Just Jenny (1/12)
Title: Just Jenny
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: K+
Word Count: 7,825
Beta: slashaddict2013
Characters: Jenny, OCs
Story Summary: Every Time Lord has a story. Even an echo. Even the Doctor’s daughter.
Chapter Summary: Charlotte Latimer and Andy Sloan find themselves falling though the Bold Street time rift to 1953. There they meet a blond woman doing an awful lot of running.
Author's Note: The story of the time slip was heavily based on the account of a man who claimed to have travelled back to the 1950s when passing through Bold Street. Cardin’s did exist though I don’t know if it did close down in the 70s.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to BBC. Mentioned in the story but not belonging to me are Back To The Future, Joel Grey, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Connor Temple, Patricia Quinn, Addams Family, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Antonia Fraser’s Marie Antoinette: The Journey, and anything else you might recognize.
"Right. Mind telling me why we're delaying this as much as possible?" The man who spoke must have been in his mid-twenties with mocha skin, a fedora and bundled in a heavy pea coat and a truly eye injuring bright orange scarf.
"Because I have no desire to go to my cousin's wedding, since I hate my family." His companion's most prominent feature, on the other hand, was the extraordinary mass of curly auburn hair that seemed to extend from the side of her head, in an admirable attempt to defy the laws of gravity.
"Fine, but why did you have to bring me?" He continued in a long whine.
"Because the last time I brought a date to a family gathering, my grandmother nearly passed out and because you're a safe bet." She answered dryly.
"I am not safe!" He looked frankly outraged at such a statement, even to the point of stopping the fiddling with the gloves that his mother had sown to his coat sleeves.
"You are about as dangerous as a box of kittens!" She responded, not even raising her eyes from her pocket-sized copy of Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette.
"The Government…"
"The Government does not have your name on a file!"
"They're scared because they know I'm on to them!"
"Enough!" Her voice left no place for arguments. "You are not Connor Temple and you are not going to find out one day that all your conspiracy theories are true! They were funny when we were fifteen, but you're a grown man now, start acting like one!" A tense silence followed as the man lowered his head and stared intently at his fingers. Deeming the sometimes far-fetched descriptions of Antonia Fraser a lost case, the curly haired woman turned to him with regretful eyes. "I'm sorry. I know this is just the way you are and I don't have the right of reproaching you, especially since you are one of the few who never tried to do that to me."
"It's alright. I know you're a stick in the mud on your best days." He smiled softly up at her. "Besides, do you know where we are?" He was looking at her with an excited gleam in his eyes.
"Liverpool?" She responded uncertainly, as if she was afraid of what would come out of his mouth next.
"Right next to Bold Street!"
He exclaimed triumphantly. "You know, with the time rift?" He elaborated at her blank stare.
"That's it! I'm putting you on a train back to Manchester." She sighed. "I knew it was odd when you were so willing to come with me with what happened last time, when we were 17 and my Aunt Moira frisked you."
"Well, in your Aunt's defense, she was pissed." He said in a meek voice.
"She's always drunk! How is that a defense?" She asked her companion incredulously.
"Well…" He was at a loss for words, so he quickly changed the subject "Back to the time rift, wanna go exploring?" He asked her, puppy dog eyes operating at full power.
"Darn, I left the keys to the DeLorean in my other pants!" She snapped her fingers in mock-anger.
"C'mon! I never ask for much!" He whined, very much resembling a six-year-old in front of a Tesco's toys aisle.
"I really hate you sometimes…" She grumbled, even as she stood up and grabbed her duffel bag from the floor. In an elaborate move, which involved several flailing limbs, her companion had his own ruck sack on his back.
"No, you don't. You love me. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person, and I'm including your mother on that, who can stand being around you for an extended period of time" She gave him a glare that, had she been Medusa, would have sent Perseus running for the hills in his toga. He just smiled at her, unaware of the several plots for his gruesome murder being thought out in his childhood friend's head. "Which actually explains why most of your relationships last a grand total of 2 months, at most." The judge would understand, right?
He happily walked up the incline near to the Lyceum Post Office building that lead to the famed street, his companion trailing behind, trying to get a hold off her bag, which kept sliding off her shoulder.
"This is ridiculous. There are no such things as time rifts!" She shouted.
"Live a little!" He turned around, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She gave a small smile at his enthusiasm. Before pushing him and herself out of the way of a small box van, which had appeared out of nowhere.
"WATCH WHERE THE BLOODY HELL YOU'RE GOING, YOU PRICK!" The woman shouted at the box van, that was making his way down the street. Taking a deep breath, she turned to her companion. "Would you believe some people?"
Andrew Sloan offered her no answer, continuing to stare at the street in front of them with wide eyes. "Andy, are you alright?" Concern filled her voice as she poked him with a finger. He didn't look at her or react in anyway. After a few seconds, he opened his mouth.
"Charlie, what do you see?" He spoke calmly.
"What do you mean, what do I see? I see you." Frustration seeped through her voice. This was leading them nowhere. Maybe he was a little more shaken up by their near-death experience than she thought.
"No, I mean around you! What do you see around you?" He sounded excited, even more than when she gave him "The Great Conspiracies Of The Twentieth Century" for his 14th birthday, and that reaction had been one to tell the grandchildren about. She rolled her eyes and looked around her.
Just what she thought. A perfectly normal street.
Wait.
Wasn't that a bookstore two minutes ago? And what was it with all the cars that looked like they had been stolen from a James Dean movie set? On second thought, she was pretty sure it said Cardin's on that box van's side. Wasn't Cardin's the company her grandfather once worked for? The same one that he been laid off of? When it closed down.
In the 70's.
"This is not possible." Her voice was soft and flat. She was stating a fact because facts matter. Facts, no matter what Joel Grey says, make the world go round. FACTS DO NOT LET HER FALL INTO ANOTHER BLOODY DECADE JUST BECAUSE SHE WALKED UP A STREET.
"I think it is." Andy was smiling like Christmas and Easter had come at the same time. Damn him. "It's the only logical explanation!" He said as though that solved everything.
"No it isn't. It can't be." The words came out of her mouth at the speed of a freight train.
"Well, what else could it be?" He was smiling so brightly that it was a wonder that small animals hadn't been dazed by it.
"MAYBE POODLES SKIRTS ARE MAKING A COMEBACK!" She shouted at him, grabbing his lapels with a desperate look in her eyes.
"WOMAN, LISTEN TO WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!" He shouted back, shaking her by the shoulders. She stepped back, looking dazed, before letting herself sit down on the sidewalk.
"Oh my God, you're right." She looked at him, appearing completely horrified. "This is even worse than I thought."
"Well, thank you so much." He deadpanned. He huffed when he realized Charlie was still staring ahead. If he didn't know better, he would say she was stoned out of her mind. The people tossing her filthy looks apparently didn't. "We have to buy a newspaper or something." Honestly, one would expect an historian to be a bit more useful when stuck in the past.
She shook her head, her auburn curls flying everywhere. "You're right. Let's go, we have to start somewhere." She raised herself off the ground, spotting a news stand and striding over quickly. Andy smiled widely.
"There's my girl!" He said with a laugh, jumping at her side.
"Not your girl." She responded punching him in the arm. He laughed and waited until he was out of her sight to gingerly rub the spot she had hit him.
She reached the news stand with Andy trailing behind her. Quickly paying for a copy of the Liverpool Daily Post from a surly man standing behind stacks of newspapers, Charlotte folded her copy before grabbing Andy by the elbow and dragging him inside a pub.
She sat down at a table near the window, as she waited for Andy to bring them a pint. He sat down in front of her slowly, and she took a large swig of her pint. Taking a deep breath, Andy took the newspaper from her and unfolded carefully, as though it would bite him if he made any sudden moves.
"August 5th, 1953." He looked at her with wide eyes. They had realized something extraordinary had just happened, but seeing the date staring back at them from a freshly printed copy of the Liverpool Daily Post set it in stone and forced them to face the situation. He took a swig of his own pint.
"I'm almost afraid that Mr Sandman's going to start playing in the background." Charlie said softly, her hands buried in her hair up to the middle of her forearms. She looked out the window and started when a flash of yellow shot past outside.
Andy choked a laugh in his beer and was going to answer with a quip of his own when Charlie stood up from her chair and shot out of the pub like the devil was on her trail. Grabbing his rucksack and her duffel, he followed her out of the pub, spotting her running several meters in front of her.
"Bloody track team…" He huffed, their bags swinging around his arms. "WAIT!"
Charlie slowed down and eventually stopped, breathing heavily. Andy staggered to her side, dropping to the ground, with his head resting between his knees, their bags around him. "I. Hate. You." He said with his voice muffled by his knees. He finally raised his head to look at her. "What the bloody Hell was that?"
"I saw someone." She said looking around dismayed. "A girl running outside."
"So?" Andy asked in a breathless voice.
"So, she was the first woman I've seen in the past half-hour that didn't look like a Marilyn Monroe wanna-be." Charlie sat down next to Andy, resting her head on his shoulder. "How are we going to get back home?"
"We could stay here." He said throwing his arm around her. "Did you see those prices? We could live like kings!"
"I'm pretty sure they don't have an ATM yet." She chuckled into his coat. They sat there for a few minutes before standing up, each holding on to their own bags. "Let's look around for a bit, maybe go back to where the time slip happened."
"Yeah, let's go." Andy responded, offering his elbow for her to hold on to. She took it with a smile. "You really must be coming unhinged for you to be smiling so much."
