"Here we go!" the Doctor said after the TARDIS materialized.
Saleen grinned as she looked outside. "It's a spaceship! Brilliant!" She looked around some more as she exited. "I got a spaceship on my first go!"
"It looks kind of abandoned," Jessie noted, looking at the Doctor. "Anyone onboard?"
"Nah, nothing here," he replied. Jessie raised an eyebrow, and he corrected himself. "Well . . . nothing dangerous." Jessie gave him a pointed look, and he made a face. "Well, not that dangerous." By now, both girls were looking at him, and he held up his sonic screwdriver. "You know what, I'll just have a quick scan in case there's anything dangerous."
"Yeah, good call," Jessie snorted, folding her arms. "So, what's the date? Where have we gone?"
"About three thousand years into your future, give or take." He flicked a switch on, and the ceiling lit up, showing the stars. "Fifty first century. Diagmar Cluster." He smiled at Saleen. "You're a long way from home, Saleen. Two and a half galaxies."
"Saleen Harper, meet the universe," Jessie joked as her friend looked around in amazement. "See any thing you like?"
"It's incredible!" she breathed. "It's so realistic!"
The Doctor looked down another corridor. "Dear me, had some cowboys in here," he commented. Jessie wrinkled her nose when she saw parts scattered all over the place. "Got a ton of repair work going on. Now that's odd." He peered at a control panel, looking at reports. "Look at that! All the warp engines are going. Full capacity. There's enough power running through this ship to punch a hole in the universe, but we're not moving. So where's all the power going?"
"Where'd all the crew go?" Jessie asked as they continued through the ship.
"Good question." The Doctor checked his sonic screwdriver. "No life forms onboard."
"Well, we're in deep space," Jessie noted. "They didn't just nip out for a quick fag."
"No, I've checked out all the smoking pods," the Doctor agreed. He looked up and sniffed. "Can you smell that?"
Jessie inhaled, then nodded. "Yeah. Someone's cooking."
"Sunday's roast, definitely," Saleen agreed.
The Doctor pressed a button on the panel, and the door behind them opened. Jessie raised an eyebrow when she saw the French style fireplace on the wall. "Well, there's something you don't see in your average spaceship," the Doctor commented, walking up to it. "Eighteenth century. French. Nice mantle. Not a hologram. It's not even a reproduction! This actually is an eighteenth century French fireplace. Double sided. There's another room through there."
Jessie looked out of the porthole in the same wall. "Can't be," she said. "That's the outer hull of the ship. Look!"
"Hello."
Jessie whipped back to see the Doctor crouching by the fireplace . . . talking to the young girl in a nightgown on the other side of the fireplace. "Hello," she replied.
"What's your name?" the Doctor asked.
"Reinette."
"Reinette," the Doctor tried. "That's a lovely name. Can you tell me where you are at the moment, Reinette?"
"In my bedroom."
"And where's your bedroom? Where do you live, Reinette?"
"Paris, of course."
"Paris!" He nodded quickly. "Right!"
She tilted her head. "Monsieur, what are you doing in my fireplace?"
"Oh, it's just a routine fire check," he replied, waving his hand. "Can you tell me what year it is?"
"Of course I can," she replied promptly. "Seventeen hundred and twenty seven."
"Right, lovely. One of my favorites." He made a face. "August is rubbish, though. OK, that's all for now! Thanks for your help. Hope you enjoy the rest of the fire! Night night."
"Good night, Monsieur."
The Doctor stood up, turning to face the girls. "You said this was the fifty first century," Saleen told him.
He nodded. "I also said this ship was generating enough power to punch a hole in the universe. I think we just found the hole. Must be a spatio-temporal hyperlink."
Jessie snorted, putting a hand over her mouth. What the hell's a spatio-temporal hyperlink? Saleen spoke what was on her mind. "What's that?"
The Doctor grinned. "No idea. Just made it up. Didn't want to say magic door."
Jessie rolled her eyes. "And on the other side of the magic door is France in 1727?"
"Well, she was speaking French," the Doctor replied, looking around on the mantle. Right period French, too."
Saleen stared at him. "She was speaking English. I heard her."
"That'll be the TARDIS, like from the Sycorax invasion," Jessie explained. "Translates for you."
"Even French?" Saleen asked.
"Yeah."
"Gotcha!" the Doctor exclaimed.
The sound of something rotating got Jessie's attention, and she turned just in time to call the Doctor's name before the entire fireplace rotated around, taking the Doctor with it.
***
The Doctor looked around the bedroom to see snow falling outside. There was shifting on the bed, and the Doctor held up his hands when Reinette woke up, staring at him in surprise. "It's OK," he told her. "Don't scream. It's me. It's the fireplace man. Look, we were talking just a minute ago. I was in your fireplace."
As he lit a candle with the screwdriver, Reinette looked at him. "Monsieur, that was weeks ago," she said slowly. "That was months."
The Doctor blinked. "Really?" He looked back at the fireplace. "Oh. Must be a loose connection. Need to get a man in." He tilted his head, listening. Nice clock ticking.
"Who are you?" Reinette asked as the Doctor looked at the clock on the mantle. His eyes widened as he realized something was wrong. "And what are you doing here?"
"OK," he said slowly. "That's scary."
"You're scared of a broken clock?"
The Doctor nodded, hearing the ticking get louder. "Just a bit scared, yeah. Just a little tiny bit. Because, you see, if this clock's broken - " He pointed at the said object. " - and it's the only clock in the room, then what's that?" He nodded as the ticking kept going, getting louder. "Because, you see, that's not a clock. You can tell by the resonance. Too big. Six feet, I'd say." He narrowed his eyes. "The size of a man."
"What is it?" Reinette asked.
