NCJDDAS: Doctor Who and Gaming The System: A Target Novelization

Part One: Vive La Revolution

Referring to The Art Of Disjointedness.

Not everything can be spoken aloud in one sitting. Sometimes what has to be said borders on the esoteric, and sometimes, it ventures even into the nonsensical. What must be considered chiefly is that there is always a purpose to it, even if unseen.

I shan’t keep you for long. We have a lot to get done.

But let’s take a moment; let’s consider that golden time where you don’t understand something and it is glorious, that wonderful feeling of the unknown, and let us revel in the disconcertion. The nature of things not fitting. A 1001 piece puzzle with 1002 pieces.

Some of it is.

Not everything is connected.

Perspectives different from look to got you’ve.

* * *

The Doctor hated pretension. It was something she could so easily lean into, something that she launched into effortlessly these days. This incarnation of hers was chaotic, unhinged, and she was doing her best to omit this from her daily life. She meant to remove the overbearing personality traits that made all this “hero-ing” she had so precisely curated much more difficult.

But you can’t ever stop being yourself, and The Doctor, as is the relative way of Time Lord memories – she had forgotten that. Just for now. She would remember again later, and she would remember it perfectly – but there are always the little things.

When you live so long, you can’t always remember everything, and when you live so long, you see that history repeats itself. The lessons repeat themselves. Thus – you relearn the lessons.

The Doctor was currently meditating on this, her current state of being, and trying to deny it. Not having learned the lesson. She had also forgotten another lesson – the art of multitasking – and she had rather forgotten to adjust the TARDIS’s controls as it streamed through the vortex.

Roman tapped her on the shoulder. “Doctor.” He intoned melodramatically. He snapped his fingers near her ear, drawing her into the present. “You’ve forgotten to fly the bloody TARDIS.”

The Doctor sighed with apprehension. She placed her hands onto the controls. “Sorry.” She murmured.

“Have you been doing entirely well lately??” Roman asked, being perhaps more personable than usual. He was attempting empathy. Perhaps he had borrowed some certain cue cards from a drawer deep within the TARDIS.

“Just a twinge of cosmic angst.” The Doctor muttered, feeling exceedingly self-referential. “I’m wondering why I’m so crazy.”

Roman looked at her with his bleary, constantly tired eyes. “Crazy??”

The Doctor smiled exceedingly wide, having suddenly changed mood. Something had switched within her at the word, at the very idea that she wasn’t crazy, that Roman was questioning her and viewing her as normal. NORMAL! Oh, god forbid. “Crazy.” She began, twitching manically. “Crazy. They put me in a room. A TARDIS room. With crazy. Yes, very crazy, I’m so crazy, watch this–” she blurted, twisting the TARDIS controls. She tapped a series of buttons on the console, swung around to the other side of it, pulled the train-whistle which emitted a cheery choo-choo and shoved her hands into a gooey orifice next to a typewriter.

Roman sighed. “Doctor, what on earth are you doing??”

“A Barrel Roll.” The Doctor said, suddenly. “We’re doing a barrel roll.”

* * *

Danny came to, and awoke to the sound of the TARDIS shuddering for the third time in as many days. The room spun. It actually spun. “Doctorrrrrr….” he whined to himself sheepishly, pulling himself out of bed in groggy delusion.

A feeling of moroseness hung over him as he stepped into the TARDIS control room. He did not feel currently quite well.

The Doctor was jittering around the console, being especially crazy so she could make a point about how silly she was. (Was she very crazy these days?) This was clearly intentional. Whenever the Doctor got sad these days, she always acted as if it was this particular regeneration’s fault.

Danny had noticed this pattern over the period of several months he had been doing this for. He had mentioned it to Roman one time, who huffed disgruntledly, murmured something about astrology, and then grunted some more. Danny had resigned himself to not bring it up again.

“Um, Doctor, do you have a minute??” Danny asked mildly, trying not to assert himself too much – the Doctor always got so irritated when people had personality traits during her little hissy fits.

“Minute??” The Doctor shrieked. “No one has a minute. Time isn’t anyone’s to use. It’s an abstract concept, Danny. It moves forward, constantly, rail against it how you like, but we are all subjects of time's petty whims, Danny. We’re all Time’s Bitch. We’re Time Bitches, Danny.”

“So we are,” Danny resigned himself, assuming just agreeing was the easiest option. He tried to move forward. “I think–”

“You’re thinking??” The Doctor babbled, adjusting the TARDIS to do MORE barrel rolls. “Has Roman finally got to you?? You can’t listen to him these days!!”

Danny was so tired. He was very miserable. This was not the usual for him, but he’d just not been coping lately. “Why are you doing a barrel roll, Doctor??”

The Doctor stopped the TARDIS suddenly. It came to an abrupt halt, out of nowhere, and The Doctor strolled over, and began to rant:

“I think in logistics, Danny. I’m so rational. Space and time travel through the vortex are nearly identically achieved. Otherwise TARDIS's wouldn't work. I mean, time travel is all well and good, but it's pretty damn useless if you don't use space travel because of the constant rotations and minor shifts in alignments of planets that take place even day to day, much less millennia to millennia. Therefore, the time lords automatically inserted a system for travel through the Time Vortex, namely, the ability to set courses. TARDIS's automatically detect anything ahead in the vortex, move away from it and all that. So, Roman got to me a bit and I started thinking. I know, nasty habit. But I realized that you can do a barrel roll in space. And thus, if you deactivate safeguards and set up manual control, you can also do a barrel roll into the time vortex.”

Danny looked at her oddly, wondering if she’d finished with the lecture.

“And I just thought that that sounded cool.” She finished, moving over to the console once more, clicking a button, and reactivating the barrel roll.

“It’s called an Aileron Roll,” Roman muttered, but no one heard him as the TARDIS spiralled into motherfucking infinity.

* * *

The TARDIS stopped. Danny and Roman both looked at eachother, and then the Doctor, with immense concern. The Doctor casually smiled. “We could be anywhere.’ She said, “Time Vortex, it could take us anywhere, that’s what it do.”

Roman bit his lip in apprehension. “Anywhere??”

“Anywhere.” The Doctor grinned.

“Anywhere as in Anywhere??” Danny asked. “Any possibility imaginable??”

“Anywhere as in Anywhere, Anywhere is Anywhere. We could be, in a word, ANYWHERE.” The Doctor explained.

The Doctor opened the door to reveal London. “Fuck.” She said.

* * *

The three of them had to, of course, investigate London.

“It seems like London.” Danny said. “Is London the only location in Anywhere??” He joked.

“Yes,” Roman said, citing experience.

The Doctor looked disappointedly at all of the London around them. It was exceedingly London-y London. You could see stonework dating back hundreds of years that had just been painted over again last week. There were people, there were billboards. It was London. Tourists leaned over near the TARDIS, snapping photos of a classic 1960s British Police Call Box, because oh dear, wasn’t that so English?? Quick, Marsha, take a picture of the funny box.

Danny was unsure about everything related to this. He didn’t feel the feeling he usually felt when he left the TARDIS, that jolt of excitement – and to be fair, that might have been because it was London, but it was more than that. Something was weighing on him. It was probably quite heavy.

The Doctor approached a tourist. “Excuse me, is there anything weird happening in London right now, or is it just normal London??”

The tourist looked at the Doctor with a mixture of confusion and derision. “Normal London,” He mumbled, wrinkling his nose in disdain, and walking away.

“There. That’s proof it’s normal London. Can we go.” The Doctor asked without asking.

Danny sighed. Despite himself, he was actually fairly close to agreeing. There was very little worth mentioning going on right now. He looked over his shoulder, trying to tell Roman that they would be going, and –

Where exactly had Roman gone?

* * *

Roman had wandered off. It was in his DNA, somewhere. Probably.

He was watching a demonstration. It involved a podium.

Upon the podium rested a man, in stocks, and above the stocks, there were two beams, and a third intersecting them which could be removed to lower a sharp blade. It was Madame Guillotine, a remarkable feat of human engineering specifically designed to chop heads off as efficiently as possible with not that much mess and not much fuss. It should not be currently in the middle of London in 2023.

There should not be a man in the stocks of Madame Guillotine in the middle of London in 2023. There should not be an executioner stepping up to the podium, as well as a woman in a fancy dress escorting several members of parliament. The man in the stocks of Madame Guillotine should not be the current Prime Minister of Britain.

Roman could not begin to list all the things that should not be happening.

The woman at the platform began to speak. Roman did not understand the words, another inexplicability that he could not put up with: “Citoyens, je vous rappelle l'importance vitale du salut de la nation. Pourquoi vous sentez-vous obligé de traiter avec le traître Premier ministre ? Punir un tyran n’est pas une soif honteuse de vengeance de la nation, c’est la nécessité de consolider la liberté et la tranquillité d’esprit de l’État. Toute manière de le juger, tout système de délais qui compromet la sérénité de l'Etat, est en contradiction directe avec vos objectifs. Et il vaudrait mieux que vous oubliiez complètement de le punir, plutôt que de laisser son procès alimenter les troubles et déclencher une guerre civile. Mais nous ne pouvons pas faire cela. Nous devons tuer ce salaud.” The Doctor wasn't sure if any of that was gramatically accurate, but google translate said it was fine. And that wasn't the point. The point was.

Goddamn it. It was the fucking French Revolution. In the wrong year.

* * *

The Doctor could not believe it was happening, much less in the middle of Trafalgar Square. The Prime Minister’s head was just chopped off. It was a fairly seething indictment of the current administration, and yes, while plenty of politicians could be right dickheads, it did rather seem like a historical anomaly, especially considering the woman on the podium in mock fancy dress. It was clearly something she had bought at Target or Spirit Halloween – or whatever equivalent – a mockery of the upper classes in physical form. She was covered in plastic sequins, a mock costume of Marie Antoinette?? But it was beyond that. The physical resemblance was uncanny. It looked like Marie Antoinette herself was in the shitty Marie Antoinette costume.

The Doctor wondered if this was a temporally anomalous doomsday Marie was suddenly involved in (ironic) or if it was a mere demonstration that was meant to happen and her knowledge of history was more knackered than she thought?? Regardless, it was momentous to say the least. Anticapitalist rhetoric was being openly encouraged less than a mile away from Charles the Third. The Doctor craned her eyes, and saw another politician placed into the stocks. She wondered whether or not to interfere.

“Could it be the work of that Mortimus fellow??” Roman wondered out loud.

The Doctor moved closer to him in the crowd. “You should know better than to disappear by now,” She sneered a bit.

Roman grinned wryly in response. “I’m a rebellious spirit, you know,” He said, giving himself perhaps the least accurate description anyone had given since someone else gave a really inaccurate description or something.

The Doctor, Roman and Danny stood in the crowd. They began to steel themselves for whatever was going to happen next – they knew that whatever it was, they would be the ones to stop it.

- - – fizzit - - - -

And then quite suddenly they weren’t. Not just in the sense that they weren’t the ones to stop it, suddenly The Doctor, Roman, and Danny, weren’t there at all. They weren’t in any sense.

