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fic post: June 30th (hot fuzz and doctor who)
TITLE: June 30th
FANDOM: Hot Fuzz and Doctor Who
AUTHOR: annlarimer
WORD COUNT: a touch under 4000
RATING: PG fer cussin' and violence
WARNINGS: American spelling
SPOILERS: Minor riff on "The Fires of Pompeii"
SUMMARY: "I have a sword, and I'm really quite angry."
NOTES: Crit is love.
DISCLAIMER: I no has Fuzzburger. I no has Docburger! Is Rogue's Fuzzburger! Is Beeb's Docburger!
Bass thumping as loud as local ordinances permitted, Mrs Upholder's van pulled into its usual spot in the Market Square. She shut off the engine, cutting off the Utah Saints in mid-groove, and set the cardboard clock to indicate her arrival time.
Mrs Upholder felt, understandably, that this was completely pointless. She was the only person in Sandford with a disabled permit, and everyone knew her van by sight. But she'd once forgotten to set the clock, and Inspector Angel had noticed. She had feared the poor man might do himself some sort of injury, as he visibly wrestled with law and reason.
Mrs Upholder was nothing if not merciful. After that, she always set her clock.
***
Running face kick. The first legionary goes down. "Open the door!" Angel shouts.
The Doctor fiddles with the lock and key, but the door only rattles a bit. "I'm trying. You did something to it."
Grab the legionary's sword. Spin. Use it to parry the other guy's sword. "Open! The! Door!"
"Stop yelling! The lock's stuck."
The rest of them will catch up soon. They may or may not be a whole legion -- Nicholas can't remember how many a legion is -- but Nicholas is growing rather alarmed. "Jiggle it!"
"I am jiggling it!"
"Jiggle it more effectively!" Hit the second guy in the head with the hilt. Clong sound as it impacts with the helmet. "You said it was high fucking tech!" Whirl and kick him in the head. The first legionary has regained his feet, and kicks Nicholas in the chest. Nicholas falls back and catches himself against the door frame.
"Hah! Got it!" The door opens.
Both men try to squeeze through at once, are briefly wedged together, Stooges-style, then pop into the relative peace of the TARDIS interior.
"Shut it shut it shut it shut it!" Nicholas cries.
"Easy there, Dennis Waterman." The Doctor pulls the door shut with a gentle click.
A flight of arrows bounces off the door.
***
Danny Butterman waved at Mrs Upholder as he came out of the shop. Nicholas was not where he'd left him, but that wasn't unusual. Doubtless he'd been distracted by a shiny object, or a child missing its mother, and would turn up in a few minutes.
Danny sat on the edge of the fountain and opened his new Empire.
It had Bruce Willis on the cover. But then, it always did.
***
"Why would you even say that?" Nicholas stormed about the TARDIS control room, gesturing with the legionary's short sword. "Everything was fine until you came out with that!"
"It was just a bit of Latin." The Doctor leaned to one side to avoid a particularly emphatic bit of swording. "I asked how he liked being posted in Colonia Nervia Glevensium.
Nicholas glared at him. "No. You didn't."
"I don't know why it made him so angry."
"You asked," Nicholas said, with extremely patient rage, "how long his brother had been one of Caeser's submissive manwhores."
The Doctor blinked. "Did I?"
"Yes!"
"Oh. That seems wrong."
"Does it? Does it really?"
Someone pounded on the door.
"Doesn't sound like me at all. Maybe I should've said Glevensis."
"They're gonna bust in here."
"Naaaaaaaaaaaaah. Can't be done. Might be a dialect thing. Maybe Glevensium is some sort of rhyming slang..."
"It fucking opened for me!"
"Gosh, Nick, you do like your Anglo Saxon. And yes, it did. Bit of a puzzler, that. No idea. Unless..."
"Unless?"
"You're a policeman."
"Officer." The pounding became more of a loud battering. Possibly ramming was involved.
"WHAT?" The Doctor cupped a hand to his ear.
"OFFICER."
"RIGHT. AND THE SIGN ON THE DOOR SAYS, IN ESSENCE, 'SECRET COPPER CLUBHOUSE, C'MON IN AND SET A SPELL,' AND, WELL, SOMETIMES THE TARDIS HAS A MIND OF HER OWN. MAYBE SHE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE AMUSING." The Doctor began pushing buttons.
"AMUSING!"
"OR SHE'S GOT A --" The battering stopped. "-- GLITCH sorry, glitch somewhere and has come over all literal."
"Take me back to Sandford. Now."
"I told you. This is Sandford. It's just...earlier than you're used to."
"Look. I have a sword, and I'm really quite angry."
"Oh. It can go in the umbrella stand." The Doctor pulled a lever. The central column began its rise and fall, its grinding noise a match for the current sound playing inside Nicholas' head.
"Tea?" The Doctor offered. "There's no milk, I'm afraid."
Nicholas rubbed at his eyes. "Sure. Why not?"
***
Danny wasn't quite worried -- yet -- but apparently Nicholas, wherever he'd gone off to, had lost track of the time and needed finding.
He stuck his head in the pub door. "Oi! The Inspector in here?"
"Try the adult novelty shop!" said Andy Wainwright.
"The lingerie boutique!" said Andy Cartwright.
Danny replied with two fingers and a raspberry.
***
"Nearly there!" the Doctor said brightly.
Nicholas only glared at him. He'd heard this several times now.
"Oh, don't be like that. You didn't have to come in here, you know."
