Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They’re running. They’re running so hard that Bill can feel her heart pumping brutally in her chest, the sound thudding round her ears like Big Ben on the hour—boom, boom, boom. She can taste bile in her throat, acidic and bloody, hot pain racing up her legs every time her feet collide with the concrete floor. The Doctor is just ahead of her, hand gripped tightly round Missy’s forearm. Her dress has ripped round her feet. A long stream of indigo fabric trails behind her like a bloodstain. It’s all going too fast for Bill to know for definite but; yes, she’s convinced of it, Missy has terror on her face.

“Come on!” the Doctor yells, his voice a harsh growl cutting the sound of distant explosions and relentless panting. A shaky mass of blue appears in Bill’s eyeline. The TARDIS. Thank God, something familiar, something that will fix everything—nothing can get in the TARDIS. Nardole makes what she can only assume is a laugh of relief from behind her. They’re fine. They’re going to make it.

Missy shouts hysterically as the Doctor manically tries to insert the key into the lock. “For Christ’s sake, we’re not on holiday here! Get a move on!”

“What do you think I’m doing?” he hisses vehemently. Bill certainly wishes they were on holiday. Barcelona would be nice. Perhaps the Maldives. Space Maldives? Sun, sea, anti-gravity sand…

“Miss Potts!”

Two fists banging loudly on the desk in front of her wake Bill from her daydream, right into the icy blue eyes of Professor Saxon. A blank ream of paper lays untouched in the typewriter. She smiles—well, more grimaces—and prepares herself for a bollocking. It’s not her fault, really. She’s not a bloody secretary in real life.

“Sorry,” Bill apologises, burning under the Professor’s glare. “I got…distracted.”

“You’re always bloody distracted,” Professor Saxon scolds. She eventually rises from the table, wandering over to the window. The view outside is of the back building of Queen’s College, beautiful in its archaic architecture, leaking history into the present. The sky is grey and swollen with rain and the grass all the more greener for it. At least he picked somewhere pretty, Bill thinks. He could’ve dropped them in fucking Carlisle. “It’s a wonder what I even pay you for.”

Bill resists the urge to scream. All the money in the universe wouldn’t be adequate payment. She’s only doing this for the Doctor. “Yeah, I’m sorry, Professor. What were you saying again?”

For a moment, Professor Saxon seems lost in her thoughts—but she’s quickly swept back out of them, like the tide returning to the shore. “I want you to write to Professor Coverley at Newcastle and to thank him kindly for his invitation, but I’ll unfortunately have to decline.”

Bill absent-mindedly clicks out a reply. She’s used to the keys, now, rather than the sleek board of her iMac. Even if she can still hear the tapping at the back of her brain on a night like her own internal loop-pedal. “And what should I give him as a reason?”

“Make something up,” Professor Saxon barks flippantly, “Write because I don’t want to see your stupid misogynistic fucking face if you’re feeling unimaginative.”

Bill pouts, considering it. “I’ll just say you have a prior engagement.”

Professor Saxon shrugs, throwing herself in the chair opposite her desk. “Whatever. And when you’ve done that, get me a coffee. Black as you can get it. Actually, scrap that—get me the coffee now, reply later. The wanker can wait.”

Bill sighs, abandoning the typewriter. Professor Saxon is no longer interested in her, rather thumbing through an aging tome on The War of the Roses, reading heavily highlighted paragraphs intensely. She’s not going to complain. Any time where she doesn’t have to sit in a room with the Professor is time well spent, a breath of fresh air, like she’s not going to be chained to her ankles for the next two months.

She’s doing this for the Doctor. She’s doing this for the Doctor.

By now, she’s fairly used to the layout of Queen’s, but mainly the nexus of offices between the Professor’s study and her preferred lecture theatres. Bill’s essentially her skivvy, running between rooms with books and papers and coffees. She certainly never leaves her without something to do—Bill doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or grateful for that. Silence means her mind wanders. Silence means she—

“Bill!”

She’s greeted cheerfully by the small, round shape of Nardole, clutching a small briefcase. Every time they collide a feeling of intense relief floods through her, because Nardole is proof she isn’t going absolutely insane. “Nardole! Hey!”

He blinks, eyes huge behind his glasses. “How…are you?”

Bill narrows her eyes. “You mean how is she, don’t you?”

There’s no point in attempting to look anything other than sheepish. “Yeah, but I’m concerned about you too. I heard that you were…”

Bill knows instantly what he’s insinuating without the words escaping his mouth. Even in the seventies, it’s not easy being a woman, and it’s especially not easy being a black woman. The posh wankers that walk Queen’s’ halls make that especially clear to her at every opportunity. God knows what would happen if any of them discovered her sexual preferences—spontaneous combustion, perhaps? “No, it’s fine, really. It’s only two more months, right?”

“Right!” Nardole says, but there’s a thick layer of uncertainty in his tone that makes Bill feel uneasy. “Mi—the Professor isn’t working you too hard, is she?”

“She’d have me down on my hands and knees and scrubbing her lav if she could,” Bill snorts. “Even as someone else, she’s determined to make my life a misery. The chameleon arch doesn’t change that much.”

 “But other than that… She’s not, y’know? Been suspicious?”

“No! God, no, she hasn’t,” Bill reassures her friend, “I’ve shoved the watch in her filing cabinet. She’s barely even looked at it. What about…Professor Smith? Has he…?”

Nardole shakes his head decisively. “No, not an inkling. He’s been having some dreams, but nothing remotely incriminating. He’s a bit angrier as a human. Threw a blackboard rubber at my head because he didn’t like how shiny it was. I know they’re a bit iffy on corporal punishment in this decade but that is taking the biscuit.”

Bill smothers a giggle under her breath at the image. “He’d get on with Professor Saxon. She’s been tempted to throttle me a few times.”

“Not like her to have any self-control when it comes to brutality. Maybe we should keep her as a human after all this is over. Could be better for the whole universe.”

“Certainly tempting, but I think if she ever found out she’d definitely kill us. Speaking of which,” Bill pushes past him, “She’s sent me on a coffee run. She’ll get suspicious if I’m not back soon.”

“Right you are,” Nardole smiles, gesturing in the direction of the staff common room. “Remember, if you—if anything about her behaviour troubles you, come find me. And if you feel like we’re compromised, give her the watch. Just give her the watch.”

She’s had the debrief etched in her memory ever since that day. Every word carved into her soul, eyes blurry with unshed tears, fear burning in her blood. She’s not going to forget that in a hurry. She’s not going to forget their faces, their desperation, in a hurry.

“Of course,” she offers Nardole one last hopeful smile. “I’ll catch you later, yeah?”

Nardole nods in agreement, before turning and walking in the opposite direction. Bill lets out a breath, so loud it echoes round the empty corridor, a shiver rushing down her spine. God, she just wants this all to be over.

Two more months. Just two more months.

Chapter Text

All in all, Bill reckons that she’s dealt with the last six weeks pretty damn well. The seventies are a mess of indoor smoking habits and casual racism and about a thousand different shades of beige, but she’s somehow managed to stay relatively sane. She counts off the days on a Welcome to Cambridge calendar she found in a gift shop in black marker pen. Each cross feels like the smallest of victories, but a victory all the same.

The whole Professor babysitting thing seems to be going remarkably—she doesn’t want to say suspiciously—well, too. Professor Saxon vaguely registers Professor Smith’s existence, and when she does, it’s to grumble nonchalantly about his lack of decorum in staff memos. Kind of ironic, Bill thinks, seeing as her own are only expletive free thanks to Bill’s attentive proof-reading before posting. The watch that holds her soul remains a relic lost amongst folders in a draw. So far so good, all’s well that hopefully ends well, and all that.

It’s all beautifully monotonous, reminding Bill of her days pre-Doctor. She works, she eats, she sleeps. Sometimes worries about the fate of the planet if this all goes tits-up. Pushes the images of the Doctor and Missy’s panicked faces out her mind. Six weeks, six weeks, six weeks more.

On Monday morning, she wanders into Professor Saxon’s office, where she’s having a cigarette out an open window. The smoke catches in the wind, drifting across the glass. Bill doesn’t smoke, but she’s not blind to the effects of someone who knows how to smoke well. The Professor’s fingernails are painted black. And—oh my god, she’s not crushing on the woman who’d watch her die in a heartbeat. Not kill her, maybe, not anymore. But she certainly wouldn’t put in any effort to prevent her death.

When this is over, Bill ponders gleefully, I will take so much pleasure in making sure you repay the debt.

“Good morning, Professor,” Bill says in the fake-cheeriness she’s mastered over the last few weeks, “Is there anything I can get you?”

Professor Saxon finishes her cigarette before replying, stubbing it out in a little flower-patterned (ugh, achingly seventies) ashtray she has perched on the edge of the window sill. “I’d like you to type out a memo.”

“Of course,” Bill takes her usual place at the desk adjacent, where the typewriter is already set up and ready. “Who is it addressed to?”

Professor Saxon wanders back over to her own desk. Her boots click loudly against the wooden floor, the sound echoing round the high-ceilinged office. It’s a stunning room, filled with light from the latticed-paned windows and old furniture, a grandfather clock ticking ceaselessly in the corner. A new bouquet of wildflowers appears in a glass vase every morning, although Bill isn’t the one who puts them there. Must be a gardener.

“Address it to Professor Smith,” Professor Saxon flops unceremoniously down in her chair, “Of the physics department.”

Bill’s heart lurches so prominently that she swears the Professor can see it visibly through her blouse. A nasty prickly feeling tickles her spine, her hands clamming up with sweat. No, no, no no—“Professor Smith? What… what would you like me to tell him?”

The Professor is oblivious to Bill’s apparent discomfort, like this whole altercation couldn’t have catastrophic consequences. “Tell him that no, it wasn’t me who broke his stupid bloody mug in the staff kitchen—but even if it was, he shouldn’t leave fragile items that break easily sopping wet on a draining board. That’s being a fucking moron. That means you deserve to have your belongings broken. Lots of love, Professor Harriet Saxon from the History department.”

-x-

The Doctor grabs Bill’s shoulders roughly, forcing her to look him straight in the eyes. His limbs are shaking, every single one of them. “Bill—Bill, tell me now, did they see you?”

“Did who see me?” Bill asks back frantically. She tosses her head behind her; the TARDIS doors are shut, but she can still hear explosions from outside. “Doctor, we’re in the TARDIS—they can’t…”

Missy snorts scathingly. The Doctor shoots her a glare. “What? You can’t seriously expect her to understand the gravity of the situation, can you?”

“I’m not an idiot!” Bill snaps back in uncharacteristic ferocity. Missy almost looks taken aback. Almost impressed. “I don’t know—I don’t think—just tell me what the bloody hell is going on!”