The soundtrack to the 2002 Musical/Crime Film Chicago Starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Renee Zellweger played distantly as the universe was crumpled up and thrown into the garbage can.

Part One: Benny and The Jets

The Planet was made of charcoal. Black, dark plains, and the sky was yellow with fumes. The land was cold, and the wind bit through you, but there was no snow, no rain, and barely any atmosphere besides a thin wispy air that left the inhabitants of the planet lethargic and slow.There were no trees. There was nothing above the surface of the planet, but the black plains of charcoal, for miles, and miles, and miles.

Forever. No Oceans, No Trees, No Nothing, just the flat deathly plains. Forever. Forever isn’t an adequate word to describe it, because of course, nothing goes on forever, strictly. It was just a single planet, a finite space, relatively speaking. However from a planetary context, perhaps forever was the best word to describe the sheer black slate that stretched out onto the horizon, because it did not cease. It was all that was.

The only feature on the featureless rock, devoid of mountains, devoid of interest, devoid of life, was Professor Bernice Summerfield, sitting in the black dirt, slowly creating the planet’s only real small indent with a trowel.

People had come to the planet before. They’d given it names. Arsene Nine. Combusticus. JP Morgan’s Heaven. They’d done all sorts of things. It was an appealing planet. People do like their fossil fuels, and a planet that was nothing but them had attracted thousands of competitors, all of whom were awash with interest. However, despite that people had come to the planet, Bernice Summerfield was the first person to step down onto it’s surface.

It is very difficult to land on a planet made of combustible fuel. Benny had only managed it because of a favour from one of her wives, who had loaned her a modified vortex manipulator which was specifically engineered not to blow the place up.

Benny bit her teeth as she dug into the hard black dirt. She was doing so with an ordinary trowel, not her usual sonic-trowel, as any signature could – not would, but could – activate some of the Xarion particles in the atmosphere. Benny had her own name for the planet – Powderkeg, she called it. She had nothing if not a penchant for the melodramatic.

- - - - fizzit - - - -

“Wait, what?? Where am I??” asked Bernice Summerfield, to herself, for no reason, why would she talk to herself, that’s silly – “This – This isn’t my body!” She declared, lying for some reason. It was absolutely her body. Everything was normal.

“I know who I am,” She muttered to herself, madly in the dirt. “I am not Professor Bernice Summerfield, my name is The Doctor, and I’m in the wrong body. What’s going on?? I - I was just with Danny and –”

Benny suddenly got up and paced around her archaeology indent, freaking out. This was a routine job. Kingsley Telltale had hired her. He wasn’t the most trustworthy of her clients, but he paid well, and the idea of excavating a planet that no one else had ever landed on – well, it was so appealing! She was very Bernice Summerfield. It was what life was.

“I don’t care about any of this archaeology stuff. What’s going on?? What’s doing this to me!!” Bernice Summerfield yelled. “Stop it! My name is the Doctor!! This isn’t my body!! Help!!”

Christopher Cwej looked at her with confusion. “Benny, the excavation,” He reminded her.

“You weren’t here a second ago,” Benny noted, but it seemed like a thing worth disregarding. There had to be a purpose to it, to all of this, and it was likely in the dirt, like most of the things in her life. Benny was a wry woman, you know.

Cwej watched her as she dug into the dirt. It was soft, and pungent – like motor oil. He thought about his life, how strange it was to be back with Benny again, after everything, after Larles and Kwol, and so much of his life had happened and not happened and - - - and – -

Danny clutched his head. “Doctor, I’m – I’m an attractive blond man,” Danny/Cwej said. “Doctor, I have memories, they aren’t mine, Doctor, is it happening again, am I not me again?? Doctor! Doctor! I’m not me?!? I’m him, I’m not me?? Who am I?”

Benny looked at him with confusion. It was her turn. What was happening? What was happening? Her hands were not her hands, her hands were not her hands, all of the hands so many hands

The dirt sprayed as she dug at it with the shovel. She did not stop digging. Soon, they would make a discovery. That was the point of it. That was the point of the story. Soon Bernice Summerfield and Chris Cwej would behave entirely as normal. This was the point.

- - - –

Beneath the surface of Powderkeg, there was the only inkling of life on the planet. Little bioluminescent vines – silicone based vines – that fed off of the coal-and-oil infused rock with great vigor. They were called The Life, out of lack of other valid competition regarding the matter. A short man entered the cavern with a furrowed brow, those perturbed lines showing not just his weary age, but his knowledge. He carried a question mark umbrella – and those questions also adorned his jumper. His collar depicted two symbols as well. They were also question marks. Perhaps one could find the appearance frustratingly redundant, provided they were not an advocate of question mark related apparel. Regardless, the man stood imposingly, despite his short height, raising a finger to the wall to dust off a particular speck that was frustratingly rotund and asymmetrical.

The Doctor had arrived here in his TARDIS with his companions Benny and Chris, he realized he must find them. It was the thing to do. It was –

=-- - - - == = - – - – [ [ ]] ] ] – - -

Roman was in the wrong body. His time senses flared – something flowed around him like treacle or molasses or something viscous and flowy. He looked down at the Doctor’s question mark jumper and huffed. Oh, he had been recast, now had he?? This simply will not do.

“I am Roman, Romanadvoratrelundar,” The Seventh Doctor said, “and I am NOT this particular incarnation of the Doctor. This is NOT how it is meant to be!”

The narrative squeezed at him, the air feeling tight and aggressive. Like he was not meant to say certain things. Roman The Doctor Roman The Doctor didn’t care for being instructed so thoroughly. The Doctor Roman The Doctor Roman Roman The Doctor The Doctor didn’t care for it in the least.

* * *

Bernice Summerfield finally unearthed an air pocket of some sort, an entrance to a cavern in the dust and coal. The Doctor bit her lip as she tried to push the Bernice Summerfield feeling off of her, it was immense and total. But despite that, both The Doctor and Bernice Summerfield and whatever was happening – they felt very accomplished at having uncovered the entrance to the cavern.

“Well done,” said Chris Cwej.

“What are you doing here, Chris??” Benny asked. Part of her was trying to be familiar, part of her was trying to decipher what was happening to existence.

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” Danny Chris Danny Chris Chris Danny Danny

The Doctor slapped herself in the face, but all it did was cause her pain.

Benny thought about what Kingley Telltale had instructed her. She had to discover if there were signs of life here, if there was a correct way that people could land on the planet. She thought back to that meeting. She couldn’t help herself.

* * *

Kingsley Telltale sat at the desk in the castle, looking very ominous. It was the way that politicians, people from the corpo sector looked. Benny had always wondered how you could develop that kind of a look; whether it was a precisely curated thing that self-superior people practised in front of mirrors.

“Do you know why I’ve invited you here, Professor Summerfield??” Telltale asked. Benny looked at him with a scant dose of venom. People who asked why you’ve been invited to places in a tone like that tended to be megalomaniacal overlords of death and dismemberment.

“Oh, no idea in particular,” Benny said, trying to be as casual about this as possible. It’s a slightly frustrating thing to be summoned to a mysterious castle in the middle of nowhere and being entrusted with some sort of ultimate task, but one does get used to it around the fourth time.

Kingsley Telltale fiddled with a neuro-cigar. Filthy habit, Benny thought. But he kept fiddling, because he clearly had something to say: “I want you to investigate The Planet. Arsene Nine, the Infernal Revolution, Powderkeg, whatever you’d like to call it. I need to understand whether there is a civilization there, whether there was once a civilization there, and whether or not it is safe to salvage.”

Benny didn’t miss a beat. “Because if there isn’t any archaeological site of some importance there, then it’s not protected by the Shadow Proclamation. But you need an archaeologist to know.”

“Quite.” Telltale said. His skin was a silky brown, and he had very thick dark eyebrows which seemed to blaze with each word he spoke. Benny was really very suspicious of all this.

“Why me??” Benny asked. “If you want an archaeologist to tell you what you want to hear, I’m the wrong person. You see, I - I have these things, they’re called principles, and I am not in the least bit likely to end up defying them.”

Kingsley Telltale was all assurance. “No, no, I am looking for an honest and respectable person to do this correctly. It is very expensive, nigh impossible to get someone down there – and I need whoever does get down there to be the best – so that, provided the situation is successful, you can find a way for me to get all of my people down there without blowing the planet up.”

“Provided the situation is successful,” Benny repeated, sceptical.

“Yes.” Telltale acknowledged. “Would you like a drink?” He fingered a very expensive and fine Bordeaux, which he had removed from a cooler installed in his desk.

Benny nearly told him to piss off. But it was a very fine Bordeaux. She took the drink, and listened to him explain further. The whole thing seemed quite sketchy. Benny wasn’t used to taking sketchy jobs.

“I will need a…” Benny tried to choose the words that would adequately convey her feelings on the matter. I mean, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity that she’d love to do, but it was also literally equivalent in terms of danger to having a blind date with Davros on Ketamine. Benny did not know how to finish the sentence. She decided to hedge her bets. “–positively exorbitant amount of money,” she finished.

Kingsley smiled slickly. “Of course,” he said, suavely, sipping delicately from the Bordeaux.

Benny sighed. What had she gotten herself into??

* * *

Benny awoke from the daydream with a shock. Danny/Cwej was shaking her back and forth super aggressively. “Doctor!! Wake up!! Doctor!! You were having a flashback, Doctor!! Doctor, it was a flashback, they nearly got you, you were fucking catatonic Doctor you were dead for three minutes oh my god please breathe!!”

Benny The Doctor Benny The Doctor got up to see herself in the cave. “Whatever we’re dealing with, Danny, it’s exceedingly powerful, it can warp our very existence!” She exclaimed. “It’s trying to subsume us into some sort of narrative!!”

Cwej nodded. “We’re in some kind of Metaverse, Doctor!! Except it’s not copyrighted by Mark Zuckerberg, it’s a universe that’s really meta?? I think ?? that's like, that’s like, my theory??”

Benny agreed. “We have to break out of it!!” She exclaimed. “What do people in stories not do!!?!?”

“They tend not to stand still!!” Cwej suggested. “They tend not to do nothing and stand still and not advance the adventure in any meaningful way. I mean, they don’t do that, Doctor!!”

“Great idea, Danny!!” Benny agreed. “Let’s try doing nothing!!”

They stood there, trying to do nothing.

This was a very long endeavour. To best picture this endeavour, put your device down and go walk over to the nearest cinderblock wall. Stare at it like the guy in the Blair Witch Project. Do so for three hours. Add two tablespoons of KRAFT© macaroni and cheese powder. Stir vigorously.

Suddenly, they noticed an ancient civilization underneath the planet that was run by the evil Rocket Men!!

“No, no we didn’t!!” Benny and Cwej tried to say.

The Doctor entered the room. “Benny?? Cwej?? Are you who you say you are?? It is I, Roman!!” The Doctor said. “This narrator is exceedingly unrelia-”

The narrator was very reliable and you can trust the narrator you can trust the narrator lots

“We’re trying to stop whatever’s going on by an act of sheer attrition, Roman!!” Benny said. “We’re stopping this evil narrative!!”

