“ Ah . And what a problem that must be for you . Did you hope to deceive me , I wonder ? To crawl back into my good graces , meanwhile hoping I had no idea of who you really are ? “ Miranda had to laugh . Not to brag , but also to , as she had seen Emily for who she was many years ago . “ This little chatter and doe eyes of yours may work on Andrea , but I myself have always been immune to it . “ Miranda simply laughed . “ Integrity ? Oh , my dear Emily . What do you know of integrity ? What do you know of anything , really ? All of your attempts at climbing upwards fail . And now you’ve come here for what ? To beg for a position ? “
As far as Emily was concerned, what she'd done was out of sheer necessity. She had a vision for Runway, and Miranda clearly hadn't been able to see it. She'd outright told her that she wasn't a visionary, which was absolutely ridiculous. She'd worked her arse off to get where she had; she'd bent over backwards for Miranda for years, and even through she'd felt incredibly bitter after being let go, she'd still managed to maintain a solid position at Dior until her fall from grace. "I never said anything about begging," she replied tersely. "I simply thought we might be able to come to some arrangement. You know better than anyone that I know my stuff - what happened before was...unfortunate, but surely you need experts here."
“very serious.” rose assured with a small nod of her head. “there is really a man called the doctor who travels through space and time. who showed me aliens and historical figures and the future and… wonderful and horrible things.” she mused, clearing her throat. “i don't know why you don't remember. there are all sorts of reasons, probably. maybe you were made to forget. maybe you hit your head… i can't answer that part of it all.” she admitted. “but the fact is… i think you were his companion. or are. something has made you forget that.”
it all sounded impossible. it probably all was impossible...but some part of ruby actually believed her. some small, confusing, frightened part of her thought that maybe, just maybe, rose might be right. nothing in the life ruby recalled made her think that aliens or time travel could be real, but there was just something missing from her mind, and it sort of made a twisted kind of sense. all of a sudden, people in dc were acting like they'd just appeared there out of nowhere with absolutely no explanation. maybe they had. "...you're dead serious," ruby breathed again. "you've actually met this bloke? travelled with him?"
ianto may have been incredibly angry at the torchwood team but… what he wouldn't give to see them right now. to know if they understood what was happening around here. “hi, so sorry to interrupt your day.” ianto mused as he offered a polite smile towards the other. “my name's ianto jones and i'm… just doing some research.” not technically a lie. “i'm just trying to see if anyone has seen anything weird around here. other than the obvious. anything or anyone who doesn't look right?” he questioned with a raise of his brow.
huh. interestingly enough, she'd been about to ask him the very same thing. yaz figured there had to be something weird about this place, because it certainly wasn't sheffield, and given that she hadn't been in the TARDIS in well over a year, and she was unaware of any other teleportation devices suddenly springing her halfway across the world...yeah. there had to be something. she tilted her head slightly at the welsh accent, intrigued. "yasmin khan," she offered in response to his introduction. "can't say i've seen anything yet, but i dunno how i got here, so that's a start. guessing you're not from around here either?"
" I do not think she would believe me , if I am to be honest . She looks up to him . And that is the thing . She always did , even when she was a little girl . It was daddy this , daddy that . " There had been a time when Nina had loved it . Her daughter had not had a father until Andrew Winchester had come along , after all . It had been everything that had come after that had ruined it . " I'm on the sidelines again .. "
"That must have been hard," he offered sympathetically. It wasn't something he could relate to, but he could definitely imagine. He'd always been closer with his father until he'd passed, so he knew what it was like from that side of things. "But you're still her mother. I'm sure she'll want to see you, once she gets her head around being here. It is a lot to contend with for anyone."
" Your nickname , you mean ? Well . I'm sorry to have asked . " Nina was used to bad tempers . It had been around her for her whole life . Nothing about it was new , as she saw it . Still , with her own experience , it meant that she was losing her patience for all of this . " I don't . I'm sorry that I even bothered to ask . "
Cordelia's lips pressed together, and for a fraction of a second, she almost considered apologising. The moment passed, and instead she rolled her eyes. "It's short for Cordelia," she explained, instead of snapping at her. Tempting as it was, she was holding it back at least a little. "Happy now?"
" I see . Your honesty stuns me . " Mysaria was not used to such a matter . In the past , she had been invisible . It had not been possible for her to be seen . She had hidden herself away as much as possible , waiting in the shadows . Everything that was brought about , she did not hide from . She saw it . She calculated a way in which to use it for her own accord . " This is the clothing of my home . "
While her nose wrinkled at that, she didn't immediately jump to repeating that it was hideous. It wasn't like she'd changed her mind or anything, she'd just said it enough times...for now. "Ew, really?" Cordelia glanced again at what Mysaria was wearing, then back at her face. "Where exactly are you from? Like, no offence, it just doesn't look very...21st century."
