Oh ye gods it's a fic

[fantasticmuse]

Sometimes I get possesed by insane ideas. And then people encourage them. And then you get a fic like this.


Earth Under Stars
or
All's Well That Ends Well

by fantasticmuse

Doctor Who/Much Ado About Nothing
3389 Words, all characters belong to their owners
No beta, all mistakes mine

Blame cidercupcakes because the home team battle was an awesome idea. And minna because she's an ennabler.






"Here we are, then," the Doctor pressed one last button on the TARDIS console and turned to look at Martha. "Sicily, late fall, the estate of Don Pedro-- though it currently belongs to his daughter, Hero, and her husband Claudio. And the sight of our distress call, such as it is. We'll have to poke around, see if anything odd's happened lately."

Used to his speeches, Martha was halfway to the door when the names he spoke gave her pause. "Hero and Claudio? That sounds like... like something I should know." She turned back and by the smug expression on the Doctor's face, she knew she was right.

"All right, then, what is it? Where have I heard those names before?" Martha put a hand on her hip and the Doctor pulled away from where he was leaning on the center console and crossed to open the door.

"Shakespeare," he said with a flourish, gesturing at the warm countryside.

With that added bit of information she could place the names, and she just managed to keep her jaw from dropping. The Doctor took a strange delight in surprising her-- which she loved. But it wouldn't do to have him know that, now would it? "Oh, you are kidding." Martha stood in the door of the Tardis and looked out across the Sicilian countryside. "I thought it was just a story, though? Something Will made up?"

"Well. Just because it was a story doesn't mean he made it up. " The Doctor shrugged. "Anyway, let's go! I could do with a bit of a walk."

Martha shook her head and followed him across the fields towards the villa on a hill.

***
"Sure it would be an uncharming thing to leave visitors to find their own way, Beatrice." The young woman, Hero, put her hand on the other woman's arm.

"Charming's where the danger lies, Cousin," Beatrice said. "I beg your pardon but you are strangers here and strange to behold. I would hear your story before I let you into my home."

Next to Martha, the Doctor frowned and began to search through his pockets, no doubt looking for psychic paper. Hero looked on with some confusion, but Beatrice's eyes were sharp even if her face was calm. Martha stepped forward.

"We're just travelers, passing through. I promise we're harmless, we won't cause any trouble." I hope, she mentally added, but smiled brightly for the women in front of her.

"Somehow I doubt you, but better you be in my sight than out of it. Inside, then. I will see about food for you."

***
Dinner was a quiet affair. Beatrice warmed to them quickly once the decision to trust them had been made. She told a great many jokes over bread, roast chicken, and wine. The house had a good number of servants going here and there, but only Beatrice and Hero seemed to live there.

"Is it just you two, then?" Hero had taken the Doctor to show him where the library in the Villa was, which was apparently what he came for in the first place. Martha walked in the garden with Beatrice, who was conspicuously silent in response.

"Just we two, left behind to wait idle while our men play at soldier's games." She said it with a smile, but Martha heard a biting truth just behind the words.

"Gone to war and left you behind, has he?" Martha sighed. "I know that feeling."

Beatrice put her hand on Martha's arm. "Such is the way of husbands, I have found. Though I must appreciate the silence where I find it, since I have none when mine returns. And still it has been but a fortnight, I can manage well enough in that time. He will return when the men's work is done." Beatrice's lips twisted up in what Martha could only describe as a sarcastic smile on the word work.

"Do you worry about him?" Martha linked their arms and began walking again.

"About my husband? No. He is more likely to jest his way through shield and sword than land upon them. He is a fine soldier and has the protection of the prince. It's my cousin's man I fear for, and more for she than the man, I do not know what it would come to should he not return." Beatrice's face darkened for a moment, but soon it passed. She turned to Martha.

"It does not do to speak of such things. Tell me where you came from, Martha, your dress and accent are strange and I think you must have a story to tell."

They walked for some time in the garden, Martha doing her best to talk about London without giving too much away and Beatrice asking delighted questions about her family and the home she grew up in.

"You are young to be traveling alone, even if your Doctor seems to be wise. Why do you travel? I hope you are not suffering from some illness, or at least that you travel to recover from such a thing."

"No, no, it's nothing like that." Martha paused while she thought about how to explain leaving her family behind, traveling the stars. "I travel to learn things," she finally said. "It's part of my education."