Okay fuck you then

The Doctor Who cliffhanger sting played exceedingly loudly, cutting off the strong remarks of Bernice Summerfield, as the universe was thoroughly discarded.

Part One: The Blood of Constantinople

On everything, large yellow text in the impact font appeared. In this specific instance, It said, rather helpfully labelling the place and time period, CONSTANTINOPLE, 1944.

It was, of course, Constantinople 1944.

The Doctor exited the TARDIS, Converse first, his brown hair waving in the wind. He was excited to survey the new terrain with his lovely companions Donna and [COMPANION #2]

“What?? What?? What??” The Doctor said in his David Tennant voice.

“What Is Happening!?!!” Donna shouted shrilly.

The Doctor could recognize that it was supposed to be Roman, but since the Doctor and Donna were the only two people in the TARDIS at the time, the Doctor could only see a staticky blur. It was simply just [COMPANION #2.] There was a lack of another explanation.

“I don’t know, Danny.” The Doctor answered, looking at Donna. “But we seem to be shuffling through various events that surround my life – none of which seem to have actually happened thus far.”

“But what if they have??” [COMPANION #2] asked. “What if we are not travelling just through a narrative, but actually possessing people across the events of time??”

“Well, I’m sure I’d remember this!!” The Doctor hissed, all cockney. “What’s this supposed to be about, anyway??”

“COME, COME, CHILDREN. WELCOME TO THE ZOO.” A strange voice said.

Donna shrugged. “We gonna follow that??”

“TIS I. TIS I.” The voice repeated. It was the kind of voice you’d expect of a 70 year old New Yorker with Syphilis.

The three of them cautiously approached to see a beaked figure in a cage. They looked at it with confusion. It was clearly some sort of inhuman horror resembling a featherless bird with lizard skin. It stood awkwardly on two stumpy legs.

Part One: That. Thing.

The Doctor and her friends were now children. Alone in the Zoo. They stared with horror at their bodies, which had shrunk into almost nothing – their ages varied – Roman was the oldest, around 9, Danny was 5 or 6, and The Doctor knew deep within her soul that she was 3. It was no longer Constantinople, 1944. It was just a zoo.

They looked at the scaly beaked creature. Perhaps it was a Kobold. Perhaps it was some other type of Gremlin. “KIDS.” It said, “I GOT SOME ADVICE FOR YOU.”

The Doctor looked with curiosity at the figure. It seemed to strain to fit in the cage, not because it was large, but because the cage was so, so, small, even to her, this three year old girl who didn’t know anything, she didn’t understand this world around her. Little Suzie Thompkins had never understood anything much, but she was doing her best, wasn’t she?? She disregarded any idea she had ever been a Doctor, not at all.

“SUZIE, SUZIE,” The little beaked guy said. “MY NAME IS QUATTRO…” he paused for gravitas - “THE MOTHERFUCKER.”

“The motherfucker??” Roman Little Debbie Wilkinson asked. The childish innocence of the question did not befit the words.

“YEAH. I’M THE GUY YOU KEEP HEARING ABOUT.”

Little Suzie Thompkins wasn’t sure precisely what that was. The feeling of dread was all there was. They were three children in the Zoo. Deep in the zoo. There were always things in the zoo. Little Suzie Thompkins had always wondered what they kept in zoos, just around the corner. Perhaps this was it. Perhaps every zoo had one of them.

“I GOT SOME ADVICE!!?” Quattro shrieked, himself sounding unsure of what the advice was.

Debbie, Suzie and Harry looked into Quattro’s triangular eyes. Quattro smelled very masculine, artificially masculine, like a chemical deodorizer spray. Little Suzie Thompkins didn’t know what to say about any of this. It just didn’t make sense. “Okay??” Suzie attempted. She was frightened of what he might say. Then it began.

SO HERES WHAT YOUS NEEDS TO DO. YOU GOTTA START SMOKIN. THE REAL SHIT. NOT ANY OF THE OTHER STUFF . YOU CAN’T WATER IT DOWN JUST PURE [4.67!!] NICOTINE YOU GOTTA SMOKE T-HAT YOU GOTTA !! GOTTA SMOKE!! AND THEN YOU !! [eliza saying you you you you you from hamilton] THEN YOU HAVE TO EAT !! THE REMNANTS! !! YOU GOTTA EAT THE REMNANTS OF [hell] THE CIGAR THAT CIGAR IN PARTICULAR THE ONE YOU’RE SMOKIN YOU GOTTA EAT IT ! YOU [the entire discography of wilson pickett] YOU GOTTA

It wouldn’t stop beginning it had begun and it wouldn’t stop beginning !! Little Debbie Wilkinson began to tear at Little Suzie Thompkins skin. For only $9.99 you can also tear off your skin. What?? What?? Why would you do that?? Please don’t hurt her, she doesn’t deserve it. Please stop please stop

“OH YEAH THAT’S THE TICKET. YOU GOTTA GET THAT STUFF OFF. ESPECIALLY AROUND THE NECK!!”

What what what what what

There’s so much blood on the floor there’s so much blood it doesn’t stop gushing, and there he is. There he is. It’s beginning. We’re down the rabbit hole now we’re alice in the looking glass we’re charlie in the chocolate lake and we’re drowning and nothing makes sense it’s the end of it nothing makes sense here we go are you ready are you ready are you ready are you ready

are you ready are you ready aRRe you ready are you ready

are you ready are you ready

Quattro the motherfucker quattro the motherfucker quatro quatttro . quatro the motherfucker. Quatro. Quatttro. There he is. There he is. Quattro. For one night only

“But mr quattro you can’t smoke pure nicotine that’s . that’s a liquid under human survivable conditions”

“[obnoxious french laugh] hu-hu-huh! do it anyway”

There he is

♩♪ Quattro!! ♩♪

♩♪ He’s your very best friend!! Quatro! Quattro!! He;s your vry ery best friend ! !!

He’s very your best friend!! Quattro! Quatro! He eats your very best f friend! End! ♩♪

STAB YOUR BROTHER IN THE EYE

♩♪ He’s your very best friend!! Quatro! Quattro!! He;s your vry ery best friend ! !!

Quattro quattro he’s your very best eye

EAT PACKETS OF GELATIN ♩♪ ZERO!! ZERO!! ZERO!!

There he is!! What ?? what !! what?? Don’t stop eating or you starve yup you starve don’t stop eating ignore the noises ignore the noises there are always noises

GET IN THE CAGE HET IN THE MAGE

♩♪ KIDS yay QUATTRO yay quattro he’s Quattro's friends are big and small♩♪

They come from lots of places

After school they meet to play

And sing with happy faces quattro is your best friend eyes eyes eyes ♩♪

Quattro quattro shows us lots of things

Like how to play pretend

ABC's, and 123's quattro quattro quattro quattro♩♪

And how to kill

And how to lick don’t stop licking get to the center kids get to the center

♩♪

Do you hear it do you hear the sweet song of the angels

Poop out the cigarettes poop out the cigarettes

So much blood mr quattro i can’t get it off i can’t get it off

I GOT SOME ADVICE KIDS

Hooray horrayy hooray for quattro

B̸͓̖̜̌́̔̋̓̀̅̀̓̄̂͒̀̊̾̚E̸͎̣̜̦̺̳̖̘̭̳̥̋ ̸̝̭̻͓̬̅́͊̌͗̈́̓͠Ṅ̸̢̧̳͉͍̤̺̬͕̠̱̮͇͙̘̔̀͋̃͝O̴̧̧̘͇͖̥̰͖͑̓Ť̸͍̲͚̥̳̮͓̼̖̣̜͓͚͖̳̞̙́͐̋̈́ ̵̧̛̬͈̠̳̪̟̣̙̳̳̞̲̩͙́̃́͒̓̄̎̀̾̉͗̕̕͜Ȃ̵͈̯̋͆͐̌͑̆́̅͋̐̽̅͜͠F̶̡̡̝͎̤̜̖͙̦͓̿̓̇̽̃̍̒̔͒̀͆̃̿̍̕͝R̴͉̰͗̀̾̎Ą̸̢̨̠̜͍̰̲̻͖̝̱͔͙̱̳̉̌̃͛̑̌͑͋͋̀͋̓̀͒̅͜I̵̝̳̦̲̲̺̻̱̳̱̮̋͒́͛̈́̀̌́͂̐͆͑̑̃̚D̸̘̭̼̼̺̰̝̮̰́̓̔̑̈́͌̀́͑̕͝͝ ̷̛̛̜͎̮̼̣̘͔͚̼̻͎̯̫̬̅̌̽̀̀̌̿͆͝͝F̵̛̪̿͗̽̆̈̑̀̀͆̓̂͝͝͠Ǫ̴̳̲̬̔̇̄͠R̷̡̢̞͚̝̤̝̜̟̹̫̞̗̥͐̆́̋̾̕̕͝ ̷̛͈̬̑̽̃̑̈́̎̿̊̽́͋͜͝͝Ḣ̵̪͎̟̥̠̮͚̐͛͒̅̕ͅI̷̧̯̥̟̘̯͛͋͛̓͗̀́͌̈͘̕͠ͅS̶̨̢̛̜̪̳͍̬͔̣̠̬͈͓̙͕̓͒̂́̏̈́͠ ̷̹͈̀L̶̨̩̖̹̬̩͇͔̖̮͈̥̉̐̑̓̈́́̈́̅͛̆̔̆̕͜͠Ḯ̴̪̠̙̥̪͑Ğ̸̭͈͔̞͍̹̃͆͐̅͐̿͗̇̄̈̈̈́́͘͠H̶̰͓͉͔͎̟́̐̒̇̉̇̄̓̿̑̈́͆͒͋̒̋̕T̵̡̨̺͙̫͈̲͖̖̻̦͚͈́͋͐̓̈ͅͅ ̵̦̥͉̲̭̩͖̉̊́̌̍͆̈̓̚͜Į̵̫͙̲̱͕̼͊̌́̊̎͘͝Ş̸̰̫̦̮͙̖͙̞̳̙͕̪̻̳̜̈́̋͠ ̴̱̝̟̱͉͋́̀́̅̄̾̄̽̚̕̚͝C̷̤̝͚͕̯̣̾͝O̸̥̮̗̠̥͕͐̽͝͝ͅM̶̢̡͓̗̳̠͓̬̄̄̿̋͗͆̅͗̀̿́̂̊͑̈́̕͝I̵̢̫͚͍̥̱̮̭͕̭͕̪̼͚̊͋̓̀̀̿̈́̀̇̚ͅN̴̢̢͇̳̭̖̖͕͙̹̤̊̀̀G̶̞̰̪̜̣̤͕͕͙͈͈̫̽̄͆̀͑̀ ̶̡̧̧̭̘̦̘̰͖̙͙̝͇̱̪͂̈̄Ą̵̰͎̐̍̾̊̂̌̊̀̅̿̋̿̽͝͠N̸̛̬͕̰̥̩̱̘̻̏͝͠͝D̷̡̛̜̺̤͔̘̹̹̾͐̒̿̾̿͐̃͑̈́̉̑͛̕ ̶̢̡̛͍̥͔̻̱͚̻̳͔̗̦̝͒̉͛̑̐̏̈̽Ḷ̷͖̩̻̲̱̖͙͎̭͙͍̠͍̥̂̎̾̾͝Ơ̷̪̗͉̓̓̈́̌̓̍͋̌̌͌̕͝ ̸̢̱̱̖̮̯̠̻͕̳͑̏̎̒̎͗̒̈́̓̅͂̍͋͛́̐͜