"Now, let's think," the Doctor said, going into brainstorming mode and pacing. "If you were a thing that ticked and you were hiding in someone's room, break the clock. No one notices the sound of one clock ticking . . . but two? You might start to wonder if you're really alone." He dropped to the floor, and Reinette moved to get with him, but the Doctor held up a hand to stop her. "Stay on the bed. Right in the middle. Don't put your hands or feet over the edge."
Reinette nodded and scooted to where he said, and the Doctor looked under the bed, waving the screwdriver around. Something knocked it out of his hand, and he quickly popped back up. "Reinette," he whispered, looking at the thing that had risen behind her. "Don't look round." He pointed to the figure in a smiley face mask behind her. "You, stay exactly where you are." He looked back down at Reinette. "Hold still," he told her. "Let me look." He placed his hands on either side of her head and looked into her eyes, scanning her mind. He frowned. "You've been scanning her brain," she told the figure. "What? You've crossed two galaxies and thousands of years just to scan a child's brain? What could there be in a little girl's mind worth blowing a hole in the universe?"
"I don't understand," Reinette whispered. "It wants me?" She looked at the figure, sucking in a breath when she saw it. "You want me?"
"Not yet," it replied in a robotic voice. "You are incomplete."
"'Incomplete?'" the Doctor repeated, standing up. "What's that mean, 'incomplete?' You can answer her, you can answer me. What do you mean, incomplete?"
"Monsieur, be careful," Reinette warned as the droid began coming around the other side of the bed, a blade popping out of its hand.
"Just a nightmare, Reinette," the Doctor replied. "Don't work about it. Everyone has nightmares." He ducked a swing from the droid. "Even monsters under the bed have nightmares. Don't you, monster?"
He kept backing up, and when the next swing came, it embedded in the mantlepiece. "What do monsters have nightmares about?" Reinette questioned.
The Doctor found the switch to rotate the fireplace and grinned as they began to swing around. "Me!"
***
Jessie turned when the fireplace began to spin again. "Doctor!"
She backed away when she saw the figure that had ridden with him. "Creepy smiley-face masked guy!" Saleen gasped. The Doctor grabbed a tube from a rack and sprayed the contents of it over the figure, which froze up. Saleen tilted her head. "Sweet! Ice gun!"
"Fire extinguisher," the Doctor corrected.
"Where did that thing come from?" Jessie asked, peering at the droid.
"Here," the Doctor replied easily.
Saleen picked at the wig the droid was wearing. "Why's it dressed like this, then?"
"Field trip to France. Some kind of basic camouflage protocol. Nice needlework. Shame about the face."
He pulled the mask off, and Jessie blinked when she saw the machinery inside. "Is that clockwork?" she asked.
"Oh, you are beautiful!" the Doctor gasped, looking at it. "No, really, you are. You're gorgeous! Look at that!" He grinned at the two girls. "Space age clockwork. I love it! I'e got chills!" Jessie pinched the bridge of her nose as the Doctor continued to talk. He never. Shuts. Up. "Listen, seriously, I mean this from the heart, and, by the way, count those, it would be a crime, it would be an act of vandalism to disassemble you. But that won't stop me!"
Jessie jumped when the droid was beamed away. "Short range teleport," the Doctor deduced, looking around. "Can't have got far. Could still be on board."
"What is it?" Jessie asked.
"Don't go looking for it!"
"Where're you going?"
"Back in a sec!"
Jessie groaned as the Doctor swung back around on the fireplace. She looked down at the fire extinguisher, then kicked it up. "He said not to look for it!" Saleen told her.
Jessie raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. He did. And since when did we ever follow instructions when we were in school?"
Saleen laughed and got another fire extinguisher. "Just like the old days."
"Now you're getting it!" Jessie encouraged, and they went off into the ship to explore some more.
***
The Doctor looked around the bedchamber he'd just gone into appraisingly, then called out for Reinette. "Reinette?" He looked around. "Just checking you're OK." He peered at the harp by the window and plucked a few strings.
"Ahem."
The Doctor jumped up, looking at the woman who had just come in, dressed in a dress of the century, her hair piled on top of her head. "Oh." He stepped away from the harp. "Hello. Er, I was just looking for Reinette. This is still her room, isn't it? I've been away. Not sure how long."
"Reinette!" someone called from outside, and the Doctor's eyes widened in understanding, and he mouthed "oh." "We're ready to go!"
"Go to the carriage, Mother!" the woman called back. "I will join you there." She turned back to the Doctor with a smile. "It is customary, I think, to have an imaginary friend only during one's childhood. You are to be congratulated on your persistence."
"Reinette!" he sputtered in shock, looking her over. "Well . . . goodness, how you've grown."
"And you do not appear to have aged a single day." She tutted, walking forward. "That is tremendously impolite of you."
"Right. Yes. Sorry. Listen, lovely to catch up, but better be off, eh?" He began backing away as she kept coming closer. "Don't want your mother finding you up here with a strange man, do we?"
"Strange?" Reinette asked, tilting her head. "How could you be a stranger to me? I've known you since I was seven years old."
The Doctor shrugged. "Yeah, I suppose you have. I came the quick route."
Reinette put a hand on his arm. "You seem to be flesh and blood, at any rate, but this is absurd." She shook her head. "Reason tells me you cannot be real."
"Oh, you never want to listen to reason - "
"Mademoiselle!" another person shouted. "Your mother grows impatient!"
"A moment!" Reinette called back, then turned back to him. "So many questions. So little time."
The Doctor's brain short circuited when Reinette kissed him hard, pushing him back into the wall. His head caught up with him and he began to kiss her back when the servant shouted back again. "Mademoiselle Poisson!"
