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“But I met O!”
“I know.”
“Years ago!”
“I know!”
Roughly fifteen years earlier (Relative to the Doctor)
“Oh come on Nardole.” The Doctor moans. “Hurry up.”
“Coming sir!” Nardole waddles out of the TARDIS and looks at their surroundings. His face drops when he sees where they are. “This isn’t Cafe Nero!”
“Well observed.”
“This isn’t even England!”
“Nardole if I wanted someone to point out the obvious to me I would still have K9.”
“But sir,” Nardole starts, “your oath!”
“The Vault is fine.” The Doctor reassures him. “We’ll be back before you know it. Literally, I was going to land the second we left. Now come on, I’m hungry.” The Doctor heads off in the direction of a fountain, very obviously not knowing where he’s going.
“But sir I-”
The Doctor spins round on his heel and shuts up Nardole with one hard glare. “Do you want me to strand you here?”
Nardole shakes his head.
“Good.” The Doctor turns back around and carries on walking, gesturing for Nardole to follow. “Speaking of which, where even is ‘here’ anyway?”
“Paris.” Nardole says matter-of-factly.
“And how do you know that?” The Doctor queries.
“Well the Eiffel Tower is a bit of a giveaway.” Nardole jabs a thumb over his shoulder. The Doctor turns his head to look at the tower for the first time.
“Right…” The Doctor bursts into a huge grin when he sees a cafe that he recognises. “Oh of course! This place does wonderful croissants. I came here with Romana once, we had bouillabaisse. Come on.” The Doctor heads over to the small cafe by the fountain, expecting Nardole to follow. Which he does, albeit a little begrudgingly.
“Am I meant to know who that is?” Nardole grumbles to himself. The Doctor had so many exes it was hard to keep track of them all.
The Doctor plonks himself down at the last free outdoor table. “Nardole I want three croissants and a cup of tea with nine sugars.”
“Oh I’m ordering am I?” Nardole asks sarcastically. He sighs and shakes his head, not having the energy to argue today. “Alright then. Back in a second."
As Nardole wanders inside to order the Doctor makes himself at home. He picks up the menu and has a quick skim, before announcing, “You might as well show yourself. I know you’re there.”
The air behind the Doctor shimmers and a man springs into view. He had neat dark hair and wore a casual black suit. He smiles evilly, though only for a second before his face softens into something more friendly, and he steps into the Doctor’s line of sight. “How did you know I was there?”
“I’m a Time Lord, invisibility doesn’t work on me.” The Doctor gestures at the chair opposite his. “Sit down. You clearly want to talk.”
The man smiles and does as he’s told. “That I do.” He grins at the Doctor, almost seeming excited to see him. “I’m from MI5. Hence the invisibility tech.”
“Oh.”
“Yep, that’s my name.” The man grins.
“Sorry, what?”
“O. It’s my code name.” O grins, as though laughing at some inside joke, and shrugs. “Agent O.”
“Were all the other letters taken then?” The Doctor smirks. “Agent X not available?”
“I’ve never checked, but probably.”
“Well, O, what are you doing here anyway?”
O smiles. “Why else? My boss asked me to spy on you.”
“Oh did they now?” The Doctor asks sarcastically. “And why’d they do that?”
“Well…” O begins, “we have very limited information on you so I’ve been tasked with filling up the files a little.”
“And you thought the best way to do that was by stalking me?”
“Well… I am a spy. It’s kind of my job to stalk people.” O smiles awkwardly. He was clearly new to this job.
“Well you’re not very good at it.” The Doctor remarks. “I knew you were there the moment I walked outside the doors.”
“Well I-”
O is interrupted by a loud crash, some screaming, and then a very wet Nardole crashing out of the cafe door. A large elderly woman in pink seems to be chasing him out, yelling some very colourful french swear words at him.
“Alright, alright, I’m going!” Nardole holds up his hands in surrender and backs off towards the Doctor. The woman glares at Nardole before heading back inside. Nardole sighs and addresses the Doctor. “We’ve just been kicked out, we have to go somewhere- hang on who’s this?”
“I’m O.” O holds out a hand for Nardole to shake.
“Oh?” Nardole hesitantly takes the spy’s hand.
“That’s me.” O smiles.
“Oh.”
The Doctor clears his throat. “Kicked out? We’ve only been here a minute.”
“Ah, yes.” Nardole nods and his face goes red. “Well, as it turns out offering to make the tea the proper way didn’t go down well with the owner. In fact it gets milk thrown over you.” He gestures at his soggy clothes.
“The proper way?” O asks.
“Milk first.”
The Doctor rolls his eyes. “Nardole it really doesn’t matter.” He groans and stands up. “But oh well. I suppose we’ll just go somewhere else. It was nice meeting you O but we have to go now.”
“Wai!,” O gets up quickly and rushes over to him. “But I didn’t learn anything about you.”
Sighing, the Doctor turns back to the table and gets out a pen and paper. He scribbles down a line of numbers and then shoves it into O’s hands. “My phone number. If you’re that desperate to talk to me then just text me later. Come on Nardole.”
The Doctor turns and briskly walks back in the direction of the TARDIS. Nardole mouths a quick ‘sorry’ to the abashed looking O and jogs to keep up with the Doctor, grumbling something about Time Lords walking too fast.
Neither the Doctor nor Nardole notice O grinning maniacally to himself as they leave him, the not-so-legitimate agent proud of his deception.