Grace Holloway/ Clive Jones
Title: Not Just A Practical Joke
Characters/Pairing: Grace Holloway/Clive Jones
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Last of the Time Lords, Doctor Who Movie and a little bit for The Sound of Music
Disclaimer:I don't own Doctor Who or Abba. I'm fairly certain The Battle Hymn of the Republic is in the public domain by now but I didn't write that either
Author's Note: It kept going and going and I couldn't make it stop. That said, I'm not completely unhappy with the result. If I had another day I'd probably go through and shift the little pieces around again but it's almost midnight. You know, I do think I ship this a little bit now.
"Grace, Dr. Holloway!"
"Do I know you?"
"I'm Clive, Clive Jones and I, uh, I believe I have something of yours."
---
"I'm Grace, well, Dr. Grace Holloway, not that that really matters anymore."
"I'm Clive Jones. That was impressive back there, you know, in the control room."
"Not really. I've had practice."
---
He knows he ought to leave but he's struck by how she holds her head, her strong chin stuck out bravely.
"Did you think I would forget about you Dr. Holloway?
Did she laugh? She might have. There was humor in her voice anyway when she answered.
"You'll wish I'd forgotten about you."
---
The wind whipped her hair around her head.
"Do you think I'm afraid? I'm not. I'm not like you."
---
"How long have you been here?" She asks him.
"I dunno, two months? Maybe three."
"Then you'll have a plan of attack."
---
She's bent over the ships plans he's managed to steal, brow knitted in concentration.
"Pen."
"What?"
"Oh, sorry, may I please have a pen?"
She takes a pen he offered without looking up.
"Is this what it's like when you're operating?"
"I guess," she says, marking a juncture in the ventilation shafts on the plan, "it's kind of the same, make a mistake, get lost and people can die."
---
"So, this Martha Jones I've been hearing so many whispers about, is it your Martha?"
"Yeah. Well, I think so anyway. It makes sense." He paused, "I'd never seen anything like it, she just vanished."
Grace put her hand on his.
"If she was with the Doctor there's nothing to worry about. He saved my life you know, in more ways then one."
---
He tried to look calm, sweeping the same spot on the floor for the last fifteen minutes, but it was hard when his heart just might pound itself through his ribcage and out of his chest. She came round the corner (finally!) and it was all he could do to stop himself running to embrace her.
She started sweeping next to him surreptitiously. She didn't make eye contact but whispered from the side of her mouth,
"It worked, I was able to use those wires you borrowed for me overpass the security and make a few changes to the computer. Nothing too noticeable, just enough to frustrate him a bit."
"Ah, that brilliant! You're brilliant!"
"Nah, I couldn't have done it without you."
They swept a bit more but Clive was to excited to stay silent.
"You know, when I was bringing you those wires I felt a bit like those nuns in the sound of music, you know when they take that carburetor out of the Nazi's car"
She snorted. He looked over and their eyes met and she began to laugh in earnest, great peals of laughter. He grabbed her and covered her mouth with her hand."
"Hey, do you want to give us away?" But the hall was empty and his voice was full of laughter too. She shook against him as she tried to repress it and he could faintly smell the clean scent of soap.
When she finally stopped and he remembered to let her go, there was something else in her eyes, something he couldn't quite decipher.
---
"What about you?"
"No, no opera's a bit posh for my taste. I'm more of a football man myself."
"Oh, you're not one of those are you?" She groans, "You think that just because it's in a foreign language it's dry or inaccessible but that's absolutely not! Just the opposite, at the heart of any opera is emotion, emotions so powerful they transcend words and even language, they can only be expressed in music! How can anyone call that dry?"
Her eyes are dancing and there's a touch of flush on her cheekbones.
"Alright, alright," he says with a laugh, "I'll take your word for it."
"No, don't just take my word for it. Tell you what, if we ever get out of here-"
"When we get out of here."
"When we get out of here I'll take you to see Madame Butterfly, and you can take me to a soccer game"
"A football match."
"What?"
"It's called a football match."
"Oh, alright then. Is it a deal?"
He didn't expect for it to feel so solemn when they shook hands.
---
They're in their room and he's telling Tish the story of how today they jammed the Master's stereo.
"God," hisses Francine, "You and your bloody practical jokes."
"They're not practical jokes!"