Reinette pulled back and ran out, and the Doctor blinked. Poisson? "Poisson?" he asked out loud, blinking some more. "Reinette Poisson?" No way. "No! No, no, no, no, no way!" He began to grin, heading back to the fireplace. "Reinette Poisson? Later Madame Etoiles? Later still, mistress of Louis the XV, uncrowned Queen of France?" He grinned as one of the servants came in, staring at him in shock. "Actress, artist, musician, dancer, courtesan, fantastic gardener!"
"Who the hell are you?" the servant sputtered.
The Doctor flicked the fireplace and grinned. "I'm the Doctor. And I just snogged Madame de Pompadour!"
***
"Are you looking at me?" Jessie rolled her eyes as Saleen asked from behind her. "Hey, Jessie, look at this." Jessie turned to rejoin her, and she froze when she saw Saleen was examining a camera that had an eyeball in it. "There's an eye in there. It's a real eye."
Jessie began looking around. If there's an eye, maybe there's something else . . . She opened a hatch, looking along a mess of wires and pipes. And in the middle of it all . . .
She slapped a hand over her mouth as she felt bile rise up in her throat. "Oh my God," Saleen whispered, joining her. "Please tell me that's not what I think it is."
"I think it is," Jessie whispered. "It's a heart. It's a human heart!"
***
"Jessie! Saleen!" the Doctor shouted, looking around the fireplace room. He grumbled, walking back out onto the ship. "Every time," he muttered. "It's rule one. Don't wander of. I tell them, I do. Rule one. There could be anything on this ship!"
There was a whinny behind him, and the Doctor turned, pinching the bridge of his nose when he saw what was approaching. "Including a horse."
He kept walking through the ship. "Jessie?" he kept calling, then turned, folding his arms when the horse kept following him. "Will you stop following me? I'm not your mother." He raised an eyebrow when he found white wooden doors, and when he opened them, he blinked against the sudden white light. "So this is where you came from, eh, horsey?"
He walked out into a garden in Versailles, and he quickly ducked behind a stone urn when he saw Reinette and a friend of hers begin to walk through. "Oh, Katherine, you are too wicked," Reinette was saying.
"Oh, speaking of wicked," Katherine said. "I hear Madame de Chateauroux is ill and close to death."
"Yes. I am devastated," Reinette said sarcastically.
"Oh, indeed," Katherine agreed, just as sarcastically. "I am frequently inconsolable. The King will therefore be requiring a new mistress. You love the King, of course?"
"He is the King, and I love him with all my heart," Reinette agreed. "And I look forward to meeting him."
The Doctor ducked down when a peacock called behind him and Reinette turned to look. "Is something wrong, my dear?" Katherine asked.
"Not wrong, no," Reinette replied.
"Every woman in Paris knows your ambitions."
"Every woman in Paris shares them," Reinette pointed out.
"You know, of course, that the King is to attend the Yew Tree ball?"
"As am I."
The Doctor grinned as the two women moved out of earshot. "You go, Reinette," he whispered.
***
"Is this a normal life for you?" Saleen asked as they ran through the ship. "This the average day?"
"Life with the Doctor has no average days, Saleen," Jessie replied.
They skidded to a halt by a rather large window, and Saleen raised an eyebrow. "It's France again. We can see France."
Jessie looked at it closer. "I think we're looking through a mirror."
Saleen snorted as a man from eighteenth century France walked in, followed by two guards. "Look at that guy. Who does he think he is?"
"The King of France."
Jessie raised an eyebrow at the Doctor as he joined them. "Oh, here's trouble," she commented. "What you been up to?"
"Oh, this and that," he replied absently, looking at the King. "Became the imaginary friend of a future French aristocrat. Picked a fight with a clockwork man." There was a neigh behind them, and the Doctor nodded. "Oh. And I met a horse."
Saleen blinked as she took in the horse following the Doctor. "What's a horse doing on a spaceship?"
"Saleen, what's a pre-Revolutionary France doing on a spaceship?" the Doctor asked. "Get a little perspective." He waved to the mirror. "See these? They're all over the place. On every deck. Gateways to history. But not just any old history." He nodded to the woman that had just entered and curtsied to the King. "Hers. Time windows deliberately arranged along the life of one particular woman. A spaceship from the fifty first century stalking a woman from the eighteenth. Why?"
"Who is she?" Jessie asked.
"Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson," the Doctor replied. "Known to her friends as Reinette. One of the most accomplished women who ever lived."
"So has she got plans of being the Queen, then?"
"No. He's already got a Queen. She's got plans of being his mistress."
She nodded. "Oh, I get it. Camilla."
"I think this is when they met. The night of the Yew Tree ball. In no time flat, she'll get herself established as his official mistress with her own rooms at the palace. Even her own title. Madame de Pompadour."
"The Queen must have loved her," Jessie said sarcastically as Louis the XV left.
"Oh, she did. They get on very well."
Jessie blinked. "The King's wife and the King's girlfriend?" Saleen asked, just to clarify.
The Doctor shrugged. "France. It's a different planet."
Reinette turned from the mirror to a woman in the corner, her back to the mirror. "How long have you been standing there?" she asked. "Show yourself!"
The figure turned, and Jessie's eyes widened when she saw that it was a clockwork droid. The Doctor instantly grabbed another fire extinguisher and rotated the mirror. "Hello, Reinette!" he said brightly as the three of them walked through. "Hasn't time flown?"
"Fireplace man!" she gasped in recognition.
The Doctor raised the fire extinguisher, but Saleen simply raised her hand. Ice flew from her palm and coated the droid. The Doctor looked at her in respect. "Nice shot, Saleen."
"Thanks, boss." The droid began to creak, and Saleen frowned, tilting her head. "What's it doing?"
"Switching back on," the Doctor replied, stepping in front of the girls as the droid began to melt the ice. "Melting the ice."
"And then what?"