"I will kill you in your sleep." Charlie said with an even wider smile.
"I love it when you channel Jack Nicholson."
She shook her head and they headed back to the incline where they had slipped through. There, they walked up and down the street and noted, dismayed, that no, it was not going to be that easy. The men were still wearing suits and fedoras and the women dresses and permed hair. Not a single pair of pants on a woman. Charlie wanted to scream.
"Nothing." Andy said, kicking a trash can. He looked around and leaned on the wall, sighing. "There's nothing here." He rubbed his neck with his left hand, grimacing.
"We can't stay here. I mean, look at us, our lives will be a living hell." Charlie replied. She shook her head. Before stopping and heading straight for a trash can on the other side of the street.
"What is it?" Andy asked, pushing himself off the wall, and helping her move the trash can to the side.
"I thought I saw something." She whispered, staring at the brick wall. She ignored the sympathetic look Andy sent her. "Turns out it was nothing.Again." She had never felt so frustrated in her life, not even when she was studying for her finals. There was nothing there, just a normal, slightly dirty wall, with a few posters and a crack peeking out behind them, shaped like a distorted seagull in the horizon.
She reached out to touch it, almost like someone one was telling her to do it. But that was ridiculous, she and Andy were the only people there and he certainlyhadn't spoken.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The spell was broken and Charlie turned around to see a pretty, blonde young woman looking intently at what looked like a bulky pen.
"You!" Charlie turned to Andy and pointed at the stranger. "She's the girl I saw outside the pub!" She announced to the man.
"Wouldn't know about that." She stared intently at the odd bulky pen before nearing it to her right ear and shaking it vigorously. "I'm Jenny." She introduced herself with a bright smile. She looked at them for moment, taking in their stares. "I'm kind of new at this, but I'm pretty sure this is the part where you introduce yourselves."
"I'm Charlotte Latimer, I work at the People's History Museum." Charlie replied without missing a beat, thanks to priceless knowledge gained from countless blind dates, before pointing to Andy. "And this is…"
"I'm Andrew Sloan, engineer and single." Andrew interrupted her, looking at the blonde woman and waggling his eyebrows for effect. Obviously pulling on the whole charm, which usually left him looking like an overgrown, constipated squirrel. Much like now.
"Wow, what a catch!" Charlie said loudly, causing Andy to turn and send a pleading look her way.
Jenny simply walked past them and inched closer to the crack, completely absorbed by her pen. Suddenly she pointed it at the smiling-mouth shaped crack, the tip of the pen glowing blue. After a few seconds she pulled it back and stared at a screen which came out of the side.
"Charlie, I think she's a crazy person." Andy leaned into Charlie and whispered in her ear.
"And you managed to realize that before you started planning the wedding." She deadpanned, not even looking at him.
"I'm serious! And you know I usually have a problem speaking to women." He pleaded in her ear.
"And what am I, then?" She replied outraged, turning to him.
"You don't count!" He responded. Charlie raised a hand, preventing anymore spluttered explanations.
"This is a good time for you to shut up." The curly-haired woman said between clenched teeth to her companion, who meekly obeyed. Turning to the blonde, who was still examining the cracks from different angles, she called out. "Hey, you! What is that?" She pointed to the crack. "What are you doing?" And with a raised voice. "And what the bloody hell is going on here?"
"Good pipes." Jenny remarked, with an appreciative nod, still staring at the wall. "And on to your questions!" She said jumping around excitedly, with a large grin. "That behind us is a crack. What I'm doing is analyzing it with this nifty little gadget called a sonic screwdriver. Well, I'm trying to analyze it. The manual's a little vague so I'm mostly just making it up as I go. And what is going on…" She took a deep breath and Charlie and Andy leaned in closer. "I have absolutely no idea."
"So we're stuck sixty years in the past with a crazy person. Just what I always wanted." Charlie sighed, which caused Jenny to turn around and look at Andy.
"Is she always like this?"
"You should see her when she's drunk." Andy just shook his head sadly.
"Oh don't mind me. I'm just gonna go with it." Charlie waved off their comments with a swipe of her hands, as though batting away an annoying fly.
"Right. Good idea." She frowned at the sonic screwdriver. "No, no, no… It can't be!"
"What is it?" Andy asked almost fearfully, looking at the frustrated blonde.
"It says here that the only thing coming through this crack was you two." She answered, leaning against the wall and sliding down to a sitting position, the screwdriver clenched in her hands.
"Why is that so bad?" Had this been any other situation, either Charlie or Andy would have already made some comment of the interrogation technique they were using on Jenny, the mysterious blonde woman. As it was, Charlie chose to simply wait for an answer from her.
"The TARDIS, that's my time machine, by the way. "She hurried to clear up seeing two mouths opening at the same time leading Andy to frown, as if he was solving a particularly difficult problem. "She sent me here. She had to have a reason."
"Well, don't mean to sound self-centred but, maybe it was us." Charlie interrupted, pointing at Andy and herself. "Since you have a time machine as you say, maybe you could send us back." She paused for a moment, looking a bit cross-eyed, obviously working something out in her head. "Well, forwards that is."
"No, I don't think that's it." She mumbled, looking at the crack, ignoring Charlie's huff and rolling eyes. She got up suddenly and ran straight for the crack. She neared her face to the wall leaving only a few inches of space between them. Turning her head to the side, she listened to the sound of a 21st century street. Cars, honks, that distinct buzz from the still primitive technology. All of this inside a wall. And she had no idea what had caused this.
Jenny was way over her head. And she knew it.
Drawing away from the wall, she turned and started heading down the street. Charlie and
Andy sent each other a look and picking up their bags, followed her. After walking past three blocks, all filled with men in macs and women in skirts, and rock and roll music blaring out from inside some houses, Jenny finally stopped suddenly, causing Andy to crash into her back, drawing away with stuttered apologies.
In front of them was a white, wooden door. Jenny drew her hand back, like it was some great spectacle.
"Welcome to the TARDIS!" She said with a big smile on her, like one proud parents like to sport when looking at their children. Charlie did not share her enthusiasm.
"Umm, Jenny? That's a door." Andy said cautiously, as Jenny was drawing a key from her pocket.
"Well, of course it is." She looked at him, bemused, as though there was something he was quite obviously missing. "That's the point."
"Bigger on the inside…" Andy mumbled too low for either of the women to hear.
"You said it was a ship." Charlie replied sharply.
"And it is! See?" She stepped out of the way to reveal a large room with what looked like a patchwork console in the middle.
It stood on a platform above the floor and stairs and passages twisted around it. Blue light emerged from the console and the very air seemed to constrict around them, but not in a whole unpleasant feeling, much like being on a roller coaster, with the tightening in your stomach while at the same time experiencing that feeling of complete and utter freedom.
"Where are we?" Andy whispered as if afraid to disrupt anything with the sound of his voice.
Jenny apparently did not share the same concern, running up the stairs to the elevated floor where the console stood, her ponytail swinging like a pendulum.
"Well, the TARDIS, of course." She swung from where she was hidden behind what looked like a glass column. "Don't you people listen?" She asked with a bemused look on her face before going back to her previous position.
"Yes, we listen, but it isn't every day that we go back in time thanks to a crack in a wall and then find ourselves in time machine!" Charlie replied.
"It's not just a time machine. It's a TARDIS, stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space." She cocked her head and pointed to a book resting on the console. "At least that's what it says in the instructions."
The book appeared ancient, with yellowing pages. The cover was completely blank, but in the first page, there was hand writing, unlike in the other pages that, as Charlie verified from leafing through the book, were all printed.
"What does it say?" Andy asked coming up behind her silently, causing Charlie to start and then lightly slap him on the arm.
"What she said. The TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space." Charlie answered, reading straight from the book. The hand-writing was slightly slanted, with several loops. She turned to Jenny. "Time machines have instructions now?"
"Apparently. Sometimes they're not very clear so I have to…"
"Make it up as you go?" Charlie finished for her, causing Jenny to raise her head from where she was tinkering with the control to grin at her.
"Exactly." As soon as that word was uttered, Jenny pulled a lever on the console and the whole room lurched before their eyes.
When it settled, Charlie and Andy turned to look at Jenny, who was busying herself with the controls. After twisting what looked like a common brass door knob, she turned to them and signalled to the door.
Andy approached the door hesitantly, before throwing it wide open. Darkness enveloped everything and he couldn't make out where they were, no matter how much he squinted.
"Where are we?" He turned his head and addressed Jenny who was making her way down the platform, Charlie following a few paces behind.
"No idea." She said brightly, ignoring Charlie's murderous look.
"No idea? You're the one who brought us here!" Charlie replied angrily, ignoring Andy's attempts to calm her down.
"I know nothing of History or Geography!" Jenny defended herself. "I just press buttons at random, you know."
Andy left Jenny looking confused by Charlie's anger and the red-haired counting slow from 100, like they told her to at an Anger Management course, a few years back.
"Trust me, toots. If I did, I wouldn't have got in the damn thing with you at the metaphorical wheel." Charlie ground out.
"You guys?" The two women turned to Andy, who was still in the TARDIS' doorway. "I know where we are."
Outside the TARDIS, who had taken the appearance of a brick wall, darkness surrounded them. Jenny grabbed her sonic screwdriver and lit it up. With the benefit of light, they looked around what appeared to be a tunnel.
Charlie neared the wall, which was entirely covered in what seemed to be white spheres. Directing her eyes upwards, they found a pair of eye sockets staring right back at her. With a gasp, she jumped backwards into Jenny, who remained silent, calmly looking at her surroundings.
