Tina's Time Travel Troubles (for cripmeister)

[justmedk]

*Allied Institute of Technical Research, Summer 1970*

Tina was still freaking out over what, exactly, had happened to her. It had only been a about a week since she'd gone to sleep in her own bed in Copenhagen in 2019, and woken up in England in the distant past. It seemed like something out of a bad sci-fi movie like those her uncle Jens apparently liked, but here she was.
It had taken her quite a while to convince the staff that she was just as confused as they were, and when she finally had, after having multiple tests done on her, one more annoying than the other, but finally everyone had scratched their head and come to the conclusion that they'd ruled out all other options, so that she had to, in fact, be telling the truth.


The next few days were filled with interviews, people asking her questions about the future. Many of which she didn't knnow the answers to - who really WAS prime minister of the UK in 2019, and why should she care? What is the "Soviet Union"? It had taken those few days before she had finally been allowed to relax, and try to get her bearings.
At one point, she overheard a couple of the older scientists, thought she couldn't hear them, gossip about how this seemed eerily similar to stories they'd heard from people who'd retired a few years earlier, about an incident just after "the war", but she had had to retreat out of earshot to avoid detection.

And frankly she didn't know what it meant, nor did she care all that much. All she cared about was getting back where she belonged, and she'd had what more or less amounted to a tantrum when the lead scientist had made her to understand that she wouldn't be going home, because they didn't know how to SEND her home.


So now, she was in a black car on government plates heading somewhere she didn't know where, to live with someone she didn't know who, to learn to integrate into the society she'd have to live in for the rest of her life. In the past. Without real phones - only ancient ones who could only be used for talking - and computers and tablets and anything else that made life less boring. She didn't know how she'd survived a week of this, much less the rest of her life.
The exhaustion of the past week did get to her, though, as she fell asleep not long after they'd left the facility, and seemed to only wake up shortly before their arrival. She looked around in confusion as the car came to a stop just as she woke up, before looking out the window to take a first look at what was apparently to be her new home.

Tina sighed. This was beyond surreal

[cripmeister]

Elizabeth Armstrong, looking slightly more frazzled than she usually allowed herself to, was at that very moment using such an ancient phone to chat to her cousin Pamela as she awaited the arrival of the forbidding black government car. She was letting off a little steam and trying to keep herself level headed as she fiddled nervously with the phone cord and ran her fingers through her loose black hair.

'Honestly Pam, God knows what Jim was thinking when he "volunteered" me. Well no of course he didn't, but when he phoned and asked me I couldn't exactly say no. And I'm sure he knew that. Still, we are where we are and the poor lass needs to go somewhere. I just don't see how I'm the best person to offer it, besides being unlucky enough to have a genius brother working somewhere out of Quatermass. I mean it's a bit more practical now I've got the house, and yes I was thinking of taking a lodger anyway, but this isn't what I had in mind - I mean she's practically Sue's age, and she's going to be so lost up here and not knowing anything... I don't know why it helps to pack her off all the way up here, surely it makes more sense to settle her in London or somewhere. Anyway Pam I'm rambling, but thanks for the chat and the common sense. Give Sue a hug from me and I'll talk to you soon, I've got to go, tarra.'

Replacing the phone, she self consciously ran her fingers through her hair again and brushed non existent dust from her outfit of slightly flared jeans and chunky red sweater. She cast another appraising eye over the room, which unfortunately showed the evidence that she had just moved in, as she heard the sound of a car pulling up on the quiet street outside.

Not waiting for the doorbell to ring, she made her way through to the front door of the modest but comfortable house she had finally managed to save up for. There she waited on the doorstep for the sober suited government employees to exit the car along with a slightly surly but tired looking young woman carrying a small bag.

Elizabeth held out her hand to each in turn to greet them.
'Hi, I'm Elizabeth Armstrong. You must be Tina. Please come in, all of you. Cuppa tea?' She asked, looking from one to the other as she gave the standard demonstration of hospitality. Shuffling some papers from off the sofa to make room for her two guests before stepping through to the kitchen to oblige, she did her best to keep communication going.