"Then it kills everyone in the room." Lovely, Jessie thought sarcastically. "Focuses the mind, doesn't it?" He looked at the droid. "Who are you? Identify yourself!" When it didn't answer, he turned to Reinette. "Order it to answer me."
"Who should it listen to me?" Reinette asked in surprise.
"I don't know. It did when you were a child. Let's see if you've still got it."
Reinette stared at him, then took a deep breath and turned to the clockwork droid. "Answer his question," she ordered in a firm voice. "Answer any and all questions put to you."
The droid finally answered. "I am repair droid seven."
"What happened to the ship, then?" the Doctor asked. "There was a lot of damage."
"Ion storm. Eighty two percent systems failure."
Jessie whistled. That's a lot. "That ship hasn't moved in over a year," the Doctor said. "What's taken you so long?"
"We did not have the parts," the clockwork droid replied.
"Always comes down to that," Saleen grumbled. "The parts."
"What's happened to the crew?" the Doctor asked. "Where are they?"
"We did not have the parts," the clockwork droid repeated.
"There should have been over fifty people on your ship. Where did they go?"
"We did not have the parts."
"Fifty people just don't disappear! Where - " He cut off, and his eyes widened in recognition. "Oh. You didn't have the parts. So you used the crew."
Jessie gasped, realization hitting her. "The camera with the eye in it. The heart in the machinery."
"It was just doing what it was programmed to do," the Doctor commented. "Repairing the ship any way it can with whatever it could find. No one told it the crew weren't on the menu." He looked at the two girls. "What did you say the flight deck smelt of?"
Jessie put a hand over her mouth, feeling more bile come up her throat. "Someone cooking," Saleen answered for her, her eyes darkening.
"Flesh plus heat." The Doctor wrinkled his nose. "Barbecue." He turned to the droid. "But what are you doing here? You've opened up time windows. That takes colossal energy. Why come here? You could have gone to your repair yard. Instead, you come to eighteenth century France. Why?"
"One more part is required," it replied.
"Then why haven't you taken it?"
"She is incomplete."
"What? So that's the plan, then? Just keep opening up more and more time windows, scanning her brain, checking to see if she's done yet?"
"Why her?" Jessie asked. "You've got all of history to choose from. Why specifically her?"
"We are the same," the droid replied.
Reinette glared at it. "We are not the same. We are in no sense the same."
"We are the same," it insisted.
Reinette shook her head. "Get out of here! Get out of here this instant!"
"Reinette, no!" the Doctor told her. Jessie growled when the droid teleported out. The Doctor turned to her. "Jessie, take Saleen and Arthur. Get after it. Follow it. Don't approach it. Just watch what it does."
Jessie blinked. "Arthur?"
"Good name for a horse."
Clockwork droids want Madame de Pompadour's brain, and he's thinking of a horse's name? She shook her head. "No. You're not keeping the horse."
"I let you keep Saleen!" he protested. "No go, go, go!"
She went through the mirror and shut it behind them. Saleen chuckled. "So . . . that Doctor, eh?"
"What now?" she asked.
"Madame de Pompadour. Sarah Jane Smith." Saleen laughed. "Cleopatra."
"He mentioned her once," Jessie grumbled.
"Yeah, but he called her Cleo. He has quite the habit for - "
"Saleen!" Jessie gasped when she saw what was looming up behind her friend.
Saleen turned, but the clockwork droid grabbed her by the throat. Before Jessie could say anything, she was grabbed onto as well. She felt something stab into her arm, and she had enough time to think that she was doomed before she slipped unconscious.
***
Reinette watched the mirror swing back, then turned as the fireplace man turned to her. "Reinette, you're going to have to trust me," he told her. "I need to find out what they're looking for. There's only one way I can do that. It won't hurt a bit."
She nodded, then blinked when he placed his hands on her temples, and she felt . . . something in her mind, then realized what it was. "Fireplace man, you are inside my mind."
"Oh dear, Reinette," he murmured. "You've had some cowboys in here."
Reinette felt him go through her mind, then furrowed her eyebrows when she realized she could find his as well. "You are inside my memories. You walk among them."
"If there's anything you don't want me to see, just imagine a door and close it," he told her. She found a memory of his, and finally found his name . . . Doctor. "Oh . . . actually, there's a door just there. You might want to cl - " Reinette slowly smiled when she realized what he had seen and decided to open more. "Oh. Actually, several."
"To walk among the memories of another living soul," she whispered. "Do you ever get used to this?"
"I don't make a habit of it."
"How can you resist?" She closed off a door as she began to think as she looked through his mind as well. Interesting . . . so many faces, but I only recognize three . . . his and his two friends.
"What age are you?"
She couldn't help but smile. "So impertinent a question so early in the conversation. How promising."
"No, not my question. Theirs. You're twenty three, and for some reason, that means you're not old enough. Sorry. You might find old memories reawakening. Side effect."
And she found something interesting. She inhaled sharply as she found his memories of when he was younger . . . and all alone. "Oh, such a lonely childhood," she whispered in shock.
"It'll pass. Stay with me."
Reinette swallowed. "Oh, Doctor. So lonely . . . so very, very alone."
"What do you mean, alone?" the Doctor asked in surprise. "You've never been alone in your life." He paused again, and she felt his hands tense from where they were on her head. "When did you start calling me 'Doctor?'"
Reinette swallowed, feeling something on the edge of his mind . . . directed to someone she had seen. Not her, but a face she had just seen. Something he was afraid to admit, because he was afraid she would leave. "Such a lonely little boy," she whispered. "Lonely then and lonelier now, even with such a woman beside you."
His hands dropped, and she opened her eyes to see him looking at her in shock. "How did you do that?" he demanded.
"A door once opened can be stepped through in either direction," Reinette replied simply with a smile. "Oh, Doctor . . . no matter who they are, men are thick."