"Your vehicle was in a dedicated parking bay without displaying a blue badge or Disabled Person's Parking Disk. And the door opened on its own."
"Oh. Was it? Hang on." The Doctor pulled a small ID holder from his jacket pocket and flashed it at Nicholas. "This should take care of it."
Nicholas peeked at the card it contained. "'This certifies,'" he read, "'that Leon Turkmenian has completed the Clearwarter, Florida Public Library 1975 Children's Summer Reading Program.' Well done, Leon."
"Oh." The Doctor pretended to pull a different bit of ID from his pocket, but it was obviously the same one, ineptly palmed. "Try it now."
Nicholas looked again. "Rolf Harris Appreciation Society Member #503."
"Ew." The Doctor took the wallet back, slapped it on the control panel a couple of times, and showed it to Nicholas again.
"Longleat Junior Lion Tamer," Nicholas read.
"Really?"
Nicholas favored him with a sort of angry fish expression.
The Doctor read it himself this time. "'Tim Horton's Quickpay TimCard.' Ooo, those're good. All right. Well. This is no help." He tossed it into the umbrella stand. "Never mind. Anyway, we're nearly there."
***
Nicholas, unsurprisingly, was not in the video shop. But a nice secondhand Danish copy of Miami Supercops was, so it wasn't a total waste of Danny's time.
***
They were traveling again. For the Doctor, this was the ideal state, his natural environment. For Nicholas, however, enough was very nearly enough. His seemingly endless supply of anger had given way to an eerie quiet.
It wasn't, the Doctor thought, fear of the unknown. It wasn't an inability to cope with adventure. He'd acquitted himself perfectly well with the Romans, the Wessex Indricotherium, and now the transvestite space dogs. The Doctor could only compare it to the few times he'd seen his TARDIS stolen or lost (which, theoretically, wasn't possible, but there you were).
He really had to get the poor man home.
And he really wished he knew why he couldn't seem to manage that. Even the TARDIS seemed puzzled.
"Why do the robots and the Dalmatians not get along?" Nicholas asked.
Ah. Curiosity. Always good. "They're not really Dalmatians. It's just one of those evolutionary coincidences that you get in the vastness of space and time. And I don't really know. The eternal conflict between dog and machine, I suppose."
"Of course. That, ah, that wasn't Sandford at all, this time, was it?"
"Not as such, no."
"With the third moon and all..."
"Yeah. Mind you, it was June the thirtieth. Just the wrong bit of the galaxy. Well, a galaxy..."
The control room was quiet. Well, for the control room. The Doctor found he rather missed being shouted at.
After a bit, Nicholas said, "Thank you for the shirt."
"Think nothing of it. You looked unhappy with all the...fluids. And the shredding"
Nicholas nodded. He was already heavily grass-stained, but at least his new shirt still had sleeves. And a front.
"Sleeves are a bit long," the Doctor said.
"Well, I didn't want to touch any of the tailored stuff, since I seem to be getting beat up and doused a lot. Also, and I'm not being judgmental, most of the clothing seems to be for women, and I don't think I could carry it off."
The Doctor looked him up and down. "No. Well...no. Though you're certainly welcome to try."
Nicholas shook his head. "I can't manage the shoes."
He was fading out again. He'd refused the offer of a bed, perhaps, the Doctor thought, fearing that would only make his current situation more permanent.
Well, cheering him up wasn't working. Perhaps another approach. "You know, most of the people who end up in here are more impressed with the whole access to all space and time and there's much more to life than they ever imagined thing."
Angel glared at him.
"Big universe? Teeming with life? Miracles and wonders? No?"
"I already knew all of that. And I have plenty of miracles and wonders already, thank you."
"I'm just saying."
"I like the life I have just fine. While it is, admittedly, entirely lacking in vast armies of robots, or fleets of warships piloted by Dalmatians in frocks, it does have -- you know, none of your damned business what it has."
Atta boy. "Far be it from me to interfere."
"I have spent approximately two days in your company, and I think it fair to say, without hesitation or qualification, that all you do is fucking interfere!"
"I do not! Okay, yes, I do. A lot. But I'm really good at it. And I do other things."
"Fantastic. Take me home and you can get back to doing them."
"Working on it, son. Working on it."
But I shouldn't have to work on it, he thought. Something is wrong, somewhere. And I don't think it's the TARDIS.
***
The TARDIS shuddered. By now Nicholas had no clue whether this was a normal part of its generally wheezy disposition -- he noted that the Doctor kept a large rubber whackin' mallet as part of his console equipment -- or a sign that something was wrong, somewhere. Maybe, with the poor TARDIS, these were not mutually exclusive conditions.
"I don't understand," said the Doctor. "It's like there's something in the way when I try to land."
After a long moment, Nicholas said, "How do the Dalmatians fly spaceships without thumbs?"
"The real question," the Doctor replied, grinning, "is how do they do up the zips on their frocks?"
***
D'oh! Phone. Of course. Danny hit 2 on his speed dial. (1 was still his dad. He couldn't quite face the finality of erasing it.)
***
Nicholas' mobile chirruped. He answered automatically.
"Nicholas? Where're you a--"
"Danny!" Nicholas' grin lit up his whole face.
The Doctor looked up from the console, horrified. "No! The frequency will--"
The ship fell over, if a vehicle technically outside space and time can be said to fall over, and Nicholas hit his head on one of the brass finials at the end of the entrance railing.
"Oh dear," said the Doctor. "Um. Oops? Well, at least you'll get a bit of rest."