@pagesofmanylives asked: what are you so afraid of? (phillip & gigi)
where was he even supposed to start with a question like that? for a man who'd suddenly been pulled from his own time period, the list sort of went on and on. the 21st century, in comparison to the 19th, was an awfully frightening place. phillip studied gigi for a moment, trying to decide just how honest to be. he didn't have to tell the truth, and yet... "two things mainly. one is never getting to leave this place," he admitted. "and the other is having to go back after experiencing this new world."
“ This place sucks . I haven’t been here long and I already know it . I can tell a lot by a town and their movie theaters . “ Amber was a massive film fan . Everything in her life had been defined by how she saw them . By what she liked . That was why she had put on the ghostface mask , wasn’t it ? “ Speaking of . What are your favorite films ? “
It didn't seem that bad to her, but then again, she didn't have much to go off yet. One minute she'd been back home in Sheffield, and the next she'd been in...Washington DC, apparently. That sort of thing didn't usually happen without the TARDIS, and Yaz was intrigued to say the least. "You a big film buff then? I usually just end up watching whatever'll cause the least arguments with my family. We usually agree on Marvel films, at the least," she shrugged. "What type of films do you like?"
"welcome in, come on in. i will admit that service is going to be a bit slow tonight. two of our servers quit two minutes before we opened and I've already got a lot of the food prepped," harry sighed. "i know, not your problem. how many is in your party?"
"two minutes before?" she repeated, quirking an eyebrow at that. maybe things like that happened, but it sounded a bit strange, enough to intrigue her. "uh, it's just me," yaz added after a beat, glancing around the restaurant behind him. "i can just leave it if you're too overwhelmed already."
Was that [MANDIP GILL]? Oh no no, that was just [YASMIN KHAN], a [CANON CHARACTER] from [DOCTOR WHO]. They are [TWENTY SIX] years old, use [SHE/HER], and [ARE] aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.
how long has your character been here?
she's just showed up, and is very confused about how that is possible - but she's curious, and certainly keen for another adventure.
what is your character's job?
she was a police officer for awhile, but quit a little while after she stopped travelling with the doctor. right now, she's still trying to figure out what she can actually do that gives her the same buzz as travelling did.
where has your character been pulled from in their fandom?
yaz has been pulled from a time after she was travelling with the doctor, about a year after the power of the doctor.
has any character affected your character?
no magic has affected her.
more info:
since she stopped travelling with the doctor, she's attended the companion support group pretty much weekly. she'll be pleased to see there are other companions here too.
i don't need another cop muse so she decided that life wasn't for her anymore a little bit after settling back into her normal life. she's tried a lot of different things since then, but none of them feel very her either. she's still figuring it out.
she's not exactly managed to move on from the doctor ( who could? ) but she's sort of adapted to living a normal life on planet earth again. winding up in dc is actually pretty thrilling for her, not because she particularly wants to be trapped here, but at least it means she's got something to investigate.
Amelia took a mental note of that, quiet for a moment. "You aren't the first person who has said that." She admitted quietly. "There's something going on in this city that no one can explain."
Great. So, whatever this all was, it went far deeper than he'd expected. It was kind of hard to write it off as a bump to the head when it seemed to be happening all around the city. "Huh," Karadec murmured, taking that in, focusing on it for a moment. "Is it a recent thing?"
edgar found the woman to be particularly stubborn. it was a trait he recognized from the mirror , but he found it extremely frustrating when it was coming from someone else. sure , he didn't exactly have indisputable proof on him , but he could definitely prove to her that vampires existed. he knew where to find a few of them. he wasn't sure it was the greatest idea he'd ever had , but it would at least reveal the truth to her. edgar was genuinely considering taking the time to offer to introduce her to one just so she would believe him.
“ yes , for a brief period. where i'm from , vampires need to kill and feed to fully transition. michael and star , the two people who were temporarily vampires ... they didn't feed. when the master , max , died ... they were human again. fully. they were basically half vampires for awhile. that's the best way to describe it. ” he knew it sounded batshit insane , but it was still the truth. he just needed to figure out how to make cordelia understand that , too. he scoffed at her suggestion , finding himself feel rather insulted. “ i can assure you , these are not vivid dreams and nobody is messing with me. i know what i saw , and i'm never going to forget that night. do you want me to prove it to you ? 'cause i can. ”
did she want him to prove to her that vampires were real? no, she absolutely did not. this was honestly a huge waste of her time, and she should have gotten out of there to go and do literally anything else. staying where she was, continuing this argument? it was dumb and pointless. yet, she couldn't bring herself to just walk away. perhaps it was something repressed within her that was going to insist she see this through, but whatever it was, she couldn't just say no now, could she?
cordy narrowed her eyes at him, deciding that she was going to have to go with him now, if only so she could say 'i told you so' when he couldn't prove there was such a thing as vampires. that was how this would end, right? it was how this had to end, she was certain of it. "you know what? yeah, i do. prove to me that vampires are real," she challenged, arms coming to fold across her chest. the stance alone suggested she was confident; she didn't think there was a chance in hell he could do that. "i might even apologise."
michael had been relatively accustomed to the routine of his less than ideal life. it was only recently that he began to question things. was he one of those people he'd heard about ? the ones who forgot about their lives and simply had a fake one within dc ? it seemed absurd to even consider the possibility , but he couldn't stop himself from wondering. it was difficult not to theorize when so many people he'd met insisted they weren't from dc and didn't know how they'd wound up there. there was no way that many people could all be sharing the same experience without something at play. michael didn't blame the man for making him continue to question things , even if he didn't like what he was being faced with.