"I'm sorry?" he asked, blinking.
"The girl of yours, the woman whose names speak of death. Tell her what she needs to know." She smiled. "But if not, my lonely Doctor . . . dance with me."
"I can't."
"Dance with me."
"This is the night you dance with the King!"
Reinette smiled. "Then first, I shall make him jealous. And perhaps you will make your . . . " She remembered her name and smiled. It's a beautiful name. " . . . Jessie jealous as well."
"I can't," he whispered again, but it was fainter.
"Doctor . . . Doctor Who? It's more than just a secret, isn't it?"
"What did you see?" he asked.
"That there comes a time, Time Lord, when every lovely little boy must learn how to dance," Reinette replied, smiling and holding out her hand. "Dance with me, and then dance with your Jessie."
She was silently pleased when he took her hand cautiously. She was also pleased when he didn't correct her when she said Jessie's name possessively to him.
***
"I really need to stop clocking out," Jessie muttered as she woke up, then yelped when she saw several clockwork men around her. "What's going on?" she shouted. "Doctor!"
"Jessie!" Saleen called from somewhere off to her side. She turned her body as much as she could when she was spread-eagled to see her friend in a similar state, except that her skin was glittering with ice crystals. "They're going to chop us up, just like the crew. They're going to chop us up and stick us all over their stupid spaceship, and where's the Doctor? Odin knows where. He's been gone for freaking hours!"
"You are compatible," one clockwork droid announced to her.
"Well, you might want to think about that," Jessie stuttered. "You really, really might, because me and Saleen, we didn't come here alone. Oh, no. And trust me, you wouldn't want to mess with our designated driver." She squeaked when a blade with a spinning cogged wheel at the end of it extended from the droid's arm. "Ever heard of the Daleks?" she asked, wincing a little. "Remember them? They had a name for our friend. They had myths about him, and a name. They called him the - "
The Doctor waltzed in at that moment, and if Jessie knew that Time Lords couldn't get drunk - or at least the Ninth Doctor couldn't, Jack had tried once - she'd think they were in trouble. "And still have begged for me," he said, his voice wobbly. Damn, he's a good false drunk. "I could've spread my wings and done a thou - " He grinned stupidly. "Have you met the French? My God, they know how to party."
"Oh, look what the cat dragged in," Saleen commented sarcastically.
"The Oncoming Storm," Jessie agreed, grinning nonetheless.
"Oh, you sound just like Sunny," the Doctor slurred.
Jessie would've snickered if they weren't trying to keep up the Doctor's drunk act. "What've you been doing?" she asked, pretending to be pissed off at him and play along. "Where've you been?"
"Well, among other things, I think I just invented the banana daiquiri a few centuries early." Jessie snorted as he grinned. "Do you know, they've never seen a banana before!" He pointed at her. "Always take a banana to a party, Jess. Bananas are good." He turned to the clockwork man with his tools ready to cut her open. "Oh, ho ho ho ho! Brilliant! It's you! You're my favorite, you are. You are the best! Do you know why?" He grinned wider. "Because you're so thick! You're Mr. Thick Thick Thickity Thick Face from Thicktown, Thickania." Saleen threw Jessie an incredulous look, and she tried not to burst out laughing. "And so's your dad," the Doctor continued, then smiled at the two girls. "Do you know what they were scanning Reinette's brain for? Her milometer. They want to know how old she is. Know why?"
"Enlighten us," Saleen said sarcastically.
"Because this ship is thirty seven years old, and they think that when Reinette is thirty seven, when she's complete, then her brain will be compatible." He grinned triumphantly at the clockwork man. "So, that's what you're missing, isn't it, hmm? Command circuit. Your computer. Your ship needs a brain. And for some reason, God knows what, only the brain of Madame de Pompadour will do."
"The brain is compatible," the clockwork man droned.
The Doctor quirked an eyebrow. "Compatible? If you believe that . . . " He raised the goblet. "You probably believe this is a glass of wine." Jessie finally laughed as the Doctor took off the clockwork man's mask and poured whatever was in the goblet into its head. The clockwork seized up, and the Doctor grinned triumphantly. "Multigrain anti-oil. If it moves, it doesn't." He flicked a switch on the console nearby that turned the droids off, then pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "Right, you two. That's enough lying about. Time we got the rest of the ship turned off."
"Are those things safe?" Saleen asked as the Doctor freed her.
"Yeah. Safe. Safe and thick, the way I like them," he agreed, helping Jessie out. "OK. All the time windows are controlled from here. I need to close them all down." He began looking around. "Zeus plugs . . . " he muttered. "Where are my Zeus plugs? I had them a minute ago. I was using them as castanets."
"Castanets?!" Saleen asked incredulously.
"Why didn't they just open a time window to when she was thirty seven?" Jessie asked.
The Doctor shook his head. "With the amount of damage to these circuits, they did well to hit the right century. Trial and error after that. The windows aren't closing. Why won't they close?" he asked in frustration.
A bell went off, and Jessie looked around for the source. "What's that?"
"I don't know," the Doctor replied, tilting his head thoughtfully. He does that a lot in this body, too, she thought. "Incoming message?"
"From who?" Saleen asked.
"Report from the field," the Doctor guessed. "One of them must still be out there with Reinette. That's why I can't close the windows. There's an override."
There was a spitting noise, and Jessie turned when clockwork turned back on to see the anti-oil on the ground through the first clockwork man's finger. The Doctor blinked, looking back as well. "Well, that was a bit clever." The switch on the console moved back as the clockwork men became activated again. "Right. Many things about this are not good," he decided, turning to the clockwork men. "Message from one of your little friends? Anything interesting?"
"She is complete. It begins."