***
"Nicholas?"
OUT OF AREA, said the little screen.
"Fuckin' Cotswolds," Danny muttered, and put his mobile back in his pocket.
***
"Righty-ho," the Doctor announced. "Once again...Welcome to June the thirtieth!"
Nicholas, now wearing a large plaster on his forehead, bounded out the door.
After a moment, he bounded in again, slammed the door shut, and leaned against it.
"Well?" said the Doctor.
"Bit saurian," Nicholas said.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"How saurian?"
"Rather a lot, really."
"Ooo! Let's have a shufti." The Doctor opened the door and peered out.
Something outside made a noise like an articulated lorry plunging over an embankment.
"Oh, hey--" the Doctor was yanked out the door. "Whoah! No! Bad thingie! Bad!"
"Oh, damn it all to fucking heck anyway." Nicholas grabbed his sword, and an umbrella, and went out after him.
***
Danny wandered around the square, at a bit of a loss.
He'd actually summoned the courage to look in the lingerie shop. It had been interesting, in a terrifying sort of way, and even had angels, in the form of winged, underfed mannequins. But not the one he was looking for.
Nicholas had to be somewhere.
Sandford had no adult novelty shop, barring the souvenir counter at Flappers, so that was out.
Just as well, really. There were places in this world that no Butterman dared venture.
***
Nicholas was growing used to the routine. Wheeze grind wheeze grind Okay Nick we're here!
He was starting to hate the TARDIS door. What would it be this time? Pirates? Giants? Balefires? Giant rats?
He peeked out.
"Well?" the Doctor asked.
"It's...the market square," Nicholas said cautiously. Inside his head, his brain said, Yayayayayayay! Yay! Oh, yay!
Easy, he told his brain.
He stepped out onto the pavement, and was not instantly pierced with arrows. Nor did fire rain from the sky.
The Doctor followed him, doing his hands-in-the-pockets thing. "Now this is nice!"
It was a lovely morning, with birds, sun, and fluffy clouds shaped like bunnies and kittens. Shop doors and windows opened. People good-morning each other, and Nicholas and the Doctor.
The Doctor looked up at the sky. "Miracles and wonders indeed."
"See?" Nicholas said.
"I do."
The Doctor spotted the shop. "Oh! I should get milk while I'm here. Have a look round, make sure it's not two weeks ago so you don't have to hide from yourself. Nobody ever enjoys that."
"How do I do that?"
"Dunno. Newspaper? Radio? Be creative."
"Okay." Nicholas pondered. He was running very low on brain. Newspaper, newspaper...newsagent's! He started to follow after the Doctor, but collided with a figure just coming out the door.
They sorry'd each other. Then the other person said, "Oh, fucking Christ, it's you!" Not the standard Sandford greeting.
Nicholas looked at him. Big fella. Oldish. Brilliant white hair and rather lovely dark eyes. Wait. Lovely? Oh my God. "Danny?"
They stared at each other for a moment. Danny was wearing an unusually sharp suit, and looked...taller? No. More Danny-like? Years and years of being Danny, making him as Danny-ish as humanly possible. Now with 500% more Danny.
Nicholas thought his heart might stop. Miracles and wonders. Then, just for a moment, he had a terrible notion. What if he'd disappeared one day, 30 or 40 years earlier, and hadn't been seen since?
This idea was instantly dispelled when Danny tried to push him back toward the TARDIS. "Shit. Go away!"
"Go away?" said Nicholas.
"You can't be here!" He was carrying a copy of something called Retro Kino, with a photo of Bruce Willis on the cover. Nicholas could have sworn that the type and photo moved, but surely it was just a trick of the light.
"What'd I do? Why?"
"Because you're already here!"
"Hey, Danny, I--" a thin, shiny-headed man with a frankly sinister goatee came out of the newsagent's.
Oh, fudge, thought Nicholas.
"Now look what you've done," Danny told Nicholas.
The two Angels stared at one another.
"That's never me," Nicholas said.
The other Angel started laughing.
"You get out of here," Danny told him. "You're not funny."
The other Angel grinned. Do I look that mad when I grin? Nicholas thought. "Oh, c'mon, don't you want to--"
"No," said Danny firmly. He was shoving Angel back into the shop. "We don't."
"Tell him about the invasion and enslavement of humanity!" The other Angel said.
"What?" said Nicholas.
"And the glorious returning of Our Lord Quetzalcoatl in 2012!"
"What?" said Nicholas.
"Get out of here!" Danny told the other Angel, shutting the shop door. "Stay!" He turned back to Nicholas. "He's just messing with you."
***
Danny helped Mrs Upholder get her chair into the van. She didn't actually need help, but it made him insanely happy if she let him work the lift and the ramp, so she always indulged him. He waved as she drove out of Market Square, bass rattling the windows. West Country represent, yo.
***
Still laughing, Angel turned aside to let the stranger out of the shop.
"Pardon me."
Angel and the Doctor stared at one another for a very long moment. It was one of those staring sorts of mornings.
The Doctor dropped his bottle of milk.
***
Nicholas and Danny stared at one another -- see what I mean? -- without speaking. Some situations are just inherently awkward.
Finally, Nicholas said, "Danny?"
"Yeah?"
"Where's his hair?"
"Ah..."
***
"...and the door won't open," the Doctor was explaining.
They were helping Mrs. Fisher (Tony's daughter-in-law, mother of Annie who'd just gone off to college) clean up the spilled milk and broken glass.
