Time Traveling Adventures

[Scarlett De Fontaine]

(Um, Ten... they're just dating here, remember?)

Kyra blushed a little when Six said they were married. It would have been wishful thinking on her part. They were only dating after all. But then she heard the name Gertrude and she frowned at the ugliness of the name, and being unsure of whether to bow or curtsy, she did nothing. She would explain it away later. Also later she would make sure to get back at the sixth Doctor for the renaming.

[The Eighth Doctor]

Eight looked back over the crowd just in time to pick out the Sixth version of him once more. Curiously it seemed he was doing his best to just move back and be un-noticed. From what he remembered that was very un-like him, something must be causing this. He mulled it over as he sipped the wine, wondering if he could go over and join the small crowd but then thought better of it. It was when he saw the others around him that he almost changed his mind. He coughed a bit as a swallow of wine went the wrong direction.

[The Tenth Doctor]

The guardsman nodded again at the female, seeing her as a nuisance. He was a guardsman for the Queen. Something that he couldn't tell this female was that he had also recently been put in a special division of her guard -- a new protective institution that she had started two years before.

A small brandmark on his arm gave this membership away. To most people it would just look like a few circles in a particular design. Circles that were connected in a sort of pyramid shape. Knowing how women reacted sometimes to strange markings, he rolled back his shirt sleeve just a bit to reveal the marking.

Knowing that he couldn't tell the woman the true reason behind the rank, he just said, "Well, good thing I am here, mam. This shows that I have been promoted to a special level of guard. The Queen's protection is our first priority." Of course that symbol would have been hard to read with the current lighting of the room. He cared very little.

The guardsmen sighed in annoyance. The woman was even more stupid than she had appeared. "Perhaps so, but a proper search means that we would need the right sort of lighting. Our search will be much easier that way."

He looked to her, expecting the female to do something about the lack of lighting in the room.

[Issildia Nevar]

The guard was more of a pig than Issildia had given him credit for as she easily read the displeasure and frustration spelled across his shadow cloaked features. As she and the guard stepped into the room together the man thought it necessary to wax on about his promotion to a special government unit. The tug of a smile pulled at her pallid lips as he pulled the edge of his sleeve up to reveal a particular insignia to her.
So he was a Torchwood agent of the queen, the irony certainty did not escape her. Issildia was half tempted to play the part of Alice Trevena a bit longer, but the night was not growing any younger, and this man was wearing on her nerves.

Her words flowed from her throat like an ebony slick of oil, sweet and chilling all in the same moment. There was a certain amount of satisfaction among her tone as the decades of training she had endured focused into a short parade of movements.

“Oh but sir…” She uttered, sliding behind him as though to hide away from the hidden invaders that she had spoken of within the room. Her muscles tensed in anticipation for what this fool would never see coming from some well to do small minded female.

“I doubt that light will do you very much good now…” She whispered as she allowed her fingertips to tense and relax, moving up towards his neck from behind, with her index knuckle retracted to provide bony protrusion that would work fabulously in crushing his windpipe. After all Issildia did not need his screams alerting the rest of the manor to her actions. With her other arm she reached from behind in order to catch him by the chin to wrench his head back whilst breaking his neck and silencing his voice in the same moment.

All of the sudden her arm caught him at the neck, her hand coiled about his chin, her lips coming to rest by his ear as she whipped her knuckle around towards his windpipe, to silence him just as he heard her final words.

“Perhaps what you really need…is a Doctor…”

[Bryan Wilkeson]

NY 1889

James then asked Clara, as the break in the clouds became covered up again, "So, where to next?"

Clara was still thinking about her TARDIS and whipped her head up to face him when he asked.

"Clara, are you alright? You seem a bit distant," James said as he studied her expression.

"I'm fine, really. It's just odd to be back in this time period." Clara put on a grin and hoped he wouldn't think any more of it.

But James knew that smile better than anyone. "Come on, what's really bothering you?"

Clara looked down, a bit ashamed that she had tried, and failed, to fool him like that. "I'm not sure, but... I'm just worried about my TARDIS... something just feels odd about everything... I don't know."