"The catacombs of Paris." Andy whispered, but he may as well be shouting, considering the silence was so absolute. Only a constant sound of water, dripping up ahead, broke it.
Bones were stacked up to the ceiling, a line of skulls decorating the macabre walls. Only the floor and the ceiling were spared of what looked like the prized work of the Addams Family's interior decorator. If anyone would ask Charlie, she would vehemently deny that she had inched closer to Andy. As it were, it didn't seem such a bad idea.
"Why did you bring us here?" Charlie whispered turning to Jenny, who was admiring the bones with a haunted expression.
"I told you." She looked back at them. "I never know where I'm going." Walking to the end of the tunnel, she grabbed a torch and fishing around her pockets, dug out a cheap red lighter.
She struggled with the lighter, which refused to light and just produced little blue sparks.
Charlie rolled her eyes and grabbing her silver Zippo, quickly snapped the top open and ignited the torch. Andy looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"What?" Charlie shrugged. "It's a family heirloom and I don't have any brothers. You know that."
"I thought you gave up smoking." Andy said accusingly. Rustling in the shadows.
"It's a work in progress!" Charlie defended herself. The sound of a footstep.
"Both of you, shut up." Jenny whispered, a few steps in front of them, looking ahead.
Breathing.
They didn't get a chance to turn around before the world went black.
Jenny was the first to wake up. They were in a corner, trapped behind a cage made of, like everything else in the tunnels, bones. Checking her pockets, she was dismayed to find her screwdriver missing. Thankfully, the torch was there, hanging on the wall, outside of their reach. She sat up, arms around her knees and waited for the humans to wake up. It would do no good to call attention to themselves and try to get out of there, by her herself. Asleep, they were a liability. Awake, they might be useful.
Yes, it was best to wait, considering she didn't know who she was up against. She had been born to fight and kill and they, whoever they were, managed to sneak up on her and knock her out.
A few minutes later Charlie started stirring, followed by Andy. Blinking quickly, they looked around, and Charlie sighed.
"So it wasn't a dream, then."
"No, it wasn't." Jenny replied, turning her head to look outside the cage. "And now, we have to get out of here and find the TARDIS."
"How are we going to do that?" Andy asked, frowning. "These tunnels are massive."
"We need a diversion." Charlie said, digging around in her pockets, triumphantly pulling out her silver lighter. "I was afraid they would take this."
"How do you know they'd taken anything?" Jenny asked curiously, as they were still both unconscious when she'd noted the disappearance of her screwdriver.
Charlie didn't spare her a glance, as she kept digging around in her pockets.
"It's in the kidnapper's manual. Don't let your hostages keep anything that would help them to get out." Charlie seemed to have found what she was looking for, her face lighting up in a wide grin. In her hand was a red rubber ball.
"Charlie, I know you're feeling stressed, but now is probably not the time." Andy said, staring at the stress ball. Charlie rolled her eyes, before grabbing his jacket and shoving her hand in his pocket. "Whoa, woman!"
"Don't worry, you're no more attractive to me than you were two hours ago." She replied to his shocked face. In her hand was a paper clip, which she was quickly turning into a straight wire. "You've kept paper clips in your pockets since you were eleven, when you were obsessed with MacGyver." She directed a smile towards him. "Turns out they did come in handy."
Jenny watched intrigued, as Charlie pierced the rubber ball with the wire, from one end to the other. She then pick at her shirt, pulling out a long piece of string, which she ripped with her teeth and then carefully inserted through the ball. When the string peeked out from the other side, she grabbed it with her teeth and moved the ball, until it was in the middle of the string.
Jenny was still confused, but halfway through, an enlightened smile had crossed Andy's face and he started nodding. Charlie then circled and crisscrossed the ball with the string, before tying it up at the end.
"Brilliant." Andy nodded, handing her the lighter. She took it and with a deep breath snapped it open and brought the flame to the string, waiting until it lit by itself. With a swing of her arm, she threw it through the bars.
"I hope this works." She whispered as the ball of fire made its way down the tunnel.
It finally stopped near a wall of more bones. The dim light produced by the fire showed what appeared to be a foot, covered in scales. It moved out of the way of the light and the three time travellers heard footsteps approaching. Eventually, the figure approached the torched ball and they finally saw what, exactly, had taken them captive.
Although it was shaped like a man, the creature, like its foot, was entirely covered in green scales. The shape of its head resembled a lizard, with large, dark eyes, and protuberances under the skin. The only article of clothing he had on was a pair of what seemed to be very ragged culottes.
Jenny grinned and raised herself up, resting her forearms on the bars.
"Hi, there! I'm Jenny, and these are Charlotte and Andy." He said to the silent creature, nodding at Charlie, who waved back awkwardly and Andy who tilted his head, as he stared at reptilian man. "You have a name?"
He looked at her confused, inching closer like an animal trying to sniff out a stranger. He grunted a little and jumped backwards.
"Two hearts. That's what you heard, isn't it?" Jenny smiled reassuringly at him. He looked up at her from where he'd hunched on himself. "You don't understand what I'm saying, do you? You poor thing. You've been alone for a very long time, haven't you?"
A low whine sounded from the creature, who had directed his eyes to the floor. Jenny clucked her tongue, before addressing Charlie and Andy, careful not to take her eyes off the creature.
"The TARDIS has a mechanism, if you will. It translates every language but one into our own. It wouldn't matter if he was speaking French, or his native language, we would still hear him in English."
"But, it's not translating anything. Maybe it's broken?" Charlie suggested, from where she sat.
"It's not broken. It's not translating because there's nothing to translate." She looked at him sorrowfully. "He doesn't have a language."
Michelangelo, or Mike, as he'd been baptized by Andy after a heated discussion with Charlie on the virtues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, had left approximately one hour ago. Andy was just staring apparently counting the bones, on the left side of the cage, whilst Charlie keep twirling a circular, silver object with odd engravings, around her fingers.
Mike came back, holding something in his closed hand, his excited smile making him look extraordinarily unthreatening. He held out his fist for Jenny who reached her right hand out of the bars, carefully. He opened his fist, and something shiny fell in her hand.
Jenny closed her fist and inched her hand back into the bars, to better examine her present. In her hand was a bulky, old-fashioned earing. Mud and dirt coated a good half of the jewel, but the small diamonds still reflect the light from the torch.
She smiled at the creature and reached her left hand out of the bars, with her palm up. Mike hesitated before reaching forwards and dropping his own scaly hand in hers. Charlie and Andy looked on with soft smiles as Jenny closed her fingers around his hand.
A loud bang snapped them out of their moment, as Mike quickly snatched his hand back, as though it had been burnt. Jumping quickly to his feet, he ran down the tunnel and crossed a corner, leaving their sight.
"What was that?" Charlie asked as she and Andy stood up. Jenny followed from where she was sitting next to the bars. Shouts and cries of 'Demon' reached their ears.
"Humans." Jenny whispered.
With a few swings to get impulse, she kicked down the bars of their cage. Charlie and Andy shared a look and were soon running down the tunnel after Jenny, who'd taken off in the direction from where the sound of a fight was coming from.
The scene they arrived at was disconcerting, to say the least. Mike looked like a cornered animal, biting and scratching at the bulky men yelling insults and prayers. The reptilian man looked worse for the wear, with several burns all over his arms and his chest, caused, doubtlessly, by the several torches in the hands of the men.
"Alright, Charlie. Remember when they taught you those techniques to deal with your anger?" Andy asked in a low voice, from where they were crouching behind a corner, with what looked like a fibula poking him in the side.
"Yeah, why?" Charlie asked, fury blazing in her eyes.
"Forget all of that." He said, standing up slowly and grabbing three long, thick bones from the top of the stacks. He handed the women two of the bones, hands clenched around his own, swinging back and forth experimentally.
"Ready?" Jenny whispered to them. They nodded. "There's no time for a plan. Just take out as many as you can and get Mike out of there."
"Let's go, then." Charlie said, standing up, and coming up slowly behind one of the jeering men in the back of small crowd. With a powerful swing, the femur collided with the back of the man's head, emitting a sickening crack.
Unsurprisingly, that was the sign for all Hell to break loose.
Andy swung the yellowed femur back and forth, missing more than hitting, but still managing to inflict some damage. Charlie, on the other hand, was all brute force, her weapon connecting with arms, legs and once, even a crotch, which had Andy wincing in sympathy.
Jenny, however, had literally been born to fight, and as such, stuck efficiently and fast. She was fighting against what seemed to be the most skilled of them all. The lean, short man gave a swift punch, which Jenny had to lean out of the way to avoid, dropping and stretching her right leg, bringing it in an arc. It collided with the back of the man's legs and made him lose balance, falling to the floor.
As Jenny stood up, she didn't see the man who approached from behind and pinning her arm to her body. She tried to give impulse and make him tumble over her body, but it was no use. The man was a brick wall.
Charlie and Andy found themselves in the same situation, their makeshift weapons ripped from their hands and their arms held by the same men who had been beating Mike. Poor Mike was still crouched by the wall, unable to move.
The three of them had fought has hard as they could, but in the end, it was still three against seven, who had height and weight on them. They had been beaten. However, they had not counted with Charlotte Latimer, who was struggling against the man holding her arms.
"Look at yourselves!" Charlie looked the men holding them down. "Look at what you're doing!" Jenny and Andy exchanged looks, obviously wondering where she was going with this. She pointed at the trembling Mike, currently curled up in a fetal position with his hands over his head, wounds and burns decorating his body.