"No. It won't," said Chief Inspector Angel (ret). "He has to open it."
"Oh. Ta. Wait. What? What?"
"Took me years to figure it out. But the whole time I was with you, the door never opened until I touched it. Think about it. It would only open for him. Me."
"You're right. Weird. Why?"
"No idea. It's your ship."
They bagged the last of the glass, and stepped outside so Mrs Fisher could hoover the floor.
Which was a mistake, since Nicholas and Danny were still there.
"Oops," said the Doctor.
"Having fun?" Nicholas asked him drily. "I sure am."
"Sorry," said Danny. "Sometimes he gets cross this time of day."
"I do not!" both Angels chorused.
"Stop! You can't meet yourself. It'll cause a temporal paradox, and..."
The two Angels stared at him. They could really, really stare. It was unnerving.
"Yeah, all right, never mind."
Nicholas grabbed the Doctor's arm and led him back towards the TARDIS. "Come on. This is completely freaking me out."
"I've figured it out," the Doctor told him brightly. "You have to open the door."
"No fooling?" said Nicholas. And he did. They went in.
Danny and Angel waved at the disappearing box.
"God help you, you poor bastard," said Angel through clenched teeth.
"Run while you still can," said Danny.
***
There was an awful noise, like a thick guitar string being used as a saw. It made Danny shiver.
"Danny? Danny! Oh, thank God!"
Danny turned around. There was a large blue crate where Mrs. Upholder's van had been. The crate had a door in it. The door had Nicholas Angel in it. Nicholas shot out the door, threw his arms round Danny, and squeezed.
"Here now. What's this?" Danny patted him. Nicholas rarely did more in public than take Danny's arm, though this was due more to Nicholas' massive, naturally ingrown arsestick than self-consciousness. "Where'd you go off to? And what the fuck do you smell of?" Somehow, in the last half-hour, Nicholas had acquired a considerable amount of stubble, a head plaster, and an appearance of having been shoved into a hedge and repeatedly trodden on. He was also wearing a grass-stained Millwall jersey. Millwall. Jesus.
"Robot oil," Nicholas said into Danny's chest.
"Oh. What? I'm sorry, that sounded like 'robot oil.'"
Nicholas looked up. "And dinosaur. And some kind of big shaggy beaver rhino thing that I'm gonna have to look up. And Romans. And those transvestite dogs, I still don't know what the hell that was about...but mainly robot oil."
Danny blinked. "Heh. Shaggy beaver."
"Is this right, then?" The Doctor was leaning against the doorway.
Nicholas took hold of Danny's wrist to check his watch. It had the date and a little animated phases of the moon thing. Last day of June. "Yes."
"Oh. Hey." Danny gave the Doctor a small nod and wave that were utterly lacking in enthusiasm.
The Doctor grinned. "That's never Danny! Good heavens, you've grown. Wait. That was you just now!"
"What?"
"Here! But then!"
Nicholas looked at Danny. "Oh, God, don't tell me you know him."
"Yeah. Glasto, '89. Him and this little bitty blonde girl were there. Woke up in the boot of Andy's car with a massive headache and a tattoo."
"Prydonian seal," the Doctor said helpfully.
"Completely missed The Wonder Stuff. I've since decided that I was stoned off my nut and don't remember very much about it."
"I think I'm going to decide that, too," said Nicholas. Nobody in a just world should have to miss The Wonder Stuff.
***
"That was so childish," Mayor Butterman chided.
"Did you see his face?" said Chief Inspector Angel (Ret.). "He's gonna worry about it for years."
"I hope it was worth it. It's gonna take you ages to grow that back."
"Hey, I remember it happening. I had to do it, for sake of the space-time continuum. Besides, it gets hot in the summer." He rubbed his newly-shaved scalp. It made a squeaky noise inside his head. "And I saw the way he looked at you. Cheeky fucker best step off."
"Cheeky fucker is you." Mayor Butterman replied. He went a bit pink. "Childish."
They were sitting on the edge of the fountain. Angel looked at the spot the TARDIS had occupied and shook his head, amused. "Tell me we were never that young."
Danny laughed. "I know! When did the world start bein' run by children?"
Angel looked...devilish. "Not until they shove us kicking and screaming into our caskets, and nail down the lids."
***
The TARDIS vanished away out of the market square, not at all softly or suddenly.
"Thank God that's over with."
"Yeah." Danny had an arm round Nicholas' shoulder. "You want to go home?"
"Yes. Very much."
"C'mon, then -- oh, fuck it all in the ear!" The steel comb in mortal combat with a screen door noise started up again, and the police box reappeared. Danny tightened his hold on Nicholas.
The door opened and the Doctor popped out. "Hi!" he chirruped. "Sorry. 'Scuse me." He disappeared into the shop briefly, then came out toting a litre of milk. He grinned at Nicholas and Danny. "Forget my own head next."
They only stared.
He disappeared into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS, in turn, disappeared.
"I fuckin' hate that noise. I still have nightmares about it."
Nicholas nodded.
"Let's go before he changes his mind again," said Danny.
"God, yes."
"And you can get rid of that fucking awful shirt. Millwall?"
"It's a long story."
They made for Danny's car.
"Lucky Mrs Upholder didn't see him parking there. She'd kick his arse."
"She could take him." Nicholas took his usual place in the shotgun seat. "He's wispy."
Then he said, "That little shitweasel never paid his parking fine!"
