When we found Rose and Mickey, they were looking through the two way mirror, staring at a man as he primped himself. "Blimey, look at this guy. Who does he think he is?"
"The King of France."
"Oh, here's trouble. What have you been up to?" Rose asked, her question aimed at me, a sly smirk on her lips. I rolled my eyes and looked away, silently seething. While I often confided in Rose, the feeling I currently had was one I wanted to keep to myself. While I knew it would have been better in the long run, I didn't want anyone, including her, to know what happened or how I felt.
"Oh, this and that," the Doctor replied. "Became the imaginary friends of a future French aristocrat, picked a fight with a clockwork man." The horse neighed, standing in the doorway. "Oh, and we met a horse."
"What's a horse doing on a spaceship?"
"Mickey, what's pre-Revolutionary France doing on a spaceship? Get a little perspective. See these? They're all over the place. On every deck. Gateways to history. But not just any old history." We watched as Reinette entered the room 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?"
The Doctor looked at me to answer but I shrugged. He furrowed his brows but answered Rose's question. "Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, 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."
"Oh, I get it. Camilla," Rose and Mickey laughed.
"I think this is the night they met. The night of the Yew Tree ball. In no time at 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 King and his servants left and Reinette went to preen in the mirror.
"The Queen must have loved her," Rose muttered, gently nudging me. I glanced at her before I walked away and leaned against the wall.
"Oh, she did. They get on very well."
"The King's wife and the King's girlfriend?" Mickey asked.
The Doctor turned to Mickey and shrugged his shoulders. "France. It's a different planet."
I ignored them and watched the woman on the other side. Behind her, I noticed someone in the far corner and immediately felt as if the woman wasn't supposed to be there. As angry and hurt as I was, there was something after her and she needed help, whether or not it ended with me losing the Doctor. I watched as she turned, acknowledging the person in the corner of the room. "How long have you been standing there? Show yourself!" It turned, revealing itself to be a clockwork android. I watched as the Doctor grabbed the fire extinguisher from Mickey and opened the mirror door, the three walking in, leaving me on the ship. I couldn't help but feel as if in any life threatening situation, the Doctor wouldn't instantaneously rush into action. As the thought hit me, I held back a sob and wiped away a stray tear. I refused to show any weakness in regard to the situation. Shaking my head, I returned my attention to the mirror and watched the four.
"Hello, Reinette. Hasn't time flown?"
"Fireplace man!" The Doctor sprayed the android and threw the extinguisher back to Mickey. The android began to creak.
"What's it doing?" Mickey questioned.
"Switching back on. Melting the ice."
"And then what?"
"Then it kills everyone in the room. Focuses the mind, doesn't it?" the Doctor turned back to the android. "Who are you? Identify yourself." He turned his attention from the android to Reinette. "Order it to answer me."
"Why should it listen to me?"
"I don't know. It did when you were a child. Let's see if you've still got it."
"Answer his question. Answer any and all questions put to you."
"I am repair droid seven."
"What happened to the ship? There was a lot of damage."
"Ion storm. Eighty two percent systems failure."
"The ship hasn't moved in over a year. What's taken you so long?"
"We did not have the parts."
"Always comes down to that, doesn't it? The parts," Mickey interjected with a chuckle.
"What happened to the crew? Where are they?"
"We did not have the parts."
"There should have been over fifty people on your ship. Where did they go?" My eyes widened as I realized that we smelled the crew, that the androids had used them to repair the ship.
"We did not have the parts."
"Fifty people don't just disappear. Where- Oh," the Doctor replied, coming to the same conclusion I had. "You didn't have the parts, so you used the crew."
"The crew?"
"We found a camera with an eye in it, and there was a heart wired in to machinery."
"It was just doing what it was programmed to. Repairing the ship any way it can, with whatever it could find. No one told it the crew weren't on the menu. What did you say the flight deck smelt of?"
"Someone cooking," Rose muttered.
"Flesh plus heat. Barbeque. 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."
