This episode of the NOW CANON Judi Dench Doctor adventures was Inspired by Robert Shearman listing a brilliant idea for a short story that wouldn’t work in Doctor Who. I say utter Rubbish. I’m taking that story and writing it in Who. Fight me. It also helps that I haven’t read the story he wrote that I’m utilizing, making this even more of a simple writing prompt thing.
Featuring The Twenty Second Doctor, Elizabeth Olsen, as created by Arbrax
Chapter One
In the town of Broughstershire, at 5:27 AM, the postman came by every house in the neighborhood and gave every single person a letter.
The letter was different for each person. For instance, Mr. Layton got a letter that said
May 5, 2027, and below that, in slightly aggressive font, Gangrene.
Mrs Curbishley got a letter that said June 18, 2053, Car Crash, and Little Timmy got a letter that said October 9th, 2081, Natural Causes. Of course, these are merely examples, those people don't exist,
But Everyone got a letter, really.
Every single letter with a date, and an aggressive statement about how they would die. As soon as anyone looked at their letter, they knew it was legitimate, and even if the letter didn’t say either, they knew what it was referring to. There was a short uproar, and then, quiet.
2 hours later, The Doctor arrived.
The Doctor, Cherry and Roman entered the village. Roman with his usual scowl.
“A bunch of old people! You’ve gone and taken me to a village green with a bunch of old British ladies, and all the usual friendly small town up in each others business thing you usually only see in Midsomer Murders! Frankly, I’m offended!”
“Golly, Doctor, this is brilliant!” Screamed Cherry, overexcitable. “Lights! Electric lights! Telephone wiring! Telephones! Automobiles! People! Glorious people, 100 years later from where I know them, and everyone is friendly! Everyone is accepting! No dark alleyways, no Torchwood grunge, no-“
The Doctor, attempting to be the rational one this week, scanned the air with her sonic screwdriver. “Absolutely nothing.” She said. “So why did the TARDIS take us here? She’s rarely so adamant about something, why is this small town so important?”
“Maybe it’s just awesome?” Cherry suggested.
“Maybe it’s garbage,” Roman suggested.
“The Doctor paused, hearing a crying. She turned her head to see a tearful old woman sitting by her house doorstep. “Is everything all right?” She called.
“No, of course not,” the woman cried in a dreadful cockney accent. “Fred is going to die tomorrow.”
“What?” The Doctor asked, taken aback.
“We just got his letter.” She said, tearfully waving it.
She handed the Doctor a letter.
It read July 24th, 2020, Car Crash.
“Um, excuse me, what does it mean, really?”
“Well, it’s there, plain as day, it’s marked for my husband Fred. He’s going to die tomorrow morning,” the woman said. “You didn’t know about these?”
The Doctor made a face. “Oh, I did,” she lied. “I’m just an idiot.”
Roman was about to say something but Cherry clapped her hand over his mouth.
“Surely you’ve received your letters? The Postal Service has got one for everyone.” The Woman said.
The Doctor looked disturbed. “Letters for everyone? And pardon me, but your name?”
“Well, they’re having trouble handing em’ out, you see. I got mine this morning. I got eleven years left. I die of natural causes. And the name’s Sydney Warren.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” The Doctor said, not sure what to do.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting more than six,” the old woman said. “I just wish Fred had more time…”
“How do you know these letters are set in stone?” Roman asked, curious.
“Oh, you just know it’s true. Don’t you? A man got a heart attack this morning, 2 hours after he received a letter that said heart attack in two hours as well... That’s proof, if anything, I suppose.” Sydney said.
“Strange his death was so close.” The Doctor said, mournfully.
“Oh, that’s the thing, dearie. I’m the only one. Everyone else in the village is going to be dead in six months.”
Chapter Two
“I’m sorry,” said Cherry. “What’s going on? I still don’t understand the central concept here, letters of your date of death? And- everyone here is doomed to die? What?”
“Everyone here is going to die,” said Sydney. “Most of us are old. Most of us will die of natural causes. Heart attacks. But there are other causes. The village is clearing itself out. And I’d leave while you can, people are getting messy.”