Thanks to:
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
viedma - 'nicholas, you can't meet yourself, you'll cause a paradox that'll--' 'ah, stuff it, weaselboy.'
FANDOM: Hot Fuzz and Doctor Who
AUTHOR: annlarimer
WORD COUNT: a touch under 4000
RATING: PG fer cussin' and violence
WARNINGS: American spelling
SPOILERS: Minor riff on "The Fires of Pompeii"
SUMMARY: "I have a sword, and I'm really quite angry."
NOTES: Crit is love.
DISCLAIMER: I no has Fuzzburger. I no has Docburger! Is Rogue's Fuzzburger! Is Beeb's Docburger!
Bass thumping as loud as local ordinances permitted, Mrs Upholder's van pulled into its usual spot in the Market Square. She shut off the engine, cutting off the Utah Saints in mid-groove, and set the cardboard clock to indicate her arrival time.
Mrs Upholder felt, understandably, that this was completely pointless. She was the only person in Sandford with a disabled permit, and everyone knew her van by sight. But she'd once forgotten to set the clock, and Inspector Angel had noticed. She had feared the poor man might do himself some sort of injury, as he visibly wrestled with law and reason.
Mrs Upholder was nothing if not merciful. After that, she always set her clock.
***
Running face kick. The first legionary goes down. "Open the door!" Angel shouts.
The Doctor fiddles with the lock and key, but the door only rattles a bit. "I'm trying. You did something to it."
Grab the legionary's sword. Spin. Use it to parry the other guy's sword. "Open! The! Door!"
"Stop yelling! The lock's stuck."
The rest of them will catch up soon. They may or may not be a whole legion -- Nicholas can't remember how many a legion is -- but Nicholas is growing rather alarmed. "Jiggle it!"
"I am jiggling it!"
"Jiggle it more effectively!" Hit the second guy in the head with the hilt. Clong sound as it impacts with the helmet. "You said it was high fucking tech!" Whirl and kick him in the head. The first legionary has regained his feet, and kicks Nicholas in the chest. Nicholas falls back and catches himself against the door frame.
"Hah! Got it!" The door opens.
Both men try to squeeze through at once, are briefly wedged together, Stooges-style, then pop into the relative peace of the TARDIS interior.
"Shut it shut it shut it shut it!" Nicholas cries.
"Easy there, Dennis Waterman." The Doctor pulls the door shut with a gentle click.
A flight of arrows bounces off the door.
***
Danny Butterman waved at Mrs Upholder as he came out of the shop. Nicholas was not where he'd left him, but that wasn't unusual. Doubtless he'd been distracted by a shiny object, or a child missing its mother, and would turn up in a few minutes.
Danny sat on the edge of the fountain and opened his new Empire.
It had Bruce Willis on the cover. But then, it always did.
***
"Why would you even say that?" Nicholas stormed about the TARDIS control room, gesturing with the legionary's short sword. "Everything was fine until you came out with that!"
"It was just a bit of Latin." The Doctor leaned to one side to avoid a particularly emphatic bit of swording. "I asked how he liked being posted in Colonia Nervia Glevensium.
Nicholas glared at him. "No. You didn't."
"I don't know why it made him so angry."
"You asked," Nicholas said, with extremely patient rage, "how long his brother had been one of Caeser's submissive manwhores."
The Doctor blinked. "Did I?"
"Yes!"
"Oh. That seems wrong."
"Does it? Does it really?"
Someone pounded on the door.
"Doesn't sound like me at all. Maybe I should've said Glevensis."
"They're gonna bust in here."
"Naaaaaaaaaaaaah. Can't be done. Might be a dialect thing. Maybe Glevensium is some sort of rhyming slang..."
"It fucking opened for me!"
"Gosh, Nick, you do like your Anglo Saxon. And yes, it did. Bit of a puzzler, that. No idea. Unless..."
"Unless?"
"You're a policeman."
"Officer." The pounding became more of a loud battering. Possibly ramming was involved.
"WHAT?" The Doctor cupped a hand to his ear.
"OFFICER."
"RIGHT. AND THE SIGN ON THE DOOR SAYS, IN ESSENCE, 'SECRET COPPER CLUBHOUSE, C'MON IN AND SET A SPELL,' AND, WELL, SOMETIMES THE TARDIS HAS A MIND OF HER OWN. MAYBE SHE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE AMUSING." The Doctor began pushing buttons.
"AMUSING!"
"OR SHE'S GOT A --" The battering stopped. "-- GLITCH sorry, glitch somewhere and has come over all literal."
"Take me back to Sandford. Now."
"I told you. This is Sandford. It's just...earlier than you're used to."
"Look. I have a sword, and I'm really quite angry."
"Oh. It can go in the umbrella stand." The Doctor pulled a lever. The central column began its rise and fall, its grinding noise a match for the current sound playing inside Nicholas' head.
"Tea?" The Doctor offered. "There's no milk, I'm afraid."
Nicholas rubbed at his eyes. "Sure. Why not?"
***
Danny wasn't quite worried -- yet -- but apparently Nicholas, wherever he'd gone off to, had lost track of the time and needed finding.
He stuck his head in the pub door. "Oi! The Inspector in here?"
"Try the adult novelty shop!" said Andy Wainwright.
"The lingerie boutique!" said Andy Cartwright.
Danny replied with two fingers and a raspberry.
***
"Nearly there!" the Doctor said brightly.
Nicholas only glared at him. He'd heard this several times now.
"Oh, don't be like that. You didn't have to come in here, you know."