The Doctor turned back as the clockwork men beamed out. "What happened?" Jessie asked.
"One of them must have found the right time window," the Doctor guessed. "Now it's time to send in the troops. And this time, they're bringing back her head!"
***
Reinette sat in the music room of the palace, plucking strings on her harp when she heard footsteps. She turned to see the dark-haired woman the Doctor had with him when the clockwork droid had tried to come after her enter. Reinette inhaled sharply when she recognized her as the woman the Doctor loved so desperately, yet was extremely afraid to admit it. Jessie smiled, holding up her hands. "Madame de Pompadour," she greeted her with a short bow, which Reinette was surprised by. She hadn't expected this woman to be familiar with royal gestures. "Please, don't scream or anything. We haven't got a lot of time." She sat down across from Reinette, hands clasped, one leg over the other. "I've come to warn you that they'll be here in five years."
"Five years?" Reinette echoed.
"Some time after your thirty seventh birthday," Jessie confirmed. "I, er . . . " She scratched her head. "I can't give you an exact date. It's a bit random. But they're coming. It's going to happen. In a way, for us, it's already happening." She sighed. "I'm sorry. It's hard to explain. The Doctor does this better."
Reinette nodded. "Then be exact, and I will be attentive."
"There isn't time."
"There are five years."
"For you. I haven't even got five minutes."
"Then also be concise."
Something like admiration flashed in Jessie's eyes, and she nodded. "Er . . . there's, say, a vessel, a ship . . . a sort of sky ship, and it's full of . . . " She sighed. "Well, you. Different bits of your life in different rooms, all jumbled up." She shrugged apologetically. "I told you it was complicated. Sorry."
Reinette stared at her in shock. "There is a vessel in your world where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book, so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age while I, weary traveler, must always take the slower path."
Jessie raised an eyebrow. "He was right about you."
Reinette swallowed. "So, in five years, these creatures will return. What can be done?"
"The Doctor says to keep them talking," Jessie replied. "They're kind of programmed to respond to you now. You won't be able to stop them, but you might be able to delay them a bit."
"Until?" Reinette asked curiously.
"Until the Doctor can get there."
Reinette sat up straighter, pleased to hear that he was still coming back. "He's coming, then?"
"He promises," Jessie confirmed.
She raised an eyebrow. "But he cannot make his promises in person?"
"He'll be there when you need him." Reinette noted the way her eyes flashed in a different way at that and smiled softly. She feels the same. "That's the way it's got to be."
"It's the way it's always been. The monsters and the Doctor. It seems you cannot have one without the other."
"Tell me about it," Jessie chuckled, but then she sobered. "The thing is, you weren't supposed to have either." I think I know that now, Reinette thought. "Those creatures are messing with history. None of this was ever supposed to happen to you."
At that, Reinette narrowed her eyes. "Supposed to happen?" she echoed, standing at the same time Jessie did. "What does that mean? It happened, child, and I would not have it any other way!" Jessie jerked backwards as if stung, and Reinette lowered her voice. "One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel."
"And sometimes," Jessie whispered, "it's worth getting your heart broken for."
Reinette smiled and took the girl's hands. "But what if it's not mine the Doctor truly seeks?" she asked.
Jessie's eyes widened, but the redhead's voice then echoed distantly. "Jessie?" she called. "Jessie?"
Reinette followed Jessie out into the corridor as the redhead - Saleen, Reinette remembered from when she had briefly seen the Doctor's mind - poked her head out from behind a tapestry. "Jessie!" she said cheerfully. "The time window where she's thirty seven, we found it! Right under our noses!"
Reinette took a deep breath, then ducked under the tapestry. "No!" Jessie called to her as she found herself in a completely unfamiliar place. "You can't go in there! The Doctor will go mad - "
"So this is his world," Reinette whispered, looking around. Her head jerked up when she heard screams far off. "What was that?"
"The time window," Saleen explained. "The Doctor fixed an audio link."
"Those screams . . . " Reinette turned to the two of them. "Is that my future?"
Jessie slowly nodded. "Yeah. I'm sorry."
Reinette nodded as well. "Then I must take the slower path." She looked around when she heard her voice, a few years older, start calling. "Are you there? Can you hear me? I need you now. You promised. The clock on the mantle is broken. It is time!" "That's my voice."
"Jessie, come on," Saleen said, heading down the hall. "We've got to go. There's . . . there's a problem."
"Give me a moment," Jessie replied. Saleen nodded and left, and Jessie turned back to Reinette. "Are you OK?" she asked.
"No," Reinette admitted. "But you and I both know, don't we, Jessie? The Doctor is worth the monsters." Jessie nodded, and Reinette turned to go, but she looked back at Jessie for a moment. "Jessie Nightshade . . . that is not your only name, is it?"
Jessie stared at her for a moment, then slowly shook her head. "No. It is not."
Reinette smiled. "If the Doctor is the Doctor, then who are you?"
She smiled. "Are you afraid of the big Bad Wolf, Reinette?"
"I fear I must be."
Jessie grinned. "I hope you never have to find out."
Reinette smiled. "Goodbye, Bad Wolf."
Jessie waved, and Reinette ducked back under the tapestry. Back to her world.
***
Jessie ran down the hall and found the Doctor and Saleen hustling around. "You found it, then?" she asked.
The Doctor made a frustrated noise. "They knew I was coming. They blocked it off!"
Jessie followed him to the bulkhead, seeing the Versailles ballroom now. Reinette and Louis the XV were being forced into the middle by clockwork men. "I don't get it. How come they got in there?"
"They teleported. You saw them. As long as the ship and the ballroom are linked, their short range teleports will do the trick."
"Well, we'll go in the TARDIS!" she suggested.
"We can't use the TARDIS," the Doctor denied, shaking his head. "We're part of events now."