She tried to shrug off the hands holding her down, to no avail. "You could do so much. And yet, you torture someone. It was seven to one when we got here. You think that's fair?"
"He's a demon, girl. Just look at him. He could have used his powers!" One of the older men defended themselves.
"And did he? Are one of you mangled and hurt beyond help?" She looked at the silent men. "I thought so." She shook her head, with an ironic smile.
"He was stealing our animals, from the market." A quiet voice cut the silence. As if on cue, several more raised in agreement.
"And if he'd asked, would any of you have helped him?" Charlie refused to be beaten, all the stress of the day spurring her on. "Where is you Christian charity?" She gave a deep sigh.
"He is no different from you. Yes, he looks different, but I can see it by your clothes, by your faces. You live every single life oppressed by those who think themselves more important, more valuable than you." She could see her words making an impression, from the haggard faces surrounding them. "They take your belongings, your dignity, sometimes even your lives."
Charlie took a deep breath again, to calm her nerves and pointed at Mike, who was raising his head tentatively from his arms, mollified by the silence. "And you are doing the same thing to someone else. You are making someone else feel as rotten as you feel, as they make you feel."
"I know what it's like, to be born for a sole purpose, to have no choice. And I know how tempting it is to take it out on someone else." Jenny cut in, looking haunted. "It's not worth it though, giving in to that. It will destroy and cripple you as people." She raised her head. "Leave. Leave this place and you will never hear from any of us again."
"And if we do?" One of the men asked.
"You won't. You have my word." She assured him.
Once the first man left, the other followed quickly, each taking a look at Mike, who had quickly curled into himself again at the movement, like a true lizard. Jenny approached him slowly and tentatively laid a hand on his shoulder. He raised his head and just stared at her, as she gave a wavering smile.
Andy came closer slowly, and calmly helped Mike raise himself up, motioning for him to throw his scaly arm over his shoulders as Jenny lead the way to the TARDIS.
"How do you know where it was?" Asked Andy, holding a finger against a bleeding lip and nodding at the brick wall obscuring the TARDIS, Mike's weight still pressing down on him.
"I can always find my TARDIS." She replied with a grin, pulling the door open wide for Andy to pass through with Mike, who was looking around with an awed expression. Charlie brought up the rear, closing the door as her friend settled the reptilian man down on a grey comfy chair on the platform.
Jenny was already tinkering away on the controls, humming behind her breath and jumping up and down like a hyperactive child.
"What are we going to do with him?" Charlie asked from where she was sitting on the steps next to Andy, looking at an ugly gash on his forehead.
"Don't worry. I know just the person who can take care of him, and get us fixed while we're at it." Jenny answered with a grin, and much like the first time, they were off with a lurch and the same vworp vworp echoing in their ears.
They landed in what seemed to be a thickly vegetated forest, the two humans observed as they stepped off the TARDIS, Mike already leaning on Andy. An odd looking violet bird flew past them quickly, loudly chirping. Most of the ground-level plants looked like something out of a book on prehistoric vegetation, odd shaped and brightly coloured.
What seemed to be an overgrown, blue cricket shot past Charlie and when she looked back ahead, she was staring straight in the eyes of a tree trunk. No, she was not insane. It was a female shaped tree trunk that looked disgruntled at having visitors. And talked.
"What are you doing here?" The question was directed at Jenny, who bundled forwards apparently intending to give the strange tree a hug. She thought better of it, her arms resting awkwardly in the air, before dropping to her sides.
"Anyways…" She mumbled. "Nara, this here is Michelangelo, though we just call him Mike. I was wondering if you'd take care of him." She looked earnestly up at the woman-shaped tree.
"You must be joking." Nara deadpanned.
"No joke." Jenny answered. "Nara, they were trying to kill him, because they didn't understand. We found him in the sewers. He doesn't have anyone and I'm pretty sure he's been alone since he was an infant."
Nara's expression seemed to soften at the thought of a child alone. Looking past Jenny, she approached Mike and held his face in her hands.
"He's a Silurian." She informed the three of them, eyes still resting on Mike's. "They're a proud race. It's not surprising you found him in the sewers, since they usually live underground."
"So you'll help him, then?" Andy asked. Nara directed her eyes to him for the first time and he had the conspicuous sensation of being evaluated. She appeared satisfied with what she found, smiling before nodding her head at the human.
"Yes, I'll help him. As I've helped everyone who's come looking for it."
As they were leaving Mike had approached Jenny, handing her back her sonic screwdriver with a bashful smile.
Nara did end up helping them, healing the wounds they had gained from their tussle in the catacombs, with horribly-smelling brownish-green salve applied to their skin. Andy looked particularly proud of his, preening like a peacock as they stepped out of the TARDIS in Liverpool in January of 2010.
Jenny looked at the dark, trash-strewn street she'd parked in.
"Well, it was fun." She said shrugging her shoulders with a sad smile.
"You sound like a one night stand." Charlie quipped, eliciting laughter from Andy and a grin from Jenny.
"Right." Jenny looked awkwardly at her own feet. "I don't suppose you'd like to come with me."
"Sorry, but there's this wedding we have to be at." Charlie replied with a sad smile.
"Oh, of course." Jenny shrugged, trying not to make her disappointment to obvious. "Well, I guess this is goodbye, then."
Charlie strode forward, hugging a stunned Jenny, who eventually hugged back. Andy quickly took Charlie's place when they parted, hugging tightly.
"Hmm, Andy?" Jenny asked. "I think you can let go, now."
"Wha'? Oh, right. Sorry." Andy pulled away, bashfully. Charlie was rolling her eyes.
The blonde sitting with Andy at the bar nodded in the right places, appearing completely enthralled by what he was saying. It wasn't like he was bothered that her hair was curly instead of iron-straight, or her eyes were brown instead of grey. That's just ridiculous.
His eyes widened when he saw Charlie coming up behind the quite enthralled Audrey. The corners of her mouth turned up in a malevolent smirk at seeing the reaction her presence had invoked in her best friend.
"Cousin!" The voice caused her companion to turn back, startled, which gave him the opportunity to bang his head against the bar.
"Charlotte." The blonde sneered out the red haired's name, to which Charlie responded with a plastic smile. "We were so worried you couldn't make it."
"Well, as you can see, I did." She leaned over and grabbed Andy's Bacardi and Coke, before downing it quickly. With a loud smack of her lips, she turned to her cousin again. "I even brought my good friend Andy, here." The aforementioned men offered a wavering smile to the blonde, who looked back at him. "Lovely chap!" Charlie continued. "Helped many good women embrace their true sexuality." She continued, staring at the bottom of Andy'sglass, like it hid all the secrets of the Universe.
"Right. You know, I think someone's calling me." The blonde turned to Andy and offered an apologetic smile, that didn't hide how desperate she was to get out of there. "Sorry."
Charlie quickly occupied the vacated stole, signalling the bartender for another Bacardi and Coke and ignoring the sound of Andy's head colliding repeatedly with the counter. She simply smiled brightly at the young man who served her drink.
"I hate you." The thumping sound had stopped but Andy was slumped against the counter, which resulted in his voice coming out muffled and resembling more grunts than actual words.
"You can thank me later."
"Thank you? I was this close!" He exemplified by bringing up his hand and holding his indicator and thumb about an inch apart.
"To what?" She asked disbelievingly, playing with the straws. "Also, I'm pretty sure she has gonorrhea."
"Really?" He raised his head from his arms, looking like a hopeful puppy. "You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"
She smiled at him before resting her head on her hand, twisting the black straw around her fingers distractedly. He looked at her, before reaching hope and covering her hand with his darker one. She looked at him and smiled softly in response.
"Everything seems duller, doesn't it?" He asked his old friend. She sighed before nodding her head, her curls following the movement.
They sat in silence for a several minutes before snapping their heads up at the same time. A familiar sound was invading their ears and with an excited look shared between the two, they shot out of their seats nearly colliding with several of the guests.
A blonde woman stood outside the restaurant, and she quickly stepped aside, opening the door to what looked like a gardening shed.
"You know, I never thought I'd have the chance to eat chinese takeaway from New York, on top of the Chichen Itza." Charlie pointed out, struggling with her chopsticks.
"Yeah, it really puts things into perspective." Andy replied, showing a crepe in his mouth. "Hey, we never did find out why Mike was alone!" He pointed out with his mouth full, bits of soy slipping out.
"Well, the catacombs were built because the ground collapsed in the 18th Century. I suppose that's what killed them." Charlie replied, properly holding her chopsticks triumphantly.
"Poor Mike." Jenny sighed into her own white container.
Charlie and Andy shared a look, before the red-head inched closer to the blonde, her struggle with her chopsticks forgotten.
"You never did tell us what you were, though." Charlie pointed out. "Are you even human?"
"I'm a genetically created soldier from the DNA of a Time Lord." Jenny answered, looking at the moon over the Columbian pyramid.
"Wow, that's heavy." Andy remarked, shocked. Charlie snorted at his response, shaking her head.
"Really? Marty McFly?" She asked, struggling to breathe through her laughter.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you!" He said dramatically, his blush receding. "Patricia Quinn called. She wants her hair back."
"Who's Patricia Quinn?" Jenny's innocent question put a stop to several gruesome death threats. Charlie and Andy shared a mischievous look over her head.
"1973, wasn't it?" Andy asked.
"I believe it was, my black Connor Temple." Charlie replied, prepared to grab Jenny's elbow and drag her to the TARDIS.