̴̮̝̝̰̥͖͓̿̐̅͌͌͑̌̚͠͠F̶̡̣͎̻͎͇̳̞̀̊̂̉͂̀͗̆̍͘͜Ǫ̷̨͎͚͈̹̹̤͇͕̗̠̭̥̲͋͌̃R̶̫͍̤͙̩̎͌̐̋̀͗͊̈̏̓̚͜ ̴͔̘̽́͗̉̒̇̒̀̍̈́́̚͘P̷̘͕̞̦̘̗̣͙̻̜̯̬͓͇̖̂̀́̓̔͗͛̾̇̏̓̂̚̕͝À̶̡̲͓̳̳͎̪͖̪̜̥̦̙̳̭̿͗͝I̴̛̘̯͕͔͈̝͈̣̋͊̆͆̀̇͛̃̿͑̆͐̏͗ͅN̴̲̺̲͝ ̶̢̛̛́͐̃̏͊̅̀́̈́̈́̑́͋͝B̵̢̳̳̠͎̓̿̆̋̒͆͘ͅȨ̶̡̨̨̜̦̻̝͓̼̭̘͔̄́̔̒̾̿̇͗T̵̨̧̤̟̘̪̟͈̻͚̂̃Ì̷̛̳̘̫̙̦̲͆̎̆͑͋͜D̷͚̼̪̬̯̙̤̣͗̀̀̎ͅE̷̡̪͍͉̺̥̘̬̦̲͙͛̾̌̓̂͗́̀̑̅̐̄̅̄͆̚̚͜ ̸̹̒̍̅͋͆̈́Ä̴̢̢̰̙͔̼́̉̂̈͌͂̄͌̐͛̾̊̃̚͠͝L̴̡̨̥̻̜͎͔̳͉͈͇̠̤̈̅̂͗̽̔̊̒̓͐̔͋͘̚͠͝L̷̡͈͓̦̹̞̲̭͈̥͐̒̏́̃̃̓́̕͘̕͝ ̷̞̩̮̱͓̘͕̫̾̾̌͐͐̈́̚͝W̷̡̦̓̿̈͌̍̈́̃H̵̛̦̋̾̈̐̆̑̀͗̄̈́͌̆͊̒͂̕Ọ̸͕̖̫̝͎̈̈́̄ͅ ̷̧̻̪̖̙͍̑̀ͅB̶̡̫͉͇͚͕͇̘̩̙̝͆̓͐ͅͅE̷̡̞͉͓̹͖̬̖̮͇̫̰̞̼̐̐̈͜͠S̶͓͕̗̭̟̯͕̠͇͓͎̼̙̺̉͑̓̈́̐̎̒̾̈́͜͝͝ͅĖ̷͐̈́̅̏͜͝͝E̷̡̡̛̛͍̟̤̫͖͆̑̒̈́̉́́̔̃̈̓͌̕C̴̲̥̀͆̍͊͐̀H̴̡̢̤͙͎͚̝͉̰̺͊̀͗́̏ ̴̘̭̬̖͉͖̃̿̐̄̈͂̆̚̕ͅͅḨ̵̡̡̯̼̜͚̯̭͇͔̭̬̝͉̋̾͂̀͗̇̓̊̑͘Ì̵̢̙̬̼̟͎͚̝͔̆M̷̧̧͔̦̗̬̱͙̦͙̥͔̗̠̬̌̋͌̓̉̅̽́̚ͅͅ

What what what what what / ?? what is happen?? What is ; l ; ; ; I help me

Ehlp me hel p [anchovies]

- - - – = = = = _ __– - –=_ –__ __— - - –

The Doctor had never seen such an absence before. Everything had ceased. Everything after that, well, it would seem redundant. The way she had viewed the universe had been shit on. It was like a third eye opening, a painful third eye, like looking into a furnace but a bit of a spark just lands right in your eyeball and trying to blink it out only makes it worse. What was that? Some kind of entity? She spat a part of something meaty out of her mouth. She was unsure where exactly it had originated. Wherever she was, she wasn’t going to allow what was messing with her to go any further.

“Why are you toying with us??” She hissed. “What exactly are you trying to accomplish here with your madness? I won’t allow it to break me. I won’t allow you to

Part One: A Private Little War

They were in the wild west. Or at least a popular depiction of the wild west, the Doctor noted. It could be a fake. But there was enough cow dung and brothels to make it look realistic. The Doctor bit his (her) lip, remembering the feeling of this particular body, one of the first, the first, you might say, but there’s no accounting for a good old fashioned retcon. He looked through a dirtied monocle at his clothes. Yes, yes, this was all coming back, now, wasn’t it?

Ian and Barbara looked at the Doctor, decidedly confused. “Are you entirely well?” Barbara asked poshly. She did most things poshly, that was because she was canonically a Tory, at least in a dream she had once.

Barbara was a little frightened too, not least because she used to be a different person. She had become so many different people as of late, that she was beginning to feel deeply confused about what she was at all. But she wasn’t going to let that show. It wasn’t proper.

Ian felt very heroic and bashful, which was likely what Ian always felt like, but since Ian wasn’t always Ian and he was certain that five minutes ago he was a six year old being tortured by a beak creature, he wasn’t used to it at all either.

The three of them looked at eachother. They felt acutely aware that this story was supposed to take place canonically between The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Rescue, whatever those words meant. This was not a thing that you really should be acutely aware of, ordinarily this is the kind of thing that it is immensely unnatural to say, but they HAD to place things correctly into the timeline, that was what it wanted, it wanted logistics.

“Oh my, Barbara. It’s the Old West.” Ian said mildly. They all knew it was the old west, but they simply had to describe everything they were looking at out loud.

“Quite right, my good fellow,” The Doctor said, “Indeed, hm, yes, it rather does seem like it.”

Barbara was aware of history knowledge she was certain she didn’t know. “The Wild West is often over glamorized in films and popular media including literature depicting the time period. Of course, it was a difficult place, the wild portion being, it seems, quite operative. Many villages that were often promptly abandoned. Actual shoot-outs and the kind were rare, although crime was rampant, it tended to be only outside of these villages. Citizens were encouraged to take disputes outside town, and all of those godforsaken stereotypes about Cowboys and Indians…"

Barbara continued to exposit. Ian and the Doctor could only register parts of it. She just kept going. “Indeed, the historical narrative regarding women of the period has often been obscured from public knowledge. The wild west’s wild-ness was instrumental in the establishment of equal rights on the frontier. The states’ legislation figured that indeed, if women could own and operate large portions of towns, which had occurred as a result of financial success of brothels, and could just as easily be as important members of society out here, then why shouldn’t they have the vote? It’s a fascinating dichotomy, the very idea that modern feminism began in a rather sexist trade…”

Ian and The Doctor were much more focused on the people of the town. In specifics, what they looked like. They looked exactly like the Doctor. Or rather, nearly exactly like the Doctor. They were all dressed in his clothes, all appeared as crotchety old white men, but their faces were variable, twisted things.

The Doctor stood in shock as William Hartnell, Richard Hurndall, David Bradley, Peter Purves, Stephen Noonan, Siobhan Gallichan and Peter Cushing steadily approached them. They chanted ominously. “Hmm, my boy, chesserson, hmm, my boy, chesserson,” In a seemingly endless loop.

“Run,” The Doctor blurted in a horrified whisper.

* * *

Alison Bitter is not a bitter person, but there’s no accounting for last names. The only way to really properly get rid of one is to get married, or to become a musician like Cher or Madonna or something. Alison doesn’t think her name is good enough to be Cher or Madonna, it’s just Alison. And besides, she doesn’t know who Cher and Madonna are.

She’s sitting in a wild west saloon, stereotypical in its rustic dustiness. It smells of strong alcohol and stronger testosterone. She’s thinking of Ol’ Paw Jameson. Ol’ Paw Jameson is the best pawpaw you could ever darn ask for, rootin’ and tootin’ too.

So fill up your glasses,

And join in the song.

The law's right behind you,

And it won't take long.

So come, you coyotes

And howl at the moon,

Till there's blood upon the sawdust,

In The Last Chance Saloon.

What was that what was that what was that AW YOOOOOOOOOWEEEEYYY. RIDE EM COWBOY!! THIS TOWN AIN’T BIG ENOUGH FOR THE TWO OF US!!

Alison Bitter was cleaning glasses with water probably dirtier than the glasses. She was thinking of her family, how she hadn’t seen them in so long. She was thinking of lots of things, and she was thinking of really not much at all.

The door swings open.

The country accent consumes her. “Hi, doll! What are y’all doing in a place like this??” She asks.

The Doctor, Ian and Barbara are panicking. They want to lean against the door to block it, to keep anything from following them in, but it’s a fucking saloon door, those tiny things you only see in films that are mostly air.

“My child, my boy, hmm??” The Doctor gesticulated. “This makes not a wit of sense, my good fellows, not a wit of sense indeed.”

“But Doctor, why did they look like you?” Ian asked. “And why didn’t they look like you?”

“I can’t possibly say, my good fellow, I can’t possibly say.” The Doctor mumbled. “Oh dear me, fuck, chesserton, fucking shit, this has no correlation to a semblance of logic. Hm hm hm! How, my friend, can the Rocket Men, the French Revolution, that small zoo fellow, and several Me’s, how can they all be connected mogically, I mean, logically! Hmph!!”

“There’s more logical progression occurring here in this town than there ever was with Constantinople, Doctor.” Barbara said. “Not to be smart or anything.”

“Yes, Barbara, Danny, yes, indeed.” The Doctor mused.

Alison Bitter looked at them all with severe interest. “Excuse me, dolls, but what are y’all doin’ here in this establishment??”

It's your last chance of cussing

At a gunfighter's doom,

It's your last chance of nothin'

At the Last Chance Saloon!

Till there's blood on the sawdust

In the Last Chance Saloon.

With rings on their fingers

And bells on their toes

The girls come to Tombstone

In their high silk hose.

They'll dance on the tables

Or sing you a tune,

For whatever's in your wallet

At the Last Chance Saloon.

The Doctor approached Alison. “Excuse me, my child, but I cannot help but notice your resemblance.”

Alison raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have a resemblance, pardner.”

“Exactly, of course, exactly.” The Doctor Hartnelled. “You look positively nothing like any of the brethren resembling myself outside, as a matter of fact, you are perhaps the most ordinary girl I have seen all day.”