“ yeah , it's not the easiest thing in the world. ” opening up could be scary. it wasn't that he didn't want to have someone he could talk to in his life ; he did. it was a matter of figuring out who that person could be. “ you're probably not wrong. you can't really find answers all on your own. not about something like this , anyways. ” he knew talking was a necessity. there were people who seemed to have some answers , at least when it came to him , and he knew that was where he needed to start. “ if you somehow manage to do that , i'd love if you helped me make sense of it. ”
while karadec would love to be able to help other people out, he knew he was going to have to figure it all out for himself first...and that didn't seem like something likely to happen anytime soon. if at all. there was no way he would be coming up with answers right away, not when there didn't seem to be any to find. he wanted desperately to be able to tell michael he'd know something soon, he'd be able to explain it all to him and whoever else needed to hear it...but he couldn't promise that, not even a little bit.
"i can try, if i ever get my head around it myself," he promised, with a sigh. it was far easier said than done, he knew that already. how could anyone, cop or otherwise, explain how people randomly appeared in washington dc from all over the world, some without any memories in tact? it didn't feel possible. "right now, i really don't know what the answers could possibly be. i mean, have you ever heard of anything like this before? because i certainly haven't. i don't think i'd even believe it myself if i wasn't experiencing it."
edgar could understand someone wanting to be stubborn and set in their ways. the alternative of considering the fact that vampires were indeed real was probably not that ideal. however , he didn't live under a rock. he knew that they were real , and he'd tasked himself with the duty of informing everyone he possibly could about the existence of vampires. someone was bound to believe him from the start , or at least find out that he was correct when they unfortunately came across a vampire of their own.
he rolled his eyes at her question , exhaling loudly. “ just because they're undead doesn't mean they don't need clothes , ” he argued. “ i think that's a pretty lame argument. even a vampire would take advantage of a sale. ” he didn't shop at macy's himself , but he wouldn't put it past a vampire to do that. “ i can assure you they were not drunken frat guys. i know what i saw , ” he insisted. “ i've seen my friends brother become one for a brief period. i've seen vampires die. i've seen what holy water does to them. i definitely almost got killed by some , too. that's not something you just forget. ”
cordelia just wasn't buying it. or maybe on some level she was, and she refused to give in to that. she couldn't be the person who believed in vampires, or who backed down from her beliefs and let someone sway her with their weird and whacky conspiracy theories. that, she told herself, was the only reason she was so against this. it definitely had absolutely nothing to do with the fact she was trying to deny herself of the memories lingering just at the back of her mind, almost close enough to unpack, but not quite.
"for a brief period? like, the concept of vampires is ridiculous enough, but you're suggesting people, what, turn into them and then turn back? that's crazy," she scoffed. it really didn't make that much difference, she thought he was ridiculous either way, but she was doing just about anything to discredit everything he was saying. cordy knew it would be far easier to just walk away, to stop arguing about vampires in front of a freaking comic book store, but she was locked in now. "maybe you're just having, like, really vivid dreams. or people are trying to mess with you, make you think they're real, when clearly they're not."
" Ah , Emily . So it is you . How is retail , dear ? " Miranda's memories had come to her . She remembered how the woman had attempted to betray her . Andrea may have been blind to it and she may have seen the good in the young woman , but Miranda did not suffer from such a weakness . She saw her for who she was . She saw her for what she wanted . She wanted to be here and wasn't that cute ? " And is it ? Andrea is not here . You do not need to lie to appear to be a saint . " Miranda simply hummed . " No , I don't suppose that it does , does it ? "
Right, brilliant. She'd foolishly hoped that perhaps Miranda didn't remember a thing, or at least didn't remember that. It seemed many people she was coming into contact with claimed not to remember their lives back home, or at least parts of them...of course she wouldn't be so lucky with Miranda. There was absolute no way in hell she'd be hiring her for anything, unless it cleaning the toilets or something like that. Emily grimaced, taking the retail comment only because it was Miranda. She'd have bit back at absolutely anyone else. "You have all of your memories then," she muttered, through gritted teeth. "You know, I was just trying to do what was best for Runway. Surely even you can admit that takes integrity."
