Doctor Who_ History 101 - Mags L. Halliday [58]
‘Are you feeling better?’ he asked.
‘Much. Nothing like a bitch-fight to clear the terror.’
Jueves grinned at her, then started rummaging in the pockets of his jacket until he pulled out a crumpled bag and passed it over. Conscious of them both watching, Anji opened it. A bar of chocolate; dark, bitter and slightly squishy where it had melted at some point in its journey. She smiled at Jueves and broke a bit off to eat. He grinned back. ‘I thought that might make you feel better.’
‘Oh yes. Well, you know they say chocolate is better than –’ Anji broke off, looking at the two men in her room. Neither of whom would get it. ‘Never mind.’
Nibbling at the chocolate to make it last longer, Anji related what she had seen, or thought she had seen, at the parc. ‘I really didn’t think there was anything there, until I turned to look,’ she commented, already pushing away the panic she had felt as nonsense.
The Doctor and Jueves started looking at the references on the map. Anji sat back and watched them. Jueves had become part of the team, really, after they had realised they were stranded. Quick-minded, able to move about the country with relative ease, bilingual. He had helped her construct her translating dictionary and taught her the basics of the language. When the Doctor was off brooding in his hotel room, Jueves would take her out for food or dancing. Although she always refused the dancing since she hadn’t really progressed past the sixth-form shuffle. They’d not told him everything, of course, but she suspected he’d long-since realised they were engaged in a search for something, rather than just filling time as they claimed. He was like an intelligent, witty and competent version of Fitz.
Anji bit down hard on the chocolate in surprise, hurting her teeth. Fitz wasn’t gone, he would reappear. That she could even think of Jueves as a replacement disturbed her. It had been five months, true, but only a few days for the old scruff and he was bound to appear soon. Like a particularly battered bad penny. Probably bruised somewhere from getting in a fight. Ready to irritate and needle her, wind her up over, well, anything. Everything. Being with the Doctor and Fitz was like being stuck with not one but two younger brothers on permanent sugar-rushes. They might annoy her and aggravate her but she wasn’t about to supplant one of them. Glancing up, she saw Jueves smile at her briefly, then bow his head over the stack of papers he was searching through. No matter how cute the possible replacement was. Or how much chocolate he bought her. Fitz was, technically, missing and she was bothered that she missed him.
‘Eleana said people were going missing,’ she remembered aloud.
‘Like Blair, you mean?’ Jueves asked.
‘I suppose so. It was just part of her rant. She’s really changed, recently. She just claimed to think the opposite of what she said back in November, I’m sure of it.’
The Doctors fingers were tapping along the edge of the dresser as he still stared up at the map. From her angle, she could see he was biting at his lower lip.
‘Pia said something similar. I did some asking about at the Continental. One woman remembers Blair being there a few days ago.’
‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’
The Doctor turned and leaned back against the furniture, folding his arms. ‘Well, it would be if both he and the man he left with had been seen again since.’
Anji realised she had finished the chocolate, despite her intention to save some of it. She found it hard to remember that there were shortages, despite her darned stockings and limp hair. Soap for shampoo, urgh. She put the wrapper to one side and slid off the bed, joining the two men by the paper map. Grabbing one of the index notebooks, she started flicking through for references