"Really? Then what are they? Just you and Grace-" she says it as if it were a curse word, "-playing at the French resistance? Risking your neck, and for what? If you cared about your family you'd keep your head down."
"You don't understand-"
"I do understand! Do you think I'm blind? It's Annalise all over again."
"Now that's not true!" He says hotly but Francine doesn't say anything. She just puts her hands on her hips and dares him to challenge her.
---
"Why did you become a doctor?" He asked her one day.
"Does it matter? I'm not really a doctor anymore."
"Don't say that, of course you are. If there's one thing he can't take from you it's your mind."
She twirled her spoon in her broth and smiled sardonically.
"Funny you should say that."
---
"Time was you were only too eager to help me Gracie"
The Master ran his finger along her jaw and Clive felt his fist clench, although he wasn't sure quite why.
"What happened to you Gracie?"
---
Her room's smaller then his. It's just her, one bed and that's it. The whole thing's about the size of a broom closet and when he sits down next to her the bed's frame whines in protest.
"I had kitchen duty today," he says, "and look what I managed to get."
She laughs when he produces a small brown bag from behind his back.
"Jellybabies!"
---
A sea of fire beneath them.
"The Great Plains" someone whispers
Mine eyes have seen the the glory of the coming of the Lord
A voice is singing somewhere on the other side of the deck
He hath lifted out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
Two now, maybe three or four. Part of Clive wants to join in but he doesn't know the words.
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword
He doesn't see Grace for a week
The truth is marching on.
---
"Oh, are there any red ones? Red's my favorite." She roots around in the bag until she finds one and bites its head off.
"Brian used to eat these, he had to get them at some sort of specialty store."
"Ex-boyfriend?"
"Very Ex."
"Oh?"
"Mmm."
They chewed in silence for a minute.
"Tell you what though, must be some something about Timelords and jellybabies. When the doctor was at my house he found them just like that," she said with a snap of her fingers. "Must be like a sixth sense."
"That's right, I forget you know him too."
"Yeah, just a little though. We hijacked a motorcycle and stole a piece of an atomic clock to stop the Master stealing his time machine that looks like a phone booth. You know, the usual. Nothing long term though, I'm a cardiologist, he has too many hearts, it never would have worked out."
"Oh, of course."
I was so happy we had met
"God, if I hear one more Abba song I think I'll die," Grace moaned.
"I know, I swear, if I ever get off this ship-"
"When you get off this ship.
"When I get off this ship I will never listen to Abba again."
It was the age of no regrets
"No, you'll be listening to Madame Butterfly with me."
"If you say so love"
We took a chance
She cocked her head and smiled
like we were dancing our last dance
"I do."
---
"I've seen death, remember that? I've been there and back and I'm not afraid!"
There was something wild in her eyes and it scared him
"That's why I have to-"
---
The Master burst into the galley and in a split second every conversation in the room was dead.
"I have heard some of you," he said, scanning the galley, "are sick. That you've caught a case of hope. Nasty thing hope, all covered in feathers. Anyway, just thought you ought to know I've got a tracer on your 'savior'," he said, making quotes with his fingers, "Martha Jones, so she should be gone by the end of the week. Just thought I'd clear that up."
In the flurry of whispers that followed that followed Grace took his hand and added one of her own.
"We'll figure something out. We will."
---
The first time Clive Jones kissed Grace Holloway it was almost an accident. He brushed his lips against her her jaw as they hid in a broom cupboard, listening to guards march past.
The second time they kissed Grace Holloway pushed Clive Jones back on her tiny bed and kissed him hard. There was nothing accidental about it.
---
He could taste the candy still on her mouth and the salt from the sweat on her upper lip. Somewhere in the periphery of his mind he could hear that wretched music pound on but it didn't seem so terrible now.
A family man a football fan
She moved her lips down his neck and they vibrated intoxicatingly as she started to hum along and pull at his buttons
how dull it seems
She pulled back a bit and looked at him
"I've kissed surgeons and conductors and timelords. Who would have guessed the one I'd fall head over heels for would mop floors on a spaceship."
yet you're the hero of my dreams
"I do a lot more then that you know."
---
"People of Earth rejoice, your lord and Master stands on high."
Clive looked across the room, there was that woman, the one he had seen before, wrist held oddly to her ear.
"Are you alright?"