“Oh my god, this is morbid,” Cherry mumbled. “A town mostly comprised of ordinary British senior citizens, and they’re all being dropped off.”
“Not just senior citizens. Children. People in their 20s. If we trust those letters, Everyone in this town but Sydney is doomed.” The Doctor said skeptically. “I don’t like this…”
“Oi, you!” An angry red haired man with a full beard came up to them. He was muscly and aggressive looking, sun burnt and with exceedingly pointy and bushy eyebrows. “What are you doing talking to Sydney!!?! She has Eleven years, the rest of us are doomed. Give us your time instead, eh?”
“Rude.” Cherry muttered, crossing her arms.
“Ey, who are you anyway?” The man growled. “I don’t recognize ya,”
“I’m the Doctor, this is Roman, the smart one, and Cherry, the cool one,” the Doctor said. “Don’t worry, I’m going to sort all this letter business out.”
The man gripped the Doctor by the chest. “You don’t look like you have much time in you. How long do you have?”
“Oh, seasons, surely.” The Doctor remarked, before the man made a fist.
“Let her go,” Cherry growled.
“And what are you gonna do about it, girly?” The man growled.
Cherry took the man's hand and slammed him into the ground. “Run off before I break something.” She said, calmly.
The man got up.
“You can’t kill me, I’ve got six months,” the man spat. “How long do you got?”
“I prefer not knowing if it’s all the same.” Cherry said.
“Everybody’s gonna know, doll! Everyone’s gonna know when it happens, it frees you! It does!” The man babbled, like some kind of brimstone preacher, and he turned back into the town. “I’ll see you around.” After a while, he dramatically walked away.
“What the fuck?” Commented Roman. “Like. That guy was weird. Like, even for this series.”
“Possibly literally insane,” the Doctor noted. “According to the sonic screwdriver, his name is Barnaby Slade.”
“How can the fucking screwdriver tell?” Roman snapped.
“Let’s go into town. But let’s be careful. Sydney seems alright, but it looks like a few of them snapped because of the pressure.” The Doctor said, seriously.
“Whoopee!” Cherry cheered. “A good ol’ fashioned Mystery! New fashioned, even!”
Chapter Three
Elsewhere in the town, a TARDIS appeared. A long haired woman stepped out of the blue box with a younger woman following them. "So, Paige! Welcome to the town of Broughstershire." She said. She was of course, the Doctor. She spoke in a slightly foreign sounding accent that sort of disappeared once in a while, exactly like Elizabeth Olsen in the Marvel movies. She looked like Elizabeth Olsen in the marvel movies too. Paige, on the other hand, was blonde and agitated.
Paige rolled her eyes. "Doctor! Why are we here again?"
"It's because, I'm...I forget the word. We're going to pass through here to get to BroughsterLeroughstershiresberg."
"That's a real town name?"
"I think it's Welsh." This new Doctor said. "Look over there, a caravan passing out letters. Strange." She walked forward.
"Hello, who are all these letters for, there must be hundreds..."
"Everyone. Here's yours." Said the station attendant. He was a black man in a blueish mail office uniform. He wore some kind of cultural headwear the Doctor didn't recognize. Almost like a Turban and a Fez had a terrifying baby.
The Doctor unfolded her letter.
YOU WILL REGENERATE INTO ALLISON BRIE IN SEVENTY EIGHT YEARS TIME.
"Useful information." The Doctor said, folding it. "Wait, sir, how do you know that?"
"Letters come from out of town, miss." The man said ominously, his expression unchanging. The only thing on his face that seemed to move was his mouth.
"Well, what's mine?" Paige said, walking up. The man emotionlessly handed her her letter.
She opened it.
Two Minutes.
"What?" Paige asked, nervously. "What does it mean?"
"You have two minutes left," The attendant said. "I'm sorry. When the deaths are close, the reason isn't given. They tend to try and escape it."
"What?" Paige screamed, angry, tears straining down her cheeks.
"You have two minutes to live," The man said calmly.