The Doctor eases his grip on Bill, eventually pads away slowly, eyes locked with Missy’s. They’re having a conversation; a one that Bill can’t interpret. It’s the kind of conversation two people can only have after years of hope and loss and joy and trauma. The TARDIS creaks uneasily around them. The floor feels like it could cave in any second, swallow them all whole.

Nardole pipes up all of a sudden. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think they saw me.”

Even in the tense silence, Missy manages to emit a sarcastic laugh. “They’d have seen the shine off your head a mile off, baldy. Don’t be an idiot.”

Nardole looks mildly offended, but otherwise unperturbed. He’s used to it. “So what happens now? The TARDIS databanks…”

But the Doctor isn’t listening. Bill glances over at Missy, watches as her face hardens, her eyes glass over. Like she knows what words are going to follow next. Big, scary, unfathomable words.

His voice is barely a whisper. More a breath that cracks through his lungs. “We’re going to have to use the watch.”

-x-

Not for the first instance, Bill’s heart beats in double time as she desperately searches for Nardole through Queen’s College, her shakily typed memo curled in her palm. She knows that he likes to have a cup of tea in the dining hall with toast and the day’s papers when the Doctor is in his first lecture at nine am sharp, so she bolts down the stairs at an alarming speed, brushing past scholars who eye her warily. He’s sat at a table at the back of the room and she scrapes back the chair opposite noisily, slamming down in it.

“Bill,” he says, with a smile that quickly dissipates into a frown when he notices her expression. “I would offer you some tea, but…”

Bill leans in closer, lowers her voice. Pushes the memo across to him, which he unfolds slowly. “The Professor asked me to type this out this morning—some feud she’s having with Smith about mugs in the staff room?”

Nardole’s shoulders visibly relax and he neatly folds the memo back, tucks it into the lining of his new, period-appropriate mustard jacket. It’s hideous, but it’s the seventies, and everyone bloody dresses like that. Other than the Professor, who seems to defy every fashion stereotype of the decade, but in a way that no-one other than Bill has seemed to notice. He takes a bite of his toast and swallows it down with a mouthful of tea. “I knew about this. It was me who sent the memo on Professor Smith’s behalf.”

Bill’s mouth flaps open. She fights the urge to punch him. “You’re serious? What the hell are you doing?!”

Nardole shrugs. His eyes scan an article on some factory that’s recently closed because of poor working conditions. “I didn’t see the harm in it.”

“What—you were there when the Doctor told us! You were there when he said that if he and Missy spent any time together the universe was going to end!”

“Well, he didn’t quite say that,” Nardole flips the paper to the next page and continues to read. Bill is not remotely impressed. “All he said was that they couldn’t be close, much more than acquaintances. I don’t think a petty argument over mugs of all things constitutes this level of anxiety.”

“I think you forget that they’re human now, Nardole,” Bill hisses, “Trust me, I’ve been there. Time Lords may ignore tiny spats in favour of the bigger picture, but humans do not. When I was eighteen I had this job at Tesco’s on the checkouts and a colleague once tried to get me sacked for borrowing her biro to sign a receipt. This mug thing could be their biro thing.”

Nardole considers her point but does not respond with an appropriate level of worry for Bill to accept. He waves a hand. Returns to an article on the lack of red squirrels in the Scottish Highlands which is a more pressing issue, apparently. “I wouldn’t stress about it. If we monitor all their correspondence vis a vis mug-gate, I’m sure everything will turn out just dandy.”

Bill scoffs, massaging her forehead. “You did not just call it mug-gate.”

Nardole ignores her cynicism. “Look, Bill, there’s only six weeks left. Even if this situation did result in a… a rivalry, of sorts, or a friendship, nothing of worth can happen within six weeks. Nothing to break the spell, of sorts. From what I recall, don’t humans take quite a while to establish these things?”

She’s about to say well it depends on the person, but thinking about love and friendship makes her think about Heather, and how they’d barely known each other weeks yet still, now, she’d do anything to have her back, have her close. She can still see blonde hair sometimes, the star that burned in the centre of her eye, in the minutes she spends between consciousness and sleep. All of a sudden her throat is crammed with sawdust. She drinks some of Nardole’s tea to clear it.

“Maybe,” she murmurs. But maybe Professor Saxon and Professor Smith are the kind of humans where it takes no time at all. Maybe some history is impossible to hide under layers of perception filters and chameleon arches. Bill stands, shoves the chair back under the table. “I think I’m going to go to the TARDIS. I need—I need some time.”

“Good idea,” Nardole nods, “Just make sure they don’t see you.”

She won’t let anyone see her, if she can help it. She’s spent six weeks constantly looking over her shoulder. What’s six weeks more?

Chapter Text

Missy backs away from the Doctor slowly, shaking her head with every footstep. “No, no, you can’t make me. Not again. Not after last time. You know—you know what happened last time!”

“What choice do we have?” the Doctor says, arms waving in exasperation. “You know about The Family, Missy. You know the lengths they’ll go to for what they want.”

“Yes, but what about us?” Missy hisses. Bill blinks hard—is she crying? “I’d rather die than have to go through the chameleon arch again. And we will both die if we go through it again, so I’m not bloody doing it.”

The Doctor moves forward, grips onto Missy’s forearms. Bill can see both their limbs shaking like autumn leaves, and the prospect of their fear just makes her heartrate rocket. They’re not supposed to be scared. They’re Time Lords—they’re supposed to be strong. “It only feels like dying. We’ll be fine, like we always are. Three months. It’s only three months, not millennia, not like last time. Three months in exchange for the universe.”

Missy bites her thumb hard, her expression unwavering. “Right now, I’m willing to sacrifice the universe. What the hell has it ever done for us, anyway?”

“Not nearly enough. But it seems to do a lot of good for trillions of others, and I don’t even think you’re selfish enough to not realise the value of that.”

Missy pauses, turning her face away from the Doctor’s. She skims her hand across the exposed metal of the TARDIS console and Bill shivers, utterly lost. The front door rattles and both their eyes dart to the source, wide and afraid.

“We have to do this,” he says in a low voice saved for the darkest of days, “We can’t let them win. Please, Missy. Please do this with me.”

Missy doesn’t speak. She lets her eyes flutter shut, a breath escape her lungs. Outside, the world sounds like its ending, weaponry shattering against the TARDIS doors. With a hand covering her mouth, Missy nods, so small and reluctant Bill could’ve missed it if she hadn’t been paying attention. The Doctor touches her arm gently and rushes down the stairs into a back corridor.

Bill turns to Missy. “Where’s he going? What watch?”

Missy remains silent, eyes dark, her fingers clutching at the brooch fastened round her collar. Out of exasperation, Bill flicks a glance at Nardole—but he’s as clueless as she is, just hiding it better. He mutters something to himself and chases the Doctor’s footsteps and Bill’s left in the control room alone with Missy.

“What do you mean—it’s like dying?”

-x-

Bill tries to convince herself that Nardole is right. They’re just mugs, after all—what harm could a couple of mugs do? Even so, she makes a hell of a lot more effort to make sure the Professor stays clear of the staff room, just as a precaution. No matter what Nardole says, the anxiety eats away at her insides.

She’s never going to forget watching the both of them go through the chameleon arch. She’s not going to let all that be for nothing because she’s been complacent.

On the Thursday after mug-gate (she’s not calling it that, really, she’ll think of something better when she feels less emotionally fucked up) Bill grabs a tray of chips from the canteen and takes her usual route to the staff room. A boy with ugly seventies hair and a brown tie leers at her, and she smiles sweetly before rolling her eyes at the wall. Some things will never change.

She’s about to push on the dark rosewood door, but a loud of exchange of voices within makes her hand pause on the frame. Brows furrowed, Bill strains to listen; but her stomach plummets on a very ugly realisation.

“It’s just a mug! A bloody mug!”

“Yes, but it’s a matter of principle—it was my mug and you broke it! It’s a common bloody courtesy to at least admit and apologise…”

There’s a strained laugh, high-pitched and bitter. “I’m not apologising for anything, pal.”

“You’re really not a very nice person, are you?”

“No, I’m not, because to be a woman in this fucking place you have to be a bitch to get anyone to listen to you.” A sigh. “If you’re going to have a paddy about it, I’ll buy you a new mug. Not a nice one. A really cheap, offensive one. That alright?”

“You better, or I’m sending your secretary a bill. A really fucking nasty one with a lot of zeros in it.”

The conversation lulls into silence and Bill panics that perhaps it’s like one of those shitty movies she’s watched too many of on Netflix—the ones where plates are smashed and profanities are exchanged and then someone ends up pressing the other against a wall and snogging them passionately, but the door opens forcefully and the Doctor appears. Bill steps back, mouth hanging open, doesn’t know what to say. It’s the first time she’s seen him face-to-face for over a month. He looks exactly the same, apart from the (awful) period appropriate clothing. Of course, he is the same. It’s just under the layers of skin and bone and muscle that everything is different.

The Doctor squints and for a second, Bill thinks he might recognise her. She tries an awkward smile, clasps her hands together. Instead, he shakes his head, storms off heavily in the other direction. He’s still wearing his black, scuffed Doc Martens. Ah. Some things never change.

The moment he disappears, the reality of the situation dawns on her. Pulse hitching—her chips now disappointingly tepid—Bill pushes herself into the room, glances to where the Professor is hunched over in the corner. Surprisingly, the whole common room is empty, the brown leather seats devoid of all bodies and the coffee table littered in lunch detritus. Maybe the argument has gone on longer than Bill wants to admit. As the door creaks, the Professor turns, her face screwed into a scowl. Perhaps she was expecting someone else.

“Oh, it’s you,” Professor Saxon says, clinking a teaspoon on the rim of her mug. The little kitchen area is remarkably clean and tidy, the draining board by the sink clear. “What are you doing here?”

Bill gestures towards her soggy chips. Rummages into one with the cabinet draws and grabs a fork. “Sorry to, uh—you and Professor Smith, you were…”

“He’s an arsehole.” Saxon says bluntly. She turns, so her back is against the cabinet, mug clutched in both her hands. “Like most men. A genuine, first-grade arsehole.”

Bill snorts a laugh. “I knew that already.”

“You’ll go far.” She swallows back a mouthful of tea. “I assume you heard what the spat was about, then. I wouldn’t buy him a replacement, because it’s a mug of all things, but he might throw himself out his office window if I don’t. I’d rather not have that on my conscience.”

Bloody hell. Bill drops a chip in her mouth, chews thoughtfully, wonders if this very weak brand of compassion is just a human thing or a thing that’s been hidden in Missy all along. “I could get one, if you like. I know you’re busy this afternoon. Drop it off at his office later today.”