"A fine way to learn, I have been told," Beatrice nodded, apparently satisfied with that response.

"What about you, Beatrice? Where did you learn?" Martha half suspected Beatrice would say she had been taught at home, by her parents, but she was surprised by her response.

"I was given lessons by the Sisters, there is a nunnery not far from here, and there I learned to read and how to help run my uncle's home." A smile crossed Beatrice's lips, at some small memory. "I think my uncle would that I had stayed on that path, but such was not the life for me."

Martha put her hand on Beatrice's arm. "Are you happy?"

Beatrice's smile was electric. "As merry as a soul can be, dear Martha. And I would hear more about what you have learned in your travels."

Twilight settled around them, with Martha in the middle of a story about how examinations in school worked where she was from.

"Come inside," Beatrice said, "Tell me more of your tutors, it is fair unheard of to send so many girls to a petty school."

"Where I'm from, it's not strange at all, really. Every child goes to school, it doesn't matter who they are."

Beatrice seemed startled by Martha's words, or perhaps just shocked. She and Martha walked a few steps in silence, before Beatrice spoke, softly and carefully. "What of you and your Doctor? Do you teach at these schools?"

Martha pondered exactly how to answer as they walked through the door, but any reply was cut off by the Doctor's shout.

"Martha! We've got trouble!" Surprise crossed Beatrice's face, but Martha only rolled her eyes.

"Now there's a surprise," she said, then took off in the direction of the shouting.

***
She found him in the library, crouched over Hero, who was lying unconscious on the floor. Beatrice rushed across the room and dropped to the floor at her cousin's side.

"What has happened here?" She brushed Hero's hair away from her face with a worried look, then pulled her cousin's head into her lap.

Martha looked at the Doctor. He shrugged. "She's okay. Unconscious but alive, no harm done." Martha caught him slipping his screwdriver unobtrusively into his pocket.

"What made her faint?"

"I think it's got something to do with that." He gestured vaguely at a stone on the table, roughly the size of a grapefruit and shiny black.

Kneeling next to Beatrice and Hero, Martha took the girl's pulse. A bit fast but steady and strong. She looked at Beatrice and managed a smile. "I think she'll be all right, but I'll be able to tell you more when she wakes up."

In the doorway, a servant girl appeared. Beatrice motioned for her to come over. Hero began to stir and slowly opened her eyes.

"What happened, Hero," Beatrice asked, "did you mean to relive your wedding day?"

Hero gave a weak laugh; Martha and the Doctor shared a look above their heads. "Can I look into your eyes just a moment, Hero?" Martha turned back to the girl and held out her hand. It took a moment but the Doctor caught on and handed her a penlight from somewhere in his pockets.

"Seems normal there," she murmured after watching Hero's pupils dilate and contract as she shined the light into them. "I can't say for absolute certain, but I think she's okay."

Beatrice stared in fascination at the penlight. "How do you know she is well?"

Martha laughed. "Remember the schools? The one I was at taught me to be a doctor. "

Beatrice looked as though she wanted to ask more questions, but Hero stirred again. "To bed with you, Cousin." Beatrice smoothed Hero's hair once more but Hero still looked upset. She didn't look at Beatrice, but stared at the stone on the table. Martha and Beatrice helped her off the floor and handed her over to the care of Margaret, the girl Beatrice had beckoned in earlier.

When Hero was safely ushered out of the room and the door closed behind her, the Doctor turned to Beatrice. "Where did that stone come from?"

Beatrice frowned. "It was Hero that found it, not a week ago, when we were walking in the fields. It was half buried, but she dug it out and together we carried it back. She seemed quite enamored by it; it is a pretty thing."

It was the Doctor's turn to frown, mirroring Beatrice. "One day I'll study the correlation between attractiveness and danger," he said, already turning to the stone and pulling the screwdriver from his pocket. Beatrice looked from the Doctor to Martha and back again, stormy-eyed. Finally settling on Martha, she began to speak in a low voice.

"Martha, I would dearly like to count you a friend, but this strangeness I cannot tolerate. Pray, what manner of people are you; I cannot abide danger in my household. My cousin is too great a treasure to risk and already she who has so balanced and bright a constitution has fallen ill in your presence. I tell you I do not like this. "

Martha could only nod, worry tugging inside her. "We are travelers, Beatrice, and I promise we don't want anything bad to happen to you or Hero. We got... a message, earlier today, that's what brought us here. The Doctor thinks this stone has something to do with it."