She dropped her hand guiltily, "Oh yes, quite alright. It's just- I used to be a cardiologist"
"Oh?"
"It's a bit of a bad habit, when, uh, when I'm stressed I listen to my watch. It reminds me of a heartbeat."
"Oh."
She stuck out her hand, "Sorry, I'm Grace, well, Dr. Grace Holloway."
---
The room was humid and Grace's body was stuck to his with sweat, but he didn't mind. She shifted a bit on top of him and murmured groggily,
"You have the most wonderful heartbeat.
---
Clive would never be quite sure why he said yes when she asked him that first time to help sabotage the ship's computer. Only that he he liked the feeling of doing something instead of just watching and the light in her eyes when he said yes.
---
She's walking down the hall purposefully and doesn't seem to notice when she passes him. She must have though because she doubles back, fumbles with her watch and presses it into his hand.
"What's this for?"
"I want you to have it."
"Why?"
"I just do."
"Grace!"
But she's already halfway down the hallway.
---
"How horrible," thought Clive, "I'm used to it."
He looked down at Tokyo in flames and tried to recapture that feeling of outrage he'd had for Prague or Toronto but he couldn't. He'd seen it too many times before. He was about to move to try to find Grace when from the corner of his eye he caught a flurry of movement. Before he knew what was happening there was Grace, caught between the railing of the ship and three Toclophane, holding something small and silver in her hand out over the drop. She turned to the Master,
"Looking for this?"
"Hand that over."
"Why?"
"Hand that over or you're dead Grace Holloway."
"Do you think that scares me?"
---
"Your daughter, Martha, you say she's a medical student?"
"Yeah"
"Did she ever tell you why she wanted to become a doctor?"
"To help people, I think. She was always the responsible one, Martha."
"I wanted to turn back death."
"What?"
"You asked once why I wanted to be a doctor. Tired of living but scared of death someone once called me."
"And now?"
"No, I don't think I am anymore."
---
"People of Earth rejoice!"
She looks around the deck and smiles, "This chip controls all of the Toclophane's tracers. Someone was to busy with Japan to leave any guards. Do you think if this fell into the sea of Japan it could buy Martha Jones and her friends a few more months?"
Many thing might have happened in that moment, there was almost certainly motion and noise and protests, but the only thing Clive Jones was aware of was a flutter of auburn hair falling to the sea like a misplace autumn leaf in the tick of a watch in his hands.
---
When she came back that time she had a bruise over her eye Clive tried not to hurt her as he held her to his chest.
"What'd you do that for! I thought, I thought you'd gotten yourself killed- and for what? Some daft song."
"I don't know," she says into his chest and he feels what might be a tear, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I just can't live like this anymore."
---
Clive buried his head under his pillow.
Goddamn the Master.
Goddamn those bloody Swedes.
When you're gone, how can I even try to go on?
That girl sang like she'd never know anything about loss
When you're gone though I try, how can I carry on?
Clive knew though. And he knew that if it was the last thing he did he would keep her plan of attack alive.
---
"It never happened, the terror, the death, none of it"
Clive's head spun- never happened? No one-
"Oh, you must be Mr. Jones, we haven't actually met."
That skinny bloke was shaking his hand and Clive wanted to ask him what he meant by all of that but then he was off again. Clive stuck his hand in his pocket. The watch was still ticking.
---
"So everyone who died, they didn't die? All of them?"
"I'm pretty sure Dad. I mean, it's all a bit time-y wime-y to me-"
"A bit what?"
"Oh nothing. I mean, you've been to work, they're all there, aren't they? Is someone missing?"
"No, no one's missing at work."
---
The direct flight from London to Seattle wasn't was much as he's thought it would be. He still wasn't sure what he say to her but as the pilot announced that they were flying over Toronto he knew he'd figure out something.
---
"I, uh, I believe I have something of yours. This is your watch, isn't it?"
"Oh my God, my watch, where did you find it?
"Well, to be honest with you it's a bit of a long story."
"I took it off for surgery one day and it was just gone. Is this some kind of practical joke? Did the guys from radiology put you up to this?"
"No, no, I know this all sounds a bit crazy, but I swear I'm not. If, well, if you're interested I have an extra ticket to Madame Butterfly. If, if you'll come with me maybe I can explain this."
She looked him up and down, a bit skeptical and sighed.