Professor Saxon shakes her head decidedly. “It’ll put an end to it if I do it. Besides, I need you to go down to the book menders with those first editions I picked up. It might take a while.”

The Professor offers Bill a small smile before heading on her way, and Bill watches her neck and her hair and her legs as she opens and closes the door behind her. No, no, the mug thing doesn’t mean anything. It can’t mean anything. Like the Professor said, once she buys him a new one, things will be back to normal. The hurricane will have passed.

Bill drops another chip into her mouth. God, once she gets back to the twenty-first century, she’s going to need therapy for all the stress put on her nerves. Before everything, the Doctor had mentioned he’d used the chameleon arch before—were people travelling with him then? How the hell did they cope?

-x-

Harriet barges into John’s office without knocking. Mug in one hand, she gives him an expectant look, before slamming it on the desk so vehemently the cheap white handle almost cracks off. John smiles wryly, fingers clasped in a pyramid and leaning back in his chair.

“You happy now?” Harriet snarls, dark eyebrows sharp and angry. Her eyes ripple blue like the ocean in a thunderstorm. “Honestly, you’d have thought I’d killed your mum, the way you went on about it.”

John shrugs. He picks up the mug and expects it, skimming his fingernails across the china. “My mum’s already dead, so I’d be more impressed if you’d managed to do that again.”

Harriet blinks, expression altering. “Mine too.”

“How delightfully morbid,” John declares. He props the mug on the window sill behind him, near a dying succulent plant and a blackboard eraser. “And it’ll do.”

Harriet’s jaw hardens. “It better. I’m not buying you another.”

“A mug amnesty, then,” John suggests, “Next time you carelessly knock one off the draining board, admit it. Then I’ll forgive you. Rather than getting your secretary to type a very polite memo back to me.”

Harriet sighs angrily, jabbing a finger in his direction. “I’m not having another man trying to one-up me. Fuck it.”

“I’m joking,” John says, with a low laugh. Harriet folds her arms stroppily and he looks at her strangely, like he’s trying to suss her out. “Odd question—but before Cambridge, had we met before?”

A scornful laugh escapes Harriet’s throat but on the mention of it, her face freezes. “Erm—don’t think so.”

“You might just have one of those faces.” John narrows his eyes. “Are you from Glasgow?”

Harriet nods, scratches her cheek. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” John agrees, “Must just be that then.”

Harriet hums, although she’s not convinced. It’s highly likely that they may have bumped into each other in Glasgow, it’s not that big, but the memories of school and university are odd and meticulous, like she’s looking at them on video, through someone else’s eyes. It’s a weird sensation that makes her shiver, makes her want to get away from here. “Yeah. Must be.”

They let the sentiment hover in the air a second, before John gestures towards the door. “Well, thanks for the mug, Professor Saxon. Maybe I’ll see you around the college.”

Harriet scoffs. “Yeah, whatever. You’ll be so lucky.”

Chapter Text

Something is different. It’s difficult for Bill to pinpoint what exactly is different, but she can feel it in her bones, an unsettling feeling that sits right in the pit of her stomach. It’s more than just the general underlying feeling of anxiety she’s suffered through for weeks—it’s a genuine shift in the atmosphere, like feeling rain before a storm or the temperature dropping two degrees. She’s never been the superstitious type, but the only word that can come to mind right now is omen.

She shudders, despite the weather outside being pleasantly warm. March is finally turning into April, the patches of garden surrounding the college bursting with gold and violet crocuses, daffodil buds bursting through the gaps. Students tread across the cobbled pathways with books balanced in their arms and Bill can see, a long way across the courtyard, the Doctor with Nardole hobbling behind. She watches as they disappear underneath an archway with a sigh, slumping heavily on a dew-dampened bench. Rummages around her backpack for a packet of crisps. She pops one in her mouth, crunching loudly, barely noticing when someone drops on the bench beside her.

“Can I have one?”

Bill looks to the side, startled, but the sight isn’t so disappointing. A young woman—a student, probably, who she’s seen a few times around the college—grins back at her, chestnut-brown hair cut into a bob and the biggest hazel eyes she’s ever seen sitting perfectly in her freckled complexion.

She’s beautiful. Like Heather was, the first moment they locked eyes, a million years ago. Bill finds herself smiling back. Wordlessly offers the packet over to her. The woman elegantly pokes her fingers in the bag, dropping one on her tongue.

“You work for Professor Saxon, don’t you?” The woman asks, wiping her salty fingers on her skirt. She’s wearing shiny maroon loafers, the toes wet with the dew from the grass. When Bill nods, she elaborates. “I’m a student in her early modern tutorial. Charlotte.”

Bill looks at her again, the silver chain around her neck and the slight curve of her nose, the dimples in both her cheeks. She does look like a Charlotte, somehow. “I’m Bill.”

Charlotte smirks a little, taking another crisp. Bill doesn’t mind. “That’s an unusual name for a girl.”

“Tell me about it,” Bill says, “I guess my mum thought it would be quirky.”

Charlotte shrugs and Bill is grateful she doesn’t inquire further. She’s really not in the mood for deep discussions about her turbulent childhood, even if it is with an extremely gorgeous woman. “What’s it like working for the Professor, then? She’s amazing, isn’t she.”

The way Charlotte doesn’t frame it as a question makes Bill want to laugh but believe it or not, she’s not made many friends here, and she’s not giving up the opportunity to talk to someone who isn’t a Time Lady in disguise or a very bald very egg-like robot. She wonders if Charlotte would find Professor Saxon just as amazing if she found out her murderous alter-ego blew up planets for fun. Maybe not. “Uh—yeah, I suppose?”

“Honestly, the way she talks about The Wars of the Roses—it’s like she was stood on the frontline herself,” Charlotte says, looking at her knees. “She describes the battlefield in such detail. The horror and the squalor of it all… it’s breathtaking. I’ve never had a lecturer like her.”

Actually, she probably was there, at some point. “I don’t really see any of that. I’m… well, I just do her fetching and carrying, basically.”

Charlotte looks up at the sky, eyes squinting at the sun. The rain, thankfully, has passed. “Do you overlook her essay titles? Maybe you could get back to me on that. Give me some pointers.”

Bill’s about to thoroughly dispute the accusation—not that it matters, none of this is real, not properly real—but Charlotte’s laughing, her lips curved, tongue poking out between her teeth. She’s glorious, and unobtainable for obvious reasons, but Bill finds herself laughing and falling a little bit in love with her anyway. “She never lets me anywhere near them. Hard luck.”

“Oh, damn,” Charlotte mock curses, clenching her fist. “Never mind. Maybe we could talk about other stuff, though. I’d like that.”

“Yeah,” Bill smiles. It couldn’t hurt, could it? She’s been doing her best to not integrate and keep separate, mostly so she can keep an eye on Missy, because that’s her top priority. But it’s been so lonely. Six weeks is a long time when you have no-one to talk to. One friend can’t hurt. One friend won’t change anything. “Yeah, I’d like that too.”

“Good,” Charlotte says. She picks up the handbag she dropped at her feet, grabs the stack of history books by her side. “I’ve got a lecture—architecture of the middle ages, such a bore—but perhaps I’ll catch you later? The college bar has a quiz on a Friday.”

A quiz may not be such a good idea, considering her knowledge on events beyond the seventies, but Bill would literally do anything to see Charlotte again. She smiles, nods. “That sounds good. I haven’t got anything on.”

Charlotte smiles back, clutching her books to her chest. “Alright. See you later, then. Bill.”

Bill watches in awe as Charlotte walks away down the cobbled path, her head flicking back to glance at her just once before she disappears from view. Maybe, just maybe, the next six weeks aren’t going to be so shitty after all.

-x-

The Vault is cold and goosebumps run up Missy’s arms, her body shivering. The Doctor tuts, crossing the stone floor and starting up the small portable heater—a gift that wasn’t really a gift, more a necessity.

“Use it if you’re cold,” he scolds, like she’s a child who can’t look after herself. Missy sticks out her tongue at the back of his head. “It’s what it’s here for, Missy.”

Missy walks over to him. The heels of her boots click loudly, echoing round the high-ceilinged room. Her hands grip round his shoulders, surprisingly sturdy despite how bony he is, how skeletal. She presses her face into his back, enjoys the way his jumper feels against her skin. He’s warm. He’s always warm.

“I know what you want,” he murmurs softly, prying her palms away. “And no, I’m not…”

He turns to face her. Her distinctive azure eyes blink in an attempt to feign innocence, her bare lips pursed. His own eyes soften. He reaches out, brushing a stray dark hair from her face, tucks it behind her ear. Let’s his hand linger round her neck.

“Missy,” he breathes, “Missy, this isn’t…”

She leans up on her toes and grabs his lips with her own in a surprisingly gentle kiss, hands curving round his neck. He tastes like Gallifrey in the days before the War, like autumn and rain and sweet oranges, bittersweet and beautiful. His hands fumble round her chest, nimble fingers undoing the buttons on her blouse—

Harriet wakes with a start, her heart beating ten to the dozen. Dawn light leaks out from underneath her curtains. The clock on her bedside table reads 5:58am. She covers her face with her hands, tosses her curls back, shudders an understandably disturbed sigh.

This is not the first time she’s had an odd dream featuring a certain physics professor, but it’s certainly the first hot one she’s had. Her lungs feel weird—so does her mind, because the dreams have an echo of familiarity about them that is impossible for her to explain. Of course, every dream feels real whilst you’re in it. But they’re so oddly specific and consistent; she’s the same character every single night, this wild whirlwind of two-hearted chaos, the urge to destroy thudding through her like adrenaline. She’s the Mistress, an exile, a renegade.

And the Professor—well, he’s the same as her, but kinder, somehow.

It’s really bloody creepy.

Harriet kicks the bedsheets back and props her feet on the carpeted floor. Reaches out and grabs her cigarettes. She’s sure as hell not going to ever tell anyone this, especially not Professor John Smith.

-x-

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Bill is sick of Missy dismissing her just because she’s human, because she’s not as experienced when it comes to this world of Time Lords and their associated problems as she is. She slams her fist on the TARDIS control panel harshly, Missy barely flinching. “Believe me when I told you I wasn’t an idiot. Make me understand what’s happening.”

Missy squeezes the bridge of her nose. Sighs reluctantly, turns to face Bill. “I’ll explain if you promise to keep up and not ask any questions. Alright?”

Bill nods, hands clasped together. “Yes, yes. Okay. Yes.”

Missy points to the TARDIS doors. “Out there is branch of The Family. They’re basically a pack of gluttonous, greedy space pigs desperate for immortality and they’ll do anything to achieve that. The way they see it, the Doctor and I—well, we’re a lovely slice of immortality pie, their key to ruling and destroying the cosmos forever. An attitude that, admittedly, I’d often celebrate—but not when I’m the one who dies rather than wins, that’s not fun at all.”