[The Tenth Doctor]

As the guard heard this lady's words, a look of horror crossed his face. Only one thought ran through his head. This woman was with the Doctor. She didn't look like the blond that he'd heard described as being his traveling companion. All members of Torchwood were required to memorize the descriptions of both Rose and the Doctor. However, the Doctor may be cunning. The Queen had deemed him dangerous. This woman before him was certainly not what she appeared to be. They must be after the Queen, the guardsman figured.

However, the more threatening situation was what the woman was doing to him now. He tried to fight the woman off, tried kicking her, tried to wrench away from her grip.

As a trained guard, he had been of course learned some basic self defense skills. However, he hadn't expected this woman to be an assassin. Not sure if his skills would be enough to match this woman, he continued to attempt to fight against her, using his own training.

(you can kill him if you want -- doesn't really matter.)

[Issildia Nevar]

Issildia savored the look on the guard’s face as he came to the realization that she was no small minded woman, but the true threat that he had taken an oath to protect against. Yet here he had been, eating her every word out of the palm of her hand, allowing his own bias to lead him into believing that she was some foolish noble woman. Those cold blue eyes haunting him in that eternal moment between Life and Death as he felt a numbing pain begin at his neck where her hands were twisting his spine in a direction it was not meant to turn.
There was the heavy press of something hard against his bare throat that he soon realized were her knuckles began to tear through his skin, crushing his air way as a silent scream leapt into his throat. That dry bloody shriek came out as naught but a ragged hiss of air as he began to suffocate. Yet Issildia did not allow him those few precious moments of life as her left arm completed its duty and his neck cleanly snapped, his body going utterly limp. Her attack at been too quick for a chance at survival, yet the Torchwood huntress felt no regret for her actions as she began to drag the limp corpse towards the walk-in wardrobe.

She quickly hid the body amid the myriad of lengthy summer dresses so even if Lady Ashford returned tonight, she certainly would not be donning a garment that was simply not for this particular season. Issilida had enough foresight to at least hide the man in the area that would be least visited during the ball. Stowing the corpse amid a pile of boots, behind a trunk tucked away in the corner with a swath of dresses hanging over it, she turned from the scene to brush the wrinkles out of her own gown. Her expression remained quite flat as she strode towards the door, the murder sinking to the depths of her mind as she again moved out into the hallway.

Allowing a slow exhale of air to pass between her lips the woman again strode smoothly back towards the ball room, her skirts gliding restlessly about her booted feet.

Her mission still rose into prominence within her mind. Gauging from the fact that Torchwood was indeed here it may not be all that long before the body of the murdered guard was found, or that his disappearance was noticed. This of course meant that her time was greatly limited and that she needed to make contact with the Doctor. She did not intend to give him the same treatment as the guard, after all he would simply regenerate. That said, the reason Torchwood wanted him alive was to gain his knowledge, and to capture his TARDIS. And quite frankly Issildia had no clue how to pilot the Doctor’s famous ship even if she did capture the Time Lord. She would need him to do the work for her, and as such deception was her only alternative. She would need to befriend him, to get close enough that he would practically walk right into the Institute all on his own without her sword at his back.

The swirl of dancers and music once again assailed her senses, along with the faint scents of food and wine. The warm golden light of the ball room alighted upon her as Issildia moved again into the swathe of people upon leaving the manor corridor that led to Lady Ashford’s chambers.

Yet something was quite wrong when she gave herself the chance to survey the room; something that was far more than she bargained for.

She did not simply she the Doctor….she saw the Doctors….three of them in fact. From the Torchwood file she recognized them as the Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth. The huntress had only bargained to run into the Tenth as he was the one on record for being here at this particular time. Yet it was only his face that Queen Victoria knew, perhaps that is why the others were not noted.

Pursing her lips together with slight uncertainty Issildia moved forward within the heady whirlpool of moving bodies as the sound of a waltz began within the room. Her eyes darted over the three men, uncertain of how to approach this conundrum.

So many Doctors, and so little time.

[Bryan Wilkeson]

NY 1889

James looked at Clara and frowned as he thought. "Maybe we should go back home, just take a few days off."

Clara reluctantly nodded and they headed back for her TARDIS. She really wanted to make his day, but the TARDIS seemed to have other plans.