"Oh, you flatter me!" He responded, already in position, on Jenny's other side.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: K+
Word Count: 7,825
Beta: slashaddict2013
Characters: Jenny, OCs
Story Summary: Every Time Lord has a story. Even an echo. Even the Doctor’s daughter.
Chapter Summary: Charlotte Latimer and Andy Sloan find themselves falling though the Bold Street time rift to 1953. There they meet a blond woman doing an awful lot of running.
Author's Note: The story of the time slip was heavily based on the account of a man who claimed to have travelled back to the 1950s when passing through Bold Street. Cardin’s did exist though I don’t know if it did close down in the 70s.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to BBC. Mentioned in the story but not belonging to me are Back To The Future, Joel Grey, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Connor Temple, Patricia Quinn, Addams Family, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Antonia Fraser’s Marie Antoinette: The Journey, and anything else you might recognize.
"Right. Mind telling me why we're delaying this as much as possible?" The man who spoke must have been in his mid-twenties with mocha skin, a fedora and bundled in a heavy pea coat and a truly eye injuring bright orange scarf.
"Because I have no desire to go to my cousin's wedding, since I hate my family." His companion's most prominent feature, on the other hand, was the extraordinary mass of curly auburn hair that seemed to extend from the side of her head, in an admirable attempt to defy the laws of gravity.
"Fine, but why did you have to bring me?" He continued in a long whine.
"Because the last time I brought a date to a family gathering, my grandmother nearly passed out and because you're a safe bet." She answered dryly.
"I am not safe!" He looked frankly outraged at such a statement, even to the point of stopping the fiddling with the gloves that his mother had sown to his coat sleeves.
"You are about as dangerous as a box of kittens!" She responded, not even raising her eyes from her pocket-sized copy of Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette.
"The Government…"
"The Government does not have your name on a file!"
"They're scared because they know I'm on to them!"
"Enough!" Her voice left no place for arguments. "You are not Connor Temple and you are not going to find out one day that all your conspiracy theories are true! They were funny when we were fifteen, but you're a grown man now, start acting like one!" A tense silence followed as the man lowered his head and stared intently at his fingers. Deeming the sometimes far-fetched descriptions of Antonia Fraser a lost case, the curly haired woman turned to him with regretful eyes. "I'm sorry. I know this is just the way you are and I don't have the right of reproaching you, especially since you are one of the few who never tried to do that to me."
"It's alright. I know you're a stick in the mud on your best days." He smiled softly up at her. "Besides, do you know where we are?" He was looking at her with an excited gleam in his eyes.
"Liverpool?" She responded uncertainly, as if she was afraid of what would come out of his mouth next.
"Right next to Bold Street!"
He exclaimed triumphantly. "You know, with the time rift?" He elaborated at her blank stare.
"That's it! I'm putting you on a train back to Manchester." She sighed. "I knew it was odd when you were so willing to come with me with what happened last time, when we were 17 and my Aunt Moira frisked you."
"Well, in your Aunt's defense, she was pissed." He said in a meek voice.
"She's always drunk! How is that a defense?" She asked her companion incredulously.
"Well…" He was at a loss for words, so he quickly changed the subject "Back to the time rift, wanna go exploring?" He asked her, puppy dog eyes operating at full power.
"Darn, I left the keys to the DeLorean in my other pants!" She snapped her fingers in mock-anger.
"C'mon! I never ask for much!" He whined, very much resembling a six-year-old in front of a Tesco's toys aisle.
"I really hate you sometimes…" She grumbled, even as she stood up and grabbed her duffel bag from the floor. In an elaborate move, which involved several flailing limbs, her companion had his own ruck sack on his back.
"No, you don't. You love me. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person, and I'm including your mother on that, who can stand being around you for an extended period of time" She gave him a glare that, had she been Medusa, would have sent Perseus running for the hills in his toga. He just smiled at her, unaware of the several plots for his gruesome murder being thought out in his childhood friend's head. "Which actually explains why most of your relationships last a grand total of 2 months, at most." The judge would understand, right?
He happily walked up the incline near to the Lyceum Post Office building that lead to the famed street, his companion trailing behind, trying to get a hold off her bag, which kept sliding off her shoulder.
"This is ridiculous. There are no such things as time rifts!" She shouted.
"Live a little!" He turned around, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She gave a small smile at his enthusiasm. Before pushing him and herself out of the way of a small box van, which had appeared out of nowhere.
"WATCH WHERE THE BLOODY HELL YOU'RE GOING, YOU PRICK!" The woman shouted at the box van, that was making his way down the street. Taking a deep breath, she turned to her companion. "Would you believe some people?"
Andrew Sloan offered her no answer, continuing to stare at the street in front of them with wide eyes. "Andy, are you alright?" Concern filled her voice as she poked him with a finger. He didn't look at her or react in anyway. After a few seconds, he opened his mouth.
"Charlie, what do you see?" He spoke calmly.
"What do you mean, what do I see? I see you." Frustration seeped through her voice. This was leading them nowhere. Maybe he was a little more shaken up by their near-death experience than she thought.
"No, I mean around you! What do you see around you?" He sounded excited, even more than when she gave him "The Great Conspiracies Of The Twentieth Century" for his 14th birthday, and that reaction had been one to tell the grandchildren about. She rolled her eyes and looked around her.
Just what she thought. A perfectly normal street.
Wait.
Wasn't that a bookstore two minutes ago? And what was it with all the cars that looked like they had been stolen from a James Dean movie set? On second thought, she was pretty sure it said Cardin's on that box van's side. Wasn't Cardin's the company her grandfather once worked for? The same one that he been laid off of? When it closed down.
In the 70's.
"This is not possible." Her voice was soft and flat. She was stating a fact because facts matter. Facts, no matter what Joel Grey says, make the world go round. FACTS DO NOT LET HER FALL INTO ANOTHER BLOODY DECADE JUST BECAUSE SHE WALKED UP A STREET.
"I think it is." Andy was smiling like Christmas and Easter had come at the same time. Damn him. "It's the only logical explanation!" He said as though that solved everything.
"No it isn't. It can't be." The words came out of her mouth at the speed of a freight train.
"Well, what else could it be?" He was smiling so brightly that it was a wonder that small animals hadn't been dazed by it.
"MAYBE POODLES SKIRTS ARE MAKING A COMEBACK!" She shouted at him, grabbing his lapels with a desperate look in her eyes.
"WOMAN, LISTEN TO WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!" He shouted back, shaking her by the shoulders. She stepped back, looking dazed, before letting herself sit down on the sidewalk.
"Oh my God, you're right." She looked at him, appearing completely horrified. "This is even worse than I thought."
"Well, thank you so much." He deadpanned. He huffed when he realized Charlie was still staring ahead. If he didn't know better, he would say she was stoned out of her mind. The people tossing her filthy looks apparently didn't. "We have to buy a newspaper or something." Honestly, one would expect an historian to be a bit more useful when stuck in the past.
She shook her head, her auburn curls flying everywhere. "You're right. Let's go, we have to start somewhere." She raised herself off the ground, spotting a news stand and striding over quickly. Andy smiled widely.
"There's my girl!" He said with a laugh, jumping at her side.
"Not your girl." She responded punching him in the arm. He laughed and waited until he was out of her sight to gingerly rub the spot she had hit him.
She reached the news stand with Andy trailing behind her. Quickly paying for a copy of the Liverpool Daily Post from a surly man standing behind stacks of newspapers, Charlotte folded her copy before grabbing Andy by the elbow and dragging him inside a pub.
She sat down at a table near the window, as she waited for Andy to bring them a pint. He sat down in front of her slowly, and she took a large swig of her pint. Taking a deep breath, Andy took the newspaper from her and unfolded carefully, as though it would bite him if he made any sudden moves.
"August 5th, 1953." He looked at her with wide eyes. They had realized something extraordinary had just happened, but seeing the date staring back at them from a freshly printed copy of the Liverpool Daily Post set it in stone and forced them to face the situation. He took a swig of his own pint.
"I'm almost afraid that Mr Sandman's going to start playing in the background." Charlie said softly, her hands buried in her hair up to the middle of her forearms. She looked out the window and started when a flash of yellow shot past outside.
Andy choked a laugh in his beer and was going to answer with a quip of his own when Charlie stood up from her chair and shot out of the pub like the devil was on her trail. Grabbing his rucksack and her duffel, he followed her out of the pub, spotting her running several meters in front of her.
"Bloody track team…" He huffed, their bags swinging around his arms. "WAIT!"
Charlie slowed down and eventually stopped, breathing heavily. Andy staggered to her side, dropping to the ground, with his head resting between his knees, their bags around him. "I. Hate. You." He said with his voice muffled by his knees. He finally raised his head to look at her. "What the bloody Hell was that?"
"I saw someone." She said looking around dismayed. "A girl running outside."
"So?" Andy asked in a breathless voice.
"So, she was the first woman I've seen in the past half-hour that didn't look like a Marilyn Monroe wanna-be." Charlie sat down next to Andy, resting her head on his shoulder. "How are we going to get back home?"
"We could stay here." He said throwing his arm around her. "Did you see those prices? We could live like kings!"
"I'm pretty sure they don't have an ATM yet." She chuckled into his coat. They sat there for a few minutes before standing up, each holding on to their own bags. "Let's look around for a bit, maybe go back to where the time slip happened."
"Yeah, let's go." Andy responded, offering his elbow for her to hold on to. She took it with a smile. "You really must be coming unhinged for you to be smiling so much."
"I will kill you in your sleep." Charlie said with an even wider smile.