As if on cue, the Doctor pulled away from his study of the stone. "Oh, this most certainly has something to with it," he said. Staring blankly at the two of them, he ran a hand through his hair. "Beatrice, take me to where you found this stone."

"No."

The Doctor blinked. "No?"

"I am not your servant or your student. You cannot come merrily into my household and throw orders about while causing mischief. What is happening here?" She spoke in an even tone, but Martha could barely contain the urge to take a step back from her. Even the Doctor looked taken aback.

"She's right, Doctor," Martha said. "She's been very kind and she deserves to know what's happening."

"Yes, fine, fine," the Doctor said. He stared at them for a long moment before speaking. "It's not a stone. I think it's an egg."

***

"She's remarkably adaptive," the Doctor commented to Martha as they followed Beatrice across the meadow outside the villa the next morning. A stiff wind blew from the west, the sky overcast and dark clouds piling up on the horizon.

"She's had the night to think about it." Martha shrugged. "I think she's just worried about Hero. I am too, actually." They had left Hero in bed that morning. Beatrice had told them Hero had slept restlessly and was rather violently ill in the morning after she had eaten. Martha had been reluctant to leave the girl but she had insisted, and Margaret had promised to stay with her and send for them if anything change. "Why would she have this reaction now, if she didn't when they first found the stone... the egg. What changed?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Still working on it."

The land they walked through was stunning: low rolling hills, vineyards, villas and what looked like a church in the distance. Beatrice walked at a brisk pace without any of the bright conversation that Martha had grown to like. A short walk later, Beatrice slowed near a grove of five or six olive trees.

"We often take meals here, when the weather holds. That is where Hero first saw your strange egg." She gestured to a bit of open space just beyond the trees.

Martha could see a small area where the earth had been overturned. The Doctor immediately began to scan the area with his screwdriver, muttering to himself and generally just ignoring the world at large. Beatrice looked grim as she watched, but she seemed less fearful than she had earlier in the day.

Walking to her, Martha put a hand on her shoulder. "I know it seems mad. I thought so too, when I first started traveling. But he's the best, really. We can figure out what's going on."

"I thank you for your kindness, Martha." She flicked her eyes back towards the villa and looked like she wanted to continue, but the Doctor interrupted.

"The soil is extremely nitrous. Beatrice, was there a storm around the time you found the egg?" Beatrice nodded in response to his question.

"Thought so. Lots of lightning? Noise?" Beatrice nodded again. The Doctor pulled a satisfied sort of smile, one Martha recognized as his I've-Sorted-Something-Out-I'm-So-Clever smile.

"What do you think it is, Doctor?" Martha asked.

"Fentoms." He grinned, as though that explained everything. Martha leveled a glare at him but Beatrice looked concerned.

"Phantoms?" she asked. "Do you mean to say spirits, Doctor?"

"No no no no," the Doctor shook his head vigorously. "Fentoms. They're a kind of elemental, when they travel it often manifests as a storm, since lightning is a clever mask for the enormous energy output. I've heard their children were hatched but I've never seen a Fentom egg before this. Normally they're carefully guarded; Fentoms don't reproduce much."

Beatrice seemed to sort through his speech with a bit of trouble. "Creatures that look like storms? Doctor you are absurd, yet still I believe you speak the truth. Tell me, can this egg harm my cousin? I will have it destroyed if I must."

The Doctor was shaking his head, but Martha answered. "I think we can take care of it, Beatrice. We don't know for sure yet why Hero is sick."

The wind had risen steadily over the course of the journey, and a rumble of thunder cut through the clouds. "I wonder..." the Doctor began, staring up at the clouds. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning raced down, striking the ground in the distance, near the villa.

"Doctor, I think we'd better get back there," Martha said, taking Beatrice's hand and beginning to run.

Following behind her the Doctor called out. "Be careful, Martha, I think we may have visitors!" The wind and thunder increased, almost to a roar at the loudest point, but no more lightning struck and no rain fell as they drew near to the gate of the villa. Slowing, Martha tried to catch her breath.

"Where should we start?" she asked.