Bill opens her mouth, but Missy quickly silences her. “I said no questions! The dying bit—in order to stop the Family from stealing our souls, the Doctor and I have to go into deep cover. Very deep cover. We go under this thing called the Chameleon Arch, very complex piece of technology, but it essentially rewrites biology to your desired DNA code. We have to turn,” Missy pulls a face, “Human, and hide away in some backward period for a bit, until the Family dies out. Our Time Lord consciences are stored in a watch and are opened when the time is right.”

Missy trails off, face hard and shut off. It’s a lot for Bill to take in, but she knows one thing for certain. “Rewrites your biology…”

“Every single cell in our bodies is violently mutated right in front of our very eyes,” Missy says breezily, “And, oh, yes, it’s agonising. Like being dragged to hell and back again. Then shoved through a blender. Then maybe being sifted through an industrial incinerator, just to make sure you’ve suffered enough. And, finally, you wake up a completely different person. Probably a moron. It’s really one of the worst things ever, and I’ve seen the seventy-sixth Fast and Furious film.”

“You’re turning…” Bill’s brows furrow, finger pointing in Missy’s direction, “Human?”

Missy prods her fingers in her throat, pretends to retch. “Disgusting, isn’t it? I’ve done it before. I’d really rather not do it again. It hardly ever ends well. But I’d also rather not die. I’ve still not learnt to crochet or had a proper French manicure, or tried out my new sonic blaster on those pesky Judoon portable prisons. It’s a… sacrifice, I don’t have much choice in.”

“And the Doctor? He’s done it before too?”

“Yes,” Missy says, her voice strange, “And it did not end well for him, either.”

Chapter Text

Harriet feels John at her shoulder before she sees him. She throws an annoyed glance at the notice board and tries not to think about shagging him. Usually, not so difficult a feat, but the past two nights her dreams have only got more heated—there was one with a grand piano that she isn’t going to be forgetting in a hurry, waking up sopping wet. It’s just… so embarrassing.

“Good morning,” he says, pointedly grabbing a mug from the cupboard above the sink. “Break anything today?”

“Not yet,” Harriet smiles sweetly, not taking her eyes off the noticeboard. There’s a cello for sale and calligraphy lessons on offer, and a reminder about the upcoming college formal dinner. “But there’s still plenty of opportunity for your nose, Professor Smith.”

John snorts a laugh, dropping a teabag into his mug. The kettle whistles noisily. “Funny. I wonder if we’ll ever have a conversation without you threatening to hurt me.”

Harriet shrugs. Tries very hard to repress visions of him naked, grey hair tousled and crazy, his lips pressed to her neck. For fuck’s sake. “Don’t count on it.”

John pours water into his mug, twirls the bag round with a teaspoon. Adds a dash of milk and two sugars. He crosses behind her on his way to dropping the used bag in the bin, his eyes glazing over the same notices she was reading just moments earlier.

“Formal dinner,” he says, clicking his tongue, “It’ll be my first. Since I started here.”

“Mine too.”

“Oh, so you’re going?” John raises one of his ridiculous eyebrows, “Didn’t really think it would be your thing.”

She bypasses the whole how would you know what my thing is debate, mentally notes to bring it up for a time when she doesn’t have a lecture to start in less than ten minutes. “As far as I’m aware, it’s compulsory for all staff.”

“Just because its compulsory doesn’t mean you have to go.”

“I know that,” she snaps back irritably. She dares to look up at him and fuck, he’s so startlingly similar to the figure that haunts her dreams, its borderline scary. The hair is a little shorter and the clothes different but other than that, her psyche has conjured him up so clearly, despite having rarely come in to contact with him.

Maybe she needs a shag, she wonders. Her love life has been rather lacklustre recently. Maybe shagging someone would put all these pent-up creepy fantasies to a definite end. After all, she’s hardly unattractive—it shouldn’t be that difficult to convince someone to go to bed with her.

John narrows his eyes. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

Harriet quickly breaks eye contact and looks back at the noticeboard. Grabs the bag she keeps her folders and slides in and shrugs it over her shoulder. “I’ve got a lecture to be in.”

John nods, sips his tea. He flicks his wrist towards the door. “Fine. Also—you don’t have to call me Professor Smith. We’re colleagues. It’s John.”

She knows that already but agrees nonchalantly anyway. “Harriet.”

“Harriet,” he repeats, like he’s trying out the name in his mouth. “Harriet.”

She nods just once, smirking a little, as she turns and leaves. She hears him throw the teaspoon in the sink. Wonders how hard it would be to convince John to sleep with her—her subconscious is fucked up enough as it is, she might as well try with what it’s already throwing at her. Even if he’s irritating as hell.

-x-

Bill has felt more chipper than she has in weeks. So annoyingly chipper, in fact, that Professor Saxon picks up on it when she throws a pile of clothing she needs dry-cleaning on her. Professor Saxon never picks up on Bill’s emotional state, unless it’s directly affecting her work and her schedule. She squints, looks vaguely annoyed, mutters something about needing the dress for a formal dinner and disappears off into a cupboard. Bill doesn’t even roll her eyes. She grins happily and leaves the office immediately, promising to take the dry cleaning to the shop up the road despite her workday technically coming to an end.

When she reaches the courtyard Charlotte is waiting, dressed in a floral-patterned skirt and roll neck jumper, shiny maroon loafers catching the late afternoon sunlight. Bill skips to catch up with her, the two exchanging a grin.

“Nice dress,” Charlotte comments, gesturing to the swathe of floaty indigo fabric in Bill’s grip, kept safe in a thin polythene slip. Bill takes a look. She’s sure she vaguely recognises it from the TARDIS wardrobe. “What’s it for?”

“It’s not mine,” Bill says, “I’m just dropping it off in town for Professor Saxon. She mentioned something about a formal dinner?”

Charlotte nods knowingly, hooping her arm through Bill’s. They walk through the archway and out into the street, mostly quiet other than cyclists, boats rowing down the river. The air smells fresh, reassuringly Spring-like. It reminds Bill she’s not a million miles away from home—just about forty-or-so years out of her depth. “It’s the college dinner. We have them every so often. We all have to wear gowns.”

Bill pulls a face, making Charlotte giggle. “Ooh. How very Harry Potter.”

“Harry what now?”

“Oh, uh…” Bill panics for a moment, forgetting where she is. She’s tried her hardest not to do this but sometimes it just kind of… slips out. It’s hard to remember a time where Hogwarts doesn’t exist, not yet. “It’s just a book I read. Once. Maybe. Or maybe I just made it up?”

Charlotte laughs in confusion, shaking her head. They stop at a road, looking both ways before crossing. The shops sit not so far away. “You say some weird stuff, Bill.”

“That’s me,” Bill says uneasily, “A bit weird.”

“I like it,” Charlotte reassures, “Will you come to the formal dinner?”

They pass a small grocers, a chemist and a clothes shop where Bill stocks up on as much period-appropriate clothing that isn’t completely hideous as possible. The butchers adjacent she’s stayed away from since a man told her he wouldn’t serve her, and she remembers how casually fucking racist this time period is. Well, it’s probably still better than the TARDIS dropping them in the Victorian period, but it’s not ideal.

“I don’t think I’m invited,” Bill says, glancing at a pair of boots in the shop window. “I’m not technically part of the college.”

Charlotte pouts. Pulls her eyes away from the boots. “Nonsense. I’ll save you a seat. You work there, so you should be able to eat there too. I’ve got a dress that would really suit you.”

Bill is overwhelmed at her new friend’s kindness. She finds herself smiling, agreeing, because she’s always found it difficult to say no to girls like Charlotte. “Um… Okay?”

“Great!” Charlotte skips down the path, pulling Bill along. She pauses in front of the Sunny Days dry cleaners, throws her arm towards the bright yellow front door. “I’ll wait here for you until you come out.”

“You don’t have to do that—“

“Bill!” Charlotte blinks, affronted, “I promised on Saturday that I’d take you for hot chocolate! What perfect time than now?”

They’d both got pretty drunk on Saturday night, drinking bottles of cider in Charlotte’s dorm room whilst her roommate and the rest of the people on her floor disappeared off into the night. They played poker until 3am and the moonlight bleached through Charlotte’s cheap curtains, and Bill had considered kissing her, because Charlotte is beautiful and kind and wonderful and unlike anyone she’s ever met (other than Heather). But even with her head fuzzy from alcohol she knows it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Not just because of Heather, or the fact she’s trapped in a time zone she doesn’t belong in, or even the potential trauma that could fall out of it if she’s completely misread the situation. It just… wouldn’t—couldn’t—end well.

She got burnt enough when she lost Heather, all those days they could have had snatched away before she even had a proper grasp on them. It would hurt too much to suffer through that a second time.

But even after all that, she’s not ready to push her away completely. Friendship is safe. Friendship is hot chocolate and sharing dresses and linking arms in the street. Friendship is good.

Bill grins, pushing the door open. A little bell rings and announces her presence. “Okay then.”

She wanders over to the till, draping the Professor’s dress over it. A portly woman with blonde hair scraped back into a bun takes it with a smile and disappears off into the back. Bill drums her fingers against the plastic countertop. Lightning flashes briefly outside, despite the sky being clear, the clouds white and the sun shining.

The door behind opens loudly and Bill turns, catching eyes with a breathless Charlotte.

“Did you see that?” Charlotte gasps, roughly pointing towards the sky, “It was like—a meteor, or something.”

Bill looks out the window. The sky is still blue. People still cycle past. Surely she would have heard a meteor crashing? “Um, I thought it was lightning?”

“It wasn’t lightning. Look, Bill, it’s not even raining.” Charlotte glances down the street. “It was completely green… I think it might have landed in the old school fields. I’m just…”

Charlotte trails off, already pacing down the street. Bill panics, dithering between the step of the shop and the pavement outside. “Charlotte! I need to pay, please just… Just wait!”

“I’ll see you back here!” Charlotte yells back. Bill sighs, annoyed with herself. What is it with her and girls who run away from her the minute they seem to be getting anywhere?

-x-

Bill’s not sure what she was expecting to happen when they actually went under the chameleon arch. She sure as hell didn’t expect it to look nice, but nothing at all prepares her for the shrieks of terror that echo round the TARDIS control room. The Doctor’s face contorts with agony, long fingers gripping at the metal contraption round his head. Missy screams, and it shudders right through her like volts of electricity, threatening to burn her out.

Bill wants to reach out, provide some comfort to the Doctor’s spasming limbs. But Nardole pulls her firmly back.

“You need to let them do this,” he says, over the top of the yelling. “You know what he said. You are not supposed to disrupt the process.”

