Fic: Chance Encounter (DW)
23 Sep 2013 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisbluespiritTitle: Chance Encounter
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lost_spook
Rating: All ages/PG
Word Count: 2859
Characters/Pairings: Nat Webber, Tilly Holmes, Brigadier Winifred Bambera, Ancelyn (Nat/Tilly, Bambera/Ancelyn)
Notes/Warnings: A coda of sorts for 1980s UNIT. 1997
Summary: Why is it, when UNIT is involved, lunch always means something trying to eat you rather than the other way round?
Forjjpor in the 500 Prompts Meme - Prompt 397: It was many and many a year ago – Nat/Tilly (1980s UNIT, DW). Also very belated (or just possibly very very early) birthday fic!
Plus, it fits the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
trope_bingo “Reunion” square.
***
Nat Webber glanced down at his watch again as he waited outside the lecture theatre. They were running over, he thought – just as the first few attendees started to leave, walking past him. He stepped back out of the way, and when the brief flood of people had subsided, he risked walking in. By that time, there was no one left in the room but a couple of the organisers, Tilly, and an all-too familiar elderly academic who regularly turned up to disagree with her – something he was doing again now, at length.
“Excuse me,” said Nat, heading over, and interrupting this tirade with much inward satisfaction. “I’m afraid Dr Webber has an appointment for lunch and if she doesn’t leave now, she’ll be late.”
Tilly shot him a startled look, but then turned back to the older man. “We’ll have to finish discussing this after the afternoon talk, Professor Clarke. If you’re going to be there, that is?”
“I don’t know that I will,” Clarke said, giving Nat a disgruntled look, but he shuffled away. “Probably.”
Tilly collected up her papers and the slides for the overhead projector, and then rejoined Nat beside the dais. “I can’t truthfully say that I mind,” she told him, “but really, Nat, there’s no need to lie!”
“I’m not,” he said, giving her a grin. “We have got a lunch to go to and we are about to be late if we don’t hurry.”
Tilly hurried beside him. “Well, you didn’t mention it this morning.”
“There’s another convention going on alongside this one,” Nat said. “Turns out it’s something to do with UNIT – and I ran into an old friend while I was hanging about earlier. As it happens, the stars and our schedules have aligned for this one brief hour, so we’re having lunch, unless you have any strong objections.”
Tilly stopped walking. “Nat. Who?”
“Guess.”
She glared at him, but took his arm and started walking again. “Well, it can hardly be the Colonel, and it can’t be the Captain –”
“No,” said Nat. “Or, yes, actually. Not Evered, but before him, Captain Bambera. You remember her, don’t you?”
“I could hardly forget,” Tilly said. “She’s here? And she wants to see us?” There was a lift of surprise in her voice.
Nat had to bite back laughter, because he’d had the same reaction. He hadn’t, he was sure, made a particularly positive impression on Bambera in the brief time that their careers at UNIT had coincided. Still, it wasn’t everyone who’d fought hostile aliens and Torchwood employees with him, and after so long out of UNIT, he didn’t mind talking about the bad old days. For Tilly, of course, that particular period was a more sensitive topic. “So she says.”
“Well,” said Tilly, “that is a surprise. You told her – well, you told her that I was me?”
Nat turned his head and gave her a long look. “Funnily enough, yes. I suppose I shouldn’t have admitted your secret identity, but I thought –”
Tilly poked him in the ribs. “I only meant – well, you know what I meant!”
“That she didn’t airily suggest I bring my wife or significant other without realising the dreadful truth?” said Nat. “Yes, I did tell her you were, in fact, you.”
“She wasn’t surprised?”
“She was more surprised to hear you were one of the guest lecturers here. She’d assumed I was the Dr Webber who was speaking, which I suppose was flattering. I tried not to laugh too hard.”
Tilly stared ahead, but she nodded to herself.
“Tilly,” said Nat, though tentatively, because it was never a subject on which she appreciated teasing, “if you thought for one minute that Captain – I mean, Brigadier – Bambera was going to be shocked that I’d married you –”
“I only asked,” said Tilly. “Now, where exactly are we going?”
“Nowhere glamorous, I’m afraid,” said Nat. “Only the canteen. She said to meet her in the lobby up here first, though.”