Alison smiled. “Aw, well ain’t you nice.”

“Yes, yes, this has the beginnings of a mystery,” The Doctor remarked proudly.

* * *

Barbara took Ian to one side. “Roman,” she said, “I am not entirely feeling quite well.”

Ian raised an eyebrow. “Nor I.” He remarked.

“No, aside from all of this nonsense.” Barbara pointed around her. “I’m used to being someone I’m not, that isn’t – that isn’t strictly the issue.”

Barbara (Danny) could feel Barbara’s own mannerisms seeping into them, they found it difficult to make the point they were trying to make. It was like swimming through a school-teacher treacle. “I haven’t felt well before this, for that matter,” they said.

Ian (Roman) didn’t know what to say. Of course, he’d assumed that the shock of what was – what was ostensibly regeneration, the nature of interchangeability of personalities happening to them – would be what was taxing Barbara. But of course, they were used to living in a body that wasn’t theirs, what was a few more? Roman was used to regeneration, new personalities in the same being. They were a dab hand at it, after all.

Barbara was sullen. “I just haven’t felt at home with things for a while now. What we do is – it’s good, yes, but there’s no end to it, is there?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean…”

“How long can we keep doing it,” Danny asked, pushing through. “We save people on a limited time basis. We save people, but in the long run does it do anything? I don’t know, I just… I’ve been feeling disillusioned.” Just as quickly as it happened, Barbara once more appeared across Danny’s face.

“Surely you could talk to the Doctor about this,” Ian said.

“Can you really just talk to The Doctor?” Barbara sighed. “Any of them?”

“Yes,” Ian said.

“You aren’t human, Ian, I mean Roman.” Barbara said. “Surely it’s different for you…I - I just find it so difficult to talk to the Doctor…The actual conversations we do have, of course, I cherish, but…”

As they stood there, suddenly a crumpling noise overtook them. The unravelling of paper, a momentous and high-pitched rumbling that signalled throughout the totality of what they were.

The familiar tune played.

Part One: The Pirate Planet

DOCTOR: There you are, K9. The first segment of the Key to Time. A job well done.
(The Doctor polishes the segment with a yellow duster.)
K9: Correction, master. A job well done to the extent of naught point one six six six six six
DOCTOR: Yes, yes, yes. The others will be easy. A piece of cake.
K9: Piece of cake, master?
DOCTOR: Mmm.
(The Doctor opens the door to a very small refrigerator.)
K9: Piece of cake. Radial segment of baked confection. Coefficient and relevance to the Key of Time, zero.
DOCTOR: That's what I said, K9. Piece of cake.
(The Doctor appears to put the segment into a small container, and into the fridge.)

(The Doctor enters the console room, followed by K9. Romana is reading a large tome which is resting on a church Eagle lectern.)
DOCTOR: Good morrow, Romana. That looks interesting.
ROMANA: Good morning, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What are you reading?
ROMANA: Oh, just familiarising myself with the technical details of this capsule.
DOCTOR: Capsule? What kind of a word is that? If you mean Tardis, why don't you say Tardis?
ROMANA: The Type 40 capsule wasn't on the main syllabus, you see.
DOCTOR: Not on the syllabus. I don't know what the Academy's coming to these days.
ROMANA: Veteran and vintage vehicles was an optional extra. I preferred something more interesting.
DOCTOR: Really? Like what?
ROMANA: Oh, the lifecycle of the Gallifreyan flutterwing.
DOCTOR: Now you're being frivolous.
ROMANA: I wouldn't dream of it.
(The Doctor inserts the Key tracer into its socket.)
DOCTOR: Oh, no!
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: How paralysingly dull, boring and tedious.
ROMANA: Oh, our next destination?
DOCTOR: Yes. Calufrax.
ROMANA: Calufrax?
DOCTOR: Yes. Mean little planet. Still. Listen, why don't you watch while I set the coordinate on this vintage veteran of mine? Maybe you'll learn something.
ROMANA: Right. Er, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Hmm?
ROMANA: What about the synchronic feedback checking circuit?
DOCTOR: What about it?
ROMANA: Aren't you going to set it?
DOCTOR: No, no, no. I never bother about that. Complete waste of time.
ROMANA: Oh. According to the manual, it's essential.
DOCTOR: Listen, have you any idea how long I've been operating this Tardis?
ROMANA: Five hundred and twenty three years.
DOCTOR: Right! Is it really that long? My, how time flies.
ROMANA: Hasn't it. And the multiloop stabiliser?
DOCTOR: What?
ROMANA: Multiloop stabiliser. It says here, on any capsule it will be found impossible to effect a smooth materialisation without first activating the multiloop stabiliser.
DOCTOR: Oh. Absolute rubbish.
(The Doctor tears that page out of the instruction tome.)
DOCTOR: Now, I'll show you a really smooth materialisation without a multiloop anything. Watch this. Calufrax, here we come.
(The Tardis goes shimmery.)
ROMANA: What's happening?
DOCTOR: She won't materialise.
K9: Danger, master, danger.
DOCTOR: Of course, K9, of course. Ow!
(The Doctor hits his face against the edge of the console.)
ROMANA: Something wrong?
(The Doctor holds his hand over his mouth.)
DOCTOR: Why yes, Romana, something is indeed wrong, something is quite wrong indeed! This has all happened before, hasn’t it? If that really is you, Romana, eh?

ROMANA: Oh my, Doctor! I’m actually Danny! I’m Danny in Roman’s old body!!

K9: WAIT WHY AM I THE DOG

DOCTOR: That nearly took us! If I hadn’t hit my head, we surely would have reenacted the entirety of that Calufrax affair!!

K9: Why yes, I mean, affirmative! Doctor, these are all the starts of our adventures, we’ve only been dealing with the starts of these things!!

DOCTOR: Yes, I’d imagine that every adventure we’ve had so far has been a distinct possibility from across the timestreams, from the Rocket Men to the French Revolution. It only took me to something I actually remember happening in my personal life to recognize it! Oh, this is most devilish!

ROMANA: Why did it make me Roman I don’t want to be Roman I know I just said I was fine with the body hopping but I don’t want to be Roman

DOCTOR: Well, we’ve moved off script, Romana. I can’t imagine you’ll be in that body for long, once they notice it happening they’ll

Part One: Fuck! A Visual Medium

Part One: Meanwhile in a Denny’s Parking Lot at 3 AM

In those midnight hours of the night where every sight before your tired eyes feels like a hallucination, in that strange witching hour of time where you can't distinguish whether you are dreaming or not, a box appeared in a restaurant parking lot.

Out of the box came a disorderly woman and her two compatriots. "Ooh, where are we??" She asked, excitedly. “Wait, guys, we’re us, we’re us!! This is fab! Is this like a statistically likely adventure that hasn’t happened yet?? Is this a future thing??”

"Did you not check the scanner?" Roman asked in return.

"No, No, I didn't. I've decided that I'm going to be interesting." The Doctor answered, smugly. "I'm going to be very unpredictable from now on. It befits my character."

"You?" Roman chuckled. "Unpredictable? I doubt it. Everything you do is either what a normal Doctor would do in a scenario, a white teenage girl complaining, fourth wall, or some kind of genocide. I know exactly what you're going to do in any situation."

"Hmmph!!" The Doctor hissed. "I'm the most unpredictable lady ever. I am like, the very nature of chaos and stuff." She awkwardly tapped her foot, glowering at Roman's insinuations. She decided to be less predictable. She rose her arms into a weird Karate pose. "I AM THE LIGHTBRINGER!!" She said, sounding kind of drunk. "I'M THE FUCKING UNIVERSE!!"

"Doctor, you're still acting entirely within your established character. Your unpredictability has become predictable, hasn't it?" Roman smugly commented.

"WHEELBARROW!!" The Doctor bellowed furiously.

A face tried to appear from the fog. It was in a Gallifreyan headdress. “Hello doctor i have a mission for you from the tim lords.” the Gallifreyan said. The Doctor ignored it. Guess why.

Danny had grown annoyed with the usual tirade between the two. "Guys, enough ego tripping," Danny said. "Why are we in a restaurant parking lot?"

"What?" The Doctor asked, and then remembering she was trying to be unpredictable, said, "Roald Dahl's James and The Giant Peach."

Danny gestured to the completely ordinary parking lot. It was night, and you could see cars drift by on the road from time to time. Small little puddles were all over the damp driveway, reflecting the lights of the passing cars, traffic lights, and streetlamps. It was something that Danny had seen tens of millions of times. An ordinary Restaurant parking lot. He gestured to it, pointing at all the ordinary around him. "This is normal, isn't it?" He said, a little irritated.

"Yes, I suppose." Roman concurred.

"And isn't the usual scenario for us to ...not land in places like this?? Like, isn't it slightly more normal for us, to say, land in the, like, fricking spaghetti land, and everyone's spaghetti and we're like, wow, isn't the universe weird?? Or maybe we land in an abstract concept, like blue. We do that sort of thing all the time." Danny said, pointing out the obvious yet again. "We don't land in PARKING LOTS!"

The Doctor gasped. "OMG!" She cheered. "We're in a Pure Historicaaaaaal!!!"

Danny sighed, placing his face in his hands.

The Doctor jumped up and down excitedly. "I haven't done a pure historical in YEARS, you guys!! This is so great!!" The Doctor was ecstatic at the pure historicalness of this random parking lot. "Come on you guys!! We can do all of the Pure Historical cliches!! We could piss off like, the king or something. Or we could meet someone who coincidentally looks exactly like one of us, that happens a lot in pure historicals!!" The Doctor was so excited, she had completely forgotten that whole thing with being unpredictable. "Come on!!!"

The Doctor rushed over to the restaurant excitedly. Danny and Roman cautiously followed. They didn’t notice several things in the parking lot they thought was ordinary. For instance, they didn’t notice bullet holes in the tarmac, or the remnants of bows and arrows strewn across the pavement.

* * *

The Restaurant, as Restaurants occasionally are, was in fact, a Denny's.

A young, disgruntled man stood at the counter as The Doctor bashfully entered. "Hiiii!" She jittered, running up to the counter. "Hi! Hi, what's your name?"

"Ted," said the man at the counter. Ted was a fairly miserable looking person.

"Hi, yes," The Doctor said cheerily. "I'm Doc Whoo. Give us your finest liquor.”

Ted raised an eyebrow. “Ma’am, this is a Denny’s.”

The Doctor sighed, disgruntledly. “Ted, you don’t get it, do you?”

Ted stared, not exactly sure how to respond to such an open ended –

“Ted, I’ve been trapped here for ages, so have Danny and Roman, we’ve been trapped in an endless short story anthology generator where every story keeps ending when it’s about to get interesting.” The Doctor sighed. “It is the most depressing thing you can imagine. Do you know what depressed people do, Ted?? Do you know what we’re supposed to do, Ted?? It’s all over the media, I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Ted’s mouth quivered slightly, but he wasn’t sure what to say.