[Issildia Nevar]

The violins swayed into a dark waltz that twined around some minor key that bespoke of more than the warm charm that the other musical pieces had displayed. The music was patient and unhurried as Issildia’s sapphire orbs settled in on the Eighth incarnation of the Doctor. Perhaps she might spare herself a moment to discern what brought him here as the woman glanced with a terse frown at the Sixth version of the doctor in his rather vibrant display of clothing. The huntress doubted that she would glean much from the lively character, and also was not interested in the man and his potential for wearing on her already bent nerves.

Her gait was smooth and practices as Issildia moved within the swirl of dancing bodies as the first few measures of the waltz began. Champagne hued skirts cascaded about her as again the woman allowed the persona of Alice Trevena to flow into the forefront of her mind. Still the character she had played for the now…indisposed guard was that of a fool, and a fool would not suit her needs in the presence of one of the Doctors.

The Doctor was sipping a glass of wine as his eyes wandered over the landscape of intermingling bodies veiled in silk. In a flicker of movement Issildia followed the line of his gaze to again rest on the Sixth incarnation.

So…he realized that he was not alone... she presumed with a stately half smile alighting on her lips as she neared him, preparing herself for her role. After all, this was not some simple minded guardsman she must now fool. Her voice was not the honey sweet trill that the Torchwood agent had heard before his death, but more herself as Issildia remembered well her lessons on impersonation.
The more she stayed close to her own mannerisms in the character she would play this night, the less deception to cloak on her part. This of course would offer less room for mistakes, of which she could not afford.
Her voice resembled her own composed sense of calm as she spoke, like a forgotten winter stream still murmuring amid a frozen world.

Approaching from the side as to not make such a forward gesture of greeting Issildia came to pluck herself a glass of wine from an adjoining table cloaked in a satin cloth. Wordlessly the Torchwood huntress came to a slow halt beside the Eighth form of the Doctor. Taking a slight sip from the glass she spoke.


“Amid all of this splendor good sir, you seem to be naught but a statue.” Issildia uttered from his side with her gaze centered in on the dancers as though she had little interest for him.
She paused for a moment, unblinking before continuing with a fleeting glance towards the Doctor before resuming her emotionless gaze upon the twirling dancers.

“I believe it was Sir Walter Scott who spoke that…One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum.” She recited cleanly.

“If such a thing is true, then why do you stand to the side and allow time to pass you by?” Issildia spoke boldly, unafraid of offending him; she doubted that the Time Lord would be daunted by her words on such things as wasted time. Still she waited patiently for his reply.

[Bryan Wilkeson]

NY 1889

Soon Clara and James were back to the TARDIS stowed away in the abandoned flat. Clara was too eager to leave to notice the footsteps in the dust on the floor, and James was too busy worrying about Clara to notice.

"Okay, systems look good, everything checks out, now, to just get out of this dress," Clara said after completing a diagnostic of the TARDIS systems.

James smirked a bit at the idea of helping her into her usual clothes, but knew that she wasn't really in the mood for that sort of thing right now.

Once Clara was back from the dressing room and James had gone in to change into his own usual attire, she popped her fingers a bit before getting the TARDIS ready to leave.

New York, 1924, home sweet home, she thought as she began to pilot the TARDIS though the Time Vortex, but her mind was also elsewhere.

Clara never really got to enjoy her time off. Sure she could enjoy having James around and all, but they usually were all "back to work, as usual" right after. She wanted to go roam around and see things... even the occasional alien or two wouldn't hurt. She wondered if crashing into Earth when she ran was a stroke of good or bad luck.

[Susan Foreman]

Susan watched the three curiously. She covered her mouth and laughed gently at the name. It wasn't because of the name itself -- although Gertrude was a disgusting name -- but because of their reactions. Her grandfather was laughing, Jeremiah McInolds seemed sheepish, and Tyler and Gertrude McInolds were glaring at Jeremiah.

She grinned when her grandfather tried to become proper once again. It was a reason she was trying to keep her mouth firmly shut. She may be a Time Lady, but she wasn't anything like her grandfather. She glanced away when Tyler bowed, and tried to conceal her laughter as a cough.

They're definitely not from here. Who are they?[/color] She asked her grandfather curiously. She decided not to ask her grandfather about their true names. It was obvious that they weren't real names (more like unpracticed false ones), but the Doctor had been reluctant in admitting that he even knew them. She didn't expect an answer from her grandfather on the question.


