Ties Between Time and Space

✦10✦ - Tooth and Claw

Chapter Ten
Stumbling Across Royalty

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Emma woke up the next morning or night, she wasn't sure, feeling better than she did a couple of hours ago. The Doctor had left a few minutes earlier judging by how warm his side of her bed still was. She pushed the covers off of her and took a quick shower. Getting dressed in a simple blue button-up shirt, skinny jeans, knee-high boots, and her favorite black leather jacket. She brushed her hair back and hid her blades in her boots before heading out of her door and finding the Doctor in the console room.

"Good morning," Emma greeted him with a smile. "And how do I look? Good? Bad?"

He looked up from the trinket he was playing with to examine her outfit. "For the late 1970s? You'd be better off in a bin bag."

Rude and not ginger.

"Thank you, sweetheart," she remarked, shaking the insult off.

He smiled sheepishly at her. "Sorry, but hold on, listen to this," he said and flipped a switch on the console. Music started to play and Emma laughed as the Doctor stepped around the control panel and danced to the beat. "Ian Dury and the Blockheads, number one in 1979."

"You're a punk!" Emma exclaimed.

The Doctor started pushing buttons and pulling levers as he sang along to the song. "It's good to be a lunatic . . ."

"You're actually a punk," she gestured her arms around and mimicked his moves, "maybe with a bit of rockabilly thrown into it too."

"Want to go see him?" he grinned at her.

"See him? In concert?" Emma asked getting excited.

"What else is the TARDIS for?" he questioned, the two of them circling the console ridiculously as they spoke. "I can take you to the Battle of Trafalgar, the first anti-gravity Olympics, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, or . . . " he paused before speaking faster than he ever has before. "Ian Dury at the Top Rank, Sheffield, England, Earth, 21st November 1979. What do you think?"

"Earth, England, and Sheffield it is then," Emma grinned.

"Hold on tight," the Doctor smiled before pulling down the switch and hearing the engines whir.

But suddenly they were jerked forward and into the console as the TARDIS spun and spiraled through the Vortex, time and space flying by. The Doctor grabbed his hammer off of the floor and started to hit the console to get them back on track and with every hit it took he matched it to the beat of the music. By the time the TARDIS was set again, he and Emma were on their backs on the console floor, laughing like mad.

"1979!" he exclaimed and jumped to his feet when the TARDIS came to a stop. "Hell of a year!" he grinned and helped Emma to her feet before taking her hand in his and pulling her toward the ramp. "China invades Vietnam. The Muppet movie," he said, grabbing his coat off of the railing. "Love that film. Margaret Thatcher, urghhh!" he pulled a face and Emma laughed. "Skylab falls to Earth with a little help from me," he looked back at her and she helped him fix his collar. "Nearly took off my thumb," he opened the door and Emma followed, "and I like my thumb. I need my thumb. I'm very attached to..." he trailed off as the sound of rifles cocked, "...my thumb."

The Doctor held his hands up as the sight of soldiers on horses holding guns to their faces came into view and slowly Emma copied him.

"1897," the Doctor realized, "same difference."

"Big difference apparently," Emma muttered.

"You will explain your presence," the man in front of them, the Captain, Emma guessed, stated. "And the nakedness of this girl," he nodded at her and Emma instinctively looked down at herself.