*
Once they had found Bambera again, she gave them a nod and set off leading the way to the canteen. They were late already by her reckoning, Nat suspected.
“Tilly,” Bambera said, as they walked along. “Keeping well, I trust?”
Tilly merely nodded. “Fine, thank you. And you, Brigadier?”
“Busy,” said Bambera. “Up to our necks in it as usual. Oh, and there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Nat followed her along. “So you said before.”
“Yes,” Bambera continued and then caught sight of a blond man waiting outside the canteen and grinned. “Speak of the devil. Ancelyn.”
“This was the place you said?” he asked, and then smiled back at her. “No matter. We meet again if it be or no.”
“We do,” said Bambera, “and it is. Tilly, Nat, this is Ancelyn. Ancelyn, this is Dr Webber and…” She gave them a hard look. “Dr Webber? That must get complicated.”
“Just Tilly and Nat,” Tilly put in.
Nat held out a hand to Ancelyn. “Pleasure to meet you, Ancelyn.”
“Ah, yes,” said Ancelyn, looking down at his hand for a moment, before finally shaking it. “And I am honoured to meet any friends of my lady’s.”
Bambera led the way into the canteen, and casually explained: “Ancelyn is from a parallel universe. The one King Arthur came from. You know how it is.”
“Seriously?” said Nat.
Bambera stopped at the nearest table. “You’re surprised? Tilly’s from the nineteenth century. That’s much more believable, is it?”
“Not any more,” said Tilly stiffly. “I live here now.”
Ancelyn looked from one to the other. “My lady has told me much about you,” he offered.
“Well, in my defence, I did improve later on,” Nat said, as they sat down. “More or less. An parallel universe, did you say?”
“Avallion,” said Ancelyn, helpfully. “It is… very unlike this world.”
It was as awkward a meeting as Nat had expected, especially since Tilly had grown ominously quiet. He tried discreetly elbowing her, but only got a dark look from her as she passed him to take a seat.
“Damn,” Bambera said, suddenly, looking behind Nat. “Zbrigniev said one of them got away.”
Ancelyn drew his sword and then hesitated, looking to Bambera. “It is your prey, if you would wish to –”
“I don’t care who kills the bloody thing, Ancelyn, as long as someone does!”
Nat turned around. There was a creature standing there in front of him, too large and unexpected to take in properly at first sight – red-brown and scaled, he noted, with long claws and sharp teeth, too. It didn’t move, though, so he took a step forward, wondering if it was trying to communicate.
It turned out, it really wasn’t in the mood for conversation, either.
*
“Tell me something, Webber,” said Bambera, when he came round. “Exactly how have you managed to live this long?”
Nat tried to sit and she put out a hand to steady him, glancing to one side as Ancelyn crouched down beside them.
“Don’t move,” said Bambera. “Wait till the doctor gets here and takes a look. I think you’ll survive, though.” She got up again, and walked off, talking into her radio as she went.
“What happened?” Nat asked, putting a hand to his head. “That thing –”
Ancelyn said, “Oh, the fighting is over. Fear not. My lady slew the beast.”
“Oh, good,” said Nat. He felt he should say something else, but his head was aching too much. He was beginning to register that other parts of him also hurt. He tried raising his arm and winced at the result. He seemed to have been badly scratched by the alien.
Ancelyn nodded and directed an admiring glance at Bambera’s departing figure. “She is magnificent.”
“I’m sure,” said Nat. “She always was a very good shot.” There was someone, though, he thought, conspicuous by her absence, and that alarmed him. “Tilly –”
“Your lady is also valiant,” said Ancelyn, still sounding much too cheerful.
Nat closed his eyes momentarily. “Oh, no,” he said. “Tilly? Where is she? What did she do?”
“She held her ground and then she smote it with –” Ancelyn halted and then pointed to one of the plastic trays. He saw Nat’s look, and added, “Oh, she is unhurt – she has gone in search of the physician.”
“Looks like she found her,” said Bambera coming back across. “What exactly did you think you doing, anyway, Webber? You just stood there!”
Nat put a hand to his head and wished they’d all shut up. “I thought – I don’t know. I wondered if it wanted to say something.”