“I know, but…” Missy’s hair has fallen out of its usual bun, trailing down her neck and shoulders. She blinks hard. “We can’t just…”

“We can, and we must,” Nardole states seriously, “Otherwise the outcome could be a lot more disastrous.”

She’s left with no other choice but to blindly trust them that everything is going to be okay.

Chapter Text

Bill waits outside the coffee shop for an hour before she starts getting concerned. It doesn’t take much self-persuasion to abandon her post and follow Charlotte’s footsteps—she’s so hyperaware of everything that could go wrong in this place that it isn’t worth not looking into. Green lightning at the end of a clear afternoon? That can’t be a natural phenomenon. And, if it was nothing; well, Bill hasn’t known Charlotte very long at all, but she doesn’t think she’s the type to stand a girl up.

It takes about ten minutes at a brisk pace for Bill to reach the old school fields, the grass long and overgrown, intertwined with clumps of wild flowers and bright red poppies. Her boots squelch in the mud as she strides across, searching everywhere for a glimpse of brunette bob and floral print skirt. Shielding her eyes from the setting sun, all she can see is a group of young children sword-fighting with broken tree branches and an old man walking a border collie.

“Hey!” Bill calls out, trying to dodge pools of mud, “Hey—sorry, but have you seen a girl around here? She’s maybe about five foot five-ish, brown hair,” Bill mimes where Charlotte’s hair brushes her shoulders, “Very pretty?”

The man considers, but his wrinkled face curves into a frown. The border collie jostles restlessly at his feet. “No, sorry, love. Been here an hour and not seen anyone like that.”

Bill sighs, smiles gratefully. Shoves her hands in her pockets. “Alright. Thanks, anyway.”

She watches as the man tips his head and carries on in the direction of the town, his dog running excitedly ahead. Oh, this is just—she’s got a very bad feeling about this, and she wishes that the seventies were more like the twenty tens, because then at least she could text Charlotte and keep her read receipts on.

Maybe she’s just gone home. Got here, saw nothing, forgot about the hot chocolate. Bill bites at her thumbnail. It’s possible, all possible, but she’s not going to feel okay until she’s seen Charlotte in person. She takes one last glance at the field. The children have gone, now, and it’s unnervingly quiet. There’s not even any birds.

With a shiver, Bill slowly turns away, heading back down the path.

-x-

The moment Harriet walks in to the Queen’s staff common room everything seems to pause.

It’s not without good reason. If the reflection she saw in the mirror is anything to go by, she knows she looks good. The purple gown hugs her figure tightly, the skin of her back exposed, the material skimming the floor as she walks. She’s knotted her hair up but a few stray curls hang loose down her neck, round her collarbone. She’s not going to waste an opportunity to shut up the men who refuse to listen to her on a daily basis. She flashes a gritted smile at Henrich, the college master, who can’t seem to remove his jaw from the floor.

Harriet walks over to a small refreshment table set up along the back wall, arm automatically reaching out for an opened bottle of wine, but a hand gently wraps round her wrist.

“Let me,” murmurs a gruff Scottish voice. Normally, she’d tut irritably, insisting that she can do it herself—but she throws one hand up in mock surrender. John smiles, grabbing a glass. Some of the burgundy liquid sloshes over the side so he removes a handkerchief from his suit-jacket pocket, dabs at his hand.

“Thank you,” Harriet says, taking a generous slurp. The wine is lukewarm but tolerable. “So, which of these tedious artefacts must we make small talk with this evening?”

John snorts a laugh. He doesn’t look too bad this evening, either, with a smart suit and shirt and tie. He looks a damn sight more presentable than he does most days in lectures. “Most of them, probably.”

“Jesus Christ,” Harriet seethes under her breath. She watches as an old man who she can’t remember the name of laughs heartily at a joke another old man has made, probably about something deeply prejudicial. She sometimes wonders how she even managed to get this job, considering how many people seem to think she’s incapable on a near daily basis. “You better take the cutlery away from me. The urge to end it all may get too much.”

“Oh,” John says, “Makes a change from you wanting to end me.”

Harriet smirks up at him. He really does look alright, tonight. Not as much of an insufferable bastard as usual. “I don’t think I’d waste my energy on you today. I’d rather use it trying to stab Henrich with a butter knife.”

John raises his glass, clinks it gently against hers. “I’ll drink to that.”

“Me too,” Harriet says, and moves a little closer to John’s side.

-x-

“Nardole! Oh, thank God!”

Bill pushes her way into John’s office the minute Nardole opens the door, leaving the bald robot standing confused in the frame. She pauses to look around for a second, taking in the high walls and latticed windows and the huge, gold-framed model of the solar system sat plonk in the middle of it, completely out of place but totally right. Her eyes hover over reams of notebook paper littered across the desk in John’s messy, looped script—is that poetry?

Nardole coughs, knocking Bill out of her observations. “Bill, you really shouldn’t be here, so unless it’s something important…?”

“Yes!” Bill abandons the papers, pointing at Nardole with both her arms, “Something weird has happened. Like, really weird.”

Nardole steps into the room and closes the door behind him. He folds his arms with a curious look, eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “Go on.”

Bill throws herself down into a leather armchair in the corner of the office. “Okay. So. I met this girl, right—“

“Bill, if you’re looking for dating advice, I am really not the best person to ask. And do you think you should really be thinking about girls when—“

“Oh, shut up,” Bill scoffs, rolling her eyes. Nardole shrugs his shoulders. “It’s not like that. And I don’t appreciate you getting all judgemental dad on me, by the way. If you hadn’t noticed, we’re living in a nightmare here, and if a pretty girl smiles at me I’m going to bloody well smile back.”

Nardole stares, slightly taken aback. He shuffles over to the wall and switches on the electric kettle, already full of water. Plops a teabag into two clean mugs. “I’m… sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was in town, dropping off a dress for Saxon a few days ago, and me and this girl were together,” Bill continues, glad Nardole is finally taking her seriously, “And we—I don’t know, there was this weird lightning.”

Nardole freezes. The kettle squeals noisily in the background. “Lightning?”

“Yeah. Like this green lightning. I didn’t think much of it, but this girl—Charlotte, she’s called, Charlotte—she said she saw something coming down in the school fields and ran after it. I was going to go with her, but I had to pay for the dress, and…” Bill trails off, “She said she’d come back for me. But I waited, and she didn’t come back, so I went to look for her. There was nothing there, Nardole. Nothing had come down in the field. And no-one had seen Charlotte, either.”

Nardole frowns. “How long ago was this?”

“Monday,” Bill says. Nardole hands her a mug and Bill takes a sip, pretending it doesn’t taste like pondwater. “I mean—I was worried at the time, but now… It’s been four days and I’ve not seen her. I talked to her roommate yesterday and she hadn’t seen her either, but she said she thought she’d gone home. But I…” Bill runs a hand over her face then leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I didn’t know Charlotte well, Nardole, but I don’t think she’d just disappear without mentioning it. We’d made plans. Why bother making plans if you knew you were going to be somewhere else?”

Nardole sips his own tea, looking down at it distastefully, before dropping three heaped teaspoons of sugar into the liquid and stirring vigorously. “And this all happened after this lightning?”

Bill thinks about it for a moment. “I suppose so, yeah. Do you think they’re connected? Is this something… alien? Because if it is,” Bill swallows loudly, “It’s not safe. What if we’ve been compromised? What if…”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Nardole assures, not entirely convincingly, “No need to get worried until we learn some facts. Like you said, you don’t know this Charlotte well. It may just be that she has gone home for the week.”

Bill grimaces. “I—I don’t know, Nardole. I really don’t. If the Doc—“

“I’ve not noticed anything strange about him,” says Nardole, “What about Missy?”

“No, nothing.” Bill suddenly pauses, slapping herself on the forehead. “Ah, shit! I should be keeping an eye on that formal dinner tonight! Aren’t they both going to be there?”

“Yes, but I was under the impression they still weren’t fond of each other. I think we’ll be fine in that respect. It’s this lightning that I’m more concerned about.” Nardole rests his mug on the window sill. “I think we should go down to those school fields, just in case. It may be nothing but I do not want to risk not checking it out.”

Maybe another pair of eyes would help the situation. For once, Bill agrees with him. “We should go now before it gets pitch black. Come on. I know the way.”

Chapter Text

It’s probably the three glasses of wine she’s managed to knock back in a relatively short space of time, but Harriet is seeing a side to John that she’s never noticed before. She’d assumed he was like the rest of them—blithe, arrogant, a raging superiority complex—but he leans down, whispering bitter comments in her ear about every single member of Queen’s pompous staff faculty, and it’s like she’s found the person she’s been searching for her whole damn life.

“Simons, that’s the biology professor,” John nods vaguely in the direction of a man wearing a brown suit, long dark hair brushing his shoulders. “He has a pair of shoes just for lecturing in.”

“What?” Harriet looks him up and down, not caring that he’s noticed. He flushes, turning to talk to someone else. “Really?”

“Yep,” John pops the ‘p’, “He’s certain they’ve got some sort of mystical powers, which is frankly ridiculous. The man is tragically awful at lecturing regardless of his footwear.”

“That I can believe,” Harriet says. She brings her glass to her lips, lets the liquid warm her throat. Her limbs feel lighter. She turns to John, gently nudging him with her side. “Look—do you not want to go this meal as much as I don’t want to go to this meal?”

John smirks. Rests his glass gently on the refreshment table. “I really don’t want to go to this meal.”

“It’s just a meal. I mean, we probably won’t miss anything important, unless Henrich decides to tell us all that amazing anecdote about his wife and the herd of miniature goats again.”

“Exactly. And the food here isn’t that great either, so it’s not as if we’re missing out on a five-star banquet or anything.”

“I heard it was roast lamb,” Harriet says seriously, “And I’m not a fan of lamb at all.”

“Me neither,” John agrees. He picks up Harriet’s wine glass from her grip and places it next to his on the table, one eyebrow raised. She runs her tongue over her teeth. “Your place or mine?”

-x-

The late evening air is bitter and cold and Bill hugs her arms in an attempt to stay warm. Nardole shuffles along beside her in a huge orange parka and red beanie, clearly already perfectly cosy. She’d not had the chance to grab her jacket beforehand. Finding Charlotte took precedence over everything.

The school fields are completely deserted when they finally arrive. Small, white pinpricks of light break out in the dark blue sky ahead—a flickering streetlamp provides a limited glow, but not enough to be any proper help. Nardole fumbles around in his pockets and brings out a torch, casting a long, bright beam across the dark grass spanning the horizon.

“How did you manage to fit that in there?” Bill asks, puzzled, “That coat is, like, tiny.”

Nardole scowls, clearly not appreciating the backhanded dig at his squat stature. “The Doctor… engineered it for me. Now, task at hand, please.”