Paige crumbled. "Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god,"
She fell to the ground.
The Doctor came down to her level to comfort her.
"Please...Stay with me," Paige cried.
The Doctor did.
The Doctor, Cherry and Roman moved across the streets into town.
"Postal trucks." The Doctor said. "All of them delivering letters for people. There's something wrong with those people driving them. They're all too neat, their hair is combed to the point where it's thin and they're pale and deathly looking."
"They're postal workers." Roman said, reminding the Doctor of the reality of the situation.
"Oh." The Doctor said. "Well, it can't hurt to investigate the postal service. Somethings' certainly up here."
Cherry made a face. "Is that a TARDIS?" She asked. She pointed into the distance, across from the postal worker handing out letters.
Across the town, Barnaby Slade stomped through the square. "You!" He pointed at the new Doctor.
"I haven't seen you around here before! Do you have your letter?"
"Why, um, yes." The Doctor said, still a little distracted. The people had taken Paige away, and she passed gently when her two minutes were up. She was emotional.
"Well then," he said. "I don't care to gossip, but there's this new lass in town, and she goes by the name The Doctor. She's against these letter things."
"I imagine she is." The Doctor said.
"Well, if you see her, she's this old lady that looks like Judi Dench. Call for me. She isn't welcome here." Slade walked off, leaving the new Doctor bewildered.
"Judi Dench?" She asked herself.
The Doctor made a face. "Cherry, it is. What the hell is my TARDIS doing here?! There's no way-"
Roman gasped. "That's you! That's you! Another one of your past selves! You met Sandra Oh!"
"Another one! This is almost like some kind of fanfiction!" Cherry exclaimed.
"What do we do?" Roman asked.
"Well, we avoid them." The Doctor said. "Meeting my past self could be disasterous-"
"Hello!" said the Past Doctor, walking towards them.
"Excuse me, that fellow back there said something about Judi Dench being against these letters? I just lost a companion to one." The past Doctor said.
"Oh, um, fuck-" The Doctor mumbled.
"What exactly are you a Doctor of, exactly?" The past Doctor asked.
The Doctor cringed. "The definitive article, you might say?" She suggested.
Chapter Four
"Oh. Oh, Oh, Darling, what?" The other Doctor said to the Doctor. "I'm sorry, but, I'm, feeling a bit out of it, can you confirm that you're my future self a second time?"
"Yes." The Doctor said.
"Great. I like the coat." The other Doctor replied. "Do you have any clue what's with the letters?"
"I'm working with the hypothesis that there must be some kind of device in the letter for the ones that operate in a short time span. We're dealing, with, I believe, a time travelling murderer." Roman replied.
"Ooh, I like you too," said the other Doctor. "What's your name?"
The older Doctor looked at Roman and Cherry, and whispered.."Look. We met an earlier version last time and did terrible with spoilers about their future. Keep her guessing about you two. "
"Bruce Lee." said Roman, completely straight laced.
"Madonna." said Cherry, equally straight laced.
"Oh, ok." The other Doctor replied.
The other Doctor placed both of her hands on her face. It was like she was attempting to do a methodical thinking pose with her hands in front of her mouth, but she just slapped her hands haphazardly across her eyes. "A time travelling murderer. It would make sense, but why the letters to everyone?"
The Doctor replied. "Yeah, and wait, is it murder? If he knows the date of their deaths and is retroactively causing them at that point, or is it a bootstrap paradox? And, is he responsible for this town's emminent implosion in six months?"
"I love when they're like this!" Cherry cheered.
"Well, let's investigate. We split up. I'll go with a change of Doctor. I need the occasional variety." Roman said, taking charge.
"Alrighty then, Cherry and I will investigate the mail office."
The other Doctor looked at them.
"You know, interfering with other people's mail is a federal crime, Be careful," She said, ditzily.
The Doctor and Cherry suddenly gained comically large evil grins.
As the Doctor and Cherry and The Doctor and Roman made their seperate ways,
The other Doctor and Roman made their way to the crowd of people, and the game was officially afoot.