Bambera gave him a disbelieving look. “Those things aren’t big on negotiation. Trust me. Looks as though that one was definitely the last, though.”
“I suppose I should have known,” Nat said. “We go nearly a whole decade or so without anything like this, then UNIT turns up and five minutes later, aliens are trying to kill us again.”
Tilly reached them then, and knelt down beside Nat. “I found the doctor, and she’ll be here soon,” she told him. “She’s with one of the soldiers who was badly hurt.”
“I’m all right,” said Nat.
She didn’t move away. “Good,” she said. Then she looked him over. “You’ve got blood on that shirt, and it was clean on today.”
“Well, I’ll try to bleed more carefully next time,” said Nat, and closed his eyes again.
Tilly put her hand to his arm, gently. “It doesn’t seem too bad, Nat.”
“Just the shirt that’s done for, then?” he said, attempting to sit up, leaning against a chair that was still in one piece. “Oh, good.”
“And there shouldn’t be a next time,” she added belatedly. She caught his grin – he’d been expecting that – and frowned back. “It isn’t at all funny.”
Nat looked at her. “Ancelyn says you were very brave. He says you hit it with one of the trays.”
“I know,” said Tilly. “It wasn’t very sensible, of course, but I didn’t think. Luckily, it was distracted by all the soldiers then, anyway.”
He frowned. “Shouldn’t you be at your lecture by now?”
“You should probably keep quiet if you’re only going to come out with nonsense,” Tilly said, turning stern. Then she bit her lip and Nat could see sudden amusement in her eyes. “It’s very sad, I know, but Professor Clarke will just have to do without me this time.”
“I suppose ‘husband nearly eaten by alien’ is a reasonable excuse,” said Nat. “Look, do I really have to sit here, waiting for this doctor? I’m not all that –”
Tilly tightened her hold on his arm, causing him to flinch at the sudden pain. “Yes. You do.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, awkwardly.
*
Nat, now somewhat tidier and with the worst of the scratches patched up and bandaged, had set off down the corridor in search of Bambera, only to nearly collide with a soldier carrying a box of what could only be called pieces of alien. He wrinkled his nose. There were some things about UNIT he didn’t miss. In fact, he thought, he didn’t miss many things about UNIT, not really.
“Dr Webber,” said Bambera. She’d been about to follow the soldier out of the door. “Everything all right?”
“I was just coming to say that I’m sorry lunch didn’t work out. Tilly and I are going now, but it was good to catch up. Or try to, maybe I should say?”
Bambera grinned at him, and then called him back as he tried to leave. “Got a moment, Webber? There was something I wanted to ask you.”
“Fire away,” said Nat.
Bambera nodded. “Look, what would you say to signing back on as UNIT’s scientific adviser?”
Nat stared back at her in surprise, and then he laughed helplessly, leaning back against the wall.
“Dr Webber?” She glared at him.
Nat swallowed his amusement. “I’m sorry, I thought that was a joke.”
“No. You and Tilly, preferably, but either of you, if you’re willing – and she seems to be in the middle of some big research project, so I thought –”
Nat shook his head. “Thank you. I mean, I’m flattered, but no!”
“You can take some time to consider it if you like,” Bambera said, sarcasm creeping into her tone. “No need to rush, Webber.”
“I’m flattered you’d even ask, but if Tilly didn’t kill me for agreeing, it’s pretty evident that something else soon would, and I’m a bit out of practice when it comes to running for my life. You only asked us for lunch and something tried to eat us instead. I don’t think I want to risk anything else, thanks.”
Bambera had to grin. “Shame.”
“It’s good to know you’re the one running the place now, though,” said Nat. “If we can ever help in any way that doesn’t involve us getting hunted down by aliens, we will.”
“I might take you up on that,” she said.
*
Nat and Bambera emerged from the office to find Tilly and Ancelyn coming the other way. Ancelyn seemed to be enthusiastically relating something about the earlier battle UNIT had fought with the same aliens and Tilly, thought Nat, trying to catch her eye and frown at her, was doing a very good impression of a post: stiff and with an increasingly wooden expression.
“Matilda,” said Nat. “I’ve just been saying goodbye to the Brigadier, so if you’ve finished, too, we can go.”