Six's friendly smile hardly faltered as his brother curtsied. He ran in his mind a list of excuses. Maybe they were spreading Asian practices. Maybe his brother was a hermit that had been kidnapped by savage Africans. Maybe his brother was an alien. The truth was so ridiculous nobody would believe it.

In the end he decided it would be better to just ignore the social blunder and correct him later. Not that Six was keen of just disappearing into the sidelines, but he felt slightly uncomfortable bursting into potential danger (not that he sensed any danger, but he hardly ever sensed danger) with his brother and Kyra there.

It'd be a terrible thing to kidnap whisk them away on a forced romantic trip and get them murdered.

[ooc| sorry it's not awesome :D][/font][/size]

[The Eighth Doctor]

The Eighth Doctor turned to the lovely young lady that had approached and spoke to him and did a slight bow. "One of my dear friends once told me, 'The only reason for Time is so that everything doesn't happen at once!' " The Time Lord's eyes slightly lost their focus as he gave a quick thought to his friend. Albert Einstein had been one of the most delightful humans he had ever met. Too bad a human of his caliber only came around rarely. With a slight shake of his head he brought himself back to the present. "This white wine is delightful but I was considering trying the sherry. Shall I get you a glass? My name is Smith, John Smith."

He gave another quick glance about the room but more people had filed in so he had once more lost the colorful figure of the Sixth or the people he was with. He could have sworn he had spied Susan but perhaps it was someone who just resembled her and his weary mind simply filled in the rest.

[Issildia Nevar]

Issildia allowed a single eyebrow to arch sharply at the Eighth Doctor’s reply, slightly amused with the retort.
“John Smith” Issildia uttered as though toying with the sound of the word upon her lips, slowly getting back into her character.
Turning her cobalt gaze on him the woman proffered a subdued smile whilst inclining her head for a moment, evidently a gesture of greeting and of polite respect.

“Alice Trevena” Issildia spoke as her chill blue eyes once again settled upon him, that same vicious intelligence stirring in her gaze. Her eyes were like that of a snow leopard, cold, and calculating as it watches a wounded hare limp back to its burrow. Evidently the Doctor appeared to be buying her ruse, which pleased the Torchwood agent to no end.

In response to his inquiry concerning the sherry Issildia responded a nod. “Why thank you Mr. Smith, I would love a glass...” The woman articulated cleanly, her tone leaning toward something less kind and more that of a starving wolf with the scent of blood loose on the wind.

Clasping her hands in front of her gown simply to keep them still and away from the thought of simply rendering the man unconscious and dragging him back to the Institute. No, this was simply a matter of gathering intelligence Issildia told herself as the carefully wrought discipline ingrained in her mind by Torchwood came to the forefront of her consciousness. She would show control, and she would get the answers she required before this night ended.

[The Tenth Doctor]

Ten, while in conversation, searched around for his Eighth self again. It was in that moment that he had seen that Eight was talking to someone -- a female. Sighing, he had wanted to keep an eye on his other versions. It was convenient that Six was talking with him - had been for a while.

Tyler felt a tickle in the back of his neck as Susan sent a telepathic message to Ten. Assuming that either humans were telepathic or that Kyra and his brother had sent a telepathic message to one another, he looked between Six and Kyra suspiciously, wondering what they were communicating. Tyler hadn't been around that many other species that were telepathic, but it had felt like Time Lord communication to him. He couldn't tell who sent it , or who it was sent to, but he knew that there was a telepathic communication somewhere in the room.

Ten received Susan's message and sent one in return, "Well...they are just...friends.....I'd rather you wouldn't use telepathy. I'll tell you later....if I remember."

Ten noticed that several people had noticed Six and Kyra, their appearance standing out. Glancing at Kyra's Gallifreyan robe, Ten asked her, "You know....I've never seen a dress like that....it is quite beautiful...befitting of such a beautiful lady."

Ten glanced in Eight's direction several times during the conversation. Tyler followed Ten's eyes an noticed that they happened to center on one gentleman in particular. A friend, perhaps? Someone that this David hadn't seen in a while?

(Eight probably shouldn't know what this version of Susan looks like, as Ten didn't recognize her. In other words, she has regenerated since the last time that Susan and the Doctor met.)

[Bryan Wilkeson]

Kyra smiled. "Thank you. It was a present." Humans sent present to each other, right?