Bill raises a hand in apology. She follows Nardole into the grass, the toes of her trainers stained with dew. “Do you have any idea what we’re supposed to be looking for?”

“We don’t even know if there’s anything to be found yet.”

“Yes, I know,” Bill replies, exasperated already, “But, if it’s the Family…”

Nardole sighs heavily. He passes the torch over to Bill before rummaging round his pockets, unveiling a small piece of tech that looks a bit like a tablet. Bill gasps in astonishment.

“Hey!” she says, pointing vigorously in Nardole’s direction, “That’s—that’s advanced technology! We were told, under no circumstances, to carry anything that could give away we were from the future!”

“Not that advanced,” Nardole mutters bitterly. He pushes a small sim card into the slim device, ignoring Bill’s uproar. “It’s only your standard fifty-first century data reader, after all. And I was only keeping it for emergencies. I’d downloaded information the TARDIS had on—oh.”

Bill narrows her eyes. Folds her arms. “Okay, so that didn’t sound completely reassuring.”

Nardole smiles sheepishly. He shuts off the data reader, stuffing it back into his pockets. “Well, I thought I’d downloaded all the information the TARDIS had on The Family, but it turns out, I might have just…” he scratches the back of his bald head, “Spilt tea on the memory card.”

“Unbelievable!” Bill throws her arms down at her sides. “So we literally—we have no information on them whatsoever. Nothing on their weapons, spaceships, weird little outer-space mannerisms. They could invade us and we’d literally not have a clue.”

“Unless it’s in that ridiculous little video tape the Doctor gave us, then yes, I suppose so.” Nardole seems far more relaxed about the whole situation than really, Bill thinks he ought to be—he was there, stood in the TARDIS control room, as the two people they’d assumed were invincible transformed into strangers before their eyes. Why isn’t he taking it seriously? He snatches the torch back, continues to scan the grass in front of them. “Let’s keep looking. Something might present itself.”

Like what, for instance? She’s been trying her hardest to take all of this seriously. She’s well aware of how nuclear the fallout could be if this all goes wrong and more importantly, well… She wants the Doctor to be proud of her when all this is over. He’s put so much trust in her. Trust she hopes he’ll never think he’s misplaced. It’s just difficult when everything seems to be some huge fucking sci-fi mystery novel, and everyday she’s faced with another cliff-hanger that needs to be dealt with. She can’t just skip to the series finale and hope everything has been resolved in the end, characters holding hands and bounding off into a hazy orange sunset.

(Or, Bill thinks worryingly, all the characters being tremendously dead.)

Bill walks beside Nardole in silence for a good few minutes, every so often leaning down to rummage in the dirt, mostly finding that the torchlight has reflected off a crushed coke can or an empty crisp packet. Just as Bill feels every inch of resolve or hope desperately fleeing her body, her eyes catch an odd silhouette a few feet in front.

“What…” she says into the dark, grabbing Nardole’s torch back off him. She ignores his irritable pleas and strides out across the mud, her lungs starting to burn, and—

“Charlotte!”

Bill desperately falls to her knees, ignoring the ice-cold mud seeping through her jeans. Charlotte is completely limp, freezing cold, Bill’s hands shaking so hard she can barely keep steady enough to check if she’s still got a pulse. The torchlight emphasises Charlotte’s pretty features, white contouring her cheekbones, eyelids closed shut. Her lips are slightly parted. A cut Bill had never noticed before splits her bottom one straight down the middle.

“Charlotte, Charlotte,” Bill repeats, over and over, until her voice is barely a whisper. “Charlotte, can you hear me?”

Nardole appears at her side. For once, he actually looks concerned. He gently moves Bill’s hands away from Charlotte’s wrist, takes her pulse himself. “She’s still breathing.”

“I—I don’t understand,” Bill shakes her head, wipes a hot tear from her cheek, “It’s been almost five days since I last saw her—she can’t have been here five days, surely? Someone must have noticed her!”

“We need to take her somewhere warm,” Nardole says, in an attempt to be comforting, “Otherwise she’ll get hypothermia. The Doctor’s house has a spare room. She can stay there until she wakes up.”

“Won’t the Doctor have a thing or two to say about that?”

“He’s angrier as a human, yes, but not heartless,” Nardole assures. Somehow, he manages to lift Charlotte’s form over his shoulder with just a small groan from the weight. “What? I’m stronger than I look.”

Bill presses a hand to her forehead. She’s too all over the place. “Shouldn’t we just take her to a hospital?”

“Bill, if we think this might be down to alien intervention, do you really think it would be wise to take her to a hospital, on Earth, in the seventies?”

Well, he’s got a point. Bill shrugs her shoulders uneasily. “Okay, fine, whatever—let’s just get her out of the cold, yeah? She could have been out here for hours and I don’t… I don’t think I can…” she sighs heavily, giving up. “I really don’t think I can watch any more people die.”

Nardole smiles softly back at her. Yes, she thinks he may just understand that.

-x-

He kisses her before she’s even had chance to close the front door.

Harriet grins, kicking the door shut with her heels, pressing him against the wall with the lapels of his suit jacket. The lock clicks. She can feel his lips across her neck, trailing down to her collarbone—it’s a nigh on spiritual experience, her heart racing and her breathing hitched. Oh, fucking hell—

He grabs her hips and she squeals, wrapping her legs round his waist. He spins, slamming her back straight into the juddering metal radiator in the hall. It’s all good, wouldn’t usually be a problem, especially as she feels his hand reaching up her leg, tugging at the hem of her stockings.

“John,” she says, between breaths, “John!” She grabs his chin in her hands, forces him to look at her. Fortunately, he has the decency to look disappointed at the interlude. She smiles, kisses the tip of his nose. “John, this is lovely, but I’m not shagging you on my radiator.”

“Oh,” John looks behind her. He’d not noticed the radiator. “Fair enough.”

Instead, he lifts her into his arms, Harriet laughing like a maniac and tossing one of her shoes off. It hits the plasterwork, leaving a distinct heel-shaped dint in the ugly floral wallpaper. He clumsily strides up the stairs until they reach Harriet’s bedroom door, flinging her unceremoniously onto the double bed. All the wind escapes her lungs; she doesn’t have time to think about it. He’s already kissing her again.

“Fuck,” she breathes, rapidly unbuttoning John’s shirt. He’s wearing the tie round his head like a bandana, too lazy to undo the knot. In one, swift motion, he untwists her hair from its up-do, throws the pins onto the carpet. For a moment, he blinks, dumbfounded. “What is it?”

“I’ve never seen you with your hair down before,” he says, reaching out, teasing it through his fingers. It’s unbelievably thick, beautiful, unlike any other hair he’s seen. They pause—it’s like he’s seeing her for the first time, now, the cheekbones and jawline ridiculously sharp, the eyes that could make hell freeze over. “You’re fucking beautiful.”

She grins. Grabs his chin in her hands, kissing him roughly on the mouth. “Better than roast lamb?”

“Not even a worthy comparison,” he says. He helps her pull her dress over her head. Presses a kiss between her breasts. Her hands dance across his naked torso and she trails her fingers downwards, downwards, until she’s just centimetres away from the hem of his underwear.

Her bra ends up hanging off the curtain rail.

Chapter Text

Nardole and the Doctor share this huge, converted Georgian townhouse in one of Cambridge’s quaint little streets, the front garden framed by an overgrown apple tree and neat bushes of daffodils, golden yellow in the warm glow of the streetlamps. Nardole urges Bill to open the wrought-iron gate separating the front path from the pavement.

“Wow,” Bill looks up, admiring the black and white hatching on the front of the house. A hanging basket looms emptily over the front door, casting eerie shadows across the windows. “You can totally see who the TARDIS likes better. Our house is a hovel compared to this.”

Nardole shifts Charlotte on his shoulders slightly. Bill is actually kind of impressed. He is stronger than he looks. “Missy and the TARDIS have always had a… let’s say, turbulent relationship. I’m surprised she even lets Missy anywhere near her. I’m even more surprised the Doctor doesn’t bat an eyelid when she does.”

“Well,” Bill says, stepping aside so Nardole can slide the key into the lock, “It’s complicated, isn’t it? I don’t get it either. But I trust the Doctor, and I suppose by default—you have to trust that he trusts her, too.”

The door opens into a great, oak panelled hall; a Persian rug lines the laminate and when Nardole knocks the light on with his elbow a chandelier flickers into life, glass droplets shimmering. An odd Chinese pot sits isolated on a corner table, underneath a framed print of the Egyptian desert. The wallpaper alternates between cream and maroon stripes, the skirting boards complementing the dark red undertones. Nardole signals for her to follow him up the stairs and she clings onto the dark wood bannister, watching as Charlotte’s body flops lifelessly every time Nardole takes a step. She swallows back the gravel that burns in her throat.

“Is the Doctor not home yet?” Bill wonders aloud, checking her watch. It’s past eleven pm now. “How long do these dinners usually last?”

“Hours,” Nardole replies. He knocks open a room at the very end of the hall—Bill assumes it’s the smallest, just big enough to fit a single bed, wardrobe and armchair in, all of which are covered in dark, floral sheets. Bill pulls away the one protecting the bed, coughing and waving her hand at the dust that flutters around the room. Pats down the pillow, pulls back the duvet. With a groan, Nardole drops Charlotte, the mattress ricocheting with her added weight. “There’s a hot water bottle around here somewhere—the Doctor gets cold feet in the night sometimes. I’ll go look for it. Try and make her comfortable.”

Make her comfortable. Bill shivers. She’s only ever associated that phrase with people who are beyond help. And she’s not—she’s not going to let Charlotte be another person she’s forced to let go of.

She lifts Charlotte’s head gently, moving the pillow so it props up her head properly. Tucks her arms underneath the duvet. Thankfully, her temperatures gone up, her skin tinged with warmth. She’s alive. She’s alive, and she’s okay. For now.

“Don’t worry,” Bill murmurs softly, brushing a strand of Charlotte’s hair away from her face. Smiles sadly. “I’ll fix this. I promise, I’ll fix this.”

She sounds worryingly like the Doctor when he’s telling a lie masquerading as a truth.

-x-

The morning begins with rain. A dark, torrential, downpour of rain, clattering off the glass of Harriet’s windows and prompting her awake, eyelids flickering open slowly. A headache gently thuds at the back of her brain. Memories come flooding back like an unexpected tsunami and she shifts position, turning and feeling a body other than hers in the bed.

John.

She blinks, gradually, muted smile tugging at her lips. His breathing is muffled by the pillow, his hair erratic and mad. She notices a hickey on his shoulder blade. She reaches out, runs her thumb over the exposed skin; he leisurely wakes at the contact, green eyes opening sleepily.