"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?" Rose asked before glancing at the Doctor and then through the glass, almost as if she were gazing at me. "You've got all of history to choose from. Why specifically her?"
"We are the same."
"We are not the same. We are in no sense the same."
"We are the same."
"Get out of here. Get out of here this instant!"
"Reinette, no." The android teleported back to the ship. "It's back on the ship. Rose, take Mickey and Arthur. Get after it. Follow it. Don't approach it, just watch what it does."
"Arthur?"
"Good name for a horse."
"No, you're not keeping the horse."
"I let you keep Mickey. Now go! Go! Go!" The Doctor closed the mirror behind Rose and Mickey. The pair looked at me before they took off, leaving the horse behind. Arthur stayed with me, placing his head on my shoulder as I sadly watched the Doctor and Reinette. "Reinette, you're going to have to trust me. 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." He put his fingers on her temples.
The woman gasped. "Fireplace man, you are inside my mind."
"Oh dear, Reinette. You've had some cowboys in here."
"You are in my memories. You walk amongst them."
"If there's anything you don't want me to see, just imagine a door and close it. I won't look. Oh, actually there's a door just there. You might want to cl- oh, actually, several." The woman smirked and slyly eyed him. As I witnessed that, I felt a painful tinge in my chest. While he hadn't seen it, I knew the woman wanted him and while I had claimed he wasn't mine multiple times, it was more of a way to keep me from going insane. If anything, I greatly wanted him to be mine and mine alone. Yet I knew in regard to the Doctor, women would always be after his affections.
"To walk among the memories of another living soul. Do you ever get used to this?"
"I don't make a habit of it."
"How can you resist?"
"What age are you?"
"So impertinent a question so early in the conversation. How promising." I grit my teeth, not at all pleased by her suggestive tone.
"No, not my question, theirs. You're twenty three and for some reason, that means you're not old enough." She flinched. "Sorry, you might find old memories reawakening. Side effect."
"Oh, such a lonely childhood."
"It'll pass. Stay with me."
"Oh, Doctor. So lonely. So very, very alone."
"What do you mean, alone? You've never been alone in your life." He looked at her, eyes wide. "When did you start calling me Doctor?"
"Such a lonely little boy. Lonely then but not so lonely now. She is all that you think of. You found what you spent so many years searching for and can say nothing. How can you bear it?"
The Doctor broke the link and stared at her. "How did you do that?"
"A door, once opened, can be stepped through in either direction. Why have you introduced her in such a manner? Oh, Doctor. You must tell her of your feelings.
"I can't."
"You must. She must know and I must apologize."
"I can't."
"Doctor. Doctor who? It is more than just a secret, isn't it?"
"What did you see?"
"That there comes a time, Time Lord, when every lonely boy must share his feelings with the one he loves," Reinette smiled before leading him from the room.
I sat against the wall for what seemed like hours before the Doctor showed up. He was swaying on his feet with a drunken smile on his face and was wearing his tie around his head and sunglasses. Upon seeing me, he quickly stumbled over and pulled me up. I groaned as he threw his drink free arm around my shoulders and leaned against me for support. As I held him up, he kept talking about the French and Reinette and how she and the King had finally danced. I rolled my eyes and moved so that he bumped into some of the parts littered around. It didn't even bother him, instead he began to sing. "I could've danced all night, I could've danced all night." I stumbled a bit. "And still have begged for more. I could've spread my wings and done a thou." He stopped singing, to my relief, when we reached Rose and Mickey. The two were strapped down to metal tables with two droids around them. "Have you met the French? My god, they know how to party."
"Oh, look at what the cat dragged in. The Oncoming Storm," Rose snapped, her eyes narrowing a bit more as she saw my extremely annoyed expression.
"Oh, you sound just like your mother."
"What've you been doing? Where've you been?"
"Well, among other things, I think just invented the banana daiquiri a few centuries early. Do you know, they've never even seen a banana before? Always take a banana to a party, Rose. Bananas are good." He then turned his attention to one of the androids. "Oh ho, ho, ho, ho, brilliant. It's you. You're my favourite, you are. You are the best! Do you know why? Because you're so thick. You're Mister Thick Thick Thickity Thick Face from Thicktown, Thickania. And so's your dad. Do you know what they were scanning Reinette's brain for? Her milometer. They want to know how old she is. Know why? 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. 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."