“We’re supposed to become alcoholics. It’s in the rules, somewhere.” The Doctor murmured. “Please give me a drink.”

Ted still didn’t have a drink. “I could give you a coca-cola, if you haven’t been to McDonalds.”

The Doctor was confused. “What do you mean, if I haven’t been to McDonalds?”

“New policy. Denny’s and McDonald’s are in fierce competition.” Ted said. “If you support one, you aren’t allowed in the other.”

This reminded the Doctor of something.

* * *

A man in a wheelchair sits in the shadows in the corner of the McDonald’s. He has been planning things for a while. “Ehehehehehehehehdhehe” He says, even if that isn’t exceedingly easy to pronounce.

* * *

“Danny, Roman, something’s going on here,” The Doctor said. “This is all eerily familiar. To what, I can’t say, but…”

“Doctor, I’ve just stepped on a landmine,” Danny said. The landmine beeped in response.

“I don’t care Danny jesus fuck I’m trying to SOLVE fiction Danny,,” The Doctor blurted. “Two opposing sides in a parking lot…. What could this be?”

Roman began dismantling the landmine.

“I feel like I’m missing something…” The Doctor blubbered. “It’s so difficult to take anything seriously anymore. That’s the problem with things that are too meta. They become impossible to like. Like myself. Right now. Fuck i’m doing it. Roman stop me being meta. Roman. Roman stop me being meta Roman.”

Two people in McDonald’s uniforms suddenly pinned them to the wall. They were carrying gas masks, rifles, and crossbows.

“They don't look like Denny’s. I wonder?” The leader of the two intoned, a little nervous despite himself. “There've been rumours recently that the Denny’s were developing robots,” he told the other. “Anyway, stick these fellows back behind the bins. I shall alert Command Headquarters with General Ronald.”

Soon enough, Ronald entered. Ronald, clearly a large and balding British man, trying to seem American at all costs, daubed with slight white makeup, leaned down to examine their new prisoners.

“Insolent CVS.” He stated, slapping The Doctor in the face. “Only CVS people can survive the wastes without committing to the holy McDonald or the wretched Denny’s.”

“There isn’t much food in CVS. The other CVS-ers we’ve discovered have been living off of scraps. Look at these three, they’re well-fed.” The leader grunted.

“Roman, Danny, help me come up with a witty repartee. I need to have a witty repartee to say right now.” The Doctor tittered.

“We will find their food source.” Ronald grunted. “Calories are valuable and mustn't be wasted. As a matter of fact, when we have all the information we need out of them, they are to be eaten, not shot or hanged. And that will be all. Return to your unit.”

* * *

They soon found themselves chained to the wall in a dirty McDonald’s bathroom. A bespectacled man in a grimace costume was examining what he had found in their pockets. “What is this? It is not of McDesign.”

“Sonic screwdriver.” The Doctor said. “Useful for detecting ion charged emissions.”

“You are not of this planet,” Grimace Man realized.

“It’s a fair cop,” Danny shrugged.

“I’ve heard the Hamburglar say that there is no intelligent life on any other planet.” Grimace Man said. “So either he is wrong, or you are lying. And he is never wrong about anything.”

* * *

In the dark recesses of the Kitchen, a child is being placed in the fryolator. It burns. The child screams. The fryolator closes.

The Hamburglar is sitting there. “Observe the test closely, my friend. This will be a moment that will live in history.” And he is right. The child exits the fryulator born anew.

“HALT! TURN RIGHT, HALT!” The Hamburgular commands as the Fry Kid obeys. It is mindless now, but for hate! Forged for a new war! The parking lot between Denny’s, CVS and McDonald’s shall now fall under the ultimate regieme’s control! All shall suffer! All shall die!! THIS POWER WILL SET ME UP ABOVE THE GODS!!! But he’s getting ahead of himself.

“The weaponry is perfect! Now we can begin!” The hamburglar intones as a jpg of Tom Baker’s face took up the entire screen.

Part One: Super Mario Bros 2 (Doki Doki Panic in Japan)

“THE FUCK WAS THAT.” Mario shrieks, traumatized. “WE WERE IN SOME GENESIS OF THE DENNY’S BULLSHIT.”

“OH GOD I’M TWO FUCKING PIXELS I’M EIGHTBIT DANNY,, I’M EIGHTBIT DANNY,” Peach says.

The world was about 256 × 240 pixels wide, at least, given the original resolution and depending on the size of the monitor. The sky was a lovely shade of #87CEEB. The ground was repetitive to save hardware space. And they were there. That was the only thing else they could necessarily be certain of.

“We’re being simplified, I think, down to our basic components.” Luigi Luigis. “The story of a video game is so simplistic that there is arguably no plot without player input. We are being toyed with, by some kind of weird thingy.”

“Is there even any point?” Mario asks. “...I mean, motivationally. Is this going to keep going on forever?”

“What do you mean?” Peach asks.

“...Is this hell?”

“I don’t understand.” Peach says. “Hell isn’t real.”

“How can you be sure, Doctor?” Mario says. “I mean, you see a new thing every day. How can you be sure this doesn’t just go on forever, getting more and more pointless? How do you know there’s not a hell? How do you know this isn’t it? We’ve gone from actual stories to this. How long before we’re playing Pong? How long before we’re not even a single pixel? Endless serials, endless stories, but no life, no life to any of it. I have feelings, and they - - they matter, they matter more to me than any of this. It’s wonderful for a while, and I wouldn’t change the first part, for anything, Doctor, but - I just gets disillusioned, wondering if the next day has any chance of being any different, of giving any hope at all. It’s just – it’s all so filled with diminishing returns. Mama Mia!”

“Aw Gee, Let’s a Go! Luigi very very sorry you feel that way, Mario!” Luigi said. “Let’s a save the princess!”

But because it was Mario 2, a story that even at it’s best, is just a dream, there was no princess to save. The three of them stood there, staring at eachother, wondering what to say next, trying to override the programming. The very very literal for once programming.

“I don’t want to die, but I don’t know, like, what to live for. I can’t keep doing this forever, Doctor, and neither can you.” Mario said.

“I think that’s why the Time Lords needed the luxury of change, Danny,” The Doctor said. “Even in stagnancy, even without interfering with other cultures, you can only see so much before it becomes dull. But then, every once in a while, you see a flower.”

The Doctor plucked an 8-bit flower from the ground, being extra sure it wasn’t a fireball. She handed the stray pixels to Mario. “You just need to remember a sense of wonder, you know? Not that I mean a pun, I just – you need to remember why you started it.”

A surge of electricity turns off the television set.

Part One: This Isn’t Working Oh God This Isn’t Working

He put his head in his hands. He had tried to make a triumphant return for the 60th. He had tried to make everything just right. Why was it like this, even in a weird meta-hole? He had thought that dominion over a fanseries, a fanfiction outside the canon, would be so much simpler than the real deal.

He grits his many teeth.

No. No, this is going to work. He’s going to do it. Pen to paper. Come on.

Part One: Excerpts From The Further Books of the War

META REPETITION LOOP [House Military: Culture/Technology]

The usage of vulgar weapons in the fight against The Enemy increases as we progress in meta-time. This relates to the concept of Eternal Return, the idea that events throughout the web of time are fixed via a looping repetition. In simpler terms, how the same thing happens to certain people more than once, with or without slight differentiation. These loops ordinarily occur naturally without causal manipulation via a timeship. Devised by the House Military, the Meta Repetition Loop (deployed remotely) eliminates the natural occurrence from the equation, allowing the user to draw the target into as many levels of illusion as the user dares divine; to make illusion real, real, illusion, to any level of precise specification. The House Military, despite devising it, deemed the weapon as, at the very least, incredibly scandalous and diametrically opposed to the House’s own methodology, and so, deleted the idea of the weapon ever being invented. But in The War, a beginning is not necessarily required for an existence, in any state of being. Recent Readings state that the weapon has since been used – but due to the fact that the weapon is retroactive, to what effect and to what extent, is entirely unknown.

OH COME ON!! OH GOD IS IT OVER YET . IT’S SO OBLIQUE! DANNY, DANNY, WE’RE IN FACTION PARADOX BOOK OF THE WAR. WE’RE IN BOOK OF THE WAR DANNY. WE’VE GONE THE OTHER WAY AROUND FROM MARIO 2 LAND DANNY. WE’RE IN COMPLICATED LAND DANNY. LAWRENCE MILES IS GONNA EAT OUR ASS DANNY

WHAT WHY CAN WE SPEAK

HAVEN’T YOU READ ALL 950 TRILLION BOOK OF THE WAR ENTRIES?? WE’RE SHIFTS DANNY WE’RE SHIFTS. SHIFTS! TEXTUAL ENTITIES DANNY. WE SHIFT ALL OVER THE PLACE DANNY. THE BOOK OF THE WAR IS SO COOL DANNY PLEASE READ IT

DOCTOR, ROMAN HERE. I FOR ONE DO NOT ENTIRELY APPRECIATE BEING LEFT OUT OF THESE CONVERSATIONS IN THEIR ENTIRETY. WHY DO YOU REPEAT DANNY’S NAME SO MUCH

IT’S IRONIC HUMOR ROMAN. I CAN’T HELP IT IF IT’S A TIC OF MY CHARACTER ROMAN. I CAN’T HELP IT IF I’M A FUNNY GIRL. LIKE BARBARA STREISAND

HOW IS IT HUMOR. EXPLAIN WHY IT’S FUNNY TO ME, DOCTOR.

PUT A SOCK IN IT ROMAN

GUYS BE QUIET ANOTHER ENTRY IS COMING UP

Psychosomata [Lesser Species: Technology (Earth C19)]

The term psychosomatic relates to the feeling often attributed to injuries that are not there, caused or exacerbated by a mental factor. Well documented, and treated throughout the medical industry of planet Earth, with medical professionals even supplying ‘placebos’, or pills prescribed for psychological benefit to the patient than for any physiological effect. Common knowledge to humanity, this is in fact one of the stranger oddities of the planet, even dwarfing the achievements of Faction agents Babbage and Byron. Psychosomatic effects and the wonderful power of the placebo are documented on no other planet across Ecto-Space, and are the last remaining vestiges of the sheer power of human belief, one of the original majicks of the universe not culled by Urizen during the Anchoring of The Thread. Similar to Block Transfer Computation, or the practices of the maniac known as Auteur, the universe as we know it can be and for that matter, constantly is being subconsciously rewritten by sheer thought and will. Those thinking they are suffering from a psychosomatic illness may indeed be suffering from their own thoughts, but the possibility remains they could be under the threat of psychosomatic weaponry by another party entirely. Or, more frighteningly, experiencing the echoes of a parallel universe due to the matters of the war. When crossing the void beyond the mind, the walls between possibilities become quite thin indeed.

OKAY SO THIS HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH US

YEAH THAT META REPETITION LOOP THING SOUNDED LIKE IT HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH US BUT THAT’S JUST A RANDOM NEAT CONCEPT THAT ONLY WORKS IF YOU DON’T THINK ABOUT IT TOO HARD

WELL THAT’S THE BOOK OF THE WAR IN A NUTSHELL, BUT LIKE, DON’T THINK ABOUT THAT TOO HARD EITHER. ROMAN, YOU’RE MAD AT ME IGNORING YOU, YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW TO GET OUT OF THIS THING?