The Doctor gestured to the top floor of the villa. "The library, where the egg..." He was cut off by a scream from inside the house.

"Hero," Beatrice cried out and broke away from Martha, rushing through the main door and towards Hero's room. The Doctor followed her immediately and Martha trailed behind him. As they raced through the corridors they came upon the source of the noise, just outside Hero's door. Margaret stood in the hall, looking in through the door and screaming uncontrollably. Beatrice rushed to her side and grabbed hold, the Doctor and Martha pushed by them into Hero's room.

Hero stood in the center, clutching the black egg. Martha had assumed it would be heavy, but Hero seemed to hold it with ease. Surrounding her was a blackish-grey mist, completely encasing her but not extending any further than two or three feet in any direction. The mist seemed to be growing darker, in the few seconds they had been in the room parts of Hero's body were becoming obscured. Behind them, Margaret had stopped screaming.

"Stop right there," the Doctor called out to the mist. "Leave her alone!"

Martha would've sworn that the mist grew lighter, but it was hard to tell. Beatrice rushed in to the room and Martha had to grab her to keep her from going to her cousin's side and pulling her from the mist. Hero was clutching the egg protectively, but she seemed unaware that anyone else was in the room.

The Doctor repeated himself, and this time the mist did get lighter. Beatrice was calling out to her cousin, over and over, but Hero did not notice.

The Doctor suddenly hushed Beatrice, and then Martha could hear a quiet whispering voice. "We take our daughter, we take our daughter, she has yet to grow."

Martha tightened her arms around Beatrice. The Doctor spoke again. "She's not your daughter; she belongs here!"

A lilting, whispering laugh came from the mist. "You talk of the human. We take our daughter. Your daughter will stay."

"Oh." The Doctor looked genuinely puzzled. Martha could feel Beatrice sag in relief as the Doctor continued. "What are you doing, then?"

"We say thank you." The mist was getting noticeably lighter. Through it, Martha could see that Hero's hands were empty. She looked unhurt and from what Martha could see, some of the pallor had gone from her face. She blinked, shaking off something in her head, and smiled as the mist disappeared completely.

"Oh, Hero," Beatrice said and wrapped her in a tight hug. Hero laughed and hugged back. Martha heard her reassuring Beatrice as she went to stand next to the Doctor.

"Not what you expected?" She couldn't help smiling at his wide-eyed surprise.

"Not...quite, no." He smiled back at her.

"Kind of nice, though, isn't it? When there's no harm done?" Across the room, Beatrice brushed back Hero's hair and seemed to be studying her face intently.

"It is," the Doctor agreed. Apparently satisfied with whatever she saw, Beatrice turned from Hero to face Martha and the Doctor.

"I must thank you," she began, but the Doctor interrupted.

"We didn't really do anything, no need for thanks," he said, more briskly than he should have, to Martha's ears.

Beatrice was not deterred. "Still I thank you. I would have gone mad with worry if not for your guidance. My cousin assures me she is quite well."

Martha walked over to the two women. "I'd still like to check you, if that's all right, Hero. We don't know why you got so ill because of the stone, yet." To her surprise, Hero flushed and looked down at the floor.

"Forgive me, for you mean so well with your offer. But I think such a thing will not be necessary. I am not ill at all, but filled with joy." She placed a hand on her stomach and looked steadily at Beatrice.

"Cousin! Are you certain?" Beatrice seemed unsure of Hero's announcement, but as Hero nodded Beatrice's face filled with delight. "Why would you not tell me, cousin! How could I not notice?"

Martha backed away, letting the women share a moment of happiness at the news of a baby. The Doctor came to stand beside her. "Not what you expected?" he asked, teasing.

"No," she said, smiling at him. "But I should have. Dizziness, nausea, fatigue. It all fits."

They watched the two in silence for a moment, then the Doctor lend into her and bumped her shoulder. "Shall we be off, then?"

Martha shook her head. "Can we stay, one more night?"

The Doctor smiled. "Made a friend, I see." He paused and seemed to be considering something. "Why don't you invite her along? Just one trip, we'll take her somewhere spectacular and have her back by tomorrow evening."

The smile that spread across her face was almost electric with happiness. "Oh, Doctor! Thank you!" After wrapping him in a quick hug, she ran back into the room to extend the offer, laughing in delight.