'Well Tina, I'm sorry it's not much, and it probably seems a bit different from whatever you're used to, but I'm told this is where you're going to be living now. I'll show you round in a minute and help you unpack if you want.'

Returning with mugs of tea for those that had asked for them, along with her own, she switched focus to the girl's minders, who struck her as better suited to more high profile security jobs than this piece of babysitting/chauffeuring.
'Is there anything more you need from me, anything I have to sign?' she asked. She knew the way the establishment worked well enough to expect there was somehow a fiendish level of bureaucracy involved in this case, in spite of it being a totally new situation.

[justmedk]

Tina cautiously shook the woman's hand when offered. She still wasn't quite sure that this was in fact real, and not some incredibly vivid nightmare, but she was playing along for now.


"Nice to meet you", she said, her voice heavily accented, before she entered her new home along with the "men in black" who'd escorted her here. She looked around as best she could, trying to get an impression of the place from the inside. It didn't look too bad. Of course it wasn't what she was used to: The TV was tiny compared to the one she'd had back home, and they hadn't even been particularly rich. On the contrary. The interior and the design looked like something out of an old movie - until it once again occured to Tina that her entire life was now going to be something out of an old movie.

When she heard Elizabeth adress her, Tina tried her best to smile, but it was clear to anyone even remotely capable of reading body language, that it was a forced one. It wasn't that Tina was being low-key rude, but that she had trouble smiling genuinely over...well...anything at the moment.


"It...it's okay", she said. "I....I don't have much", she gestured to the small bag containing a few personal items she'd been given: A wooden hairbrush for her hair, some jewelry, a couple of changes of clothes, a few children's books that seemed childish to her, etc. "So....like....if there's...If you could tell me where my room is?".


Once she'd been told, Tina got up and left for the designated room to set up what little she had, and the officials smiled at Elizabeth's question. She knew the system well enough to know the answer already.


"Well, not too much, Miss Armstrong", one of them said, bringing out a sizeable stack of papers. "Just the expanded non-disclosure-agreement, and the adoption papers". The words "adoption papers" were the last Tina heard before she entered her new room, and the agent divided the stack of papers into two slightly smaller but still sizeable stacks: One for the expanded NDA, and another for the adoption papers.


"Triple copies, of course", he explained, as he passed Elizabeth a pen and told her where to sign.


When all the signatures had been placed correctly, the two of them stood up, and shook extended their right hands.


"Good luck, Miss Armstrong", one of them, the older of the two, smiled. "We have a feeling you're going to need it", he finished, before the two of them left the house and closed the door behind them.

[cripmeister]

Once the suits were out of the door and on their way, Elizabeth made her way upstairs to the house's second bedroom to find Tina again. She had been a little surprised at the girl just heading upstairs to 'her room' having barely arrived at the house. At least it showed she was likely to settle in fairly quickly.

On the small landing at the top of the stairs she leant on the doorpost to watch Tina unpack - not a lengthy task. Clearly the girl was going to need more possessions to make a life with, and probably a start should be made on that promptly. Elizabeth had no wish to be extravagant, and was used to living pretty minimally, but even in a modest household, by Tina's age a girl could be expected to have accumulated quite a lot of 'stuff'. Fortunately, as part of the paperwork and the general agreement she had signed up to downstairs, the powers that be had made a fairly generous offer to support her hosting of Tina financially, and to cover expenses without asking too many questions.

'If you're pretty much done unpacking' she began, 'what do you feel up to for the rest of today? I guess you might want to just take it easy, but if you want to get out I could give you a quick tour of town, so you know a bit about where you live now, and we could make a start on some of the shopping we'll need. You'll need a fair amount more than you've got here.' she gestured.
There was no time like the present, she thought as she suggested the trip, but she appreciated that Tina might not be keen to head straight out again having just arrived in a strange house, and at the end of a long journey. It could easily wait until tomorrow.

