Ties Between Time and Space

✦21✦

Chapter Twenty-One
Madame de Pompadour

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The Doctor and Emma landed back in Reinette's bedroom, except it looked much different now. Where the dollhouse used to be a harp now replaced it and the childhood bed had now changed to an adult one. Almost everything was switched out except for the overall design of the room and the desk and chair beside the window. Minutes ago it was nighttime but right now it was daylight, early morning probably.

"Reinette? We're just checking if you're okay," Emma softly called in the empty room.

"Sure, she's fine," the Doctor said. He walked up to the harp and lightly plucked at its strings until a melody sounded. "Should have a look around," the Doctor proposed. "What's in this room?" Emma watched him throw open two double doors and disappear inside the connected room, but when she went to follow a presence made itself known behind her.

"Ahem," a feminine voice cleared their throat.

Emma turned around on the spot and she could have cursed the Doctor for wandering off without her. But the person staring back at her didn't seem so bad. It was a young woman around Emma's age. She had pinned up blonde hair, soft blue eyes, and a porcelain complexion. She was beautiful.

"Um, hi. . . I was just looking for Reinette. Is this still her room? Sorry," Emma shook her head, nervously smiling, "it's just I'm not exactly sure when it was the last time I was here."

"Reinette! We're ready to go," a woman's voice called up, sounding a lot older than the girl standing in front of Emma.

"Go to the carriage, Mother. I will join you there," the blonde called down, her voice soft and sweet. She was smiling at Emma and realization soon dawned as Emma looked the woman over again. "It is customary, I think, to have an imaginary friend only during one's childhood. You are to be congratulated on your persistence."

"Reinette," Emma smiled at her. "Wow, you grew up quick. You look. . . beautiful."

"And you do not appear to have aged a single day," Reinette said as she picked up her dress to walk. "That is tremendously impolite of you."

"Um, sorry about that?" Emma stared at her. "I, uh. . . I've. . . It was great to see you again and all grown up," she stumbled over her words. "I should go. It would probably be a whole thing if your mother found out you were up here with a stranger."

"Strange?" Reinette asked, now right in front of Emma. "How could you be a stranger to me? I've known you and that man you were with since I was seven years old."

"Yes, you have, of course you have," Emma nodded and laughed nervously.

Reinette's hand raised and gently brushed against Emma's cheek making Emma freeze in place. Where the hell was the Doctor? She wasn't good at talking to people from periods before the 21st century.

"You seem to be flesh and blood, at any rate, but this is absurd," Reinette said her hand dropping until it rested on Emma's forearm. "Reason tells me you cannot be real."

"I'm real. Very real," Emma assured her.

"Mademoiselle! Your mother grows impatient," a servent called up to Reinette.

"A moment!" Reinette snapped as she looked at the door to her room. Her eyes then found Emma again. "So many questions. So little time."

The Doctor came out of the connected room just in time to see Reinette surge forward and kiss Emma. His eyes widened and Emma stumbled at the force in surprise, her back hitting the wall as Reinette kept kissing her.