"Can't we just smash through?" Saleen asked.
"Hyperplex this side, plate glass the other. We need a truck."
"I'm having memories of a similar truck situation," Saleen muttered, throwing a quick look at Jessie, who snorted. "Sorry. Fresh out of trucks."
"I know we don't have a truck!"
"We've got to try something," Jessie insisted.
"No," the Doctor replied, looking like he was torn on what to do. "Smash the glass, smash the time window. There'd be no way back."
Jessie swallowed, making a decision. "Go."
Two heads whipped towards her, and the Doctor and Saleen said in perfect unison, "What?"
"Go to her," she insisted, nodding to Reinette. "I get it. Preserve history. That's what needs to happen."
"If I go in there, there's not a way back," the Doctor told her. "I couldn't return."
Jessie stared him in the eye. "Someone special told me recently that some things are worth the monsters." She nodded to the horse down the hall. "Now go get her, Doctor."
***
"Could everyone just calm dow, please?" Reinette asked as they made it to the ballroom, looking around. I just have to delay, she thought. That's what Bad Wolf said. "Such a commotion," she commented. "Such distressing noise. Kindly remember that this is Versailles. This is the Royal Court, and we are French. I have made a decision. And my decision is no, I shall not be going with you today." She stared at the clockwork men. "I have seen your world, and I have no desire to set foot there again."
"We do not require your feet," one of them told her.
Reinette let them push her down onto her knees. Just a little longer. "You think I fear you, but I do not fear you even now," she told them. "You are merely the nightmare of my childhood. The monster from under my bed. And if my nightmare can return to plague me, then rest assured, so will yours."
As if on cue, the mirror above the mantlepiece shattered, and a white horse jumped through the shards as everyone darted away from it. The Doctor grinned cheekily at Reinette as he made the horse canter up, then dismounted. "Madame de Pompadour, you look younger every day."
"What the hell is going on?" Louis demanded.
Reinette smiled. "Oh, this is my lover, the King of France."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Well, I'm the Lord of Time," he retorted, and Reinette couldn't help but smile a little bit more as Louis looked put off. "And I'm here to fix the clock." He took the mask from the first clockwork man, which pointed its blade at his throat. "Forget it," he said clearly. "It's over for you and for me. Talk about seven years bad luck? Try three thousand." He nodded to the broken mirror. "The link with the ship is broken. No way back. You don't have the parts. How many ticks left in that clockwork heart, huh? A day? An hour? It's over. And if there are any of you left on that ship, I can tell you, there's a worse nightmare there that would take them out. The Bad Wolf is someone you do not want to make angry. Accept it. Neither of us are winding you up."
The clockwork men powered down. The Doctor turned to Reinette as she watched in shock as one droid fell backwards and broke apart. He held out his hand to her silently. "You all right?"
She took it and stood shakily. "What's happened to them?"
"They've stopped," he replied simply. "They have no purpose now."
***
The Doctor stood at a tall window in the palace, looking up at the stars. He heard the swish of a dress behind him, and he turned to see Reinette approach, a soft smile on her face as she carried with her two wine glasses. "You know all their names, don't you?" she asked, looking back at the stars. "I saw that in your mind. The name of every star."
The Doctor looked back as well. "What's in a name?" he asked. "Names are just titles. Titles don't tell you anything."
"Like the Doctor," Reinette pointed out.
"Like Madame de Pompadour," he countered.
"Like Bad Wolf." The Doctor turned away when he said her name, still wondering why she had insisted that he come here. Was it really just history, or was there something to it? Reinette didn't comment, but she joined him at his side. "I have often wished to see those stars a little closer," she said. "Just as you have, I think."
He nodded. "From time to time."
"In saving me, you trapped yourself here. Did you know that would happen?" Reinette asked.
"Mmm," was all he said, folding his arms. "Pretty much."
"Yet you still came."
"Took a little persuasion, but yeah, I did, didn't I?" He snorted. "Catch me doing that again."
"There were many doors between my world and yours. Can you not use one of the others?"
He shook his head. "When the mirror broke, the shock would have severed all the links with the ship. There'll be a few more broken mirrors and torn tapestries around here, I'm afraid, wherever there was a time window." He looked at her. "I'll pay for any damage." He grimaced. "Er . . . that's a thought. I'm going to need money. I was always a bit vague about money." He looked at her. "Where do you get money?"
Reinette simply smiled and shook her head, handing him one of the glasses she carried. "So here you are, the lonely angel, stuck on the slow path with me."
"Yep," the Doctor confirmed, clinking glasses with her. "Here's to the slow path."
They drank, and the Doctor swallowed the wine with ease. Reinette looked back out the window. "She reveals her name, but you do not reveal yours."
The Doctor looked at her sharply. "What?"
"Your Bad Wolf. Jessie."
"She told you that?"
"I saw it in your mind, Doctor," Reinette replied, looking at him. "I saw that name. I know what she did for you. I saw what you feel for her." The Doctor swallowed, and Reinette smiled softly. "And I know how she feels for you."
The Doctor shook his head. "It could never happen. They all leave in the end, or they die."
"I told her years ago that one may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel," Reinette told him, smiling. "And in reply, she told me that some things are worth getting your heart broken for."
The Doctor closed his eyes, turning his head down. "She told me to come," he managed to say. "I didn't know why. It was like she was forcing herself to accept that if I went, I would be gone."
Reinette considered him, then spoke again. "It's a pity. I think I would've enjoyed the slow path."
"Well, I'm not going anywhere," he commented.
She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, aren't you?" She took his glass and put it on a small table nearby, then held out her hand. "Take my hand."
He did, and he followed her through the palace. She opened the door to a bedchamber, and his eyes widened when he saw the fireplace in the wall. "It's not a copy," Reinette explained, smiling at him. "It's the original. I had it moved here and was exact in every detail."