'Oh and probably something to settle on soonest,' she turned back, having begun to head downstairs, 'I know we've just had a load of adoption papers and whatnot, and all that official stuff, but I'm not expecting you to buy into that right from the start of course. You can call me Auntie Liz if you want and that's probably easiest.'

[justmedk]

Tina jumped a little bit when she heard Elizabeth's voice. A sign that she was still a little bit on edge. She'd retreated to her room to be alone for a moment - a luxury she hadn't had since arriving here.



"Uhm...yeah, that sounds good", she said to the offer of being shown around town. And the prospect of shopping was also an added bonus. She couldn't help but let out a little genuine smile there. She'd gotten most of her things back home either on sale, or secondhand, or as hand-me-downs from cousins. So the prospect of having her own stuff, from new, was a very attractive one indeed.


"Yeah, sounds good", she repeated herself, sighing. She didn't quite know what to do with herself, but wanted to portray a lot more surplus energy than she actually had. "I mean.....I don't know how this happened and all, but...like....if I'm stuck here", she said, and could not keep back her dismay at this prospect, "then....then I like...wanna get the most out of it that I can, you know?", she went on, following Elizabeth down the stairs. "And....yes, that works. "Auntie Liz", she repeated, tasting the words in her mouth, not quite sure what to do with herself.

"So...what...where are we going?", she said as she put her shoes back on, trying to sound more peppy than she was, but beneath the exterior, her voice communicated that she was still not nearly as okay with all this as she pretended to be.

[cripmeister]

Reassured that Tina appeared to be up for a trip out (as she wasn't really sure what she would do sat at home for the rest of the day) Elizabeth headed downstairs and waited for Tina to join her at the front door.

'One other thing' she said, pulling her boots on as Tina came down the stairs, 'as you can probably tell I've just moved in, and I want to look after the carpets as they're pretty new, so can we leave shoes down by the door when we come inside?'

As they exited, she answered Tina's question. 'I thought we'd get the bus into town, it's pretty quick, and I'm trying to save on petrol having just got the house - especially the price it is now....' part of her was about to jokingly ask if Tina had any good news from the future about that changing, but stopped herself. Firstly, the girl probably didn't have detailed knowledge of the economics of a foreign country half a century (if what she's been told was correct) before her own time, but also because she had enough sense to know that the less reference was made to Tina's unusual situation, the better.

She continued the conversation on more mundane matters, sensing that Tina was somewhat subdued and Elizabeth would have to lead matters and provide the energy here. 'I used to have a flat closer in town, right in the middle in fact, which made this a lot easier, but I'm glad to be a bit further away in exchange for somewhere a bit more comfortable - and not having to climb a dozen flights of stairs every day.'

A few steps before they arrived at the bus stop a few minutes walk from the house, Elizabeth quietly handed Tina a few shillings in change. She would have to get used to money here sooner rather than later and this seemed like a decent opportunity. Though she and Elizabeth and everyone else might have to learn it all from scratch before too long, if rumours were to be believed.

'When we get on, ask for a return to the city centre' she whispered as a red double decker bus appeared round the corner. She carefully supervised Tina doing so, though the girl seemed bright enough and there was probably no need.

As they made their journey, Elizabeth took advantage of the sedate progress and the relative emptiness of the bus to use it as a bit of a sightseeing tour, albeit not a very glamorous one. The first part of the journey was through residential streets like the one they had just left, here and there differentiated by some newer, more fashionable developments with flat roofs and huge windows, or by the last traces of the dingy Victorian streets that had survived recent slum clearances. As the moved on, Elizabeth was able to point out the old shipyards and docks - mostly recently closed, and not exactly an inspiring sight or a good introduction to the city, but an important thing nonetheless.

'My old man worked there for thirty odd years' she said, not without a touch of pride, 'back when they were building huge ships all year round. I reckon its him that my brother got all his engineering nous from - you'll have met him back at...well whatever that place is down south where he works.'