The Doctor and Cherry cartoon-tiptoed up the steps of the post office and they sidled a wall.
"CRIME CRIME CRIME CRIME" they chanted, breaking down the door.
The other Doctor and Roman walked over to the crowd.
"Hello there, I am John Smith," said The other Doctor, smiling and staring blankly.
"And I go by the epithet of ....Bruce Lee... we're wondering, what do you think of your letters?"
Two of the men grumbled. "It's a personal question. Well, what do you think of yours?" They asked.
"It is somewhat freeing to know I will eventually be played by Allison Brie, yes." The other Doctor said.
"Um..." muttered Roman, struggling to think of a lie for some reason.
"MAILMAN! GIVE THIS GUY HIS LETTER!" One of the men called. "Also, I would like to state in an expository fashion for the benefit of the text that my name is Harold Curbishley."
"It's freeing." said a woman in a singsong voice. "You'll feel so much safer. Also my name is Susan Aldrige."
The other Doctor's lip trembled. "Let him have his peace." She said, sternly, but the men passed him a letter.
"Open it," Susan Aldrige commanded. "You wanna find out what we think of ours, right?"
"It's not always an easy truth," said the other Doctor to the crowd. But they didn't listen.
"OPEN IT," they yelled, and Roman cringed, and two men grabbed his shoulders. "OPEN IT,"
and they tore open the letter and revealed it to Roman, in front of them, who gasped with horror.
Chapter Five
"Bruce Lee? Are you alright?" Asked the Doctor in shock. She shook a little, angry at whatever these letters were.
"I'm fine," said Roman, closing it. "It's nothing I didn't know."
"No, really, what does it say?" The other man, Arthur, asked.
"Look, I read the damn thing," said Roman, unbudging. "Now tell me yours."
"We gotta know you really read it though and are freed like the rest of us."
"God, okay, it says, and I quote," Roman began, "In all probability you will die in Gallifrey Time War Four from Big Finish Productions, but as this story is written before that boxset is released, it is impossible for this story to give this note complete accuracy. It's not our fault. We had to make this joke, it was in the script." Roman finished, and the various people applauded.
"That's a good one!" Harold said, laughing. "I die in four months, when the birds go mad like in Alfred Hitchcock and peck out my eyes! I will die alone, in terrible pain!" He said this without any iota of fear, or regret, or anything but a jovial tone.
"Mine's Redacted by the Geneva Convention, but evidently happens in two months, and involves a tactical grade missile!"
"Mine's tublerculosis!"
Roman and The Other Doctor stood there, aghast at the horror.
Roman muttered to himself. "When did this series get so fucked up? Like, really."
The Other Doctor shrugged. "I just got here."
Meanwhile, Cherry and The Doctor made their way through to the mail office. "Okay, here we go! We find where these letters are coming from." The Doctor instructed.
They broke all the P.O. boxes open. They just found a bunch of other peoples mail. "Excuse me!" said a young man coming up to them. "This isn't much of my buisness, but a strange woman came through here a while ago, she left me this note for you."
The Doctor took it. "I know a lot of strange women."
Cherry began to speak, "Doctor, it may be a trap from whoever is behind this!"
The Doctor handed it to the man. "Can you read it for us? Just a precaution. And not out loud."
The man fell dead. "Great, thanks, it was a trap. We're getting closer." The Doctor folded up the letter without looking at it's contents, before examining the envelope.
"Ha ha!" She cheered.
"What?" Cherry asked.
"Well, it's different from the other letters. This one has a return address."
Chapter Six
The other Doctor and Roman made their way through the town.
"Oi! You're that Doctor gal's friend!" Barnaby Slade came up to them. "Harold! Susan! Arthur! These guys are anti-letter!"
"Alas, We are caught." The other Doctor said dreamily.
Roman and the other Doctor were taken by the arms and held.
"You know, this is really becoming the most vexing pattern." Roman muttered. "I mean, me, you, being held in place by enthusiasts of this inverted Death Note thing?"
The other Doctor tried to shrug, but her arms were being held. She thought for a few seconds, and then clicked her tongue repeatedly.