Tilly nodded. “It was nice to see you again,” she said, with a smile for Bambera, and when they also made their farewells to Ancelyn, she was at least perfectly polite.
*
“What was that about?” he asked her once they were in the car, but she only shook her head. “What did Ancelyn say?”
Tilly stared out of the window. “Don’t drive so fast.”
“I’m not,” said Nat. “And answer the question. You were bordering on rude to start with, and then again at the end. If nothing else, that’s not a sensible way to behave to someone who’s got a sword handy, is it?”
“I wasn’t rude!”
“Well, I don’t think he noticed and I really hope Bambera didn’t, but you were, weren’t you?” he said. “Any reason, or were you just in a bad mood?”
She shrugged and continued to keep her eyes on the road ahead.
“If you don’t answer,” said Nat, “I’ll actually go over seventy and give you something to complain about.”
Tilly sighed. “Well, I’m not from another world, am I? I don’t know why anyone would think that’s the same thing.”
“You know what Bambera meant. UNIT and unexpected things always go hand in hand, that’s all.”
She closed her eyes. “Well, there was that, and then he talked about the university servants – which they don’t have –”
“Matilda, you can’t get annoyed just because someone mentions servants.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s only – I have good memories of UNIT, too, of course, but it brings everything else back, and I can’t help it. I don’t like it. And then the alien – you were hurt –”
“I said I was sorry.”
She laughed, briefly. “Don’t be silly. But I didn’t want anything like that to happen again –”
“No,” said Nat. “Neither did I. It hurts too much.”
Tilly stared out of the windscreen again, though it was dark and there wasn’t very much to be seen barring tail lights ahead. “So comments about servants – and he must have had them himself, you know. You can tell.”
“Yes, but you’re not one any more. You haven’t been for a very long time,” said Nat.
Tilly looked across at him and then away again. “No,” she said, “but sometimes, even after all this time, I can’t help it. I’m still what he made me. Just the maid, without a name, and not a person at all.”
Nat failed to think of anything to say. He mostly wished it wasn’t a conversation he’d started in the car. He didn’t need to ask who she meant by “he”. In these contexts, it was always Belfort, the Torchwood agent who’d accidentally brought her to the future and imprisoned her.
“I know it’s not true,” she said. “I don’t mean that to sound –” She bit her lip, and shrugged again. “Sometimes I’m reminded and then –”
Nat nodded, and made up his mind to come back to that later, once they were home, but for now he only said, “Still, that’s not a good reason to glare at people who’re armed. And, anyway, you’re also an eminent scientist who’s prepared to attack dangerous aliens with a tea tray. You should remember that.”
“I should,” she said, and her voice sounded unusually unsteady. “If any of that were true and not a ridiculous exaggeration,” she added, sounding more like herself.
Nat glanced across at her, and then back at the road. He wondered how to distract her, and then thought of something: “Well, at any rate, you’ll be pleased to know that when Bambera offered me my old post back, I said no…”
***
Author:
lost_spookRating: All ages/PG
Word Count: 2859
Characters/Pairings: Nat Webber, Tilly Holmes, Brigadier Winifred Bambera, Ancelyn (Nat/Tilly, Bambera/Ancelyn)
Notes/Warnings: A coda of sorts for 1980s UNIT. 1997
Summary: Why is it, when UNIT is involved, lunch always means something trying to eat you rather than the other way round?
For
jjpor in the 500 Prompts Meme - Prompt 397: It was many and many a year ago – Nat/Tilly (1980s UNIT, DW). Also very belated (or just possibly very very early) birthday fic!Plus, it fits the
trope_bingo “Reunion” square.***
Nat Webber glanced down at his watch again as he waited outside the lecture theatre. They were running over, he thought – just as the first few attendees started to leave, walking past him. He stepped back out of the way, and when the brief flood of people had subsided, he risked walking in. By that time, there was no one left in the room but a couple of the organisers, Tilly, and an all-too familiar elderly academic who regularly turned up to disagree with her – something he was doing again now, at length.
“Excuse me,” said Nat, heading over, and interrupting this tirade with much inward satisfaction. “I’m afraid Dr Webber has an appointment for lunch and if she doesn’t leave now, she’ll be late.”