“Harriet,” he says, voice rough and quiet, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Harriet replies. Moves her hand so it cups his neck, caresses the nape, the hair that grows there. “I think I may have left you a souvenir.”

He narrows his eyes out of lethargic confusion. When he notices her glancing at his shoulder, he nods with realisation. “Yeah. I think you might have.”

Harriet laughs lightly. She leans forward, kissing him softly, and his hands tangle into her hair. His skin is warm and so is the bed; she’s pretty sure she never wants to leave. She likes this John, more than the John who argued about a mug of all things—she likes this John more than anyone else she’s met in this pompous, haughty little town, the standards that come with one of the world’s centres of academia.

“What time is it?” he asks absently. Rubs one of his gritty eyes. Harriet leans over him, reads the clock on the bedside table.

“Almost eight,” she says. John rolls over, hand clutched round her elbow. “It’s Saturday. It’s fine.”

“I’ve got a meeting with Henrich at quarter to.”

“What? On a Saturday? Is he actually a sadist?”

“Yes, and yes,” John stretches out, swings his legs out of the bed. Harriet watches his back as he finds his underwear and his trousers, notes how his spine flexes through his flesh. Her fingertips just miss him. “You go back to sleep.”

Harriet yawns, props her chin in her palms. He deftly fastens the buttons on his shirt. “I’m not tired now. Coffee?”

“If you don’t mind,” John looks over at the window. “Your bra is hanging from the curtain rail.”

Harriet tosses over in the bed, sniggering a laugh at her white lace bra casting an unusual shadow across the wall. She reaches out, tugs it off, before fastening it on. “Throw me my dressing gown. It’s on the back of the door.”

John does as she says. She grabs a hair-tie from her dressing table and knots up her hair, pulling her arms through the sleeves of her gown. She raises her eyebrows suggestively in John’s direction before making her way down to the kitchen, the tiles unbearably cold on her bare feet. The kitchen she shares with Bill is messy—neither of them particularly enjoy tidying up—but she manages to find two clean mugs in the cabinet above the kettle, dropping two spoons of coffee into them with a gentle thump. Outside the window, the rain pours on. The plastic sill rattles.

An open packet of cigarettes sits on countertop. Harriet props one between her lips and lights it, waiting for the kettle to boil. She knocks open the window with her elbow and the rain sounds louder, dribbling through the open gap. John tuts from behind her.

“Those will kill you,” he says. Harriet rolls her eyes. Pours boiling water into the two mugs.

“A lot of things can kill you,” Harriet hums, “Do you take milk?”

John shakes his head. He holds the mug in his hands for a few moments, enjoying the warmth. She stubs the cigarette out in an ash tray. They let the sound of the rain fill all the silence in the room and for a moment, everything is perfectly tranquil.

“Can I borrow an umbrella?” John asks, “I’m going to get really wet out there.”

She considers declining, imagining how funny it would be if he ran all the way back to college, drizzle soaking him wet through. But she changes tact. “Sure. Only if you promise to return it.”

John grins. Looks down into his mug. “I’m certain that can be arranged.”

-x-

Bill finally unlocks the front door as the rain is just about ceasing, her hair dripping at her top soaked, cold biting at her bones. Tiredness pulls down her eyelids. She’d spent the night dozing on and off in the horrible armchair, watching as Nardole tended to Charlotte, waiting to see if she stirred at all. In the end, he’d told her to go home and at least shower, grab a few hours’ sleep. She’d scrawled the landline number down and told to him to ring if anything changed.

She props her head round the kitchen door and finds Harriet hunched over the kitchen table, reading glasses on, shuffling through papers. Two pencils poke out of her hair, keeping it up. She looks up immediately upon Bill entering.

“Hello,” Harriet murmurs, licking her thumb, skimming through another dissertation draft. “Good night?”

Bill blinks, perturbed. Usually she’d not even get a greeting. Their living arrangement was a strange one—Bill felt more like a lodger than a flatmate, only ever coinciding with Harriet at meal times, barely even that. She’d preferred it that way. Bill couldn’t forget who she really was under the chameleon arch. “Er—fine, yeah. And you?”

Harriet’s expression barely alters. “Tolerable.”

And thus ends the conversation. Bill sighs, dumping her bag in the hall, looks around for a clean mug she can drop a teabag in. Confusingly, she notices two dirty ones by the sink, the remnants of coffee staining the white ceramic bottom.

Had she—had there been a guest here?

“Did you…?” Bill starts, hears Harriet shifting in her chair. Instead, she drops that line of inquiry. Even if there had been, does she really want to know? “Actually—no, doesn’t matter.”

“If you’re sure,” Harriet says.

“Yeah,” Bill replies uneasily. She decides to abandon the tea, preferring to go and wash the events of last night out of her hair. She reaches out, jams closed the open window. Drags her eyes away from the two empty mugs. It’s probably nothing. It’s probably nothing. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Chapter Text

Two days pass and Charlotte barely stirs. It has Bill extremely worried, pacing back and forth on the creaky guest room floorboards, biting a hangnail off her left thumb. They’re running out of options. The cold has passed, her forehead no longer clammy—but there’s only so long she can continue to lie prone without medical intervention. Bill can vision her organs shutting off one by one, her body wasting away. The thought alone prompts her stomach to fall straight to her shoes.

“We can’t continue like this,” Bill murmurs softly, watching as Nardole adjusts Charlotte’s bedsheets. He pauses, hands clinging onto the cotton. “Nardole—this isn’t safe. She’s can’t eat or drink anything, and…”

“She’s surviving somehow,” Nardole says, “If that was the case she’d be dead already. Something within her is keeping her alive, Bill, I just have no idea what.”

Bill leans forward in the armchair. “You mean… something alien?”

Nardole’s mouth opens. Snaps shut again. Shrugs inconclusively. Bill sighs heavily, leaning back into the cushions. Everything feels totally and completely hopeless. The Doctor would know what to do, and knowing that the Doctor is literally a couple of doors down in the other room but not the Doctor at all is breaking her heart in two. She’s not sure how much more damage it can sustain.

“I’m getting some soup,” Nardole says, breaking the silence. He claps his hands together, looking straight in Bill’s direction. “Chicken and vegetable. I made it myself, so it’s pretty exquisite. Would you like some?”

Bill can’t even begin to comprehend eating right now, but saying no would just earn her mild judgement and a disapproving headshake. She gestures nowhere in particular and Nardole takes it for a yes, so he merely nods and quickly hobbles out, shutting the door behind him. For the first time in a while, she’s finally alone, her heartbeat thrumming and her head throbbing, the air so thick its tangible.

She’s not sure what prompts it, but she grabs the base of the armchair, pulling it closer to the bed. Her toes touch the frame. One finger reaches out, delicately, skims the blue vein branching out across Charlotte’s hand—but she retracts it instantly, like the tenderness is breaking a boundary she’s not allowed to burst.

Not here, not now. Not in 1973.

“I…” Bill laughs bitterly, ducking her head. “I don’t know what’s happening, Charlotte, but I think—this is my fault. I should have stayed away from you. I’m dangerous. I don’t belong here, I have never belonged here, but I was protecting my friends, and… My friends are dangerous, too, but I’d do anything for them, you know?” She pauses. Listens, for a second, to the clock ticking on the back wall. “I know I haven’t known you long. I know I wouldn’t have long to get to know you. But I should have known better. People who walk into my world don’t tend to walk back out of it alive.”

Bill looks down at the dampness trailing down her skin and realises she’s crying, not for the first time. It’s also not the first time she’s thought this whole thing was a terrible, terrible mess. She’s spent all this time blindly agreeing with the Doctor and his plans, trusting him so indefinitely, but what the fuck is this? If the Doctor is a hero, why do so many good people suffer because of him?

She wipes away a tear with the cuff of her jumper. Breathes deeply. Breaking down is not an option and it’s definitely not a solution. But then—something shifts in her peripheral. Bill’s gaze bolts upright, her breath hitching in her throat.

“Charlotte?” Bill says, cautiously, leaning closer. Again, Charlotte’s neck shifts, a small groan emerging from her throat. Bill grins so wide her mouth hurts. “Charlotte! It’s me, it’s Bill, remember me? Come on, you’re so close…”

Charlotte’s eyes suddenly snap open, irises bursting with unrestrained furore. Before Bill can fully comprehend what’s actually happening a white palm claws out, grips the collar of Bill’s jumper with a strength that is definitely not fully human.

“Listen well, you idiotic human,” Charlotte’s voice—but not Charlotte’s voice at all—rasps, evil smirk cracking her pretty face, “Tell me the location of the Time Lords, and I may not decide to snap your fragile little neck.”

-x-

As Harriet disappears off into the bathroom, John takes it upon himself to scan through her collection of records, more out of curiosity than anything else. It’s an eclectic mix taking up a whole shelf on her bookcase—it vaults between Mozart and The Beatles and Bach and David Bowie, an album by The Who sat open on her record player. A short breath escapes his lips as he feels her arms curl round his waist from behind.

“Intrigued?” Harriet hums into his back, her hands cold on his bare arms. “Choose something. Let’s dance.”

John snorts derisively. Turns around, facing her, the look he’s giving her making her lips droop. “I don’t dance, Harriet. Especially not at 3am in pyjamas.”

“And I’m in my dressing gown. So what?” She shrugs. Coyly, she pulls the sleeve of her gown down, revealing a little of her bare shoulder. John blinks slowly. Tries not to smile. “Come on. Pick something. Please, just indulge me this once.”

“I’ve been indulging you way more than once, Saxon,” he growls quietly, eyebrows raised. Harriet rolls her eyes, but—he’d do anything for her, he supposes, including this. He sighs, relenting. Points idly at one by Elvis Presley, not really reading the title.

“Can’t Help Falling in Love,” Harriet says, smiling with more honesty than either of them expect. “A good choice. It’s a beautiful song.”

“I thought I’d picked Hound Dog,” replies John. Harriet shakes her head, laughing out of disbelief. “But, yes, I agree. It’s a beautiful song.”

Harriet gently removes the record from its sheath and carefully places it on the player, dropping the needle onto the vinyl. A familiar, buzzing static fills the room before the intro starts, warm and full and beautiful. Harriet turns, slowly walks towards him, hands reaching across his shoulders and coming together at the back of his neck. His hands clutch instinctively at her small waist. He can see the top of her head, the way her masses of hair parts in the middle, the birthmark at the edge of her forehead.

“I was serious when I told you I couldn’t dance,” he murmurs softly over the music, Harriet swaying in his loose grip. “I don’t—“

“Shut up,” she says, “Everyone says that. You seem to be doing fine.”

“That’s because we’re barely moving. I can just about do that.”

“Well, keep doing that,” Harriet teases, biting her lip. John shakes his head, impossible. “You think too much John. All that arrogant bravado when we first met, that anger, that isn’t you at all. Is it?”