Sydney sat on her porch, and was surprised to see the Doctor come along.
"Hello there!"
"Doctor! You went into town?" Sydney asked, bewildered.
"Oh, yes I did. And Sydney. I have a few questions."
Sydney smiled. "Yes, what is it you need?"
"Sydney, I believe you are a mass murderer who has been behind this crisis from the beginning."
"What? No, I'm not. Really?"
"Well, this is a mystery. There has to be a twist. So, logically, you make the most sense to be behind it.
And in stories like these, it's always the outside of the usual. You are the one person in this town that won't die off in six months, you live the rest of your natural life. That's suspicious. You're also eerily friendly. Almost...too friendly. The man back there, was working for whoever is behind this, a woman, and I happen to know there's only one female guest star in this story! Least of all, the letter comes with this house as a return address!"
"No, that's completely false. I'm friendly because I'm a nice person! Barnaby is behind this, he threatened our lives! And those letters probably are from Susan Aldrige or another one of Barnaby's lackeys!
"No, you're totally the murderer! The return address!"
"No, no! The return address is a red herring! The twist of this story is there is no twist!"
"...You're kidding."
"No, really. It's a total shocker, too. The psychotic guy that it would make most sense to be the killer is actually the killer. Surprised?"
"Yes, actually. This is like the number one rule of the mystery genre you don't break. How do you know all of this?"
"I am actually the white guardian." said Sydney, suddenly glowing and levitating in mid-air.
"Oh, then why aren't you dying in six months like the rest of the town?"
"Didn't you hear me? I've been the white guardian this whole time."
"Wow."
"You really, really, honestly thought I was the killer?"
"Um, yes. I even had Cherry stand across the street with a sniper rifle in case you tried to get away."
"You're bad at this."
"I mean, I tried to do the mystery genre correctly here!"
"Chances are the most likely person to do the crime did the crime!"
"THAT NEVER HAPPENS!"
"You might want to go rescue Roman and your past self from the real killer. And like, not cause a paradox."
"Fine." The Doctor signalled Cherry off, and she walked off, and Sydney disappeared in a glowing white light.
"That was an unnecessary cameo." Cherry muttered.
"Admit it, Barnaby! You're the killer!" Roman growled at Barnaby Slade.
"The killer?"
"The one responsible for the sending of all these letters. You're probably an alien too. Certainly a time traveller."
Barnaby grabbed a knife out of his pocket and grabbed Roman and The Doctor. "Yeah, it was me. It was me and Susan Aldrige. You see, this entire time, we've been having an affair!"
"Susan's had like one line." The other Doctor pointed out.
"Silence!" Barnaby growled. "Susan, get the gun."
Susan got a gun out of her pocket, a high grade laser pistol, and she pointed it at the crowd.
"Get back all of you or your death days are gonna come a lot sooner!" She yelled.
"Now then," Barnaby grunted. "Let's get these guys into the machine of death!"
"Whoopee," Deadpanned Roman.
Chapter Seven
The other Doctor and Roman were led into a log cabin, presumably Barnaby's house. It was mostly empty, if not for a strange tubule column like the center of the Doctor's console room, without all of the devices and controls around it.
The other Doctor adjusted her hair out of her eyes.
"Barnaby Slade, I'm going to say it right now. Very few people disgust me as much as you. So can you please do your following villain monologue quickly?"
"Oi. That's rude. What I've done here is genius. I've retired a while back, 600 years working for the Division on Gallifrey-"
"You're Gallifreyan?"
"Yes, yes I am, how do you know what that is?"
"I'm a genius," said The other Doctor, waving her arms in a supposedly menacing way that actually just looked like how Harry Potter fights look before you CGI in the magic.
