What to get your lovely assistant when you come back from your very TOP secret and VERY limited capacity assignment that kept you off the grid for a few months? This is the question The Doctor asks himself during the plane ride back to UNIT HQ. Of course he WANTED to bring Honey. Absolutely, he did. However, some select few members of UNIT's higher cabinet staff insisted this mission was TOP SECRET. Only UNIT'S best could go, and unfortunately— that included him.
Which meant leaving with nothing but a cheap handwritten note that said
Allegedly, some of the men had been given strict orders NOT to answer any questions regarding where all these high profile UNIT members had gone. This was a strictly OFF THE BOOKS mission, meaning The Doctor was out of touch with his assistant for WEEKS. It was miserable. Never at any point prior had he realized just how much he'd needed Honey to help make all this droll military work interesting and fun. So surely, to make it up to her and to tell her just how sorry he was for leaving so abruptly, he had to get her something. Surely.
Unfortunately, he didn't take his own car to the airport. That was probably also a red flag for Honey, as The Doctor adored that car. When he wasn't working on The TARDIS in a continued effort to escape his forcibly-imposed exile— he was adding all sorts of modifications to Bessie to improve her performance. Nobody would simply believe she was anything more then an old beat up car, however. That being said, his determination to surprise his assistant was still ever present.
So, what to do? Well, easily— ditch the group of returning cabinet members who are going straight back to HQ. That gives him time to find a cab and spend his hard earned money that he never uses. He usually just gives Honey most of his salary, as even in exile— The Doctor still doesn't really have any use for money. All of the faculties inside the TARDIS still work, aside from her flight capabilities. This eliminates the need for him to require anything. That being said, they insisted he didn't leave his credit card with her. This allotted him some element of flexibility, however. He had a lot of room to spend.
Well, it's starting to get colder. Honey hates the winter, she loves the summer and the springtime. So, perhaps a nice coat with a fur lining? Bright colors such as pink and yellow seemed to be her forte, so he picked a few luxury coats, some new boots and bags (and even some jackets, as he only pretended not to notice how often they ended up matching outfits.) At the first store alone, he easily spent eight hundred pounds on winter clothing alone.
And yet he wasn't satisfied.
(Does he enjoy spoiling her, or something?)
THE LAST TIME HE GOT HER JEWELRY, she seemed highly receptive to that. Was too much jewelry tacky, though? He thought he remembered hearing that Honey liked bathroom items. Like soaps and candles, bath bombs and what not. So, he went somewhere and proceeded to spend another five hundred on a plethora of items that seemed to fit her aesthetic. At this point, the cab driver had to be tipped extra in order to stop his yammering. The Doctor felt bad for making him wait, but once the driver received his tip— he seemed rather receptive towards more gift shopping. He even made a few suggestions, all of which The Doctor disregarded. He was trying to show his appreciation— not make her blush.
Though, after his final stop at the bakery— it seemed as if he'd spent enough money to do that regardless. The final haul of gifts totaled out to about two thousand pounds. Cakes, bathroom items, flowers, clothes, shoes, bags. An entire trunk was filled with boxes galore, all of which he'd simply grabbed because he hadn't been satisfied with just one category of item. He simply needed to grab her everything all at once and more.
Which all culminated in him bursting through the doors of his laboratory with a few poor souls from the front gates wheeling in all the gifts he bought her whilst he stands near the door with his fists on his hips.
"Right, we've got a lot to go through. Pick a corner and start unwrapping."
No punctuation; no folder, document, cryptic photograph or loosely correlated text underneath to even subtly hint at what he was doing, or where in all the gods' names he might be going. That in-and-of-itself wasn't unheard of or terribly strange—though the Doctor was generally good enough, (nowadays), to give her some clue on the somewhat-rare occasion he couldn't bring her along—so it didn't trouble her much the day she first plucked the note off his desk.
She simply set aside the parcels she'd picked up from delivery and set to work on what little tasks an assistant might do in their assist-ee's absence: organizing bits-and-bobs, tidying the lab (without disturbing anything she was sure he'd come looking for exactly where it was), and eventually settling on doing inventory: taking stock of everything in their current supply, requisitioning replacements as necessary, and generally making sure everything was set to run smoothly when her 'boss' made his return.
Those tasks only managed to keep her busy the first week and change; then she was left showing up to the lab each day, dithering around for an hour in case 'today' was the day he'd clatter in through the door with an armful of whatever technological ephemera he'd stumbled upon in his ventures, along with other samples, souveniers, and stories to tell for every one.
She only bothered trying to ask about the mysterious disappearance once, maybe twice, to a handful of different UNIT staff, before it became abundantly clear nobody was going to spare a crumb, even if she batted her long and lovely lashes at them or teased some form of bribery. Hush, hush, the whole thing. Need-to-know basis only—and they'd clearly decided she didn't need to know.
Fine. She had other, better ways to keep busy than to sit by the door and mope like a lonely puppy; and despite running out of official work to do (for lack of an eccentric alien to assign it), they didn't stop paying her—so la-di-da. See if SHE cares about all your cloak-and-daggerness!