Tilly shot him a startled look, but then turned back to the older man. “We’ll have to finish discussing this after the afternoon talk, Professor Clarke. If you’re going to be there, that is?”
“I don’t know that I will,” Clarke said, giving Nat a disgruntled look, but he shuffled away. “Probably.”
Tilly collected up her papers and the slides for the overhead projector, and then rejoined Nat beside the dais. “I can’t truthfully say that I mind,” she told him, “but really, Nat, there’s no need to lie!”
“I’m not,” he said, giving her a grin. “We have got a lunch to go to and we are about to be late if we don’t hurry.”
Tilly hurried beside him. “Well, you didn’t mention it this morning.”
“There’s another convention going on alongside this one,” Nat said. “Turns out it’s something to do with UNIT – and I ran into an old friend while I was hanging about earlier. As it happens, the stars and our schedules have aligned for this one brief hour, so we’re having lunch, unless you have any strong objections.”
Tilly stopped walking. “Nat. Who?”
“Guess.”
She glared at him, but took his arm and started walking again. “Well, it can hardly be the Colonel, and it can’t be the Captain –”
“No,” said Nat. “Or, yes, actually. Not Evered, but before him, Captain Bambera. You remember her, don’t you?”
“I could hardly forget,” Tilly said. “She’s here? And she wants to see us?” There was a lift of surprise in her voice.
Nat had to bite back laughter, because he’d had the same reaction. He hadn’t, he was sure, made a particularly positive impression on Bambera in the brief time that their careers at UNIT had coincided. Still, it wasn’t everyone who’d fought hostile aliens and Torchwood employees with him, and after so long out of UNIT, he didn’t mind talking about the bad old days. For Tilly, of course, that particular period was a more sensitive topic. “So she says.”
“Well,” said Tilly, “that is a surprise. You told her – well, you told her that I was me?”
Nat turned his head and gave her a long look. “Funnily enough, yes. I suppose I shouldn’t have admitted your secret identity, but I thought –”
Tilly poked him in the ribs. “I only meant – well, you know what I meant!”
“That she didn’t airily suggest I bring my wife or significant other without realising the dreadful truth?” said Nat. “Yes, I did tell her you were, in fact, you.”
“She wasn’t surprised?”
“She was more surprised to hear you were one of the guest lecturers here. She’d assumed I was the Dr Webber who was speaking, which I suppose was flattering. I tried not to laugh too hard.”
Tilly stared ahead, but she nodded to herself.
“Tilly,” said Nat, though tentatively, because it was never a subject on which she appreciated teasing, “if you thought for one minute that Captain – I mean, Brigadier – Bambera was going to be shocked that I’d married you –”
“I only asked,” said Tilly. “Now, where exactly are we going?”
“Nowhere glamorous, I’m afraid,” said Nat. “Only the canteen. She said to meet her in the lobby up here first, though.”
*
Once they had found Bambera again, she gave them a nod and set off leading the way to the canteen. They were late already by her reckoning, Nat suspected.
“Tilly,” Bambera said, as they walked along. “Keeping well, I trust?”
Tilly merely nodded. “Fine, thank you. And you, Brigadier?”
“Busy,” said Bambera. “Up to our necks in it as usual. Oh, and there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Nat followed her along. “So you said before.”
“Yes,” Bambera continued and then caught sight of a blond man waiting outside the canteen and grinned. “Speak of the devil. Ancelyn.”
“This was the place you said?” he asked, and then smiled back at her. “No matter. We meet again if it be or no.”
“We do,” said Bambera, “and it is. Tilly, Nat, this is Ancelyn. Ancelyn, this is Dr Webber and…” She gave them a hard look. “Dr Webber? That must get complicated.”
“Just Tilly and Nat,” Tilly put in.
Nat held out a hand to Ancelyn. “Pleasure to meet you, Ancelyn.”
“Ah, yes,” said Ancelyn, looking down at his hand for a moment, before finally shaking it. “And I am honoured to meet any friends of my lady’s.”
Bambera led the way into the canteen, and casually explained: “Ancelyn is from a parallel universe. The one King Arthur came from. You know how it is.”