"I love it when you channel Jack Nicholson."
She shook her head and they headed back to the incline where they had slipped through. There, they walked up and down the street and noted, dismayed, that no, it was not going to be that easy. The men were still wearing suits and fedoras and the women dresses and permed hair. Not a single pair of pants on a woman. Charlie wanted to scream.
"Nothing." Andy said, kicking a trash can. He looked around and leaned on the wall, sighing. "There's nothing here." He rubbed his neck with his left hand, grimacing.
"We can't stay here. I mean, look at us, our lives will be a living hell." Charlie replied. She shook her head. Before stopping and heading straight for a trash can on the other side of the street.
"What is it?" Andy asked, pushing himself off the wall, and helping her move the trash can to the side.
"I thought I saw something." She whispered, staring at the brick wall. She ignored the sympathetic look Andy sent her. "Turns out it was nothing.Again." She had never felt so frustrated in her life, not even when she was studying for her finals. There was nothing there, just a normal, slightly dirty wall, with a few posters and a crack peeking out behind them, shaped like a distorted seagull in the horizon.
She reached out to touch it, almost like someone one was telling her to do it. But that was ridiculous, she and Andy were the only people there and he certainlyhadn't spoken.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The spell was broken and Charlie turned around to see a pretty, blonde young woman looking intently at what looked like a bulky pen.
"You!" Charlie turned to Andy and pointed at the stranger. "She's the girl I saw outside the pub!" She announced to the man.
"Wouldn't know about that." She stared intently at the odd bulky pen before nearing it to her right ear and shaking it vigorously. "I'm Jenny." She introduced herself with a bright smile. She looked at them for moment, taking in their stares. "I'm kind of new at this, but I'm pretty sure this is the part where you introduce yourselves."
"I'm Charlotte Latimer, I work at the People's History Museum." Charlie replied without missing a beat, thanks to priceless knowledge gained from countless blind dates, before pointing to Andy. "And this is…"
"I'm Andrew Sloan, engineer and single." Andrew interrupted her, looking at the blonde woman and waggling his eyebrows for effect. Obviously pulling on the whole charm, which usually left him looking like an overgrown, constipated squirrel. Much like now.
"Wow, what a catch!" Charlie said loudly, causing Andy to turn and send a pleading look her way.
Jenny simply walked past them and inched closer to the crack, completely absorbed by her pen. Suddenly she pointed it at the smiling-mouth shaped crack, the tip of the pen glowing blue. After a few seconds she pulled it back and stared at a screen which came out of the side.
"Charlie, I think she's a crazy person." Andy leaned into Charlie and whispered in her ear.
"And you managed to realize that before you started planning the wedding." She deadpanned, not even looking at him.
"I'm serious! And you know I usually have a problem speaking to women." He pleaded in her ear.
"And what am I, then?" She replied outraged, turning to him.
"You don't count!" He responded. Charlie raised a hand, preventing anymore spluttered explanations.
"This is a good time for you to shut up." The curly-haired woman said between clenched teeth to her companion, who meekly obeyed. Turning to the blonde, who was still examining the cracks from different angles, she called out. "Hey, you! What is that?" She pointed to the crack. "What are you doing?" And with a raised voice. "And what the bloody hell is going on here?"
"Good pipes." Jenny remarked, with an appreciative nod, still staring at the wall. "And on to your questions!" She said jumping around excitedly, with a large grin. "That behind us is a crack. What I'm doing is analyzing it with this nifty little gadget called a sonic screwdriver. Well, I'm trying to analyze it. The manual's a little vague so I'm mostly just making it up as I go. And what is going on…" She took a deep breath and Charlie and Andy leaned in closer. "I have absolutely no idea."
"So we're stuck sixty years in the past with a crazy person. Just what I always wanted." Charlie sighed, which caused Jenny to turn around and look at Andy.
"Is she always like this?"
"You should see her when she's drunk." Andy just shook his head sadly.
"Oh don't mind me. I'm just gonna go with it." Charlie waved off their comments with a swipe of her hands, as though batting away an annoying fly.
"Right. Good idea." She frowned at the sonic screwdriver. "No, no, no… It can't be!"
"What is it?" Andy asked almost fearfully, looking at the frustrated blonde.
"It says here that the only thing coming through this crack was you two." She answered, leaning against the wall and sliding down to a sitting position, the screwdriver clenched in her hands.
"Why is that so bad?" Had this been any other situation, either Charlie or Andy would have already made some comment of the interrogation technique they were using on Jenny, the mysterious blonde woman. As it was, Charlie chose to simply wait for an answer from her.
"The TARDIS, that's my time machine, by the way. "She hurried to clear up seeing two mouths opening at the same time leading Andy to frown, as if he was solving a particularly difficult problem. "She sent me here. She had to have a reason."
"Well, don't mean to sound self-centred but, maybe it was us." Charlie interrupted, pointing at Andy and herself. "Since you have a time machine as you say, maybe you could send us back." She paused for a moment, looking a bit cross-eyed, obviously working something out in her head. "Well, forwards that is."
"No, I don't think that's it." She mumbled, looking at the crack, ignoring Charlie's huff and rolling eyes. She got up suddenly and ran straight for the crack. She neared her face to the wall leaving only a few inches of space between them. Turning her head to the side, she listened to the sound of a 21st century street. Cars, honks, that distinct buzz from the still primitive technology. All of this inside a wall. And she had no idea what had caused this.
Jenny was way over her head. And she knew it.
Drawing away from the wall, she turned and started heading down the street. Charlie and
Andy sent each other a look and picking up their bags, followed her. After walking past three blocks, all filled with men in macs and women in skirts, and rock and roll music blaring out from inside some houses, Jenny finally stopped suddenly, causing Andy to crash into her back, drawing away with stuttered apologies.
In front of them was a white, wooden door. Jenny drew her hand back, like it was some great spectacle.
"Welcome to the TARDIS!" She said with a big smile on her, like one proud parents like to sport when looking at their children. Charlie did not share her enthusiasm.
"Umm, Jenny? That's a door." Andy said cautiously, as Jenny was drawing a key from her pocket.
"Well, of course it is." She looked at him, bemused, as though there was something he was quite obviously missing. "That's the point."
"Bigger on the inside…" Andy mumbled too low for either of the women to hear.
"You said it was a ship." Charlie replied sharply.
"And it is! See?" She stepped out of the way to reveal a large room with what looked like a patchwork console in the middle.
It stood on a platform above the floor and stairs and passages twisted around it. Blue light emerged from the console and the very air seemed to constrict around them, but not in a whole unpleasant feeling, much like being on a roller coaster, with the tightening in your stomach while at the same time experiencing that feeling of complete and utter freedom.
"Where are we?" Andy whispered as if afraid to disrupt anything with the sound of his voice.
Jenny apparently did not share the same concern, running up the stairs to the elevated floor where the console stood, her ponytail swinging like a pendulum.
"Well, the TARDIS, of course." She swung from where she was hidden behind what looked like a glass column. "Don't you people listen?" She asked with a bemused look on her face before going back to her previous position.
"Yes, we listen, but it isn't every day that we go back in time thanks to a crack in a wall and then find ourselves in time machine!" Charlie replied.
"It's not just a time machine. It's a TARDIS, stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space." She cocked her head and pointed to a book resting on the console. "At least that's what it says in the instructions."
The book appeared ancient, with yellowing pages. The cover was completely blank, but in the first page, there was hand writing, unlike in the other pages that, as Charlie verified from leafing through the book, were all printed.
"What does it say?" Andy asked coming up behind her silently, causing Charlie to start and then lightly slap him on the arm.
"What she said. The TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space." Charlie answered, reading straight from the book. The hand-writing was slightly slanted, with several loops. She turned to Jenny. "Time machines have instructions now?"
"Apparently. Sometimes they're not very clear so I have to…"
"Make it up as you go?" Charlie finished for her, causing Jenny to raise her head from where she was tinkering with the control to grin at her.
"Exactly." As soon as that word was uttered, Jenny pulled a lever on the console and the whole room lurched before their eyes.
When it settled, Charlie and Andy turned to look at Jenny, who was busying herself with the controls. After twisting what looked like a common brass door knob, she turned to them and signalled to the door.
Andy approached the door hesitantly, before throwing it wide open. Darkness enveloped everything and he couldn't make out where they were, no matter how much he squinted.
"Where are we?" He turned his head and addressed Jenny who was making her way down the platform, Charlie following a few paces behind.
"No idea." She said brightly, ignoring Charlie's murderous look.
"No idea? You're the one who brought us here!" Charlie replied angrily, ignoring Andy's attempts to calm her down.
"I know nothing of History or Geography!" Jenny defended herself. "I just press buttons at random, you know."
Andy left Jenny looking confused by Charlie's anger and the red-haired counting slow from 100, like they told her to at an Anger Management course, a few years back.
"Trust me, toots. If I did, I wouldn't have got in the damn thing with you at the metaphorical wheel." Charlie ground out.
"You guys?" The two women turned to Andy, who was still in the TARDIS' doorway. "I know where we are."
Outside the TARDIS, who had taken the appearance of a brick wall, darkness surrounded them. Jenny grabbed her sonic screwdriver and lit it up. With the benefit of light, they looked around what appeared to be a tunnel.
Charlie neared the wall, which was entirely covered in what seemed to be white spheres. Directing her eyes upwards, they found a pair of eye sockets staring right back at her. With a gasp, she jumped backwards into Jenny, who remained silent, calmly looking at her surroundings.