As they got further in she was able to point out slightly more positive sights, like the old cathedral and a few other historic buildings, a couple of new tower blocks, including the flats where she had once lived, and the train station 'for anyone who wants to leave, more fool them' she joked, where they alighted.

'Well' she announced, 'this is town. Not as glamorous or as bustling as London or a few other places, or I daresay wherever you're from, but folks here think it does them fine and I'm sure you'll come to like it too. Right, we came for shopping so I guess we should get on with it. Anything you want particularly or want to sort out first? We'll need to get you some more new clothes obviously, and with school coming up soon we'll need to sort you a uniform. And stuff to keep you occupied in your spare time - do you read much, should we get some books? Do you have any hobbies we'll need to take care of?'

[justmedk]

At the instructions to leave shoes by the door, Tina nodded in a way that showed that she hadn't really expected anything else.

"S...sure?", she said, the uncertainty in her voice having been that of "...why would you do otherwise?", though she didn't say exactly that. What she said was: "Isn't that like...normal? It is back home, anyway, so yeah, don't worry about that".


She didn't know anything about gasoline prices. Indeed, all the price signs she'd seen for...well...anything in the limited amount of time she'd been exposed to the outside world of her new home, had made her eyes widen. She hadn't really understood much of the concept of inflation.


"I guess?", she answered the remark about gas prices. "Like....you'd probably know better than I do about that, you know? But all the price tags I've seen so far on...like...ads and stuff, have been really cheap. Even though I know your money's different from ours, of course", she went on, as they headed to the bus.
She took the busfare from Elizabeth, and nodded at the woman's instructions. And when the bus came, she did exactly as she'd been told, taking the ticket given her, and finding an empty seat. She paid very close attention as Elizabeth explained the areas they passed to her. She knew she was stuck here for the long haul, and while she wasn't exceptionally clever, she also was not stupid enough to not take this chance to try to get a first impression of her new home. Tina recognized the pride in Elizabeth's voice as she mentioned her father's work at the shipyard, and couldn't help but smile. There was something....genuinely authentic in that pride that made a little bit of sense in what seemed to be a world of insanity. When Elizabeth mentioned her brother, Tina nodded, again smiling slightly.


"He's cool", she said. "Like....he was the first one who didn't think I was...what did they call it? "A soviet spy?", she asked, having been born over a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and having no point of reference for the paranoia of living in a time when that country still was very much alive and kicking.


When they passed the cathedral, Tina, having gained all of her knowledge of England in the 70s from TV shows, looked at Elizabeth and asked: "So, like....do everyone go to church on sunday? I haven't really been there much. Like...of course I went a few times because I had to for Confirmation and stuff if I wanted the party and gifts", she said with a slight smirk, "but...like....I don't really care all that much about stuff like that"

When they got off, she was presented with too many choices for her to handle, so she froze a bit with the massive numbers of possibilities. So much so that she completely overheard the part about a school uniform.


"Uhhhhh", she began, "I...I don't really know? I mean....what do people do for fun here? I....I don't know if I have a "hobby" or anything like that, but....well, I usually just hang out with my friends on my phone and text via Messenger and stuff like that", she explained, not really realizing that not much of what she'd just said would make sense to a person from this time. "And that's not going to be here for like 40 years or something", she said, a bit of a sulk "so...I dunno what to do with myself now. Probably die from boredom, right?", she smirked, trying to put a positive spin on having been stuck in the dark ages.


"But yeah....some new clothes might be good too. Your brother was kind enough to give me some spare clothes before I left", she said, "But that's....that's not a whole lot to go on"

[cripmeister]

Elizabeth nodded slowly at Tina's comment on prices. It of course made sense that there would have been a certain amount of inflation by the 21st century, and it was probably no bad thing for Tina that things seemed cheap in her new home. She suppressed a grin at the comment about her brother - it seemed very odd for someone to think of him as 'cool' but she was glad to hear it nonetheless.