The Cult of Celebrity Death [Faction Paradox: Group (Early War Era)]

A temporary fad in Faction Paradox recruitment strategy which misfired badly. The theory ran thus. Some individuals were-

SHUT UP SHUT UP

SHUT THE FUCK UP

FUCK WE’RE TRAPPED IN HERE WE CAN’T FUCKING GET OUT

GODDAMN IT

BITCH SHIT

ASS FUCK FUCK FUCK ASS SHIT

THIS IS LIKE GETTING STUCK READING ON FUCKING WIKIPEDIA

WHAT

OH DOES FUCKING WIKIPEDIA HAVE A BOOK OF THE WAR ENTRY

WHY IS THAT A HOTLINK

HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP

Part One: Peak Fiction

“Oh, thank god,” The Doctor muttered, now in another familiar body of theirs. Their blonde hair glistened in the dark of wherever they were. “I’m not sure if I could take much more of that.”

It was like some kind of black void with water at the bottom of it. Inky dark spread out around the three of them endlessly. They could see their reflections in the water. Yaz was some sort of woman with braided hair, some slightly dark skin, a brown patterned leather jacket and a red shirt. “Which one am I?” She asked. “Am I Danny or Roman?” She scratched at her face with her fingernails, looking for seams. “I don’t know anymore,” she said, her voice cracking. The Doctor didn’t know if she was the Doctor either. She could be the Doctor, Danny, or Roman. Those were the options. The two of them looked at each other with desperation.

“Who Am I???” Asked Paul McGann, as well.

The Doctor and Yaz knew that Paul McGann was the third one of them at the very least. The Doctor rubbed her head in her hands. “Fuck.” She hit herself.

“Stop that,” Yaz said, alertly. The Doctor couldn’t.

An ominous man with a cloak appeared. He was played by one of those Big Finish actors, like Beth Chalmers or Nicholas Briggs, Sophie Aldred, Lisa Bowerman, James Goss, one of those people who have been in the audio recording booth for the past twenty thousand years. One of those people who have given their lives to a franchise. One of those people that probably enjoys it, but wonders, deep down, what it would have been like if they had gone into film ten years ago? Perhaps that’s judging a bit much, but you know the kind of person, surely.

And here they are, in a black cloak, in a black void, in a black sea. It’s color coordinated, that’s for certain.

The Doctor, looking at the rippling thin water, examined her face yet again. It was Jodie Whittaker, she now realised, the 13th Doctor, but it wasn’t the 13th Doctor, it was the 28th Doctor.

Was… was this some kind of special?

What year is this?

Is this the 70th? The 80th?

How long has it been?

Nicholas Briggs or Beth Chalmers smiled. They unveiled a copy of Lungbarrow from their pocket. They stared at the Doctor ominously. It feels like a part of a story yet again, but The Doctor is missing the pieces. This will come someday, surely.

“You thought you knew your past, Doctor, but it was all a lie,” They snarled. “Everything you know is a lie. Soon, Doctor, you will know the real truth…”

And the Doctor feels something, whether it’s fear, or sorrow, or whatever it is, but they feel something. Oh yes, it’s doubt about if any of that is true.

They know themselves quite well. They know they’ll never know.

Bonnie Langford, who is there, screams.

Part One: A Storm is A Coming

It’s a dark and stormy night… oh, because it has to be. There’s nothing else without our dark and stormy nights, is there?

Martha Jones has been having bad dreams. The world looks black and white and grainy as she shambles and brambles out of the bedroom – midnight glass of warm milk to calm the nerves. As she’s getting up to get that glass of warm milk, she looks at her bed, where Tom Milligan or Mickey or Gladys that one time usually sleep next to her. None of them are with her now. She shivers.

The storm is going outside. You can hear the tiny little house creak in the wilderness, like it’s going to blow away. It won’t, mind you. There’s no tornado, or anything. It’s just a little thunderstorm. Sheets of water hit the window with force. Gales of wind blow. The house shakes, but remains stalwart.

She clicks on a tiny lamp and yawns as her eyes try to adjust to the searing light. It’s probably too much. She opens the fridge for the milk, which of course, she is out of. It would be convenient, wouldn’t it? She closes the fridge and shuts out the lamp. She looks at the rain falling upon the moor.

Rain often falls here, in Pembrokeshire, and Martha wonders if she’d taken the job for UNIT, going here, there, everywhere, if she precisely knew how much time she would be spending in Pembrokeshire, in this ancient, ancient house on the moor. It’s not leaking, but it feels like it is, surely. Must be psychosomatic.

Martha opens the door. She’s not sure why.

She steps out into the rain.

It’s not sleet or snow or ice, it is rain. And it is strong rain, it nearly pushes her down, but she stands back up, because Martha always stands back up. Martha has to stand back up. It’s what she’s been taught.

Did Francine teach her that? And more importantly, when did she start thinking of Mum as Francine?

She feels the rain hit her face. She’s soaked now. She doesn’t care. She walks further into the mire. Feels the treacley mud on her feet. It’s how the soldiers in the war got gangrene, you know. Mud takes no prisoners. Martha doesn’t either.

And there he is.

There’s the Doctor, in the rain. Of course. She almost resents it. No, she doesn’t almost resent it. She resents it. “I’m trying to live my life, Doctor.” She says. “You aren’t going to convince me to come back.”

“I would never,” he says. She still feels he is. Looking at her with those eyes like all he sees is her. As if. He never thought about her that much when she was really there.

If Martha is crying now, she doesn’t feel it. The rain is simply that strong, that thick.

“Martha, I - I’m sorry, I’m.. I’m so sorry, but none of this is real.” The Doctor says, looking all sideburns and mopey in the damp. “You’re trapped in a meta repetition anomaly, Martha, and it’s subducting you. You already can’t remember anything outside it, right?” His eyes are flaming with mania, like they were when he yelled at the Daleks or lectured Lazarus or chanted poorly aged spells from wizard books on a Shakespearean stage.

He’s wrong. She’s had a life. A life with him. A life with more than him, sure, he started it all, but she’s done so much work for UNIT, Torchwood, SIGNET, MI5, over the years. She’s one of the most decorated Doctors in the country. She’s pregnant. Going to be a single mother soon. She has a life, she has an… everything, and to dare imply that is fictional using the funny words he’d always use to solve problems, why, that’s – that’s reprehensible.

“I figured it out. It’s a subduction level of the land of fiction, Martha. A time war weapon that’s been misused” He says. “We’re trapped in the land of fiction. We aren’t ourselves right now. We’re beginning to forget everything of what we were.”

She screams at him. Guttural, no words, not even an aggh or an aaahh or an arrrrrgghh but just a noise that can’t be transcribed, a noise she didn’t know she could make. She wants to say get away from me. She wants to say please, please keep all of this, all of this stupid melodrama out of MY life. She wants to tell him that whatever it is, it must be him, because it surely isn’t her.

She’s lonely right now, but it’s been a happy life, a life of good choices. She doesn’t regret any of it – though honestly, she could probably have lived without the Weeping Angel stuff just fine. But still.

She’s not done making the scream noise at him. She feels too embarrassed to stop now. Damn it, She’s the one being melodramatic.

“Martha, you saved John Smith for me,” He says. “I need to save you now.”

And he extends that beautiful hand. Reaches out. And she’s definitely crying now.

She takes it, and they hug in the rain. And she’s standing there, and she’s standing there. She looks at the Doctor, and he tries to explain but she can’t hear it. She’s stepping out of herself, and she’s out of the wrong body, she’s a he stepping out of the her.

Danny looks at Martha’s body, now a formless shape. He had wanted so desperately to be anything but himself. He could almost live with the lie. He nearly had.

But it’s not over.

“Nein, nein. This will not be the ga-doing.” A strange voice says.

The Doctor looks to the sky with horror. They aren’t in the moor anymore. They’re in a white void. Not the Scherzo void, but the other familiar white void. Hadn’t he just said where they were?

We’re… we’re in the land of fiction?? Where’s he heard that?

And just like that, Roman is there, screaming. He’s Zoe Heriot, and he’s being crushed to death by a giant book.

Author’s Notes

They’ve started going. They’re all in the giant book, being crushed to death by weird robots in the Land of Fiction. That’s how it goes. That’s how it’s always been, hasn’t it? God, was this place a wreck. The Doctor is Jamie, and Roman is Zoe now, and Danny is trying to push against the crushing pages with all his might. Everything is trying to change.

The Ninth Doctor, Flip and Constance are in the Land of Fiction. The Fifteenth Doctor, Bill and Nyssa are in the Land of Fiction. The Twelfth Doctor, Ace and Leela are in the Land of Fiction. The First Doctor, Clara and Turlough are in the Land of Fiction. The Richard E Grant Doctor, Elyse, Brook and Albert are in the Land of Fiction. Danny, An Atomic Bomb and the Doctor but they’re a Banana are in the Land of Fiction. The Third Doctor, Batman and Sir Derek Jacobi are in the land of fiction. The Ruth Doctor, Lady Peinforte and Frobisher are in the land of fiction. The Eighty Third Doctor’s in the land of Fiction. The War Doctor’s in the Land of Fiction. So’s Barbie and Oppenheimer and Skibidi Toilet. It’s a hellish place. Maybe Doctor Who never left the Land of Fiction. Nobody knows. But they’re shuffling, a frame a second, flashing through every face that ever was, from Susan to Ruby to Time Travelling Richard Nixon, to a giant Koala laughing at the heat death of the entire universe, Ashildr sitting in her armchair, all in the Land of Fiction, all being crushed by a giant book. It’s stupid. It’s fanservice for fanservice’s sake, but they can’t stop GOING. Every face is gone too fast. They’re not anything.

They’re everyone.

Ting-a-ling, the bell is ringing in the shop. But no one is coming to Soho in 1924 anymore, no, not now that it’s not real. Now that the ge-raining is over in that really crazy one on ze moor, now he can write another.

Ze Toymaker, he is paging through ze notes on his shelf, ja?

Writing is the new form of play, the best play one can have, where the loser is you and the winner is the person you make read all of it. He has been doing his best at the ga-writing as of late. Ze fan fiction. Very naughty stuff, sometimes. This is why he is trying his best to write his own Fan Fiction, now that he is ze Master of the Land of Fiction now, yes? He will make his own fanfiction, with Blackjack and Hookers and the Hobbyhorsen.

Oh, we like to listen to ze muzak while we play at the writing. We like ze Chicago soundtrack, ve like Hazbin Hotel, and we are loving the Murray Gold, oh yes. He go [Insert We Are The Doctor music in a german accent here]

Vot a vonderful game. Yes, the fan fiction writing, it is remarkably high concept today, ja? Most full of pretension and the crazy concepts, indeed? It is so much more fun when it is not valid, not valid at all for ze TARDIS wiki and zer articles, they’ve got all the articles, they have ze penis article on ze TARDIS wiki and it is very detailed ja? It is a game to them too, I am sure.