“Seriously?” said Nat.
Bambera stopped at the nearest table. “You’re surprised? Tilly’s from the nineteenth century. That’s much more believable, is it?”
“Not any more,” said Tilly stiffly. “I live here now.”
Ancelyn looked from one to the other. “My lady has told me much about you,” he offered.
“Well, in my defence, I did improve later on,” Nat said, as they sat down. “More or less. An parallel universe, did you say?”
“Avallion,” said Ancelyn, helpfully. “It is… very unlike this world.”
It was as awkward a meeting as Nat had expected, especially since Tilly had grown ominously quiet. He tried discreetly elbowing her, but only got a dark look from her as she passed him to take a seat.
“Damn,” Bambera said, suddenly, looking behind Nat. “Zbrigniev said one of them got away.”
Ancelyn drew his sword and then hesitated, looking to Bambera. “It is your prey, if you would wish to –”
“I don’t care who kills the bloody thing, Ancelyn, as long as someone does!”
Nat turned around. There was a creature standing there in front of him, too large and unexpected to take in properly at first sight – red-brown and scaled, he noted, with long claws and sharp teeth, too. It didn’t move, though, so he took a step forward, wondering if it was trying to communicate.
It turned out, it really wasn’t in the mood for conversation, either.
*
“Tell me something, Webber,” said Bambera, when he came round. “Exactly how have you managed to live this long?”
Nat tried to sit and she put out a hand to steady him, glancing to one side as Ancelyn crouched down beside them.
“Don’t move,” said Bambera. “Wait till the doctor gets here and takes a look. I think you’ll survive, though.” She got up again, and walked off, talking into her radio as she went.
“What happened?” Nat asked, putting a hand to his head. “That thing –”
Ancelyn said, “Oh, the fighting is over. Fear not. My lady slew the beast.”
“Oh, good,” said Nat. He felt he should say something else, but his head was aching too much. He was beginning to register that other parts of him also hurt. He tried raising his arm and winced at the result. He seemed to have been badly scratched by the alien.
Ancelyn nodded and directed an admiring glance at Bambera’s departing figure. “She is magnificent.”
“I’m sure,” said Nat. “She always was a very good shot.” There was someone, though, he thought, conspicuous by her absence, and that alarmed him. “Tilly –”
“Your lady is also valiant,” said Ancelyn, still sounding much too cheerful.
Nat closed his eyes momentarily. “Oh, no,” he said. “Tilly? Where is she? What did she do?”
“She held her ground and then she smote it with –” Ancelyn halted and then pointed to one of the plastic trays. He saw Nat’s look, and added, “Oh, she is unhurt – she has gone in search of the physician.”
“Looks like she found her,” said Bambera coming back across. “What exactly did you think you doing, anyway, Webber? You just stood there!”
Nat put a hand to his head and wished they’d all shut up. “I thought – I don’t know. I wondered if it wanted to say something.”
Bambera gave him a disbelieving look. “Those things aren’t big on negotiation. Trust me. Looks as though that one was definitely the last, though.”
“I suppose I should have known,” Nat said. “We go nearly a whole decade or so without anything like this, then UNIT turns up and five minutes later, aliens are trying to kill us again.”
Tilly reached them then, and knelt down beside Nat. “I found the doctor, and she’ll be here soon,” she told him. “She’s with one of the soldiers who was badly hurt.”
“I’m all right,” said Nat.
She didn’t move away. “Good,” she said. Then she looked him over. “You’ve got blood on that shirt, and it was clean on today.”
“Well, I’ll try to bleed more carefully next time,” said Nat, and closed his eyes again.
Tilly put her hand to his arm, gently. “It doesn’t seem too bad, Nat.”
“Just the shirt that’s done for, then?” he said, attempting to sit up, leaning against a chair that was still in one piece. “Oh, good.”
“And there shouldn’t be a next time,” she added belatedly. She caught his grin – he’d been expecting that – and frowned back. “It isn’t at all funny.”
Nat looked at her. “Ancelyn says you were very brave. He says you hit it with one of the trays.”
“I know,” said Tilly. “It wasn’t very sensible, of course, but I didn’t think. Luckily, it was distracted by all the soldiers then, anyway.”