'No, not everyone...' she answered Tina's question about church, which she thought was a sensible one - the girl was trying to get a handle on her new home. 'I mean some people do go every week, but many, me included, only go a few times a year, for Christmas and so on. I usually go to the one where I grew up which is a bit further from the house, but not so bad for the occasional trip. It's a Catholic one, unlike the cathedral there - I suppose back in Denmark you were all protestants?' She hoped that wouldn't present an issue of any kind, as some kind of sectarianism was never far from the news or from people's minds, but Tina seemed fairly casual about the whole business. Elizabeth was reassured when she admitted she didn't really care for it.

'Well don't worry, I'm not going to be dragging you to church all the time.' she grinned.

Tina's uncertainty should not have come as a surprise to Elizabeth. The girl had just been dumped in a strange world, taken to a new city and having just arrived was being asked about how to put her life in order. Elizabeth had no idea what the girl was talking about when she spoke of speaking to her friends on 'text' and 'messenger', presumably such words would be very clear in their meaning in a few decades time; still, it seemed that girls of that age were universal in spending all their time talking to friends on the phone.
Kindly, Elizabeth guided her away from the bus stop and towards the shops, realising she would have to take the lead here until Tina had found her feet a bit better.

'Well I'm sure you'll find something you enjoy doing that can become a hobby. And I'm sure you'll make some friends soon enough and then you can spend however long you want on the phone!' That last part was said with a slightly jocular phone, and she hoped Tina would not be chatting away at all hours running up a huge phone bill - though she remembered doing so in her own teenage years.

'As for what people do for fun here... hmmm it's been a while since I had to think about that. I mean I used to enjoy just hanging around with friends at the park, and playing a bit of football, although my parents didn't really appreciate that. That was back in the 40s though when girls were supposed to be girls' she said with mock seriousness, recalling her parents' attitude. 'Now of course there's nothing wrong with girls playing football, and quite right too.'

'I know some people are very into playing music in their free time - I was never one for being musical, though I'll listen to it happily enough - and that probably is a more expensive hobby. I'll tell you what I do, is tinker round with mechanics a little bit. Nothing complex or clever you know,' having professional engineers in the family dictated her modesty on that point, 'but I enjoy doing it, with bike engines, or clocks, or anything really. It could leave my flat in a tip sometimes, but now I've got that space in the yard at home.' She realised she was rambling a little, although Tina seemed so subdued that was probably no bad thing.

'Right' she announced as they arrived at the main shopping streets, 'let's get you some clothes first of all like you say. Maybe it's best to get school uniform in a little while once we've sorted more practicalities out, but we can get you plenty of mufti in the meantime.'

She started leading Tina in the direction of the second hand shops and markets where she was used to picking up everyday odds and ends, but stopped herself. She didn't want to be extravagant, but seeing as money was not an immediate concern for her, it would do no harm to spend a bit more and get Tina a decent wardrobe, and it would probably help her confidence a bit. That decided, she moved instead to the nearest department store.

'Well I guess we can be pretty thorough here, as we're kitting you out from scratch' she said as they entered, and gave a quick look over Tina's current outfit. 'Do you prefer wearing trousers, or dresses and skirts, or what? We should probably get a few of each but let's try and get the balance right.'
She checked herself again momentarily as she automatically walked her usual path towards womenswear. How old was Tina, she asked herself - before heading over to the children's department, where she started to work on their portfolio and see what was available in Tina's size.

[justmedk]

Tina shrugged when Liz asked about whether or not catholic vs. protestant would be a problem.



"Not at all", she said in a tone that said she was more or less indifferent to the matter before she spoke up and said it outright: "I don't really give a fuck either way". The first bout of miscommunication had arisen: "(Not) Giving a fuck" wasn't really considered cursing where Tina had come from, and so she'd said it without thinking.



"I mean...if you wanna go a few times a year like you said, Christmas and stuff, that's fine by me", she elaborated. "I don't really believe in any of that thing, but it's not a big deal"


She chuckled when Elizabeth mentioned being on her phone all the time.

