'The Time I met the Doctor' - part 3

The Doctor briskly hopped about the laboratory, twiddling knobs on equipment, adjusting dials, and basically looking very important. I sat in one of those rock-like school chairs, trying to be comfortable, while continuing to get soaked to the bone. My new companion still had her arms wrapped around me and had curled up in my lap. I felt rather ridiculous. As you know, I'm not a particularly touchy-feely sort of person, tending to keep my hands to myself, particularly when in public. Even previous to this, when engaged to Heather and in public, I tended to be polite, only occasionally holding hands or wrapping the arm around the midsection of my lady fair. To have a young lady, even worse a young lady I didn't know from Eve, someone who I didn't even have a name for at yet, wrapped around me made me uncomfortable and embarrassed. In a chemical, hormonal sort of way it felt nice, but otherwise I wasn't for it. I was of the opinion that this embarrassment was part of Erik's plan.

The Doctor bounded my way and climbed up onto the table next to me. With a jar in hand, he scooped some of the cloud away from over me, quickly slamming a lid on the jar to contain the vapor. "Hmm, now that is quite curious indeed," he muttered, his voice deep and rumbling.

I turned to look up at him, caught a large raindrop in the eye, and gave up on trying to look at him. "What is?" I asked while trying to blink away the rain in my eye.

He clambered down from the table and showed me the jar. It was difficult to see what he was trying to show me through the rain. "It's empty," he noted when it became obvious I was unable to get the point on my own.

I shrugged my shoulders. "The vapor condensed then, so?"

"You misunderstand me. I collected a section of cloud within the jar. I saw it trapped by the glass. Now, there's nothing: no cloud, no trace of cloud, no condensation, no visible moisture. I don't know where the cloud went, but it's not in the jar."

I blinked, in part due to surprise and in part due to the fact that I kept getting water in my eyes. "That's not possible, is it?"

"It's happened, so it's possible. How it's possible, I'm not sure as of yet."

The doors to the laboratory bang open allowing for the return of Jamie and Victoria to our group. They have Mr. Kirby's umbrella. Jamie looks a bit disarranged. "What do I get the impression we've missed out on something?"

The Doctor looked concerned. "Are you alright Jamie?"

"Aye, I'm fine," he commented. "Here's yur umbrella."

"Ta very much," I answered. "Didn't have to go through that much to get it, did you?"

"We were met by some men," Victoria noted. Between her and Jamie, I think I got the gist of what happened. Their stories contradicted each other now and then, and there were a few bits I added from knowing the individuals involved, but together we made a certain sense of things.


Kenshiro, it seemed, had gone to collect some of Erik's other friends. He collected gentlemen who we managed to identify as Akaru (short dark hair, glasses, says 'Aha!' a lot, even when inappropriate), Chojuro (dyed blonde hair cut oddly short, but only cut on one side), and Toshiro (a very intense looking young man with his hair pulled into a ceremonial ponytail, we were friends at one point). These four intercepted Jamie and Victoria on their way back to the laboratory, at a point in this process where they were lost. Kenshiro pointed at them dramatically. "You two! Take your friend and leave Thompson alone. Do not mingle yourselves in other people's business."

Victoria, bless her heart, stuck up for me. "It is our business," she insisted. "Patrick's our friend and we want to help him."

"Aye," Jamie added as punctuation.

"Aha!" Akaru cried. "Then they should incur the same penalties as Thompson, should they not?"

Toshiro shook his head tiredly. "You two sound like a badly dubbed movie. Can't you talk normally?"

"Worry not about our speech," Kenshiro exclaimed. "Just get them!" And then they moved in.

Jamie handed the umbrella to Victoria for safekeeping or as a potential weapon if the need arose. "If ye want a fight, I'll give it to ye," he noted, hunching slightly to provide less of a target. "Creig an tuire!" He quickly learned something I already knew: most of these guys didn't know how to fight. Kenshiro ran at Jamie, yelling some weird war cry, and Jamie just dodged him, bopping him on the head as Kenshiro went past. Akaru tried a martial arts pose, hoping to look cool, but when he swung at Jamie, his hand was grabbed and swung into an arm bar. Jamie switched it to a headlock and used Akaru's immobility to punch him in the stomach. Akaru fell down moaning.

Chojuro looked at Toshiro. They were to grab Victoria, but their comrades' inability to deal with Jamie made this plan unviable. Toshiro nodded towards Jamie. "Feel free to deal with him." Chojuro, not a man of many words, nodded and moved in.

Victoria did her best to look tough, but started to crumb under Toshiro's intense gaze. "I've got an umbrella," she noted, trying to keep her voice level and failing at that as well, "and I'm not afraid to use it."

