out onto the streets of a busy Renaissance city.
She is glad of his hand, as they are immediately swept up in a crowd of people. She can smell the river, and after a moment realises the street they are moving down is actually a wide bridge. Tall houses, fronted with black and white woodwork, are built on top of brickwork arches which span the mighty waterway. She cranes her neck, looking for the dome of St Paul’s to confirm her suspicion that they are indeed crossing the Thames. In its place is merely a broken spire. The cathedral awaits a Great Fire yet to burn; restoration to glory by Wren is still a future unwritten.
Any English teacher worth her salt now has enough clues to know where he has bought her. They are crossing to the south bank of the Thames, in the early seventeenth century. “Doctor, are we going to see Shakespeare?”
His grin widens. “We are going to the theatre, yes.”
She’s asked before, of course, if they can go and see one of his plays on opening night. The Doctor has always been strangely reticent about crossing into the Bard’s timeline, however, claiming to have met the man previously and not wanting to cause a potential paradox. Privately, she has always assumed this avoidance of Elizabethan England has a lot more to do with avoiding his wrathful ex-wife.
“Oh, my God,” she murmurs, as they reach the end of the bridge and the Globe comes into view. She’s lead school trips to the modern reconstruction, of course, but seeing it nestled amongst its contemporaries rather than framed by glass and concrete is a special thrill of its own.
She expects him to lead her into the pit, to stand with the penny-paying groundlings. Instead they sweep up the stairs, to the highest balcony, where others are dressed in similar finery. He nudges her elbow. “The Winter Queen,” he murmurs, indicating a tall blonde girl with a nod of his head.
“What’s going to happen to her?” she asks.
“Well, she’s going to marry the short guy behind her,” he says, “And then they move to Heidelberg-”
“No,” she says, “I don’t mean her biography, I mean right now. What’s going to happen to her here?”
“I imagine she’s going to enjoy a rather good play,” he replies, nonplussed.
“You mean there’s no imminent alien invasion? No assassination plot we’re here to foil?”
“None that I’m aware of,” he confesses, “Though it would certainly make for an entertaining afternoon…”
“Then why are we here, Doctor?”
He blinks. “I thought you’d like it.”
She opens and closes her mouth a few times, for once at a loss for anything to say. Perhaps I hit my head very hard, she thinks. Although why the Doctor of her dreams is dressed liked some sort of leather fetishist’s fantasy she’s at a loss to explain.
A hush falls on the crowd before she finds her voice; the actors have entered the stage. “I learn in this letter,” says the tallest of the three, “That Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night to Messina.”
She smiles. “You were right,” she whispers, moving to the edge of the balcony so she can see them properly.