John presses a kiss on her forehead. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes you do, you do,” Harriet insists. As the chorus kicks in, he finds her leaning closer, their lips inches apart. “You cut yourself off because you’re scared, I know it, like you’re running from something. And I know it, I do, because I’m running too—I’m always running, but I don’t know what…”

He cuts her off with a kiss, because that’s the only way he can think to stop the truth from falling out her mouth.

-x-

They are nearby, Brother of Mine, I can feel it.

I can taste the soul of a Time Lord. Two Time Lords, to be exact, and oh, they are delicious.

But I am trapped. My human form is… stronger than I anticipated.

I will break free.

We will feast. We will live forever. 

Chapter Text

“Nardole!” Bill screams as not-Charlotte curls in closer and closer, mouth mangled in a twisted smirk and eyes hard and cruel. Bill’s heart has never beat so fast. It’s gonna burst out her ribcage. “Nardole! Kind of need some help here!”

“Don’t think your companion can help you now, pretty girl,” not-Charlotte says, “Oh, it’s way too late for that.”

Just as Nardole bounds through the bedroom door, panting furiously with exertion, Bill feels Charlotte’s hand go slack round her neck--the brutality in her eyes fading, like a mask is coming loose, falling away. With a hitched breath, Charlotte shifts tight against the headboard, hands folded into her chest. “Oh my god, Bill…”

Bill blinks. Steps a couple of paces back from the bed, flicking a glance at an equally confused Nardole.

“Oh! Good! You’re awake,” Nardole chirps cheerfully, but doesn’t feel entirely convinced, looking on Bill and Charlotte’s terrified expressions. “Did something happen?”

Bill clasps at her neck, the skin sore where Charlotte’s fingernails dug in. Something bloody happened alright, and it’s something bad, astronomically so. There’s something inside Charlotte. Something keeping her alive, but not strong enough to completely possess her. Bill’s blood runs cold. What she’s thinking isn’t just suspicion, it’s certainty.

“There’s something in my head,” Charlotte moans, hand clasping her temples, “What the hell is inside my head?”

Bill watches as Nardole’s brow furrows. He edges forwards to the side of the bed but Bill pulls him back hastily; getting too close last time almost ended catastrophically. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I think--I think I know what it is.”

The wide-eyed fear in Bill’s expression alerts Nardole immediately and somehow he blanches, like he’s not impossibly pale enough already. He shakes his head furiously. “Can’t be. Impossible. This doesn’t happen, he never warned us of this happening.”

The moment is broken by an almighty sob breaking from Charlotte’s chest and Bill wants nothing more than to grab her, hold her close, tell her everything is alright, going to be alright. But it’s not alright, and it’s not going to be alright, and Bill has a feeling that maybe everyone is going to die. Again.

“Help me, Bill,” Charlotte calls, whining like a wounded animal (oh how she’s wishing for a heart that wasn’t so easily moved by anything and everything), “Help me get this thing out my head, please help me get this thing out my head…”

Bill’s mouth drops open, but nothing seems to come out of it. She looks desperately over at Nardole, who shrugs cluelessly. “Nardole--what can we do? Is there a way of,” she pauses, picturing the Doctor scolding her, hating her, “Killing it?”

Nardole shakes his head. “Not without killing her, and I’m not even sure if that would work. They’re not physical entities, they’re energies--passing from one host to another. But they burn out quickly. Three months and they die. Like mayflies. That’s why they want a...more persistent host.”

The Doctor and Missy. She almost says their names, but Bill’s not sure on how The Family work--she’s seeing Charlotte now, alone and vulnerable and crying, but is the thing in her head listening too?

“What the hell do we do?” Bill asks helplessly, “Do we open the…”

“No,” Nardole states firmly, “No. Absolutely not. That is a last resort only when there is no other alternative.”

“We have no other alternative Nardole! We haven’t got a bloody clue what’s going on and the people who do are--”

“Not to be disturbed by this at all,” Nardole warns, “We’re going to have to figure this out on our own Bill, and start by getting this young lady as far away from this house as possible.”

Bill looks over at Charlotte, wondering just how--and where--they can move a person who is simultaneously terrified and also threatened to kill her a matter of minutes ago, but it seems they have no other choice. The Doctor lives in this house, and the Doctor cannot see her at any cost.

-x-

The last few days have seemed to mould together in one incomprehensible mound of bedsheets and cigarettes, late nights and early mornings, unshaved stubble and piping hot coffee and a silk dressing gown hung on the back of a bedroom door. John spends more time in Harriet’s bed than he does his own and basically, it’s his now, because the left side of the mattress has a big John shaped dint in it which Harriet knows will never be adequately filled by anybody else. It’s the most blissfully free she’s felt in what feels like hundreds of years.

Bill hasn’t been around much either, but it doesn’t worry her, and she doesn’t ask. She turns up for work every morning which is all she yearns for--tired, but Harriet assumes she’s got some girl on the go at the minute. She’s not been sleeping all that much either, but the reasons for it differ.

The dreams have become unbearable. She jolts awake, unable to discern reality from subconscious, subconscious from reality. Every double heartbeat in her imagination feels achingly real and so does John, the Doctor, their intense rivalry and friendship and agape, like every moment in her head is just an alternate world lived once before. She’s creative but she’s not that creative, to conjure up a dual dimension like that. It’s freaky. And she’s not sure whether to bring it up with John or not. If that will scare him away.

Harriet tries to push it far, far back in her mind, but there are moments when she looks at John and it’s impossible not to think about that other man. Irresistibly clever, totally moronic, chaotically good to her queen of darkness and brutality, like it’s not a story at all; like it’s who they’re supposed to be, already are.

John has a habit for scrawling notes on every available blank surface he can find so she’s started finding layers of his script on kitchen roll and in the margins of newspapers, not usually stooping as low as to pry but occasionally letting curiosity get the better of her. She’s clearing the kitchen table when she finds an old coaster from the pub they regularly drink at and sure enough, it’s scribbled on, so she turns it and--

There’s a woman with fire in her veins

And two beating hearts

Who sits in the ashes of a broken

world

And laughs.

Why are you laughing, I ask, and the woman

Turns, her eyes full of

Ice.

Why, she says,

Because it’s beautiful.

The words hit her like a ton of bricks and she blinks rapidly, reading it again over and over and over. It’s nothing, it’s just poetry, but everything about it--it’s her, but not really her, but the woman racing through her nightmares wearing a bright indigo ballgown and her hair piled on top of her head. It’s the woman who watches civilisations burn to the ground just to see the pretty shapes the smoke made. It’s the woman who cares too much and not at all, bitter and unforgiving because that’s the way the universe has always treated her in return.

She tenses and jolts round the second she feels pressure on her shoulders, seeing John in front of her. His smile quickly evaporates when he sees the tears in her eyes, glances down at the coaster folded and creased in between her fingers. He reaches out, gently plucks it from her, places it in the pocket of his shirt.

“I’ve never shared my poetry with anyone before,” he murmurs, edging past her towards the sink, “But I never expected that adverse a reaction from it.”

There’s silence other than the running of water. John instinctively props two mugs on the counter. Harriet’s still frozen. “How did you--how did you think of that?”

John pauses but doesn’t turn around, his gaze concentrating on the view outside as the kettle boils. “It’s nothing. It’s just poetry.”

“But it’s…” Harriet marches up behind him, “It’s not nothing. That poem is about me. ”

John snorts. “Don’t flatter yourself, Harriet. I know we’ve spent a lot of time together but believe it or not, my every waking thought isn’t about you.”

“I’m not talking about your waking thoughts,” she hisses and John stiffens, like he’s beginning to understand. “I’m talking about your thoughts when you close your eyes.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Harriet slams her fist on the counter, making the crockery rattle. “Fucking hell, John, you know exactly what I mean. That poem--that’s about me, another me, this me who is hundreds of years old and has two beating hearts and laughs in the wake of hurricanes.”

John’s eyebrows knit together and he shakes his head, pushing the accusation away. “You can’t--how can you know that? You can’t know that. I’ve not told anybody that.”

“I know that,” Harriet reaches out for John’s hands and looks straight up at him, “Because that woman, she’s in my head too. And you. You’re there, but you’re like her, but not like her at all. And it’s been tormenting me for weeks .”

“I don’t understand,” John mutters, “People who are… who are close, it’s not uncommon for them to share dreams, it’s just another phenomena, but I’ve not known you weeks. This is impossible. Unless…”

Harriet blinks slowly, lopsided and broken smile on her face. “Unless it’s real and this is all a dream.”

John looks like he entertains the thought for a second, but he smiles warmly and seems to dismiss it. It’s not really something Harriet has considered up until now, because she’s certain there’s nothing more real than the things she feels now, the last week or so. But all dreams feel real until you wake up from them.

The concept chills her. She likes her life, the cigarettes and the sex and the normality, the job that keeps her sane and the man who keeps her saner. The life in her head is hard. The life in her head is dark. The life in her head wants to destroy everything, including itself, eventually.

“There’s one way to check,” John offers, and Harriet narrows her eyes as she watches John slowly unbutton his shirt, like he’s about to suggest they fuck all the doubt away. Which in all honesty doesn’t sound like such a terrible idea. “Get your mind out the gutter, Saxon. I’m talking about the hearts.”

“Hearts?”

“The man and woman you dream about,” John continues, “They have two hearts. If they were real, surely we’d have two hearts too.”

The logic is dodgy as hell, but there’s little other reason, so she shrugs along with it. He gently reaches out, placing her outstretched palm on his flesh over the left side of his chest, where sure enough she can feel the soft thumping of his heart under her fingertips. After a few seconds he shifts, and Harriet’s breath hitches--

There’s nothing. Just skin, bone, muscle. No second heartbeat.

“See?” John says, “One heart. Human. Normal. Now it’s your turn to convince me you’re not an alien.”

Harriet rolls her eyes but goes along with it, clasping John’s chapped hand in her own, letting it hover above her chest. He nods as he feels the heartbeat, strong and thrumming, and nods again when the other side proves silent. The’re human. They’re both completely human.

“They’re just dreams, Harriet,” John says softly. Presses a kiss on her forehead. “Weird, but just dreams. Sometimes weird things happen.”

She turns to look out the window, the spring sunshine bright and white. A robin patters across the window sill and flies off when it catches her eye, disappearing into mounds of green leaves. The air tastes like steam. He’s right, he’s always right. How can this utter simplicity and normality be a product of imagination?

“I guess we’ll just have to settle for this life, then,” she says. John wraps his arms round her waist, rests his chin in the crook of her shoulder.

“I guess we will. But that’s not so bad, is it?”

She smirks at the reflection in the window, tilting her head to kiss his cheek. “Not bad at all.”