Toshiro's gaze softened ever so slightly. "Do not worry. I will not attack a woman. Erik may have me doing his dirty work for him, but I will not go against my sense of honour." This puzzled Victoria, but as it made him no threat, she relaxed.

Chojuro was a better fighter than his two friends, but not by much. Jamie on the other hand had been fighting for most of his life, easily dodged the clumsy attacks directed his way, and headbutted Chojuro down. This left Toshiro. Jamie looked at Toshiro, ready to defend himself. Toshiro merely looked at him. Their gazes intertwined. Toshiro broke the moment. "Take the umbrella to Patrick. I have no reason to stop you."

"Then why were you with them?" Victoria questioned.

"It is a complicated story and not one I would tell a stranger. Take the umbrella and go. I will deal with these three." They left Toshiro standing over the three pained men.


"Then we came back here."

I had the umbrella up and it was accomplishing its task of keeping my new friend and myself dry. "Good old Toshiro!" I exclaimed. "Somehow I knew he didn't want to join up with Erik. I wonder what Erik has on him?"

"A question for another time perhaps," the Doctor noted. "I'm still wondering about this young lady and the cloud she seems to have brought us." He squatted down in front of us and looked at the young lady sitting on my lap. She looked back at him. This gave me a good chance to see the curiosity and kindness on his face. It was an old, grooved face, but it was also soft and gentle, the kind of face you would want in a favourite uncle. It was a silly face, one prone to displaying an amusing amount of emotion at times, but confidence building at the same time. He would be able to help me. His face elongated in surprise. "How very interesting," he mumbled, his voice deep and rumbling. He reached out a hand and brushed aside some of her hair. Her ears are pointed. Of course, the hair colouring should have told me, or at least hinted to me. "She's a Na'Dar," I burbled.

"Oh really?" the Doctor rumbled. "And who would they be?"

"I didn't think it was that much of a secret. They arrived in the nineteen fifties and made peace with the countries of Earth. We export some of our excess food to them and they traded us knowledge and some metals. I'm surprised you haven't heard of them, you look like the sort of chap who would know all about this sort of thing."

"That's true," Jamie noted.

"Yes," the Doctor replied, dragging the word out, his mind obviously elsewhere. "Mind if I have a chat with my friends for a moment?"

"Go right ahead." They stepped over to the other side of the room and began chatting amongst themselves. I hope it's nothing serious. This girl being a Na'Dar explains quite a lot, especially her not speaking an Earth language. Pity I don't know more of their language apart from 'hello', 'goodbye', and 'idiot'. Still, it's a start. I tell her hello in her language. Her head whips around so that she can look at me, surprise evident on her face. She says something back to me, but I don't have a clue what it was. "Sorry, I don't know much more," I say pathetically. She shrugs her shoulders and relaxes again.

The Doctor and his friends return to my side of the room. "Now then, back to your problem." He smiles widely and claps his hands together. "Are you sure she's a Na'Dar?"

"She responded just now when I said hello to her."

"Well that's a good sign."

"I'm guessing she's lost her translation unit. Either that or Erik took it from her."

"I'm guessing he took it," Jamie said. "He sounds like the sort of guy who would."

"So that gives us two choices," the Doctor noted. "Either we can try to retrieve the unit from this Erik person or . . ."

"Or?" Victoria prompted.

"I learn the language of the Na'Dar very quickly." He pulled up a chair and sat in front of me. "Say hello or something to her again. Get her to talk."

"If you like." I say hello again. She looks at me again, less quickly this time, and says something, sounding mildly cranky this time. I could be imagining that, but somehow I don't think I am. To be polite, I point to myself and say 'idiot'. She nods her head and says something else. At least she agreed with me.

Slowly, the Doctor repeats a line that she'd said. She looks at him hopefully and starts talking. This is fascinating. She'll rattle something off and then he'll carefully reply, in a minimum of words. I've no idea if he's actually making sense to her, but the words sound right and she keeps talking so he must be saying something. A few moments ago, the Doctor didn't even know she was an alien or that her race existed. Now he's learning her language. Fascinating. He's starting to smile and his sentences are getting longer. He must be getting the hang of it.

He exhales noisily and sits back. "Well, you were right Jamie. Erik took her translation unit from her." Jamie immediately goes into a smug mode. "She doesn't know all of what was going on, but she knows he linked her weather machine to trace her and has stuck her on you Patrick, apparently to embarrass you."

"Stuck her on me?" I echo. "Care to define that further?"

"It has something to do with another of her machines. Apparently Na'Dar technology far exceeds human technology, or even what they've given you. He got ahold of some machine that makes her become physically attached to you."

