milliways_bar | (no subject)

Seymour wants to focus on something other than plant books for a while. Thus, from his book-laden table, he takes a break from staring at print and staring at his interesting plant (http://www.themadcapper.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=62&pos=120).

So now there's a tired young man in horn-rimmed glasses staring at Sarah Jane's bracelet...pen...thing.

With all her adventures with the Doctor, Sarah's gotten used to that feeling of being watched. She shifts in her armchair as she closes her notebook to look around for a pair of curious eyes.

They're not hard to spot behind the glasses and oh - what sort of plant is that? Still, Sarah holds up the pen and turns it back into the bracelet for his amusment.

"Wonderful little thing, isn't it?"

"It changes," Seymour points out intelligently. And then he nods, to further solidify the point.

She laughs and smiles, slipping the bracelet on her wrist as she gets up from the chair. She grabs her glass of mango juice and walks over to Seymour's table.

Her eyes glance of the planet curiously before she addresses the man. "It was a gift from a friend of mine here. And a very useful one at that." The bracelet is slipped off and on to the table. "Want to give it a go?"

Seymour watches her. With a nervous glance at her drink, he begins to move books aside. He doesn't want them to get wet! The covers of these books are bad enough as it is, all dog-eared or ripped or stained - one or two don't even have covers.

"Gift?" he echoes. Then, "Oh, for Christmas? Right, right, that was here....I had to keep ducking the mistletoe."

He peers at the pen some more. It's right about now that he realizes he's interacting with someone socially. He clears his throat. "Oh, uh, sorry to distract you. I was just-- I needed to take a bit of a break." He glances sheepishly at his pile of books.

"Oh, it's certainly alright," Sarah replies with a kind smile. "I was just taking some notes by the fire. It wasn't anything important. Just a journalist's instinct."

She nods to the notebook near her glass, stealing another glimpse at the plant. It certainly doesn't look like anything she's seen before.

Sarah then holds out a hand in greeting."I'm Sarah Jane Smith, by the way."

It doesn't! Thus why Seymour is so tired of trying to figure out what it is.

"Journalist," Seymour repeats, straightening up a bit. "You're a reporter?"

His manners haven't caught up with his situation yet. He stares at her hand blankly for a moment, then flinches as if he just sat on a pin and shakes her hand. His handshake is damp and weak.

"Seymour Krelborn." Now he adds a light smile.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Seymour."

Sarah doesn't automatically wipe her hand on her pants after the hand shake, but his hand is damp and somehow in the course of conversation, her hand does make it down there.

"Oh yes, I have been for some years now. I work for a magazine, Metropolitan, right outside of London. I don't suppose you've heard of it?"

"Y-you too, Sarah." And now he realizes he's talking to a woman, and feels even more uncomfortable.

"Ah, no, sorry. I don't read much other than the Skid Row Herald. Sometimes I read The New Yorker, uh, since that's where I'm from. New York.

"What do you write about? You're..." he makes a vague hand wave, "specialty? If you...have...them...?" Seymour wishes he knew more about reporters.

"All sorts of things. Most times, it's the sort of things that fulfill Clorinda's - that's my boss, you see - whim. But whenever I get the chance, I do love doing a bit of investigating."

She smiles as she talks, eager to explain her job to anyone who would listen. Sarah notes the uncomfortableness, though, and tries to do her best to ignore it. There's nothing wrong with a bit of awkwardness after all.

"Especially about anything particularly peculiar. But I think that if I did pick a specialty, it would be women's rights."

'Women's rights' earns a lightly confused look from Seymour. That's not exactly a common phrase in his time, though it will be in a few years.

He grins. "I know I've got something here, uh, particularly peculiar. This plant." He gestures to it, despite the fact that there's not many others he could be talking about. "I've been looking through my books and I got no idea what it is.

"You ever been to South America, or someplace with jungles?" Seymour is still of the opinion it's a tropical plant.