"What's the point?", she said with a bit of a smirk. "I mean...no offence, but all you guys' phones can do is...like...being talked into. But yeah, I suppose it's better than nothing, right?", she tried once more to put a positive spin on her situation as they entered the store.



"I'll find something", she said, then gestured to herself. "Probably not football, though. Whales don't make very good football players, right?", she asked rhetorically before she moved on to the topic of clothes:

"Ah yeah, I'd forgotten you guys do that whole uniform-thing at school. That's a bit strange, but no stranger than what's apparently still going on here, I mean, back home", she said, meaning to convey that the tradition of school uniforms had survived to her day also. "What's a mufti, though?", she asked with genuine bewilderment in her eyes.


When they arrived at the children's section, Tina frowned a bit, but decided that unless it became too ridiculous, she really couldn't, or at least shouldn't, say much.
Tina was not a mini-Einstein with an IQ of 350 - in fact, she tended to not do very well in school, partly from bullying, partly from not really caring all that much about it, but also partly because she wasn't as talented in that regard as other kids might be..... but neither was she entirely thick, and she knew that back in this time, even with her 14 years she'd probably still be considered a child. She didn't like that fact, but there was not a lot she could do about it.



"Uhm...well, I mean...", she said, "I....I wanna fit in, you know? So....I mean...back home I wore jeans mostly, but if dresses and skirts are what most people wear, then....then that's fine I guess", she finished, cringing a bit as they luckily passed the younger childrens' area of the store, happy that at least there was no risk of THAT.

[cripmeister]

Elizabeth could not help but be somewhat taken aback by Tina's language. It was not the word itself - she had grown up around rough language and now often worked surrounded by it, though she did not often use it herself. That said it was not at all what she expected to hear from the mouth of a young woman (realistically still a child in many people's eyes) in public, and moreover so casually as if it had barely featured in the sentence.

More seriously than she had spoken so far that day, she glanced around before saying quietly, 'Tina, I can't claim to know anything about how people talk where you are from, but you should know that language like that is considered, well, pretty rude here and now, and will only get you the wrong sort of attention. That's just something you should probably know, and keep an eye on.'

She felt that was all that needed to be said on the matter, again trusting that Tina was a bright enough girl to act accordingly, and she resumed their progress. Tina's remark about football again caused her a moment of pause - she did not really understand what the girl was getting at, and so said nothing, but remembered it nonetheless.

'Oh' she laughed when asked about "mufti", 'it's just a word that means clothes that aren't uniform, sorry I'll probably keep using words you don't know so stop me if I do! You'll probably be struggling with the accents round here but I'm sure you'll get it before long. And I'm sure you'll get used to uniforms at school too, don't worry I don't think yours is anything too outlandish.'

Once they were in the children's section, Liz caught a glimpse of Tina's expression of distaste, and deduced its cause. 'I thought we could start here just for basics, you know' she said, pretending not to have noticed and to be thinking out loud, 'but we can go upstairs and loom for anything there you fancy.'

'Hmmm, I know what you mean Tina. Everyone has their own style, and if you wear jeans a lot that's fine, we can get some of those, you definitely won't be alone. I think it would be good to have a range for different occasions though. We can start with a little bit of everything and then as you look around and get an idea of what you like we can get more. How does that sound. As for what's typical, my niece is about your age and I asked her for some pointers on what was 'cool' for teenagers and what it would make sense for you to have, so I'll try and help you out with that.'

From there she led Tina around the aisles and sections picking out items here and there. With some she indicated what her niece had suggested as guidance, whereas for some items she could just ask Tina for her own preference.

'Is that skirt a good length for you? Would you prefer a different colour?'
'Do you want some chunkier jumpers for when it gets colder?'
'Do you want plain white underwear or something more colourful?'
'Do you prefer pyjamas or nighties?'

As they went around and she received answers to the questions, she heaped up clothes into the basket under her arm until it was overflowing, alternately moving to the changing rooms to Tina could try something on.