"Well, I retired here to this planet. Filled with so many stupid, useless people. They annoy me, they make noise, noise, noise constantly, I can't take it. So, I've been looking in my Space time visualizer to spend the time. And as I look, I see that there will be an explosion here in six months. Several people will die. Time to work. If I find the date of death of a person in the vortex, that's easy. I just put that in on a piece of psychic paper, and the psychic paper that's been imprinted in the time vortex finds the date for them. It works on anyone. An instant date of death. Funny. A cruel joke, ordinarily, but It only works for the people who die in the accidental explosion in a few months. That's plenty of people, but if I send out hand-written notes to people as well with the psychic paper, either laced with poison or I kill them another way, that's how I kill everyone else without a single person questioning a thing. Some die in the explosion, but for the others, I make my own self fulfilling prophecy and kill them myself, covering up my tracks without any question! Once the village is empty, I'll put up a perception filter around it. And then, I will be left alone. And I will have peace...and quiet."
"You took ages to explain that and I knew most of it." The other Doctor said.
"It was important exposition!" Barnaby complained. "I also put drugs in most of them. Half the village is tripping out on Cocaine saying the letters change your life and whatnot."
"Wow. You Suck." Roman remarked.
"You killed Paige." Growled The other Doctor.
"You got in the way." Barnaby Yelled. "You're getting what's coming to you!"
Susan did an evil laugh.
"And now, lets see what we can do about you two." Barnaby laughed. We need the others to die horribly, they're close to figuring out our plans, so...hmm...do we keep them alive and use them as bait? Or do we have the fun of killing them."
Susan shrugged.
Roman realized that the chances the Doctor and Cherry had the intelligence to figure out it was Barnaby was minimal. "Wait, there's something I don't get. What about Sydney? How does she survive?"
"Who's Sydney? There's no one in this village named Sydney." Barnaby said.
Roman turned to the other Doctor. "Quick! We're close to this time regulator! We're two time lords, Doctor, Let's send a psychic impression back in time! We can make Sydney! Causing another bootstrap paradox, and have her tell the Doctor to come here now!"
"What, I don't understand what they're talking about!!? Do we kill them?" Barnaby asked.
"But how do we persuade future me to come here?" The other Doctor asked.
"Tell her it's the white guardian or something!" Roman said, and as such, he and the other Doctor created a bootstrap paradox, by creating Sydney all along in the story. I didn't say this wouldn't be confusing.
Thanks to Roman and the other Doctor creating Sydney and sending her into the past, the Doctor was told to come there and just now came barrelling though the log cabin doors with Cherry, brandishing guns.
"Oh, fuck." Barnaby said, dropping his knife. Susan raised her hands.
"Timey Wimey Timey Wimey" chanted Roman and the other Doctor as Cherry and The Doctor tied Barnaby and Susan up.
Chapter Eight
"What about the people that have already died?" Cherry asked, after they had called UNIT in on Barnaby and Susan. Josh Carter had come by in a helicopter and dragged them off to prison.
"You see, we can reset this machines parameters. We can make it so the psychic paper letters never were sent out, and as such, the people already murdered by Barnaby, don't die!"
"But wouldn't that make the events of this story not happen?" Cherry asked.
"No, because then we wouldn't be here to reset the machines parameters." The Doctor said.
"TIMEY WIMEY TIMEY WIMEY" They all chanted like a cult.
And as such, Paige and a crowd of dozens of dozens of people appeared out of the aether.
The other Doctor tripped over herself to hug Paige, and cheered. She had been quite afraid about it for a while now.
"Paige, Paige, are you alright?" The other Doctor asked. "What do you remember? Are you okay?"
"It was dark. And sometimes cold." Paige said. "But I'm fine. I knew you'd get me out of it.
And the other Doctor and Paige waved goodbye and they turned back to their TARDIS.
And life was good.
The End
This Story (Hypothetically) Starred
Dame Judi Dench as The Doctor
Elizabeth Olsen as The Doctor
Scarlett Johansson as Cherry
Sir Patrick Stewart as Roman
John Nettles as Barnaby Slade
Jane Wymark as Sydney/The White Guardian/Bootstrap Paradox
Fiona Dolman as Susan Aldrige
Jason Hughes as Arthur Layton
Daniel Casey as Harold Curbishley
and
Gillian Jacobs as Paige
Nice
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