"Your vehicle was in a dedicated parking bay without displaying a blue badge or Disabled Person's Parking Disk. And the door opened on its own."
"Oh. Was it? Hang on." The Doctor pulled a small ID holder from his jacket pocket and flashed it at Nicholas. "This should take care of it."
Nicholas peeked at the card it contained. "'This certifies,'" he read, "'that Leon Turkmenian has completed the Clearwarter, Florida Public Library 1975 Children's Summer Reading Program.' Well done, Leon."
"Oh." The Doctor pretended to pull a different bit of ID from his pocket, but it was obviously the same one, ineptly palmed. "Try it now."
Nicholas looked again. "Rolf Harris Appreciation Society Member #503."
"Ew." The Doctor took the wallet back, slapped it on the control panel a couple of times, and showed it to Nicholas again.
"Longleat Junior Lion Tamer," Nicholas read.
"Really?"
Nicholas favored him with a sort of angry fish expression.
The Doctor read it himself this time. "'Tim Horton's Quickpay TimCard.' Ooo, those're good. All right. Well. This is no help." He tossed it into the umbrella stand. "Never mind. Anyway, we're nearly there."
***
Nicholas, unsurprisingly, was not in the video shop. But a nice secondhand Danish copy of Miami Supercops was, so it wasn't a total waste of Danny's time.
***
They were traveling again. For the Doctor, this was the ideal state, his natural environment. For Nicholas, however, enough was very nearly enough. His seemingly endless supply of anger had given way to an eerie quiet.
It wasn't, the Doctor thought, fear of the unknown. It wasn't an inability to cope with adventure. He'd acquitted himself perfectly well with the Romans, the Wessex Indricotherium, and now the transvestite space dogs. The Doctor could only compare it to the few times he'd seen his TARDIS stolen or lost (which, theoretically, wasn't possible, but there you were).
He really had to get the poor man home.
And he really wished he knew why he couldn't seem to manage that. Even the TARDIS seemed puzzled.
"Why do the robots and the Dalmatians not get along?" Nicholas asked.
Ah. Curiosity. Always good. "They're not really Dalmatians. It's just one of those evolutionary coincidences that you get in the vastness of space and time. And I don't really know. The eternal conflict between dog and machine, I suppose."
"Of course. That, ah, that wasn't Sandford at all, this time, was it?"
"Not as such, no."
"With the third moon and all..."
"Yeah. Mind you, it was June the thirtieth. Just the wrong bit of the galaxy. Well, a galaxy..."
The control room was quiet. Well, for the control room. The Doctor found he rather missed being shouted at.
After a bit, Nicholas said, "Thank you for the shirt."
"Think nothing of it. You looked unhappy with all the...fluids. And the shredding"
Nicholas nodded. He was already heavily grass-stained, but at least his new shirt still had sleeves. And a front.
"Sleeves are a bit long," the Doctor said.
"Well, I didn't want to touch any of the tailored stuff, since I seem to be getting beat up and doused a lot. Also, and I'm not being judgmental, most of the clothing seems to be for women, and I don't think I could carry it off."
The Doctor looked him up and down. "No. Well...no. Though you're certainly welcome to try."
Nicholas shook his head. "I can't manage the shoes."
He was fading out again. He'd refused the offer of a bed, perhaps, the Doctor thought, fearing that would only make his current situation more permanent.
Well, cheering him up wasn't working. Perhaps another approach. "You know, most of the people who end up in here are more impressed with the whole access to all space and time and there's much more to life than they ever imagined thing."
Angel glared at him.
"Big universe? Teeming with life? Miracles and wonders? No?"
"I already knew all of that. And I have plenty of miracles and wonders already, thank you."
"I'm just saying."
"I like the life I have just fine. While it is, admittedly, entirely lacking in vast armies of robots, or fleets of warships piloted by Dalmatians in frocks, it does have -- you know, none of your damned business what it has."
Atta boy. "Far be it from me to interfere."
"I have spent approximately two days in your company, and I think it fair to say, without hesitation or qualification, that all you do is fucking interfere!"
"I do not! Okay, yes, I do. A lot. But I'm really good at it. And I do other things."
"Fantastic. Take me home and you can get back to doing them."
"Working on it, son. Working on it."
But I shouldn't have to work on it, he thought. Something is wrong, somewhere. And I don't think it's the TARDIS.
***
The TARDIS shuddered. By now Nicholas had no clue whether this was a normal part of its generally wheezy disposition -- he noted that the Doctor kept a large rubber whackin' mallet as part of his console equipment -- or a sign that something was wrong, somewhere. Maybe, with the poor TARDIS, these were not mutually exclusive conditions.
"I don't understand," said the Doctor. "It's like there's something in the way when I try to land."
After a long moment, Nicholas said, "How do the Dalmatians fly spaceships without thumbs?"
"The real question," the Doctor replied, grinning, "is how do they do up the zips on their frocks?"
***
D'oh! Phone. Of course. Danny hit 2 on his speed dial. (1 was still his dad. He couldn't quite face the finality of erasing it.)
***
Nicholas' mobile chirruped. He answered automatically.
"Nicholas? Where're you a--"
"Danny!" Nicholas' grin lit up his whole face.
The Doctor looked up from the console, horrified. "No! The frequency will--"
The ship fell over, if a vehicle technically outside space and time can be said to fall over, and Nicholas hit his head on one of the brass finials at the end of the entrance railing.