"The catacombs of Paris." Andy whispered, but he may as well be shouting, considering the silence was so absolute. Only a constant sound of water, dripping up ahead, broke it.
Bones were stacked up to the ceiling, a line of skulls decorating the macabre walls. Only the floor and the ceiling were spared of what looked like the prized work of the Addams Family's interior decorator. If anyone would ask Charlie, she would vehemently deny that she had inched closer to Andy. As it were, it didn't seem such a bad idea.
"Why did you bring us here?" Charlie whispered turning to Jenny, who was admiring the bones with a haunted expression.
"I told you." She looked back at them. "I never know where I'm going." Walking to the end of the tunnel, she grabbed a torch and fishing around her pockets, dug out a cheap red lighter.
She struggled with the lighter, which refused to light and just produced little blue sparks.
Charlie rolled her eyes and grabbing her silver Zippo, quickly snapped the top open and ignited the torch. Andy looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"What?" Charlie shrugged. "It's a family heirloom and I don't have any brothers. You know that."
"I thought you gave up smoking." Andy said accusingly. Rustling in the shadows.
"It's a work in progress!" Charlie defended herself. The sound of a footstep.
"Both of you, shut up." Jenny whispered, a few steps in front of them, looking ahead.
Breathing.
They didn't get a chance to turn around before the world went black.
Jenny was the first to wake up. They were in a corner, trapped behind a cage made of, like everything else in the tunnels, bones. Checking her pockets, she was dismayed to find her screwdriver missing. Thankfully, the torch was there, hanging on the wall, outside of their reach. She sat up, arms around her knees and waited for the humans to wake up. It would do no good to call attention to themselves and try to get out of there, by her herself. Asleep, they were a liability. Awake, they might be useful.
Yes, it was best to wait, considering she didn't know who she was up against. She had been born to fight and kill and they, whoever they were, managed to sneak up on her and knock her out.
A few minutes later Charlie started stirring, followed by Andy. Blinking quickly, they looked around, and Charlie sighed.
"So it wasn't a dream, then."
"No, it wasn't." Jenny replied, turning her head to look outside the cage. "And now, we have to get out of here and find the TARDIS."
"How are we going to do that?" Andy asked, frowning. "These tunnels are massive."
"We need a diversion." Charlie said, digging around in her pockets, triumphantly pulling out her silver lighter. "I was afraid they would take this."
"How do you know they'd taken anything?" Jenny asked curiously, as they were still both unconscious when she'd noted the disappearance of her screwdriver.
Charlie didn't spare her a glance, as she kept digging around in her pockets.
"It's in the kidnapper's manual. Don't let your hostages keep anything that would help them to get out." Charlie seemed to have found what she was looking for, her face lighting up in a wide grin. In her hand was a red rubber ball.
"Charlie, I know you're feeling stressed, but now is probably not the time." Andy said, staring at the stress ball. Charlie rolled her eyes, before grabbing his jacket and shoving her hand in his pocket. "Whoa, woman!"
"Don't worry, you're no more attractive to me than you were two hours ago." She replied to his shocked face. In her hand was a paper clip, which she was quickly turning into a straight wire. "You've kept paper clips in your pockets since you were eleven, when you were obsessed with MacGyver." She directed a smile towards him. "Turns out they did come in handy."
Jenny watched intrigued, as Charlie pierced the rubber ball with the wire, from one end to the other. She then pick at her shirt, pulling out a long piece of string, which she ripped with her teeth and then carefully inserted through the ball. When the string peeked out from the other side, she grabbed it with her teeth and moved the ball, until it was in the middle of the string.
Jenny was still confused, but halfway through, an enlightened smile had crossed Andy's face and he started nodding. Charlie then circled and crisscrossed the ball with the string, before tying it up at the end.
"Brilliant." Andy nodded, handing her the lighter. She took it and with a deep breath snapped it open and brought the flame to the string, waiting until it lit by itself. With a swing of her arm, she threw it through the bars.
"I hope this works." She whispered as the ball of fire made its way down the tunnel.
It finally stopped near a wall of more bones. The dim light produced by the fire showed what appeared to be a foot, covered in scales. It moved out of the way of the light and the three time travellers heard footsteps approaching. Eventually, the figure approached the torched ball and they finally saw what, exactly, had taken them captive.
Although it was shaped like a man, the creature, like its foot, was entirely covered in green scales. The shape of its head resembled a lizard, with large, dark eyes, and protuberances under the skin. The only article of clothing he had on was a pair of what seemed to be very ragged culottes.
Jenny grinned and raised herself up, resting her forearms on the bars.
"Hi, there! I'm Jenny, and these are Charlotte and Andy." He said to the silent creature, nodding at Charlie, who waved back awkwardly and Andy who tilted his head, as he stared at reptilian man. "You have a name?"
He looked at her confused, inching closer like an animal trying to sniff out a stranger. He grunted a little and jumped backwards.
"Two hearts. That's what you heard, isn't it?" Jenny smiled reassuringly at him. He looked up at her from where he'd hunched on himself. "You don't understand what I'm saying, do you? You poor thing. You've been alone for a very long time, haven't you?"
A low whine sounded from the creature, who had directed his eyes to the floor. Jenny clucked her tongue, before addressing Charlie and Andy, careful not to take her eyes off the creature.
"The TARDIS has a mechanism, if you will. It translates every language but one into our own. It wouldn't matter if he was speaking French, or his native language, we would still hear him in English."
"But, it's not translating anything. Maybe it's broken?" Charlie suggested, from where she sat.
"It's not broken. It's not translating because there's nothing to translate." She looked at him sorrowfully. "He doesn't have a language."
Michelangelo, or Mike, as he'd been baptized by Andy after a heated discussion with Charlie on the virtues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, had left approximately one hour ago. Andy was just staring apparently counting the bones, on the left side of the cage, whilst Charlie keep twirling a circular, silver object with odd engravings, around her fingers.
Mike came back, holding something in his closed hand, his excited smile making him look extraordinarily unthreatening. He held out his fist for Jenny who reached her right hand out of the bars, carefully. He opened his fist, and something shiny fell in her hand.
Jenny closed her fist and inched her hand back into the bars, to better examine her present. In her hand was a bulky, old-fashioned earing. Mud and dirt coated a good half of the jewel, but the small diamonds still reflect the light from the torch.
She smiled at the creature and reached her left hand out of the bars, with her palm up. Mike hesitated before reaching forwards and dropping his own scaly hand in hers. Charlie and Andy looked on with soft smiles as Jenny closed her fingers around his hand.
A loud bang snapped them out of their moment, as Mike quickly snatched his hand back, as though it had been burnt. Jumping quickly to his feet, he ran down the tunnel and crossed a corner, leaving their sight.
"What was that?" Charlie asked as she and Andy stood up. Jenny followed from where she was sitting next to the bars. Shouts and cries of 'Demon' reached their ears.
"Humans." Jenny whispered.
With a few swings to get impulse, she kicked down the bars of their cage. Charlie and Andy shared a look and were soon running down the tunnel after Jenny, who'd taken off in the direction from where the sound of a fight was coming from.
The scene they arrived at was disconcerting, to say the least. Mike looked like a cornered animal, biting and scratching at the bulky men yelling insults and prayers. The reptilian man looked worse for the wear, with several burns all over his arms and his chest, caused, doubtlessly, by the several torches in the hands of the men.
"Alright, Charlie. Remember when they taught you those techniques to deal with your anger?" Andy asked in a low voice, from where they were crouching behind a corner, with what looked like a fibula poking him in the side.
"Yeah, why?" Charlie asked, fury blazing in her eyes.
"Forget all of that." He said, standing up slowly and grabbing three long, thick bones from the top of the stacks. He handed the women two of the bones, hands clenched around his own, swinging back and forth experimentally.
"Ready?" Jenny whispered to them. They nodded. "There's no time for a plan. Just take out as many as you can and get Mike out of there."
"Let's go, then." Charlie said, standing up, and coming up slowly behind one of the jeering men in the back of small crowd. With a powerful swing, the femur collided with the back of the man's head, emitting a sickening crack.
Unsurprisingly, that was the sign for all Hell to break loose.
Andy swung the yellowed femur back and forth, missing more than hitting, but still managing to inflict some damage. Charlie, on the other hand, was all brute force, her weapon connecting with arms, legs and once, even a crotch, which had Andy wincing in sympathy.
Jenny, however, had literally been born to fight, and as such, stuck efficiently and fast. She was fighting against what seemed to be the most skilled of them all. The lean, short man gave a swift punch, which Jenny had to lean out of the way to avoid, dropping and stretching her right leg, bringing it in an arc. It collided with the back of the man's legs and made him lose balance, falling to the floor.
As Jenny stood up, she didn't see the man who approached from behind and pinning her arm to her body. She tried to give impulse and make him tumble over her body, but it was no use. The man was a brick wall.
Charlie and Andy found themselves in the same situation, their makeshift weapons ripped from their hands and their arms held by the same men who had been beating Mike. Poor Mike was still crouched by the wall, unable to move.
The three of them had fought has hard as they could, but in the end, it was still three against seven, who had height and weight on them. They had been beaten. However, they had not counted with Charlotte Latimer, who was struggling against the man holding her arms.
"Look at yourselves!" Charlie looked the men holding them down. "Look at what you're doing!" Jenny and Andy exchanged looks, obviously wondering where she was going with this. She pointed at the trembling Mike, currently curled up in a fetal position with his hands over his head, wounds and burns decorating his body.