"Why not. It's certainly not the craziest thing I've ever done."
Characters/Pairing: Grace Holloway/Clive Jones
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Last of the Time Lords, Doctor Who Movie and a little bit for The Sound of Music
Disclaimer:I don't own Doctor Who or Abba. I'm fairly certain The Battle Hymn of the Republic is in the public domain by now but I didn't write that either
Author's Note: It kept going and going and I couldn't make it stop. That said, I'm not completely unhappy with the result. If I had another day I'd probably go through and shift the little pieces around again but it's almost midnight. You know, I do think I ship this a little bit now.
"Grace, Dr. Holloway!"
"Do I know you?"
"I'm Clive, Clive Jones and I, uh, I believe I have something of yours."
---
"I'm Grace, well, Dr. Grace Holloway, not that that really matters anymore."
"I'm Clive Jones. That was impressive back there, you know, in the control room."
"Not really. I've had practice."
---
He knows he ought to leave but he's struck by how she holds her head, her strong chin stuck out bravely.
"Did you think I would forget about you Dr. Holloway?
Did she laugh? She might have. There was humor in her voice anyway when she answered.
"You'll wish I'd forgotten about you."
---
The wind whipped her hair around her head.
"Do you think I'm afraid? I'm not. I'm not like you."
---
"How long have you been here?" She asks him.
"I dunno, two months? Maybe three."
"Then you'll have a plan of attack."
---
She's bent over the ships plans he's managed to steal, brow knitted in concentration.
"Pen."
"What?"
"Oh, sorry, may I please have a pen?"
She takes a pen he offered without looking up.
"Is this what it's like when you're operating?"
"I guess," she says, marking a juncture in the ventilation shafts on the plan, "it's kind of the same, make a mistake, get lost and people can die."
---
"So, this Martha Jones I've been hearing so many whispers about, is it your Martha?"
"Yeah. Well, I think so anyway. It makes sense." He paused, "I'd never seen anything like it, she just vanished."
Grace put her hand on his.
"If she was with the Doctor there's nothing to worry about. He saved my life you know, in more ways then one."
---
He tried to look calm, sweeping the same spot on the floor for the last fifteen minutes, but it was hard when his heart just might pound itself through his ribcage and out of his chest. She came round the corner (finally!) and it was all he could do to stop himself running to embrace her.
She started sweeping next to him surreptitiously. She didn't make eye contact but whispered from the side of her mouth,
"It worked, I was able to use those wires you borrowed for me overpass the security and make a few changes to the computer. Nothing too noticeable, just enough to frustrate him a bit."
"Ah, that brilliant! You're brilliant!"
"Nah, I couldn't have done it without you."
They swept a bit more but Clive was to excited to stay silent.
"You know, when I was bringing you those wires I felt a bit like those nuns in the sound of music, you know when they take that carburetor out of the Nazi's car"
She snorted. He looked over and their eyes met and she began to laugh in earnest, great peals of laughter. He grabbed her and covered her mouth with her hand."
"Hey, do you want to give us away?" But the hall was empty and his voice was full of laughter too. She shook against him as she tried to repress it and he could faintly smell the clean scent of soap.
When she finally stopped and he remembered to let her go, there was something else in her eyes, something he couldn't quite decipher.
---
"What about you?"
"No, no opera's a bit posh for my taste. I'm more of a football man myself."
"Oh, you're not one of those are you?" She groans, "You think that just because it's in a foreign language it's dry or inaccessible but that's absolutely not! Just the opposite, at the heart of any opera is emotion, emotions so powerful they transcend words and even language, they can only be expressed in music! How can anyone call that dry?"
Her eyes are dancing and there's a touch of flush on her cheekbones.
"Alright, alright," he says with a laugh, "I'll take your word for it."
"No, don't just take my word for it. Tell you what, if we ever get out of here-"
"When we get out of here."
"When we get out of here I'll take you to see Madame Butterfly, and you can take me to a soccer game"
"A football match."
"What?"
"It's called a football match."
"Oh, alright then. Is it a deal?"
He didn't expect for it to feel so solemn when they shook hands.
---
They're in their room and he's telling Tish the story of how today they jammed the Master's stereo.
"God," hisses Francine, "You and your bloody practical jokes."
"They're not practical jokes!"