"Oh dear," said the Doctor. "Um. Oops? Well, at least you'll get a bit of rest."
***
"Nicholas?"
OUT OF AREA, said the little screen.
"Fuckin' Cotswolds," Danny muttered, and put his mobile back in his pocket.
***
"Righty-ho," the Doctor announced. "Once again...Welcome to June the thirtieth!"
Nicholas, now wearing a large plaster on his forehead, bounded out the door.
After a moment, he bounded in again, slammed the door shut, and leaned against it.
"Well?" said the Doctor.
"Bit saurian," Nicholas said.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"How saurian?"
"Rather a lot, really."
"Ooo! Let's have a shufti." The Doctor opened the door and peered out.
Something outside made a noise like an articulated lorry plunging over an embankment.
"Oh, hey--" the Doctor was yanked out the door. "Whoah! No! Bad thingie! Bad!"
"Oh, damn it all to fucking heck anyway." Nicholas grabbed his sword, and an umbrella, and went out after him.
***
Danny wandered around the square, at a bit of a loss.
He'd actually summoned the courage to look in the lingerie shop. It had been interesting, in a terrifying sort of way, and even had angels, in the form of winged, underfed mannequins. But not the one he was looking for.
Nicholas had to be somewhere.
Sandford had no adult novelty shop, barring the souvenir counter at Flappers, so that was out.
Just as well, really. There were places in this world that no Butterman dared venture.
***
Nicholas was growing used to the routine. Wheeze grind wheeze grind Okay Nick we're here!
He was starting to hate the TARDIS door. What would it be this time? Pirates? Giants? Balefires? Giant rats?
He peeked out.
"Well?" the Doctor asked.
"It's...the market square," Nicholas said cautiously. Inside his head, his brain said, Yayayayayayay! Yay! Oh, yay!
Easy, he told his brain.
He stepped out onto the pavement, and was not instantly pierced with arrows. Nor did fire rain from the sky.
The Doctor followed him, doing his hands-in-the-pockets thing. "Now this is nice!"
It was a lovely morning, with birds, sun, and fluffy clouds shaped like bunnies and kittens. Shop doors and windows opened. People good-morning each other, and Nicholas and the Doctor.
The Doctor looked up at the sky. "Miracles and wonders indeed."
"See?" Nicholas said.
"I do."
The Doctor spotted the shop. "Oh! I should get milk while I'm here. Have a look round, make sure it's not two weeks ago so you don't have to hide from yourself. Nobody ever enjoys that."
"How do I do that?"
"Dunno. Newspaper? Radio? Be creative."
"Okay." Nicholas pondered. He was running very low on brain. Newspaper, newspaper...newsagent's! He started to follow after the Doctor, but collided with a figure just coming out the door.
They sorry'd each other. Then the other person said, "Oh, fucking Christ, it's you!" Not the standard Sandford greeting.
Nicholas looked at him. Big fella. Oldish. Brilliant white hair and rather lovely dark eyes. Wait. Lovely? Oh my God. "Danny?"
They stared at each other for a moment. Danny was wearing an unusually sharp suit, and looked...taller? No. More Danny-like? Years and years of being Danny, making him as Danny-ish as humanly possible. Now with 500% more Danny.
Nicholas thought his heart might stop. Miracles and wonders. Then, just for a moment, he had a terrible notion. What if he'd disappeared one day, 30 or 40 years earlier, and hadn't been seen since?
This idea was instantly dispelled when Danny tried to push him back toward the TARDIS. "Shit. Go away!"
"Go away?" said Nicholas.
"You can't be here!" He was carrying a copy of something called Retro Kino, with a photo of Bruce Willis on the cover. Nicholas could have sworn that the type and photo moved, but surely it was just a trick of the light.
"What'd I do? Why?"
"Because you're already here!"
"Hey, Danny, I--" a thin, shiny-headed man with a frankly sinister goatee came out of the newsagent's.
Oh, fudge, thought Nicholas.
"Now look what you've done," Danny told Nicholas.
The two Angels stared at one another.
"That's never me," Nicholas said.
The other Angel started laughing.
"You get out of here," Danny told him. "You're not funny."
The other Angel grinned. Do I look that mad when I grin? Nicholas thought. "Oh, c'mon, don't you want to--"
"No," said Danny firmly. He was shoving Angel back into the shop. "We don't."
"Tell him about the invasion and enslavement of humanity!" The other Angel said.
"What?" said Nicholas.
"And the glorious returning of Our Lord Quetzalcoatl in 2012!"
"What?" said Nicholas.
"Get out of here!" Danny told the other Angel, shutting the shop door. "Stay!" He turned back to Nicholas. "He's just messing with you."
***
Danny helped Mrs Upholder get her chair into the van. She didn't actually need help, but it made him insanely happy if she let him work the lift and the ramp, so she always indulged him. He waved as she drove out of Market Square, bass rattling the windows. West Country represent, yo.
***
Still laughing, Angel turned aside to let the stranger out of the shop.
"Pardon me."
Angel and the Doctor stared at one another for a very long moment. It was one of those staring sorts of mornings.
The Doctor dropped his bottle of milk.
***
Nicholas and Danny stared at one another -- see what I mean? -- without speaking. Some situations are just inherently awkward.
Finally, Nicholas said, "Danny?"
"Yeah?"
"Where's his hair?"
"Ah..."
***
"...and the door won't open," the Doctor was explaining.
They were helping Mrs. Fisher (Tony's daughter-in-law, mother of Annie who'd just gone off to college) clean up the spilled milk and broken glass.