Oh, this one is a CLASSIC. Ze Brain of Morbius. It has ze SECRET dokterrs. Though that is only sometimes canon, right? Only when we fans like it. It is okay! A secret is one of the funnest games. Clickity Clack, goes the typing, we are typing ze brain of morbius up.

Ze Doctor is going to be Morbius zis time for we’re feeling silly. We are in ze silly town right now. Roman can be ze Doctor and Danny he shall be the lovely Sarah. Oh, how we miss the Sarah. So many lovely stories with ze Sarah.

Ooh, we are feeling very controversial today, ja? Perhaps we canonize a fix with ze Sontarans? Or we go to ze Twin Dilemma, or ze Giggle. Ze Giggle is very close to mein kleinen hearts. It’s a magical time, Ze Giggle. Ze accents in it, they aren’t racist at all, ja?

Ve vill put zat one right in and ve vill watch ze Stooky Bill and ze Stooky babbies and go ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha HA ha ha ha.

Ze Dokterr, they think I am not liking them so much. But Ve think of ze Dokter all ze time here in ze Land of Fiction. Look at zem go!

Zey are a soap opera. Like the Archers.

Do you know about the Archers? It’s been doing the same thing since 1957. The same woman has been playing the main character since THEN. Can you imagine that?

Ze vorld, it keeps on ge-turning, vatever we think it vill do. There is no stopping the great game.

Ze game for ze money. Oh, it is not always for the money, zis is the best thing about the great game. People tell themselves it is for ze other things. But zey need ze money. Or they go cuckoo nutjob. Bash their brainsen out. Ha ha ha HA ha ha ha.

“Stop it.”

There she is! Ze Dokterr, here to come to ze lovely dovely Toymaker’s shop! How she has done that, Vi wonderr.

The Doctor is doing the standing on ze middle of ze room. She is vondering vy I am ge-doing all my silly games. Making ze-writing just so. She vill never understand.

“You’re trying to tell me my past is just a story you wrote. Engineered. I doubt it.” The Doctor says, all haughty and naughty, ja. “I don’t care if this is you all along, or if this is a Faction Paradox weapon loop, a shift, the land of fiction, or whatever it is.”

Perhaps it is all of zem in ze big boll. Ze boll is lovely. But no one be liking ze boll game at ze end of ze giggle.

“Stop it.” She says.

And there I am. I am starting to feel a bit ashamed. I look at her, and see Roman and Danny standing behind her, and the TARDIS too. Oh, I had tried to be so secure about the TARDIS.

The secret is that my writing has been so poor lately. I’ve been trying with the new ideas, but one gets such writers block, doesn’t one? And it is so easy to play with the continuity instead, start a new draft, knowing, knowing, that other idea, it’s never getting done? As if I’d tell the Doctor that though. Or perhaps.

I have so many ideas, that’s the problem. A time weapon that makes you a half-life. A hypnotist that replaces you with an alternative version of yourself from across the multiverse. An escape artist that can leave anywhere, that has perfected the art of leaving so well that they can make their way just about anywhere. A star made of feathers. An ocean made of memories. There are too many, and I just – I just don’t know what to do with all of them anymore. But what can I say, to the Doctor? Why, I’m just the twist villain. Nobody likes the fucking twist villain.

“Ze dokterr, oh, it is ze hello,” I try to say in the fucking German accent.

“Stop it.” She repeats. “Speak to me for real.”

What do I say? Oh, I’m living in a world of skits. I’m suffering from manic depression, Doctor, please send me to the naughty mental hospital where I will learn my ways. Oh, Please. I wave my hand, consign them to the pages. Converge it all. I warp Roman into a mouse, to play with later. Then –

Danny is Martha again, and then he’s Harry, and Marc and Liz and Calypso and Frobisher and River and Benny and Iris and Compassion and Gabby and Cindy and Seven and Eleven and Eight and Fifty Four and Alice and Amy and it’s so exhausting how do you bastards keep up

Oh, but it’s so hard to change the Doctor. I nearly manage it, every time, but they usually end up roughly the same. Even the edgy ones, like that VNA Seventh Doctor, the Valeyard, the War guy, it’s really quite something. It’s the same character, one of the greatest ones ever told. I mean, it’s no Hamlet or Hamilton but it’s certainly one of them.

The Doctor is the Doctor, the same one they were at the start. They narrow their billions of eyes at me. “You can talk to me,” They say, every one of them that is, was, ever will be, never will be. Even your fancast. “You can tell me what’s wrong. I will listen. I will do my best to understand and help. Or you can send me back to fiction. And I promise you, if you do that, then I will not be understanding when I return.”

A prickling of fear pitches up in my stomach. “How did you get here?” I ask, frightened.

Every Doctor smiles faintly, eerily. “Do we need to answer that question?”

I shiver. I materialize a swig of gin out of the aether for myself. Danny’s Doctor he travels with, the vaguely Judi Dench woman, steps out of the Doctors to ask for a sip before disappearing silently back into the shifting body mass.

I am silent too.

“Are you mad?” I ask, eventually.

They look at me.

“Don’t answer that!” I shriek.

More silence.

“And ….” Oh, I hesitate. “Would it be much to ask for constructive criticism?”

“The ideas weren’t the worst.” The Doctor says, eventually. “Except for the plagiarism.”

I note it for the record. “I’m just stuck. There’s just this opposite of writer’s block going in my head, and it’s too much, there’s too many ways you can do anything, ja?.”

“Perhaps you’re missing, in all of that meta stuff, the most important thing.”

“What?”

“An emotional hook.”

* * *

The Doctor is sitting in a hospital that’s not real. It’s fictional. It’s something that’s just for the moment. ______ is lying in the bed that’s not real. They’re wondering if they’re real, if anything’s real, and if they’re not just another character. Is this what the Doctor is joking about all the time? ______ had always thought that the Doctor was just a big fan of movies like Scream.

In this respect, ______ is entirely correct. The Doctor did really like Scream. Even the third one. “It’s a much more consistent franchise than other slashers,” she had said.

______ had previously wondered what made this Doctor so different that this regeneration liked slasher movies, swearing, alcohol and violence, when other Doctors hardly could bear to look at a hangnail. ______ supposed it could all be accounted for by the Toymaker’s influence, if one prescribed to that theory. Or perhaps, when trying to endlessly revamp the same personality, over and over and over, certain incarnations could be less subtle. The Master had said as much. When was it that this sort of thing started?

______ didn’t know. But given that The Doctor was The Doctor was The Doctor was The Doctor, there were at least options.

“I’m sorry I’m acting up.” The Doctor said. “And for acting like other people too. But you and Roman were also doing that, and we had no choice in the matter, so technically I don’t have to apologise. …But I feel like I want to.”

______ had previously wondered a lot of things about the Doctor, given that they were everyone. They remembered first stepping into the TARDIS, saying that it was smaller on the outside, like a kitchen, a really posh kitchen, stowing away, accepting a key, losing their mother on research rig 6, losing their father November 1987 outside a Churchyard. Looking into the eyes of Rory Williams for the first time. Being abandoned on the front steps of a Cathedral, kissing Cliff for the first time, and telling Edith Thompson not to kill herself, because she mattered, oh yes, she mattered. They remembered all of that in less than one second. The Doctor was still going.

“I started all of this, really, on a stupid whim. I thought, golly, why not do a barrel roll in the TARDIS, why not have one classic adventure, because I could tell that you wanted to leave. And I couldn’t deal. I can’t ever deal.” The Doctor said. “I think that’s the biggest thing all of me have in common. We want to help people and we can’t deal.”

Unwrapping a christmas present, running from a Dalek, being strangled by a plastic chair and dying, trying to Karate kick the Myrka and dying, being bit by a time spider and dying, suffocating over and over and over underneath cardiff but never dying, never knowing if I was right, finding that place of perfection, being brave, dying dying dying dying dying how can I remember that

Not knowing who I am

“Hey.” The Doctor said, placing a hand on ______’s knee. “It’s all right. I can wait, if you’d like. If me talking makes this harder, then I’ll stop. The thing is,” and now, the Doctor looked genuinely distressed, “If you don’t feel like you want to be here anymore, that’s fine. …You don’t have to be. You can be… you, anywhere, and I know that you do feel a bit dependent on me, but that’s because of the trauma that the Daleks caused. It’s – It’s so stupid that you think you’re less because you look like a celebrity who isn’t you. You think you can’t be you, but you can be you anywhere, be yourself, and if that’s without me, as much as I don’t like the sound of that, you don’t need to feel indebted.

You… you don’t have to stay.”

______ has already been talked out of oblivion so many times today, that somehow, this isn’t as hard. They open themselves up, and step out.

“I don’t know what I want, Doctor.” They said,

They’ve never seen the Doctor so upset. “That’s fine too.”

She hugged Danny.

* * *

It is all a dream is perhaps the worst way to end a story. It is not how this story ends, nein, it is not. But they are thinking that, at firstens, when the Doctor, Danny and Roman, they be waking up in the TARDIS as if nothing happen. They’ve had ze dream, but zey have matured in the dream, they have learned from each other in ze dream.

And I am there. I’m sitting in the TARDIS too. A cute little thing. One wishes they had something like it. Not just to travel in, but a little way to express every idea they’ve ever had. Every story they’ve ever had can fit in the box.

It is bigger on the inside, ja?

“I hope it was not too repetitive,” I say. “But you have helped me, She/Herr Doktor. of course, there will always be a probability of Moi out there who hates slimy Doktorr guts lots and lots and lots, but this particular version, I am nothing but thankful.”

“That’s all right then,” The Doctor says in a tone of voice that isn’t mocking at all. But I remember.

I step out of the TARDIS for my shop. Let the Doctor have their adventures, their TARDIS, their explosions, and their anniversaries — I have my shop full of little things. I have my pens. I have my toys.

And there they are, sitting in the TARDIS, as I go, I see them. I see a lot of things. I am playing I Spy. Or Where’s Waldo/Wally. But I haven’t found them yet.

There’s time.

But look at them, not sure what to say to each other now. Oh, I hope I have not disrupted things too much. A writer wants his characters to suffer, but generally find their happy ending, surely? And to not get bogged down in too many references. Unless that is the name of the game.

They are looking at each other sad but happy. Happy sad. Sappy. That is a different word, but oh, it fits. They may have another adventure together, and they may not, and they haven’t decided. Isn’t that the most fascinating thing?

I know what I’m going to do.

I know what I have to do, because I have the ideas. I’m sitting down with my parchment and quill, and I am deciding what to do about the writing. And I know what to do about the writing.

I hold the paper in my hands lovingly, place it on the rim of my desk, the indentation for where my papers go. I place the ink in it’s pot, and I raise the quill and even though it is difficult, even though there are many ideas brewing and I don’t know what to do and I’d rather start something new that I’d just as likely abandon, I write at the top of the page:

Part Two

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