"Really? Then what are they? Just you and Grace-" she says it as if it were a curse word, "-playing at the French resistance? Risking your neck, and for what? If you cared about your family you'd keep your head down."
"You don't understand-"
"I do understand! Do you think I'm blind? It's Annalise all over again."
"Now that's not true!" He says hotly but Francine doesn't say anything. She just puts her hands on her hips and dares him to challenge her.
---
"Why did you become a doctor?" He asked her one day.
"Does it matter? I'm not really a doctor anymore."
"Don't say that, of course you are. If there's one thing he can't take from you it's your mind."
She twirled her spoon in her broth and smiled sardonically.
"Funny you should say that."
---
"Time was you were only too eager to help me Gracie"
The Master ran his finger along her jaw and Clive felt his fist clench, although he wasn't sure quite why.
"What happened to you Gracie?"
---
Her room's smaller then his. It's just her, one bed and that's it. The whole thing's about the size of a broom closet and when he sits down next to her the bed's frame whines in protest.
"I had kitchen duty today," he says, "and look what I managed to get."
She laughs when he produces a small brown bag from behind his back.
"Jellybabies!"
---
A sea of fire beneath them.
"The Great Plains" someone whispers
Mine eyes have seen the the glory of the coming of the Lord
A voice is singing somewhere on the other side of the deck
He hath lifted out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
Two now, maybe three or four. Part of Clive wants to join in but he doesn't know the words.
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword
He doesn't see Grace for a week
The truth is marching on.
---
"Oh, are there any red ones? Red's my favorite." She roots around in the bag until she finds one and bites its head off.
"Brian used to eat these, he had to get them at some sort of specialty store."
"Ex-boyfriend?"
"Very Ex."
"Oh?"
"Mmm."
They chewed in silence for a minute.
"Tell you what though, must be some something about Timelords and jellybabies. When the doctor was at my house he found them just like that," she said with a snap of her fingers. "Must be like a sixth sense."
"That's right, I forget you know him too."
"Yeah, just a little though. We hijacked a motorcycle and stole a piece of an atomic clock to stop the Master stealing his time machine that looks like a phone booth. You know, the usual. Nothing long term though, I'm a cardiologist, he has too many hearts, it never would have worked out."
"Oh, of course."
I was so happy we had met
"God, if I hear one more Abba song I think I'll die," Grace moaned.
"I know, I swear, if I ever get off this ship-"
"When you get off this ship.
"When I get off this ship I will never listen to Abba again."
It was the age of no regrets
"No, you'll be listening to Madame Butterfly with me."
"If you say so love"
We took a chance
She cocked her head and smiled
like we were dancing our last dance
"I do."
---
"I've seen death, remember that? I've been there and back and I'm not afraid!"
There was something wild in her eyes and it scared him
"That's why I have to-"
---
The Master burst into the galley and in a split second every conversation in the room was dead.
"I have heard some of you," he said, scanning the galley, "are sick. That you've caught a case of hope. Nasty thing hope, all covered in feathers. Anyway, just thought you ought to know I've got a tracer on your 'savior'," he said, making quotes with his fingers, "Martha Jones, so she should be gone by the end of the week. Just thought I'd clear that up."
In the flurry of whispers that followed that followed Grace took his hand and added one of her own.
"We'll figure something out. We will."
---
The first time Clive Jones kissed Grace Holloway it was almost an accident. He brushed his lips against her her jaw as they hid in a broom cupboard, listening to guards march past.
The second time they kissed Grace Holloway pushed Clive Jones back on her tiny bed and kissed him hard. There was nothing accidental about it.
---
He could taste the candy still on her mouth and the salt from the sweat on her upper lip. Somewhere in the periphery of his mind he could hear that wretched music pound on but it didn't seem so terrible now.
A family man a football fan
She moved her lips down his neck and they vibrated intoxicatingly as she started to hum along and pull at his buttons
how dull it seems
She pulled back a bit and looked at him
"I've kissed surgeons and conductors and timelords. Who would have guessed the one I'd fall head over heels for would mop floors on a spaceship."
yet you're the hero of my dreams
"I do a lot more then that you know."
---
"People of Earth rejoice, your lord and Master stands on high."
Clive looked across the room, there was that woman, the one he had seen before, wrist held oddly to her ear.
"Are you alright?"
She dropped her hand guiltily, "Oh yes, quite alright. It's just- I used to be a cardiologist"
"Oh?"