He frowned. “Shouldn’t you be at your lecture by now?”
“You should probably keep quiet if you’re only going to come out with nonsense,” Tilly said, turning stern. Then she bit her lip and Nat could see sudden amusement in her eyes. “It’s very sad, I know, but Professor Clarke will just have to do without me this time.”
“I suppose ‘husband nearly eaten by alien’ is a reasonable excuse,” said Nat. “Look, do I really have to sit here, waiting for this doctor? I’m not all that –”
Tilly tightened her hold on his arm, causing him to flinch at the sudden pain. “Yes. You do.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, awkwardly.
*
Nat, now somewhat tidier and with the worst of the scratches patched up and bandaged, had set off down the corridor in search of Bambera, only to nearly collide with a soldier carrying a box of what could only be called pieces of alien. He wrinkled his nose. There were some things about UNIT he didn’t miss. In fact, he thought, he didn’t miss many things about UNIT, not really.
“Dr Webber,” said Bambera. She’d been about to follow the soldier out of the door. “Everything all right?”
“I was just coming to say that I’m sorry lunch didn’t work out. Tilly and I are going now, but it was good to catch up. Or try to, maybe I should say?”
Bambera grinned at him, and then called him back as he tried to leave. “Got a moment, Webber? There was something I wanted to ask you.”
“Fire away,” said Nat.
Bambera nodded. “Look, what would you say to signing back on as UNIT’s scientific adviser?”
Nat stared back at her in surprise, and then he laughed helplessly, leaning back against the wall.
“Dr Webber?” She glared at him.
Nat swallowed his amusement. “I’m sorry, I thought that was a joke.”
“No. You and Tilly, preferably, but either of you, if you’re willing – and she seems to be in the middle of some big research project, so I thought –”
Nat shook his head. “Thank you. I mean, I’m flattered, but no!”
“You can take some time to consider it if you like,” Bambera said, sarcasm creeping into her tone. “No need to rush, Webber.”
“I’m flattered you’d even ask, but if Tilly didn’t kill me for agreeing, it’s pretty evident that something else soon would, and I’m a bit out of practice when it comes to running for my life. You only asked us for lunch and something tried to eat us instead. I don’t think I want to risk anything else, thanks.”
Bambera had to grin. “Shame.”
“It’s good to know you’re the one running the place now, though,” said Nat. “If we can ever help in any way that doesn’t involve us getting hunted down by aliens, we will.”
“I might take you up on that,” she said.
*
Nat and Bambera emerged from the office to find Tilly and Ancelyn coming the other way. Ancelyn seemed to be enthusiastically relating something about the earlier battle UNIT had fought with the same aliens and Tilly, thought Nat, trying to catch her eye and frown at her, was doing a very good impression of a post: stiff and with an increasingly wooden expression.
“Matilda,” said Nat. “I’ve just been saying goodbye to the Brigadier, so if you’ve finished, too, we can go.”
Tilly nodded. “It was nice to see you again,” she said, with a smile for Bambera, and when they also made their farewells to Ancelyn, she was at least perfectly polite.
*
“What was that about?” he asked her once they were in the car, but she only shook her head. “What did Ancelyn say?”
Tilly stared out of the window. “Don’t drive so fast.”
“I’m not,” said Nat. “And answer the question. You were bordering on rude to start with, and then again at the end. If nothing else, that’s not a sensible way to behave to someone who’s got a sword handy, is it?”
“I wasn’t rude!”
“Well, I don’t think he noticed and I really hope Bambera didn’t, but you were, weren’t you?” he said. “Any reason, or were you just in a bad mood?”
She shrugged and continued to keep her eyes on the road ahead.
“If you don’t answer,” said Nat, “I’ll actually go over seventy and give you something to complain about.”
Tilly sighed. “Well, I’m not from another world, am I? I don’t know why anyone would think that’s the same thing.”
“You know what Bambera meant. UNIT and unexpected things always go hand in hand, that’s all.”
She closed her eyes. “Well, there was that, and then he talked about the university servants – which they don’t have –”
“Matilda, you can’t get annoyed just because someone mentions servants.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s only – I have good memories of UNIT, too, of course, but it brings everything else back, and I can’t help it. I don’t like it. And then the alien – you were hurt –”
“I said I was sorry.”