"No. It won't," said Chief Inspector Angel (ret). "He has to open it."
"Oh. Ta. Wait. What? What?"
"Took me years to figure it out. But the whole time I was with you, the door never opened until I touched it. Think about it. It would only open for him. Me."
"You're right. Weird. Why?"
"No idea. It's your ship."
They bagged the last of the glass, and stepped outside so Mrs Fisher could hoover the floor.
Which was a mistake, since Nicholas and Danny were still there.
"Oops," said the Doctor.
"Having fun?" Nicholas asked him drily. "I sure am."
"Sorry," said Danny. "Sometimes he gets cross this time of day."
"I do not!" both Angels chorused.
"Stop! You can't meet yourself. It'll cause a temporal paradox, and..."
The two Angels stared at him. They could really, really stare. It was unnerving.
"Yeah, all right, never mind."
Nicholas grabbed the Doctor's arm and led him back towards the TARDIS. "Come on. This is completely freaking me out."
"I've figured it out," the Doctor told him brightly. "You have to open the door."
"No fooling?" said Nicholas. And he did. They went in.
Danny and Angel waved at the disappearing box.
"God help you, you poor bastard," said Angel through clenched teeth.
"Run while you still can," said Danny.
***
There was an awful noise, like a thick guitar string being used as a saw. It made Danny shiver.
"Danny? Danny! Oh, thank God!"
Danny turned around. There was a large blue crate where Mrs. Upholder's van had been. The crate had a door in it. The door had Nicholas Angel in it. Nicholas shot out the door, threw his arms round Danny, and squeezed.
"Here now. What's this?" Danny patted him. Nicholas rarely did more in public than take Danny's arm, though this was due more to Nicholas' massive, naturally ingrown arsestick than self-consciousness. "Where'd you go off to? And what the fuck do you smell of?" Somehow, in the last half-hour, Nicholas had acquired a considerable amount of stubble, a head plaster, and an appearance of having been shoved into a hedge and repeatedly trodden on. He was also wearing a grass-stained Millwall jersey. Millwall. Jesus.
"Robot oil," Nicholas said into Danny's chest.
"Oh. What? I'm sorry, that sounded like 'robot oil.'"
Nicholas looked up. "And dinosaur. And some kind of big shaggy beaver rhino thing that I'm gonna have to look up. And Romans. And those transvestite dogs, I still don't know what the hell that was about...but mainly robot oil."
Danny blinked. "Heh. Shaggy beaver."
"Is this right, then?" The Doctor was leaning against the doorway.
Nicholas took hold of Danny's wrist to check his watch. It had the date and a little animated phases of the moon thing. Last day of June. "Yes."
"Oh. Hey." Danny gave the Doctor a small nod and wave that were utterly lacking in enthusiasm.
The Doctor grinned. "That's never Danny! Good heavens, you've grown. Wait. That was you just now!"
"What?"
"Here! But then!"
Nicholas looked at Danny. "Oh, God, don't tell me you know him."
"Yeah. Glasto, '89. Him and this little bitty blonde girl were there. Woke up in the boot of Andy's car with a massive headache and a tattoo."
"Prydonian seal," the Doctor said helpfully.
"Completely missed The Wonder Stuff. I've since decided that I was stoned off my nut and don't remember very much about it."
"I think I'm going to decide that, too," said Nicholas. Nobody in a just world should have to miss The Wonder Stuff.
***
"That was so childish," Mayor Butterman chided.
"Did you see his face?" said Chief Inspector Angel (Ret.). "He's gonna worry about it for years."
"I hope it was worth it. It's gonna take you ages to grow that back."
"Hey, I remember it happening. I had to do it, for sake of the space-time continuum. Besides, it gets hot in the summer." He rubbed his newly-shaved scalp. It made a squeaky noise inside his head. "And I saw the way he looked at you. Cheeky fucker best step off."
"Cheeky fucker is you." Mayor Butterman replied. He went a bit pink. "Childish."
They were sitting on the edge of the fountain. Angel looked at the spot the TARDIS had occupied and shook his head, amused. "Tell me we were never that young."
Danny laughed. "I know! When did the world start bein' run by children?"
Angel looked...devilish. "Not until they shove us kicking and screaming into our caskets, and nail down the lids."
***
The TARDIS vanished away out of the market square, not at all softly or suddenly.
"Thank God that's over with."
"Yeah." Danny had an arm round Nicholas' shoulder. "You want to go home?"
"Yes. Very much."
"C'mon, then -- oh, fuck it all in the ear!" The steel comb in mortal combat with a screen door noise started up again, and the police box reappeared. Danny tightened his hold on Nicholas.
The door opened and the Doctor popped out. "Hi!" he chirruped. "Sorry. 'Scuse me." He disappeared into the shop briefly, then came out toting a litre of milk. He grinned at Nicholas and Danny. "Forget my own head next."
They only stared.
He disappeared into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS, in turn, disappeared.
"I fuckin' hate that noise. I still have nightmares about it."
Nicholas nodded.
"Let's go before he changes his mind again," said Danny.
"God, yes."
"And you can get rid of that fucking awful shirt. Millwall?"
"It's a long story."
They made for Danny's car.
"Lucky Mrs Upholder didn't see him parking there. She'd kick his arse."
"She could take him." Nicholas took his usual place in the shotgun seat. "He's wispy."
Then he said, "That little shitweasel never paid his parking fine!"
Thanks to:
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