"It's a bit of a bad habit, when, uh, when I'm stressed I listen to my watch. It reminds me of a heartbeat."
"Oh."
She stuck out her hand, "Sorry, I'm Grace, well, Dr. Grace Holloway."
---
The room was humid and Grace's body was stuck to his with sweat, but he didn't mind. She shifted a bit on top of him and murmured groggily,
"You have the most wonderful heartbeat.
---
Clive would never be quite sure why he said yes when she asked him that first time to help sabotage the ship's computer. Only that he he liked the feeling of doing something instead of just watching and the light in her eyes when he said yes.
---
She's walking down the hall purposefully and doesn't seem to notice when she passes him. She must have though because she doubles back, fumbles with her watch and presses it into his hand.
"What's this for?"
"I want you to have it."
"Why?"
"I just do."
"Grace!"
But she's already halfway down the hallway.
---
"How horrible," thought Clive, "I'm used to it."
He looked down at Tokyo in flames and tried to recapture that feeling of outrage he'd had for Prague or Toronto but he couldn't. He'd seen it too many times before. He was about to move to try to find Grace when from the corner of his eye he caught a flurry of movement. Before he knew what was happening there was Grace, caught between the railing of the ship and three Toclophane, holding something small and silver in her hand out over the drop. She turned to the Master,
"Looking for this?"
"Hand that over."
"Why?"
"Hand that over or you're dead Grace Holloway."
"Do you think that scares me?"
---
"Your daughter, Martha, you say she's a medical student?"
"Yeah"
"Did she ever tell you why she wanted to become a doctor?"
"To help people, I think. She was always the responsible one, Martha."
"I wanted to turn back death."
"What?"
"You asked once why I wanted to be a doctor. Tired of living but scared of death someone once called me."
"And now?"
"No, I don't think I am anymore."
---
"People of Earth rejoice!"
She looks around the deck and smiles, "This chip controls all of the Toclophane's tracers. Someone was to busy with Japan to leave any guards. Do you think if this fell into the sea of Japan it could buy Martha Jones and her friends a few more months?"
Many thing might have happened in that moment, there was almost certainly motion and noise and protests, but the only thing Clive Jones was aware of was a flutter of auburn hair falling to the sea like a misplace autumn leaf in the tick of a watch in his hands.
---
When she came back that time she had a bruise over her eye Clive tried not to hurt her as he held her to his chest.
"What'd you do that for! I thought, I thought you'd gotten yourself killed- and for what? Some daft song."
"I don't know," she says into his chest and he feels what might be a tear, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I just can't live like this anymore."
---
Clive buried his head under his pillow.
Goddamn the Master.
Goddamn those bloody Swedes.
When you're gone, how can I even try to go on?
That girl sang like she'd never know anything about loss
When you're gone though I try, how can I carry on?
Clive knew though. And he knew that if it was the last thing he did he would keep her plan of attack alive.
---
"It never happened, the terror, the death, none of it"
Clive's head spun- never happened? No one-
"Oh, you must be Mr. Jones, we haven't actually met."
That skinny bloke was shaking his hand and Clive wanted to ask him what he meant by all of that but then he was off again. Clive stuck his hand in his pocket. The watch was still ticking.
---
"So everyone who died, they didn't die? All of them?"
"I'm pretty sure Dad. I mean, it's all a bit time-y wime-y to me-"
"A bit what?"
"Oh nothing. I mean, you've been to work, they're all there, aren't they? Is someone missing?"
"No, no one's missing at work."
---
The direct flight from London to Seattle wasn't was much as he's thought it would be. He still wasn't sure what he say to her but as the pilot announced that they were flying over Toronto he knew he'd figure out something.
---
"I, uh, I believe I have something of yours. This is your watch, isn't it?"
"Oh my God, my watch, where did you find it?
"Well, to be honest with you it's a bit of a long story."
"I took it off for surgery one day and it was just gone. Is this some kind of practical joke? Did the guys from radiology put you up to this?"
"No, no, I know this all sounds a bit crazy, but I swear I'm not. If, well, if you're interested I have an extra ticket to Madame Butterfly. If, if you'll come with me maybe I can explain this."
She looked him up and down, a bit skeptical and sighed.
"Why not. It's certainly not the craziest thing I've ever done."