“So, where are we off to now?” Donna asked when Vairë walked into the console room. The blonde woman looked more composed than she had since leaving Messaline. Grief still showed in her face if one knew where to look but she was controlling it better. Donna hoped that this was a good sign. Vairë would always grieve for the loss of her daughter but she needed to move past it, to carry it with her as she went forward instead of wallowing in it and staying in the past. “Some place interesting, I hope.”
“Yeah,” Vairë nodded. “Tell me, how fond of mysteries are you?”
“Fair to middling,” Donna replied. “Why?”
“Well, step outside and tell me what year you think it is,” Vairë answered with a grin. She followed Donna and took a deep breath. Vairë had set the TARDIS to pick a random year on Earth between 2000 BC and 2000 AD. Donna was glancing around the well-kept manor, looking for some kind of clue that would let her determine the year. Vairë inhaled deeply again and grinned, forcing her grief into the background. She had the promise from her sister – once it was time, they could finally go to their rest. “Smell that air. Grass and lemonade … and a little bit of mint. A hint of mint, must be the 1920s,” Vairë said confidently.
“You can tell what year it is just by smelling?” Donna scoffed.
“Well…yeah,” Vairë grinned. Scent was part of it. The other part of it was her Time Sense that had come from her strange alteration by the TARDIS. She knew she was in 1926. They were in England at a very well-kept manor. Vairë tried to think over the things she knew had happened in 1926. From the position of the sun, it was already midmorning. The color of the sky told her it was much later in the year than she should expect for such warm weather. November or December, perhaps. They were at a garden party of some sort. Something open only to the artistic caste in English society. Vairë shuddered – it would be another few decades before England threw away the caste system and even then, there would still be something of a divide. She hated that about Terran civilization. No matter how advanced they grew, there would always be a gulf between those who had power and those who were ruled over. Even in a country as class-less and egalitarian as America. That was something she and Koschei had rooted out of Galliterran society. Yes, there were still those who had less than others but the accumulation of knowledge and experience weighed far more than the accumulation of wealth. The most respected on Galliterra were those who had learned the most. Teachers and professors were accorded status and honors that matched that of the healers and doctors. Politicians and the wealthy were granted some status, true, but only according to their cleverness and to the measure with which they had advanced the entirety of Galliterran society.
Shaking her head, Vairë watched as Donna took in the scenery before them. The redhead dashed back into the TARDIS to dress appropriately. Vairë could have told her not to bother but then again, she could recall a time when she herself had loved to dress up. Letting the newly-Galliterran woman have her fun, Vairë wondered just what adventure awaited them here in the roaring 20s.
~*~*~*~
“I still can’t believe that we just helped Agatha Christie with a murder mystery,” Donna muttered when the two of them were back onboard the TARDIS. “It’d be like going to see Charles Dickens at Christmas and helping him with a ghost problem.”
“Yeah…” Vairë said, dragging the word out.
“You didn’t?” Donna groaned. Vairë shrugged. “You did!”
“Well, sort of.”
“What’s bothering you, Vairë? You’ve gotten all quiet.”
Vairë chewed her lower lip. “It was too bad that her son had to die. That he had to grow up without his parents because humanity wasn’t ready for a love affair between one of their own and an alien. And that the boy was never told or taught what he needed to know. In the end, it killed him.”
“But he did kill all those other people.”
“Yes, but would he have done had he been raised differently? Had he been warned and taught how to use his abilities? Think about it, Donna. What happened to him isn’t so different than what happened to me. I woke up one day suddenly able to see things, to perceive reality and time, very differently than I had the day before – figuratively speaking. I had no one to help me. I had no one to train me. I scrambled and fought and clawed my way to knowledge. But I was lucky. I knew I was changing. But what if I had been born with all of these things in a world where I was the only one like me? That might have driven me mad.”
“Yeah, but would you have killed people?”
“I might have done,” Vairë said calmly. “And I have killed people in the past.”
“Yeah, but that was war or self-defense. You didn’t kill Cobb when you had the chance and, frankly, if you had, I don’t think anyone would have blamed you.”
“I would have blamed me, but that’s not the point, Donna. The point is that the Reverend never had a chance. He was never warned. He never understood what was happening to him. I wish there was some way he could have been saved – not that I can think of any off-hand. Not given everything that happened. I just think it’s really sad. A good man died. A good woman lost her son. And she can’t even mourn him properly because of that damned British need to keep such things hush-hush in this era.”
Donna stood silent for a long moment. Vairë was right. It had been tragic that they hadn’t been able to save the Reverend. A wave of compassion washed over the redhead. “Well then,” she asked, “what next?”
“I dunno. I was thinking of taking us into the Vortex, giving you a few lessons on Dalek technology and the Time War, and then taking us to a beach if you do exceptionally well on it.”
“A beach?”
“Yeah. One with Mai Tais, sexy cabana boys, and really, really good karaoke bars.”
“Karaoke bars? Is Vairë Carter going to sing, then?” Donna asked in disbelief.
“Oi, don’t knock it. You haven’t heard me do ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ Granted, the lyrics are easy for me because I’ve seen all of it.”
“All of what?”
“The latter part of the twentieth century. Now, Dwight Eisenhower – there was a proper gentleman. He kept the best whiskey. Always meant to ask him for a bottle of it,” Vairë sighed. “Just got busy. Oh, and Kennedy? Great dancer. Terrible flirt. Loved his wife, though. Tried to warn him that Bay of Pigs was a bad idea the way he had it planned but he wouldn’t listen. Ah well. So, let’s hit the library and get you started on the basis of Dalek Technology. Always useful to know a bit about them.”
“What are Daleks?”
“Something I hope you never encounter but they do seem to crop up at the worst possible time,” Vairë sighed. “Come on. Shift!”
~*~*~*~
Vairë grinned at Donna. The woman was quick to pick up Dalek technology and to spot weaknesses in the creatures. If the two of them ever had to face those creatures, Donna would do quite well. The idea of using their technology against them, rendering them harmless, had never occurred to Varië. But, it made sense. In the tests that Donna had run, her methods would disrupt the Dalek’s control over their metal bodies and render them harmless. Now, however, it was time for Vairë to make good on the promise she’d given Donna. The woman deserved a bit of spoiling at a beach. Maybe some kind of spa where she could get a facial, a massage, and just generally be spoiled to her heart’s content. Vairë would drop her off and then jump ahead to pick the woman up. She herself had little desire to let anyone slather mud over her and knead her muscles, no matter how much her back ached and her body protested sleeping on that cot in the library.
“I should have listened to Magnolia,” Vairë grimaced as she stretched. “This pallet has murdered my back. I could always move back to my old room, I suppose,” she sighed, knowing that she wouldn’t. Centuries of habit had made her more comfortable in the library when she stayed on the TARDIS. She might shower and change in her old room but the few times she had tried to sleep there, the nightmares had made her wish to wake and then long to never sleep again.
As she made her way to the console room, she felt something hit her. The psychic paper she carried in her pocket seemed to heat up. Pulling it out, she glanced at it in wonder. Well, the beaches would have to wait. This trip should be interesting, at least. Vairë remembered the Doctor taking her to New Earth because the Face of Boe had sent him a message on the psychic paper. As she put her hands on the console and began to sing, she wondered just who it was she would be meeting at their destination.