Sarah nods, a look of delight clearly planting itself on her face (pardon the pun) when Seymour's attention turns to the plant.

"It is rather odd," she says, reaching out a tentative finger to touch a leaf. The Doctor always warned her about touching unfamiliar objects, but well, the Doctor wasn't here now, was he? "I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before, on Earth or elsewhere."

The leaf feels like a leaf. There are a few faintly pink petals around a fleshy bud that looks almost like a mouth.

"The petals make me think it's some kinda flower, but the bud in the middle – it’s thick and spongey, kinda like a hen and chick. And...it kinda looks like a flytrap, only without any cilia, and it's bigger than a Venus flytrap. Which begs the question: if it's a flytrap, why would it need the petals? Possibly it's a cross between a flytrap and a false flower, which is an Asian species-- have you ever been to Asia?"

Seymour is enthusiastic about his plant-geekery. He doesn't sound shy in the least.

"To India," Sarah admits, moving her finger up the leaf towards the bud. "But I'm afraid I was too busy chasing after a story on cultists to really pay much attention to the local plant life.

"Except mangos," she adds in suddenly. "That's where I discovered just how wonderful they are."

There's a long pause as Sarah pokes the bud, wrinkling her nose at the spongey feeling. "Oh, well, I know this may sound strange, but did you ever consider that it might be extraterrestrial?"

"Aw. I'd barely be able to do anything else if I went to India." Pause. "Then again, I wouldn't be there chasing a story on cultists." Logic, you tricky thing. "...Did it have a happy ending?"

Seymour tilts his head at Sarah. "Extraterrestrial?" he repeats. "Uh, no, can't say it crossed my mind." And now he looks at the plant thoughtfully.

"I suppose it did. The Doctor, Brigadier and I did successfully stop the Skangs from invading Earth, and those who didn't die in the process made it home safely, including my co-worker."

Sarah chuckles at the memory of that trip, even if it isn't all that bright. She nearly drowned in the Indian Ocean, only to be rescued by the Doctor and a pod of whales. And then the Skangs nearly got all of them, and oh, there was that horrible gas that made everything perfect and--!

"But where was I?" She frowns thoughtfully, poking the bud again. "It could be a possibility, you know. And it would explain why you wouldn't find it in any books."

"Oh, well as long as you stopped Earth from being invaded by--"

And now Seymour tunes in to what he was just saying.

His mouth shapes unsaid words, his brow furrows, and finally he just gives in and goes for the obvious. "I'm sorry, but - what?"

"A type of alien race," Sarah says, somehow managing to succesfully hide her mirth at his reaction. "The Skang, well, the Doctor had never encountered them before - and that's saying something - and oh, they had this pheremone or something that they gave off and made you see and believe complex hallucinations.

"Rather dreadful bunch when it came down to it."

Let's rework this into '50s sci-fi, the only frame of reference Seymour has.

He gets alien. He gets complex hallucations (sorta). The rest kind of slides by him. "Oh. Kay. Um, so, evil cultists? Did your doctor fix up the people the Skangs hurt, um, mentally?"

"Oh, they were fine once the Skang were gone," Sarah says with a wave of her hand. It's just normal to her now, all this alien stuff. "Anyway, the Doctor isn't really a physician. It's mostly a title of sorts."

"Why's he have the title of Doctor if he's not one?" Seymour frowns. "Isn't that illegal? ...Or something?"

"No one's ever really questioned it. But I wouldn't be surprised if it were something akin to a Gallifrian doctorate," she replies thoughtfully. "It just fits him."

Pause. "But he's not a Doctor. How-- how can a title fit someone if they're not something that their title says they are?"

Seymour feels a headache squeezing at his temples.

"If you ever meet him, you'll see," Sarah says with a shrug. "It's not something you argue with, it's just one of those things you accept."

"All right," Seymour replies, sounding ever-so-faintly dubious.

"You meet up, uh, with a lot of aliens?" He eagerly asks, "Any of them Martians?"