The Sound of Silence

"Hello, my name is Charlotte, what can I get for you?"

And the customer was staring at her. Not entirely surprising, given that her accent was still fairly pronounced, despite her recent efforts to suppress it. She could just imagine what all the Starbucks-frequenters were saying to their friends after their encounters. "What is this Frenchwoman doing serving me my coffee? It is an outrage! An absolute horror! Off with her head!"

Off with her head. The phrase still gave her pause.

f o r g e t:

"Lady. I already gave you the order." The customer frowned in deep dissatisfaction. "Tall Vanilla Latte with a blueberry scone."

"Sorry," Charlotte said, "I must have gotten lost in thoughts."

Becca sat in the corner of this little coffee shop, not knowing where she was. She had been left here. It was strange, so strange. She couldn't remember how she got here. All she knew is she wasn't home, and for some reason, she had been left in a cafe. Coffee shop from the looks of it.
Then out of the corner of her eye, above the line of people waiting for their coffee, she saw something. What it was exactly, she could not say. All she knew was that it was staring at the girl behind the counter. Though across the room, she seemed to know exactly what it said.
The words sent a chill down her spine as she quickly jumped up. The line was long, but this couldn't wait. She waited til the woman was done serving the customer, then walked in front of her, cutting everyone else off, they were acting completely normal and obviously hadn't seen it.
Leaning close to her she saw the woman was as pale as she, Becca only whispered to her, "I saw it too."

"Peri? PERI? Perpugillium?! I feel like your mother, saying your full name like that! Now where could she have gotten off to?" The Doctor was wandering the streets of London with keen eyes and fox-like hearing.

Peri had begged and pleaded the Doctor to take her to the open air market in London, regardless of any specific time period. The Doctor, being of sound mind and mild annoyance after the last stint with some very unfriendly Ice Warriors on Mars, decided that a visit to the 21st century would be a more pleasant experience.

However upon exiting the TARDIS, Peri ran into the market overjoyed and excited for some normality, or what would be normality. The Doctor patiently grabbed his coat and his panama hat, donned both very dashingly, and exited calmly. Nothing really seemed to make the Doctor more excited than seeing some normal interactions between humans, and if he was lucky, there was someone who recognized him and treated him like the King of Siam. Regardless if he gave up the throne ages ago...

After what seemed like hours of wandering and searching every back alleyway in the market, every loose vendor on the streets, every small shop in the surrounding area, the Doctor finally came upon a small cafe. Exhausted, he entered the shop. There wasn't a line, which was good for him because he certainly wasn't in the mood to queue. He went directly up to the barista, who had a look of aghast and horror on her face. She was awfully pretty, with a name that could echo through the ages. Charlotte....

"Ahem.....pardon me madame, but could I trouble you for a glass of water? Or perhaps tea?"

Two people were talking to her at once. Charlotte crossed her arms, turned to the blonde girl-- "Saw what?" -- and then to the man with a... was that céleri? She shook her head. It didn't suit him. "I can give you tea. Or iced tea. Or a tea latte. Or... I'm sorry, why are you wearing céleri on your revers... sorry, I don't know the English for it. Shirt... collar."

And the blonde girl was still there. Still expecting an answer... I saw it, too. What had she seen? What had Charlotte seen, or appeared to see, so that the blonde girl had felt compelled to come up here and whisper at her. "I'm sorry... miss... what were you saying?"

The Doctor, finally getting the woman's attention, realized she was distracted by some sort of outside force. Before he could tell her his order, she questioned him. "My celery? Well, it's a difficult thing to say really. It's quite a long story. But pardon me, you don't seem to be from the area. French I would say? Parisian?"

Before he could get another word out, a strange girl pushed her way in front of him and close to Charlotte, who leaned in with her. They seemed to be talking about something that frightened them both, as their facial expressions changed drastically. The Doctor, trying not to pry too much, leaned in a bit to try to catch a bit of what they were talking about.