She laughed, briefly. “Don’t be silly. But I didn’t want anything like that to happen again –”
“No,” said Nat. “Neither did I. It hurts too much.”
Tilly stared out of the windscreen again, though it was dark and there wasn’t very much to be seen barring tail lights ahead. “So comments about servants – and he must have had them himself, you know. You can tell.”
“Yes, but you’re not one any more. You haven’t been for a very long time,” said Nat.
Tilly looked across at him and then away again. “No,” she said, “but sometimes, even after all this time, I can’t help it. I’m still what he made me. Just the maid, without a name, and not a person at all.”
Nat failed to think of anything to say. He mostly wished it wasn’t a conversation he’d started in the car. He didn’t need to ask who she meant by “he”. In these contexts, it was always Belfort, the Torchwood agent who’d accidentally brought her to the future and imprisoned her.
“I know it’s not true,” she said. “I don’t mean that to sound –” She bit her lip, and shrugged again. “Sometimes I’m reminded and then –”
Nat nodded, and made up his mind to come back to that later, once they were home, but for now he only said, “Still, that’s not a good reason to glare at people who’re armed. And, anyway, you’re also an eminent scientist who’s prepared to attack dangerous aliens with a tea tray. You should remember that.”
“I should,” she said, and her voice sounded unusually unsteady. “If any of that were true and not a ridiculous exaggeration,” she added, sounding more like herself.
Nat glanced across at her, and then back at the road. He wondered how to distract her, and then thought of something: “Well, at any rate, you’ll be pleased to know that when Bambera offered me my old post back, I said no…”
***
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no subject
Date: 23 Sep 2013 01:38 pm (UTC)This made me laugh:
"Good," she said. Then she looked him over. "You've got blood on that shirt, and it was clean on today."
"Well, I'll try to bleed more carefully next time," said Nat, and closed his eyes again.
Couple of edits needed:
"That she didn't airily suggest I bring my wife or significant other without the realising the dreadful truth?"
no "the" before "realising"
Nat started back at her in surprise,
"stared" not "started"
no subject
Date: 23 Sep 2013 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 23 Sep 2013 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 23 Sep 2013 10:24 pm (UTC)Seriously, though, those two continue to be as likeable and well-characterised as they've always been throughout this series (and I had to laugh at their joint scepticism at this truly being the end of anything...). I think one of the really strong aspects of these stories is that although they are always very tastefully done (more tastefully than, say, I would probably do them - there'd be more blood and shooters on show probably) they never shy away from the grim and often violent reality of what working for UNIT would actually be like were alien invasions and so forth things that happened in real life. And Nat and Tilly react to that reality in a very human and believable way - they're brave and even dare I say heroic in their own way, but they're both firmly of the opinion (by now, certainly) that you'd have to be mad to *want* to do that stuff for a living. And you can't really argue with that. ;)
Which brings us to Ancelyn, who of course *loves* that stuff, in all likelihood. I liked the way that you had him unwittingly rubbing Tilly up the wrong way, not only with the way he reminded her of being from another time and place, and what it was like to be a curiosity and guinea pig for the likes of the unpleasant Mr Belfort, but also (one suspects) with his attitude to the violent parts of the job, and most of all of course with the whole master-servant thing. Because that's really the none-too-nice flipside of the whole knightly chivalry thing - and the idea that Tilly, as one of history's "ordinary" people herself, knew all too well about the realities of that sort of social setup and could "just tell" Ancelyn was the sort to have grown up with servants and so on, was a very telling and insightful bit of detail and characterisation.
All this and Bambera too! I remember reading the other side of this little scene - the chance meeting between her and Bambera and her confusion about the two Dr Webbers. And she even said "Shame".
So this was a really good read, and I'm glad you wrote it and thanks very much for "giving" it to me. It's always good to get back to Tilly and Nat, and they always feel so familiar as I say; always lovely to read about them. Can it be a late and an early birthday fic at the same time, in the spirit of timey-wimeyness?
no subject
Date: 24 Sep 2013 04:12 pm (UTC)One day I may even write up the fully drafted out missing story!! :-)