He slowly approached it, Reinette staying in the doorway. "The fireplace," he breathed. "The fireplace from your bedroom." He turned to her. "When did you do this?"
"Many years ago, in the hope that a door once opened may someday open again." She nodded. "One never quite knows when one needs one's Doctor. It appears undamaged. Do you think it will still work?"
"You broke the bond with the ship when you moved it, which means it was offline when the mirror broke," the Doctor tried to explain, looking at the fireplace. "That's what saved it. But the link is basically physical, and it's still physically here. Which might just mean, if I'm lucky . . . " He began tapping the fireplace all over. "If I'm very, very, very, very, very, very lucky . . . " He grinned when he found something. "Aha!"
"What?" Reinette asked where she stood.
He grinned. "Loose connection!" He used the sonic screwdriver, then grinned and stepped onto the fireplace. "Need to get a man in." He whacked the mantle, then smiled at Reinette. "Wish me luck!"
Her face froze. "No!" she shouted as the fireplace began to turn.
He looked at her in confusion, but when the fireplace finished its rotation, he jumped off and looked into the fire. "Madame de Pompadour!" She ran across and ducked down to look at him as well. "Still want to see those stars?" he asked.
"More than anything," she agreed readily.
He grinned at her. "Give me two minutes. Pack a bag."
"Am I going somewhere?"
"Go to the window," he encouraged her. "Pick a star. Any star."
***
Jessie looked up when she heard someone running through the spaceship that was definitely not Saleen. She froze when she saw the Doctor run in, then she grinned and ran to him, giving him a huge hug, which he returned. "How long did you wait?" he asked.
Jessie shrugged. "Oh, only five and a half hours."
"Great!" he replied, holding hugging Saleen as well. "Always wait five and a half hours."
"Where've you been?"
"Explain later." He turned to go, then looked at Saleen. "Into the TARDIS. Be with you in a sec."
Saleen went inside without hesitation, and the Doctor held out a hand to Jessie. "Come on."
***
She stepped off of the fireplace, looking around in the dark of the room. "It's raining outside," she noted.
"Reinette?" the Doctor called, looking around, then heading for the hallway. "You there, Reinete?"
"Reinette?" Jessie called as well, then stopped when she saw the Doctor had, looking at a man staring out a huge window. "Oh. Hi."
"You just missed her," the man said, turning to look at them. "She'll be in Paris by six."
The Doctor nodded meekly. "Ah."
The man took a closer look at them, and he inhaled. "Good Lord," she whispered. "She was right. She said you never looked a day older. So many years since I saw you last, but not a day of it on your face." He turned to Jessie then. "And the Bad Wolf, when she knew you for only mere minutes, you became one of her closest friends."
Jessie swallowed. "How . . . how many years has it been?"
"Over six," Louis replied, walking over to a table and opening the drawer. "She spoke of you many times. Both of you. The lonely angel and the girl of many names ready to fight the demons for him." Jessie blushed when the Doctor looked at her inquisitively, but his attention was drawn back to Louis as he held out two letters to them, then he looked out the window when the sound of hooves clicking on stones caught their attention. "There she goes."
Jessie swallowed as a hearse went off, and she put a hand over her mouth, realizing just when they were. "Thirty seven," she breathed. "Over six years later . . . "
"Leaving Versailles for the last time," Louis said in a mourning voice. "Only forty three when she died." Jessie looked down, tears burning her eyes. The Doctor took her hand and gave it a squeeze, but he didn't let go. "Too young. Too young. Illness took her in the end. She always did work too hard." Louis looked at them. "What does she say?"
Jessie didn't answer. She turned on her heel and headed back for the fireplace room. She heard Louis say something else to the Doctor, put she placed her hands on the mantle and waited for him to catch up. When he did and set the fireplace rotating, neither of them said anything.
Then again, there wasn't a need to.
***
"Why her?" Saleen asked after they made it back. "How did they think they could repair the ship with the head of Madame de Pompadour?"
The Doctor shrugged halfheartedly. "We'll probably never know. There was massive damage in the computer memory banks. It probably got confused. The TARDIS can close down the time windows now the droids are gone. Should stop it causing any more trouble."
Jessie looked at the Doctor to see him stiff as if he was in defense mode. "Are you all right?" she couldn't help but ask.
He shot her a look. "I'm always all right."
She didn't look away, but Saleen broke the tension. "Come on, Jessie. It's time you showed me around the rest of the place."
Jessie gave him a look that she hoped said "we're talking later" before leading Saleen deeper into the TARDIS.
***
The Doctor breathed out, watching the two girls go. He unsealed the envelope inside of his jacket and looked at the letter.
My dear Doctor,
The path has never seemed more slow, and yet I fear I am nearing its end. Reason tells me that you and I are unlikely to meet again, but I think I shall not listen to reason. I have seen the world inside your head, and I know that all things are possible.
Should you return after I write this, do me one thing. A certain Wolf that was very brave once told me that you are worth having a broken heart. Do not stray from her, my Doctor. Do that for me.
Hurry though, my angel. My days grow shorter now, and I am so very weak. Godspeed, my lonely angel.
Reinette
Madam de Pompadour
The Doctor closed the letter, swallowing. He looked at the scanner on the TARDIS to see the fire in the fireplace still going. "I'll do it," he whispered in a promise. "I won't leave her again."
The fire went out.
***
First time I saw this episode, I hated Reinette with all my guts. I don't know why. I just didn't. It might've been because I was already shipping the Doctor and Rose so hard even then . . . I don't know. I hope I served Reinette's POV justice.
And hopefully she knocked some sense into the Doctor. For a nine hundred year old guy, he's not very smart at some things, is he? ;)