"Yeah, and I'm not particularly thrilled about being stuck on his lap either." I blink. I could swear I understood her that time. Jamie and Victoria have surprised looks on their faces as well, so it's not just me then.

At this point in time, I wanted very badly to say something clever or cutting. However, sometimes surprise overwhelms our best intentions and we default to whatever becomes easiest to do or say. I defaulted to a surprised "My word!" which sounded neither clever nor cutting.

She gave me another surprised look. "A minute ago you could only say 'hello' and 'idiot', which I thought was very appropriate under the circumstances. When did you get verbose?"

"Probably around the same time you did," I retorted. I looked at the Doctor. "What happened?"

"If I explained it, neither of you would understand."

"Try me," exclaimed the girl using me as a chair.

"Perhaps later," he said soothingly.

"Oh no," she noted vigorously. "I've had a particularly crummy day, I'm wet, I'm uncomfortable, and I'm not in a particularly good mood. I am not interested in waiting until later. I want to know why all of a sudden how the wonder idiot I'm stuck to managed to start speaking my home language!"

Jamie stepped forward, a firm, determined look on his face. "There's no need to be yelling at the Doctor. If he says he'll explain later, he will and he's got a good reason to keep it until later."

Victoria gave him a disappointed look. "Jamie," she said, a chastising tone in her voice.

"Well, yon lassie's not got any manners," he grumbled, and stepped back.

The Doctor cleared his throat, only as loudly as he needed to regain everyone's attention. "As I see it right now, we have three tasks to complete. First is stopping this rainfall. Second is separating you two. Third is regaining the equipment Erik took from you."

"Sounds about right," I noted.

"We can help you do this."

"Would ya?" the girl asked, sarcasm dripping from every brief syllable. "Gee that would be swell."

I nudged her in the ribs. "Hush, he's offering help. Be nice."

"I don't have to be nice if I don't want to."

"Do it anyway."

"Jamie, Victoria and I will leave you two over here while we go have a think."

"Don't leave me here alone with him."

"I want to help think too."

"We can't move you. Currently you're located over the main drain in the room. If we keep moving you around, you'll get the whole room messy. We won't be far if you need us." That said, he escaped to the other side of the laboratory which, considering the size of the room, was far enough to get some peace and quiet from our bickering, which is what I considered to be the real reason for their movement.

I gave the alien girl a Look, and she returned it. I extended a hand. "Patrick Thompson."

Still looking at me crossly, she shook my hand. "Llan Guine." Well, at least I had a name for her now.

There was an awkward silence while I tried to think of something to say and she fumed. Finally I blurted out "Am I really all that awful to be attached to?"

She looked at me for a moment before answering. "I don't know. Mostly it's the principal of the thing that bothers me. I don't like being attached to anyone, much less a human, much less a human I don't even know, much less a human I don't even know that's not all that cute."

"Thanks for the ego boost."

"I'm just being honest," she insisted. "I don't find you all that attractive. For all I know, the Earth girls are all over you, but you don't interest me."

"Fair enough. I can understand the concept."

"With that in mind and considering the crummy day I've had, I'm understandably cranky. I mean, I had better things to do today than sit on your lap."

"I had plans that didn't involve being stuck with a cute girl on my lap as well. Then again, had someone offered that as a potential plan this morning, I don't think I would have turned it down either."

She grins slightly. "You think I'm cute?"

"If we're going to continue being honest, then yes, I think you are very cute."

"You're not so bad after all. At least you've got good taste."

The Doctor suddenly slipped up next to us. "Sorry to interrupt, but do you know if the laboratory has a multi phase vibro cleanser?"

"It doesn't sound familiar."

"I've got a modifiable single phase vibro cleanser," Llan noted. "Well, Erik took it from me, so I suppose 'had' is the proper term."

"I see."

"Is one of those necessary to the plan you're concocting?"

"Hmm? Oh no, not at all. I was just . . . adjusting a section of circuitry from some of my equipment while I thought about what do to and I realized I required a multi phase vibro cleanser to continue." A very incredibly innocent look overwhelmed the Doctor's expression. "Is there any chance that I could use your cleanser if we can recover it?"

Llan's crankiness continued to fade as I watched her. I think she'd just gotten tired of being so ornery. Then again, it could have something to do with the Doctor. He is moderately amusing to watch. "Sure, why not?"

Enthusiastically, the Doctor clapped his hands together. "Excellent, now then. Are you ready to hear my idea?"

"Certainly."

"Apparently Erik's plan is to make Patrick look foolish, correct?"

"Seems like it."

"Then I say we give him what he wants."