He turned around...:

He turned back around to face Charlotte and the woman, mouth agape and glazed expression on his face. What was I doing?

"It's a long story, but I am from P..."

Charlotte saw the céleri man's face changing from curiosity to horror, then to confusion--the same expression that the blonde girl was wearing. "What is it? What have you seen? Some kind of... mon Dieu, was it an ange-"

Her head turned a little bit more to the right...

...throwing IT into her line of vision.:

-and she had been blanking out again. "I'm so sorry, sir, I just... you were saying something about Paris?"

((UM. You can't remember the Silence. No one can. Just wanted to point that out to you. Also they were created for church purposes, not murder. Just in case that's where this was headed and that was your reasoning. But I'm totally joining this~))

Robin raised her head, peering over at the commotion starting to break out up at the counter. All she wanted was a moment of peace in this shady little corner. She didn't have the money to buy food - but that would be really helpful right now considering how hungry she was - so there was really no point to being in this specific building. If she wasn't scared to, she would have read books in the shop across the street, but no sense in risking being blown up, so might as well come in here. Honestly she wasn't sure why she picked this place over another - maybe because she had a small hope, want, more like it, to see someone she knew. 

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. It seemed that people were freaking out about something up there. Maybe someone was being rude, or was begging or something. Hold on, though, didn't she know him? That one day where everyone was freaking out about Gallifrey - she could have sworn he was there. Not that she remembered very well - she'd rather base it on the celery than the back of his head. Robin stood up with a sigh, ready to take a journey across town to the farmer's market to snag something to eat.

But then she saw it.:

The second she turned facing the counter, she felt suddenly... Scared. Like she was panicking. But what about? That didn't make any sense. And wasn't she about to go off to the market? What was that about? Hm, maybe she had another idea and forgot it. Made more sense than anything else. Sighing, she pulled her hood down - when did that get there? - and decided she must have wanted to see what was going on with these people at the counter. Honestly, she didn't want to talk to these people, but if that was her plan...

((Thanks for the reminder, Robin. Remembering can only be done by people who are still looking at the Silent in question. Spoiler tags hide the memories away. Just wanted to make that clear -- no canon-changing re: the Silence and memories. ))

Another person, a young lady of red hair and piercing green eyes, was marching up to the counter to see what was going on... which was nothing, right? Charlotte's breath grew panicked. Come on, come on, do something. Gain control of the situation. Why are all these people here, talking to her about things they have or haven't seen? It was all so confusing.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember.

Nothing came up.

She opened her eyes again and stared at the people around her. Céleri, the odd blonde girl, and now the red-haired girl. "Who are you all? What are your names, and why are you all coming up here? Especially..." She turned to the blonde. "What did you see that made you come talk to me about it?"

The Doctor, suddenly overwhelmed with the amount of people that seemed to be standing and hovering around the counter. They all seemed to be frightened, panicked, terrified. But what was it? The Doctor couldn't seem to pinpoint what they were going on about. Were they ALL that excited to get their coffee or tea? Was it a life or death situation?

Out of the corner of his eye....:

The Doctor turned around to face the counter. He looked Charlotte square in the eye, and she returned the gaze. He looked down. He was holding a personal notepad, but why? "I'm sorry, could you give that to me again?"

(("Were they ALL that excited to get their coffee or tea?" got me giggling...))

Charlotte was beginning to get snappish. If they kept all whispering and eye-widening and mumbling about things that made no sense one minute longer, heads would roll--why de putain did these people have so many expressions about decapitation? Didn't they realize it was insensitive?

"Alors. Everyone, please be quiet. It is obvious that something's happening." She paused a moment. "So, who are you all and why-"

There was a voice, a slithery voice just under the drone of coffee-shop talk. Charlotte turned to try and hear it better...

"Silence...":

When she turned back to the others in the cafe, she could feel the knife she kept under her petticoat pressing against her leg, almost cutting into her skin. "I need to know your names before we proceed any further."

((is this one dying off or what?))