"Compatible? If you believe that, you probably believe this is a glass of wine," the Doctor said as he removed the mask and poured the goblet's contents on its head. The droid stopped moving. He sobered up and got off of me, looking for something. "Multigrain anti-oil. If it moves, it doesn't." He finally found it and flipped the switch. "Right, you two, that's enough lying about. Time we got the rest of the ship turned off." He freed Mickey and Rose from their bonds with the sonic. As he worked the console, I slipped my hand into his pocket and snatched the sonic screwdriver. Thankfully he didn't notice in his haste. I had the overwhelming feeling that I would need it.
"Are those things safe?"
"Yeah. Safe. Safe and thick, just the way I like them. Okay. All the time windows are controlled from here. I need to close them all down. Zeus plugs. Where are my Zeus plugs? I had them a minute ago. I was using them as castanets."
"Why didn't they just open a time window to when she was thirty seven?"
"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?" There was the ring of a bell.
"What's that?" Rose asked.
"I don't know. Incoming message?"
"From who?"
"Report from the field. One of them must still be out there with Reinette. That's why I can't close the windows. There's an override." I watched as the first droid reactivated and removed the oil from itself and onto the Doctor's shoe. "Well, that was a bit clever." The off switch moved to on again. "Right. Many things about this are not good. Message from one of your little friends? Anything interesting?"
"She is complete. It begins," one answered before they all teleported out.
"What's happening?"
"One of them must have found the right time window. Now it's time to send in the troops. And this time they're bringing back her head."
After what felt like hours of searching, we finally found the right time window. As the three tried to decide what to do, I had already formulated a plan. It was a stupid one but it would keep everyone safe in the end, even if I wasn't. "Such a commotion. 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. I have seen your world, and I have no desire to set foot there again."
"We do not require your feet." I watched as two androids pushed her to her knees. Taking that as my cue, I mounted Arthur and ran towards the window, past Rose, the Doctor, and Mickey, smashing through it and landing in the ballroom.
"Hello."
"Cerys!"
"What the hell is going on?"
"Oh, this is my lover, the King of France."
"Nice to meet you but I'm here for a clock," I stated as I removed the mask from one of the droids. It drew its blade and placed it at my throat. "It's over… for the both of us." I looked up seeing a brick wall where I had entered, trying to keep my voice steady. Just knowing I couldn't see Rose, Mickey, Jackie, or even the Doctor again was gnawing at me and I could feel a lump starting to form in my throat. Taking a steady breath, I watched as the android pressed its teleport frantically to no avail. "I broke the link coming here and there's no way to return. How long will you last before that last tick?" With that, and a few more ticks, the androids powered down, one falling and breaking to pieces. I turned to Reinette, forcing a small smile. "Are you okay?"
"Are you?" I strained a nod. "What's happened to them?"
"They no longer have a purpose so they powered down," I answered before walking away from the stunned party goers.
I stood outside, looking at the stars and silently crying. The party had not ended yet, which stunned me a bit but I was more surprised to feel a hand on my shoulder. Turning around, I came face to face with Reinette. "You are far from alright."
"Of course I am," I snapped before hastily apologising. The woman shook her head at me, letting me know it was fine that I'd snapped at her. "I'm stuck in 18th century France. I'm a very long way from home and a few centuries away."
"You are. I also wish to apologize for my advances towards the Doctor. It was not known to me that you were courting."
It's fine. It wouldn't have lasted. He's a Time Lord and I'm human. Besides, he isn't mine. He can see whomever he wants… have whoever he wants."
"I would not be so certain in your assumptions." I gave her a questioning glance but she only smiled. It was one of her sly ones, one that told me she knew more than she was letting on. "In saving me, you trapped yourself. Did you know that would happen?" she asked, changing the subject.