Spite was enough to carry her through the end of the first month, and barely into the second. Same as every other time: it gave plenty of time to study, branch out into new avenues and take a few tests, even volunteer for some shifts at the clinic near her flat; it gave her guiltless leave to finally make it to some of those lovely little underground concerts and other exciting social... events she'd missed while running about; and, of course, many hours spent lazing about—late to bed, late to rise, idly listening her way through several new records while rifling through a spellbook she'd managed to quietly acquire from a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-relative's-neighbor... and if she happened to spare an evening to send a protection spell out into the starry sea, in hopes it might find someone far away, then so be it.
She turned the note over in her hand for the hundredth time, an ill-suiting scowl on candygloss lips which were so well known for framing laughter and playful smiles, melodramatic pouts and anger which came and went like a puff of steam—not this kind of expression, at all. Weary, anxious, sullen and irritated; as a week turned into a month and a month turned into more.
By the end of the second month, she'd started coming back to HQ at the top of the day—brought a portable record player from home to spin vinyls on, accumulated a pile of textbooks and notebooks, a grimoire or two, keeping busy... all the same things she'd been doing to fill the time, only in the place where he would hopefully come to first, the moment he came back.
Because she wanted to be ready to read him the riot act the SECOND his feet hit familiar soil. How dare he! How dare all of them put her through this! Being treated like a child, left in the dark! She didn't care how TOP SECRET the whole affair was supposed to be—they'd had no issue tossing her into the frying pan in other volatile situations before! She couldn't have kept count of the debriefs she'd gone through after ventures with the Doctor if she'd wanted to, but all of a sudden they can steal him away without a word, with no estimate of return or vague details, and she was just supposed to be fine with that? As if!
Honey must have rehearsed her rant a dozen times over by that morning. The bustle outside was impossible not to notice long before they properly reached the doors—which saw the little blonde perk in her seat, promptly dropping the note as well as the tome she'd been unceremoniously using it as a bookmark in. The clamor of burdened wheels chuttering over the floor, at nearly half a dozen different footfalls laced between each rattle, bump, and shift.
An audience, huh? So be it; maybe it'll help the shameless man feel as scolded as he'd ought to!
She finally stands, trotting over to stand front-and-center before the doors, briefly wavering between 'huffily folded arms' or 'coolly disappointed, slightly nonchalant hands-on-hips' before settling on the latter. Oh yeah. She was ready.
At least, she'd thought she was. Ready, perhaps, for him to saunter in through the doors all casual-like, as if no time at all had passed; just another day in the office, maybe a little 'Ah, hello Ms. Moto. I hope you've had a restful time?' or perhaps a HINT of guilt (not nearly enough), with a quiet apology which she'd barely take in stride before going on with her monologue. Honey was not, obviously ready for the parade which suddenly burst into the room: her Doctor at its helm, throwing the doors open in a flourish and making way for his miniature infantry of porters to ramble in behind.
They're a mirror of each other in stance, though the ire which creased her brow is quickly overtaken by bewilderment, watching the hoard grow, and it's all she can do to blink in the meantime.
"Right, we've got a lot to go through. Pick a corner and start unwrapping."
It's not an explanation, but the apology is there all the same, delivered in the language of affection he knew best. He wasn't always the best at talking through his feelings or avoiding putting his foot in his mouth, but what tact he may drop in the department of delicate discussion, he'd more than once made up for in gestures and, indeed, gifts.
If her nerves hadn't been so harried and thoughts filtered through a lens of worry, perceived helplessness, and irritation, Honey might have expected as much. It was hardly the first grand gesture she'd been on the receiving end of from her employer, and they were long beyond the days of him being careless of her feelings...
But she still ends up pouting through round cheeks at him. She'd put a lot of thought into how she was going to lay into him—and some of their other superiors, given the chance!—and now he'd gone and spoiled all that effort because she couldn't be THAT petulant in the face of such wanton spoiling.
Not content to give up her (righteous) anger, entirely, she crosses the gap between them with precise strides and looks up at him with a flinty glare—holding fast in that fashion for a moment before raising one hand from her hip to bap him on the nose with the back of her hand; a barely-there tap not unlike the kind one might give a cat muzzling too-near their plate.
❝ Don't think for a second that you can buy yourself out of trouble, mister. There's not enough fancy gifts in the world to brush off a stint like that. ❞ ...though he'd notice, too, that all her bluster and pout can't completely mask the relief which traced the back of her words, the worry finally escaping her lungs where it had made nest—gentler emotions which quickly overcome her: amethyst eyes take a turn for the tearful, and she hides her face by leaning her forehead against his shoulder. ❝ ...worrying as awful and as long as all that isn't good for a beautiful girl's complexion. ❞
Thankfully, the other men who'd so diligently helped load the bounty into the room were eager enough to take their leave, so the decidedly less-than-"professional" display is witnessed only by the man whose shoulder the blonde briefly sniffles against, before leaning back and delicately bringing the backs of her fingers to swipe under misty eyes. ❝ AND bringing me to tears when I did my makeup so nice? Horrible. Terrible. VERY un-gentlemanlike. ❞ Thus returns the teasing tone under melodrama, and a wane smile reclaims its natural place.
❝ You bring me whichever gift you think is going to cheer me up the most, and we'll start from there... but most importantly, and before any of that:
