Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was a knock at Dela's door. Huh. That was unusual. While there was a sign hanging on it asking people to please do so, no one - be it agents, coordinators, subcoordinators, cousins and/or guards on their break and, on one memorable occasion, even then-President Flavia - no one ever knocked. 

"Come in, please," she called.

The door opened with its familiar, satisfying sound. Standing outside was an unfamiliar Time Lady, clad in strange garb. No, Dela looked closer, that was no Time Lady. Whoever she was, there was something totally alien about her. 

"Please sit down." Dela gestured to the chair standing at the wall that was meant to be opposite her desk. No one ever used it, her regular visitors preferred to pace. As the stranger moved through the office, Dela found she couldn't take her eyes off her. There was something mesmerizing in her movements, the way the stranger took in her office, all the corners. And Dela herself. There was a glint in the other's eyes that told her that Dela was only in control here because the stranger deemed it so. Dela gulped, feeling suddenly very hot.

"W-what can I do for you?"

"I am Leela, Warrior of the Sevateem. I was told you might know where Andred is?" The Stranger's, Leela's, voice was soft, soothing, almost shy. Leela. Oh, of course! The alien Patok had mentioned, this must be her. Married to a guard commander, yes, that was it. But Rassilon - no better not invoke that name here - , Patok hadn't mentioned how very beautiful Leela was. 

Only when Leela shifted uncomfortably in her seat did Dela remember that she had been asked a question.

"Oh, um, Andred. I can't say I do, I'm afraid. But maybe," she didn't want to let Leela go unless Dela had done everything she could for the unfamiliar woman, "do you have a full name for this Andred? And some sort of relationship to him? If I know anything, I'm afraid I can't just give information to anyone who walks into my office." She'd probably do it for Leela anyways, and not just because she had just spotted a knife on Leela's belt. And a staser. What sort of life did this alien lead? Granted, Dela herself had a low level staser under her desk, but that was for security purposes! 

"Andredocelus. My husband. He was gone from our quarters this morning. I thought maybe he had a secret mission." There was a tiny cut on Leela's shoulder and her voice was heavy with worry.

Dela shook her head. "Guard commander, that's all I've got in his file. Two minor missions several decades ago, one involvement with the Doctor during the Invasion, but nothing current. I'm sorry."

Leela chewed on her lip. "Thank you," she whispered.

As Leela stood up to leave, something in Dela couldn't let her go. Not like this. 

"I'll let you know if I hear anything!", she called after Leela.

Leela turned, bright blue eyes looking directly into Dela's for the first time, and nodded.

And then she was gone.

Chapter Text

"Del. Del. Del. Dela. Del, please." 

Dela sighed. "What is it, Patok? Can't you see I'm busy?"

Dela was not, in fact, currently busy. Rather, she was enjoying a few microspans of peace before the next inevitable disaster struck. A disaster that appeared to be Patok's insatiable curiosity for now. At least that was a minor one. Nothing like the time someone had let a bunch of tafelshrews loose in the Agency. Or like the time the coffee maker landed in a time field. Now that was a catastrophe. Or like the time- No, don't think of that. Patok was, however, an annoyingly common disaster for her to deal with. She looked up from her datapad. He was standing there, practically vibrating.

"Okay, fine. Out with it."

"Soooo, you know Lanro? Who keeps doing all these off-world missions?"

"Of course I know Lanro. That's my job, as you are well aware. Their files are in Directory Zeta. Actually, why aren't you at your job?"

Patok shrugged. "The President is off on some sort of super secret mission again. They only need half the guards for stationary duty, so I got the day off! But, not important. What is important, is that Lanro has a vortex manipulator!"

Rassilon, that was a problem. If that's unauthorized - and well, if it is authorized, then Lanro had a lot to answer for anyways because blabbing about it where Patok could hear was very much not authorized. 

"And," apparently Patok wasn't done, "they've gone and used it in the capitol! I heard the whoosh! They're so getting their head torn off for that! Rassilon, I wish I had a manipulator I want to see how that time with the space bubble went, remember, I got hit by a staser in training and then-"

There was a slight pounding behind Dela's eyes. Lanro was indeed in deep trouble. Not that that was actually her jurisdiction. Her jurisdiction was just to know where and when and in what body Lanro was. Vortex Manipulators were Obnik's job and keeping them out of trouble was Dolin's. Who was indeed going to tear their head off. If that was the situation, that is. It was still entirely possible that Lanro was on a sanctioned mission. One she didn't know about. Hm. Highly unlikely.

"-and then Rolenva rescued the Castellan!" Patok finally drew breath.

"Patok, please. Calm down. Thanks for telling me. Seriously. But this is Obnik's area, not mine. So would you please just go to him and have him handle it before Lanro gets themself or the planet blown up?"

Patok looked at her dejectedly. He drew a grimace. "But Deeeeeeeeela. He's going to make me fill out five forms about it again. I hate forms. You know that. Can't you just tell him? Please? For your cousin?"

Dela threw him a stare. If looks could kill - well, if looks could kill Patok wouldn't have made it to two hundred before he hit his last regeneration. As it was, he was nine hundred and on his second. A fact that he liked to hold over Dela's head. She was on her third. 

"It's just two forms actually, B23 and Alpha 819. Please, Patok. I do actually have a job to do. We've had three regenerations this month, you know how short staffed that leaves us. And if Lanro's getting mandatory leave, I seriously don't know who we can send to Earth, 20th century planetary time. So please just fill out those forms, go over to Obnik, and have him handle it. For your cousin?"

With a pout, Patok took the offered datapad and turned to leave, opened the door - and revealed a slightly perplexed coordinator.

Patok immediately assumed his guard pose, nearly dropped the datapad he was holding, stumbled, and finally reached a respectful pose next to the door. Dela's eyes were dangerously squinted. 
"Go away, Patok.", she hissed. Then, she straightened and put on her most bland smile.

"What can I do for you, Coordinator?"

"Ardela." Coordinator Narvin waited until he was sure the door had closed behind Patok, "I need you to do something for me."

Dela dropped the smile. This was not his coordinator voice. Or his "This is top secret"-voice. Or his complaining voice. This was the "Something is seriously wrong and YOU need to fix it"-voice. With a slight hint of the "If you don't do what I say, you will never have existed"-voice. Dela hated that voice.

So, she put on her "Without me, this Agency would dissolve in three days and you know that"-voice.

"What is it this time?"

Narvin sighed. "Torvald is in trouble." Oh, Morbius, no, she wanted nothing to do with that situation. Please, not again.

"I need you to file a 47-Beta 8 for him and a Form 633 for redacted. Security code 15."

Prolonged regeneration leave? And a body dispersal? With that high a secrecy rating? Rassilon, what did Torvald do?

Dela squinted at the coordinator standing in her office. "You know very well that I have Security level 12, Coordinator Narvin."

"Yes, and I know very well that you can file a Security Level 18 anyways. I need this off the record, Ardela."

Dela sighed. "One condition." She might as well get that other thing sorted. "There's going to be an incident involving Lanro, so I need someone for the Earth mission. Torvald had Category 7 leave prior to this. I need him to go." Category 7 leave allowed for retroactive missions. Very practical if you suddenly found yourself short-staffed. Heightened risk for Time Destabilization unfortunately, so it wasn't often used.

"There's going to be an incident?" Narvin sounded slightly confused. He hadn't been Coordinator as long as Lanro worked for the CIA. Rassilon, Lanro had probably been an agent by the time Narvin was loomed. In the distance, there was the sound of a minor explosion.

"There is now." Dela said with certainty. 

"Ah." 

"I'm just going to need your retina scan here... And we're done." The empty smile was back on Dela's face.

Without any further conversation, the Coordinator left her office. This was going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

An ear-shattering noise reverberated through the inventory. Dust rinsed from the many shelves. For a moment Obnik just closed his eyes. Not again. That was the second explosion this month. The second he knew about at least. There could have been more.

A few shelves down he heard clattering.

"I'm fine, I'm fine! It's just the Movellan disguise kits, nothing's broken, I promise!" sounded a far too cheerful voice from over there.

Obnik thought about it for a second and deemed it unfortunately necessary to respond.

"Put them back where they belong."

"On it, boss!" Far too much energy in this assistant. Not cut out for office work at all. Obnik didn't have a clue why Rolenva had been assigned to him. Probably wasn't cut out for field work either. He doubted she could keep a cover for longer than two microspans. Maybe he could pawn her off to Dela. He was sure there was still a favour somewhere that Dela owed him. Maybe for the coffee machine? No, she'd returned that one by upgrading his datapad. And then she'd kept Lanro from stealing - well, presumably parts for a bomb. Flavia, maybe he still owed Dela a favour. Storing away the new medical supplies which kept getting requested on the highest security rating, he turned to look how Rolenva was doing. She appeared to be sorting different alien disguises. And for once, she was even following his system. He allowed himself a moment of pride in that. While she certainly didn't have the spirit of a level 12 acquisitions officer at the CIA, maybe she could at least be taught how to respect procedure. That way she wouldn't be any hassle for his future incarnations.

"I'm done now! What's next?"

"Mark everything you've done in TA12. Then we deal with whatever those inept amateurs they call agents require today."

"Anything else while I'm over there?" Rolenva had started chewing on her fingers, as she always did when she was not occupied.

"Bring the usual forms and a bonus Epsilon-5. You heard." Obnik's face remained entirely expressionless as he walked off to his office but Rolenva had spent enough time with it in the past month that she detected a hint of exasperation in his voice. Huh. Whole month. That was the longest she had kept any position within the Agency.

Not that the previous incidents had been her fault. Not really. Okay, maybe she had let the cage of Dolin's plungboll open after feeding it. Not her fault it attached itself to Lanro and didn't leave until they regenerated. And she had nothing to do with the time bubble! And okay maybe she had been chewing on the wires on Jacol-2. But that was because she'd been listening! She definitely didn't have anything to do with the whole humanoid dress section in the inventory going up in flames. Lucky Obnik hadn't decided to hold a grudge about that really. She really hadn't been responsible for the time-locked quarters time-looping. That was the demon cat!

What was she doing again? Right. Forms. Requests and a damage report. Had been three microspans since the explosion already. Bet it wouldn't take more than two now until someone came over. Not willing to fill in the forms of course. She'd have to do that. She always did it when Obnik didn't make them. They were just patterns. Quiet. Couldn't mess those up. Or at least not worse than everyone else.

She scowled. This wasn't what the Agency had promised her when they recruited her. The weird trials and tests had spoken of adventure and excitement and being her own boss. And yet she just kept being passed around the departments until she messed the next one up. She wasn't sure what'd happen if they ran out of departments. She'd never heard of anyone leaving the Agency. She hadn't even heard of it until she'd been recruited, not outside of the Academy horror stories. And she'd had a personal hand in spreading half of those. Poor Mava had been scared out of his mind.

On the other side of the large hall, a door opened with the cautious noise of someone who was not meant to be here. "Obnik?" A voice called.

"He's gone to his office!" Rolenva shouted across the room. It was funny being one of the only people allowed in here. Even if she'd been sneaking in even before. There was so much fun stuff here. And also some nice corners to crawl into if someone was after her.

"He wasn't there a few microspans ago!" Emboldened, the voice was screaming now also. Not that boring then. Rolenva turned a corner to see a guard, albeit only half-uniformed, standing in the entrance. Carefully balancing her stack of forms and secure datapads, she dropped a few into his unsuspecting arms before marching right past him through the door.

"Hey!" Rolenva snickered at his indignation. "Come along, boy, he'll be there now. And I think you may be needing those forms anyways."

"I'm Patok. Who are you?" He was running now to catch up to her. "I don't think I've seen you before."

"Rolenva. I'm working with Obnik. Although I'm not sure I should be telling you that. You're not Agency. Unless you're a double agent in the guard. Pleaseeeee be a double agent."

Patok squinted at her. "You look different when not covered in foam, " then shrugged, "I'm not but my cousin lets me in. Or maybe I take her codes sometimes. Uh. Don't tell her that." He suddenly looked very uncomfortable.

"I don't even know who you're cousin is. Or maybe I do." She threw him what she hoped was a suitably intimidating and mysterious look. That seemed to be an essential feature for everyone in the Agency. "You *are* here about that explosion, right?"

"Probably?"

Rolenva shrugged. "Good enough. We'll let Obnik sort out the details, yeah?" With that, she bumped her shoulder against the door release, narrowly avoided losing any forms before dumping them on a tiny desk inside. She expertly ignored Obnik's disapproving stare. He'd be busy in a second. Patok's gulp as he looked at the forms in his arms teased another grin out of her. Obnik had them all under control and he didn't even need to say a word.