"Yes."
"And yet you came? Even after watching me pursue the man you love. Why?"
"I did. It was mainly because I couldn't just stand by as something happened to you. No matter how much I hated seeing you near him, you were in danger. Besides, while the world, my world, didn't need me, it does need the Doctor. He's saved so many people and has done so much good that it would have been one of the worst things that could ever occur. While I'm unneeded, he isn't. The universe needs him."
"As he needs you." I chuckled, not believing her words. "There were many doors between my world and yours. Can you not use one of the others?"
"No. When Arthur and I came through, I severed the link with the ship. There'll be a few broken mirrors and ripped tapestries wherever there was a door."
"So here you are, the woman who sacrificed herself and her love for me."
"Yeah, I suppose I don't regret it."
"And why is that?"
"It is easier for me to go. I've been so tired for so very long. Life is something I no longer want," I admitted sadly. The woman beside me squeezed my hand, offering me her comfort. She gave me a moment before she smiled.
"Come," Reinette spoke. "Take my hand." I did as she said. She led me to a bedroom. My eyes widened when I saw the fireplace. "It's not a copy, it's the original. I had it moved here and was exact in every detail."
"When?"
"Many years ago, in the hope that a door once opened, may someday open again. It appears undamaged. Do you think it will still work?"
"I don't know. Because you moved it, the link with the ship was severed. It was offline although the link still might be there." I began to tap the fireplace, looking for a weak spot or something that would indicate that the link was still there. When I found it, I smiled. "I found it… the loose connection." I pulled out the Doctor's screwdriver and pointed it to the fireplace. I gave it a kick and there was a clunk. "Thank you. Don't forget to take care of Arthur please." Reinette nodded and gave me a quick hug, slipping an envelope in my hand, before the fireplace turned.
On the other side, I saw the Doctor frantically trying to work the controls on the console. Rose and Mickey stood on the side, watching him. Mickey was the first to see me. After he had gotten over the initial shock, he rushed over and pulled me into a hug. Rose ran over, pushing the poor man off of me and engulfing me in a bone shattering embrace. I managed to smile as she let go and slapped my arm, knowing I had done more than worry her. The only person who hadn't seen me was the Doctor. I walked over to him and placed the sonic in his pocket before I made my way to the Tardis. As I walked away, I felt arms snake around my waist. I fell into the embrace for a moment before I pulled away. Before I could get too far, I was grabbed and spun around so that I was facing him. "Let go of me."
"Rose, Mickey, can you give us a minute?" Mickey nodded and dragged Rose into the Tardis. I looked everywhere but at him. "Why-"
"Because I did. You were thinking of doing it and the universe needs you."
"You don't get to decide that. You had no right to make that decision."
"I don't care! Anything is better than-"
"Than what?"
"Nothing. It doesn't matter."
"It does. Anything having to do with you matters."
"Yeah, right. Maybe you should have thought about that before you snogged Reinette. Speaking of her, she wanted you to have this," I said as I shoved the letter I was given into his hand. With that, I wrenched myself from his grip and entered the Tardis. I stormed past both Mickey and Rose for the comfort of my room where I soon fell asleep.
"You should kill yourself and do it right. No one wants you around, Cerys."
"You're ugly and fat. Maybe you should go on a diet."
"No, just die already."
I sat in the corner of the bathroom clutching my knees to my chest. It had been another day of bombardment. No one had come to my aid, not even Rose. She was too busy with Shareen, the one person who was the main cause to my pains. She had employed those people to say such things and try as I might, it hurt to hear them. I tentatively reached my hand out, finding the box cutter I had taken to carrying around. Letting up the blade, I swiped it across my arm. I watched at the blood oozed and fell. In almost a maniacal way, I slashed at my arm, until I reached the vein between my bicep and forearm. I ran the blade against it, digging as deep as I could. I then turned to my wrist, digging deep with that as well. I quickly did the same to my opposite arm and laid onto the floor, waiting for death. As I closed my eyes for the final time, the bathroom door opened and there was an ear shattering scream.