She tried to shrug off the hands holding her down, to no avail. "You could do so much. And yet, you torture someone. It was seven to one when we got here. You think that's fair?"
"He's a demon, girl. Just look at him. He could have used his powers!" One of the older men defended themselves.
"And did he? Are one of you mangled and hurt beyond help?" She looked at the silent men. "I thought so." She shook her head, with an ironic smile.
"He was stealing our animals, from the market." A quiet voice cut the silence. As if on cue, several more raised in agreement.
"And if he'd asked, would any of you have helped him?" Charlie refused to be beaten, all the stress of the day spurring her on. "Where is you Christian charity?" She gave a deep sigh.
"He is no different from you. Yes, he looks different, but I can see it by your clothes, by your faces. You live every single life oppressed by those who think themselves more important, more valuable than you." She could see her words making an impression, from the haggard faces surrounding them. "They take your belongings, your dignity, sometimes even your lives."
Charlie took a deep breath again, to calm her nerves and pointed at Mike, who was raising his head tentatively from his arms, mollified by the silence. "And you are doing the same thing to someone else. You are making someone else feel as rotten as you feel, as they make you feel."
"I know what it's like, to be born for a sole purpose, to have no choice. And I know how tempting it is to take it out on someone else." Jenny cut in, looking haunted. "It's not worth it though, giving in to that. It will destroy and cripple you as people." She raised her head. "Leave. Leave this place and you will never hear from any of us again."
"And if we do?" One of the men asked.
"You won't. You have my word." She assured him.
Once the first man left, the other followed quickly, each taking a look at Mike, who had quickly curled into himself again at the movement, like a true lizard. Jenny approached him slowly and tentatively laid a hand on his shoulder. He raised his head and just stared at her, as she gave a wavering smile.
Andy came closer slowly, and calmly helped Mike raise himself up, motioning for him to throw his scaly arm over his shoulders as Jenny lead the way to the TARDIS.
"How do you know where it was?" Asked Andy, holding a finger against a bleeding lip and nodding at the brick wall obscuring the TARDIS, Mike's weight still pressing down on him.
"I can always find my TARDIS." She replied with a grin, pulling the door open wide for Andy to pass through with Mike, who was looking around with an awed expression. Charlie brought up the rear, closing the door as her friend settled the reptilian man down on a grey comfy chair on the platform.
Jenny was already tinkering away on the controls, humming behind her breath and jumping up and down like a hyperactive child.
"What are we going to do with him?" Charlie asked from where she was sitting on the steps next to Andy, looking at an ugly gash on his forehead.
"Don't worry. I know just the person who can take care of him, and get us fixed while we're at it." Jenny answered with a grin, and much like the first time, they were off with a lurch and the same vworp vworp echoing in their ears.
They landed in what seemed to be a thickly vegetated forest, the two humans observed as they stepped off the TARDIS, Mike already leaning on Andy. An odd looking violet bird flew past them quickly, loudly chirping. Most of the ground-level plants looked like something out of a book on prehistoric vegetation, odd shaped and brightly coloured.
What seemed to be an overgrown, blue cricket shot past Charlie and when she looked back ahead, she was staring straight in the eyes of a tree trunk. No, she was not insane. It was a female shaped tree trunk that looked disgruntled at having visitors. And talked.
"What are you doing here?" The question was directed at Jenny, who bundled forwards apparently intending to give the strange tree a hug. She thought better of it, her arms resting awkwardly in the air, before dropping to her sides.
"Anyways…" She mumbled. "Nara, this here is Michelangelo, though we just call him Mike. I was wondering if you'd take care of him." She looked earnestly up at the woman-shaped tree.
"You must be joking." Nara deadpanned.
"No joke." Jenny answered. "Nara, they were trying to kill him, because they didn't understand. We found him in the sewers. He doesn't have anyone and I'm pretty sure he's been alone since he was an infant."
Nara's expression seemed to soften at the thought of a child alone. Looking past Jenny, she approached Mike and held his face in her hands.
"He's a Silurian." She informed the three of them, eyes still resting on Mike's. "They're a proud race. It's not surprising you found him in the sewers, since they usually live underground."
"So you'll help him, then?" Andy asked. Nara directed her eyes to him for the first time and he had the conspicuous sensation of being evaluated. She appeared satisfied with what she found, smiling before nodding her head at the human.
"Yes, I'll help him. As I've helped everyone who's come looking for it."
As they were leaving Mike had approached Jenny, handing her back her sonic screwdriver with a bashful smile.
Nara did end up helping them, healing the wounds they had gained from their tussle in the catacombs, with horribly-smelling brownish-green salve applied to their skin. Andy looked particularly proud of his, preening like a peacock as they stepped out of the TARDIS in Liverpool in January of 2010.
Jenny looked at the dark, trash-strewn street she'd parked in.
"Well, it was fun." She said shrugging her shoulders with a sad smile.
"You sound like a one night stand." Charlie quipped, eliciting laughter from Andy and a grin from Jenny.
"Right." Jenny looked awkwardly at her own feet. "I don't suppose you'd like to come with me."
"Sorry, but there's this wedding we have to be at." Charlie replied with a sad smile.
"Oh, of course." Jenny shrugged, trying not to make her disappointment to obvious. "Well, I guess this is goodbye, then."
Charlie strode forward, hugging a stunned Jenny, who eventually hugged back. Andy quickly took Charlie's place when they parted, hugging tightly.
"Hmm, Andy?" Jenny asked. "I think you can let go, now."
"Wha'? Oh, right. Sorry." Andy pulled away, bashfully. Charlie was rolling her eyes.
The blonde sitting with Andy at the bar nodded in the right places, appearing completely enthralled by what he was saying. It wasn't like he was bothered that her hair was curly instead of iron-straight, or her eyes were brown instead of grey. That's just ridiculous.
His eyes widened when he saw Charlie coming up behind the quite enthralled Audrey. The corners of her mouth turned up in a malevolent smirk at seeing the reaction her presence had invoked in her best friend.
"Cousin!" The voice caused her companion to turn back, startled, which gave him the opportunity to bang his head against the bar.
"Charlotte." The blonde sneered out the red haired's name, to which Charlie responded with a plastic smile. "We were so worried you couldn't make it."
"Well, as you can see, I did." She leaned over and grabbed Andy's Bacardi and Coke, before downing it quickly. With a loud smack of her lips, she turned to her cousin again. "I even brought my good friend Andy, here." The aforementioned men offered a wavering smile to the blonde, who looked back at him. "Lovely chap!" Charlie continued. "Helped many good women embrace their true sexuality." She continued, staring at the bottom of Andy'sglass, like it hid all the secrets of the Universe.
"Right. You know, I think someone's calling me." The blonde turned to Andy and offered an apologetic smile, that didn't hide how desperate she was to get out of there. "Sorry."
Charlie quickly occupied the vacated stole, signalling the bartender for another Bacardi and Coke and ignoring the sound of Andy's head colliding repeatedly with the counter. She simply smiled brightly at the young man who served her drink.
"I hate you." The thumping sound had stopped but Andy was slumped against the counter, which resulted in his voice coming out muffled and resembling more grunts than actual words.
"You can thank me later."
"Thank you? I was this close!" He exemplified by bringing up his hand and holding his indicator and thumb about an inch apart.
"To what?" She asked disbelievingly, playing with the straws. "Also, I'm pretty sure she has gonorrhea."
"Really?" He raised his head from his arms, looking like a hopeful puppy. "You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"
She smiled at him before resting her head on her hand, twisting the black straw around her fingers distractedly. He looked at her, before reaching hope and covering her hand with his darker one. She looked at him and smiled softly in response.
"Everything seems duller, doesn't it?" He asked his old friend. She sighed before nodding her head, her curls following the movement.
They sat in silence for a several minutes before snapping their heads up at the same time. A familiar sound was invading their ears and with an excited look shared between the two, they shot out of their seats nearly colliding with several of the guests.
A blonde woman stood outside the restaurant, and she quickly stepped aside, opening the door to what looked like a gardening shed.
"You know, I never thought I'd have the chance to eat chinese takeaway from New York, on top of the Chichen Itza." Charlie pointed out, struggling with her chopsticks.
"Yeah, it really puts things into perspective." Andy replied, showing a crepe in his mouth. "Hey, we never did find out why Mike was alone!" He pointed out with his mouth full, bits of soy slipping out.
"Well, the catacombs were built because the ground collapsed in the 18th Century. I suppose that's what killed them." Charlie replied, properly holding her chopsticks triumphantly.
"Poor Mike." Jenny sighed into her own white container.
Charlie and Andy shared a look, before the red-head inched closer to the blonde, her struggle with her chopsticks forgotten.
"You never did tell us what you were, though." Charlie pointed out. "Are you even human?"
"I'm a genetically created soldier from the DNA of a Time Lord." Jenny answered, looking at the moon over the Columbian pyramid.
"Wow, that's heavy." Andy remarked, shocked. Charlie snorted at his response, shaking her head.
"Really? Marty McFly?" She asked, struggling to breathe through her laughter.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you!" He said dramatically, his blush receding. "Patricia Quinn called. She wants her hair back."
"Who's Patricia Quinn?" Jenny's innocent question put a stop to several gruesome death threats. Charlie and Andy shared a mischievous look over her head.
"1973, wasn't it?" Andy asked.
"I believe it was, my black Connor Temple." Charlie replied, prepared to grab Jenny's elbow and drag her to the TARDIS.
"Oh, you flatter me!" He responded, already in position, on Jenny's other side.