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fanfic: Doctor Who and the Toddler of Terror
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jaded_jamie introduced me to the wonder that is Doctor Who, and he's also a great guy who I felt he should be rewarded with one of the things he wants most: A chance to meet the Doctor and Jamie's favorite companion, Donna Noble. Also, I've missed writing fanfiction! So here's the Doctor's newest adversary ... who I believe many of you will recognize.
Title: Doctor Who and the Toddler of Terror
Author: Ozma914
Summary: The Doctor and Donna take on an ally in their fight against a tiny terror with a diabolic plan and a cute laser gun.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Extreme silliness, cartoon violence.
Length: 2,750 words
Disclaimer: The characters belong to who they belong to, and Jamie belongs to himself.
Characters: The 10th Doctor, Donna Noble, and a few surprises.
DOCTOR WHO AND THE TODDLER OF TERROR
“Are we going to have to kill that baby?”
Frozen in the act of pushing open the shop door, Jamie shot a look at the couple who’d passed him. Did that redhead woman just say --?
“No, of course not -- we just have to stop the little thing.” This from the thin, wild haired man in a trench coat, who strode on down the Leeds city street while the woman struggled to catch up.
“But it’s rather the devil, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not a real baby ... exactly. And nobody on this world would even miss it!”
Jamie looked longingly into the shop. Milk for the baby -- that was the only thing left to get before he could hurry home to his wife, his offspring, and Sally Samsung. If pushed, he would admit to loving his family more than Sally, the big widescreen TV, but it was a close call.
The couple headed on down an alley, their argument continuing. With a groan of frustration, Jamie let the door swing shut and rushed after them.
Within two blocks he started huffing and puffing, and only caught up because the others paused beside an old blue police booth. The man stopped short, his gaze having caught a tall building looming in the distance, and now the woman started harping that they had to hurry.
“But it looks just like a Dalek.” The man stared, eyes wide. “Can’t you see it?”
“It looks like a big tall round building. Now let’s go track down that evil toddler.”
“It’s Bridgewater Place,” was all Jamie could get out before he had to pause and catch his breath. Sometimes people told Jamie he should get more exercise, but if he plugged his ears and shouted “lalalala” long enough, those people went away.
The two turned to him. “What do you want?” the woman demanded, with a quick glance down the deserted alley. “You look terrible. Are you a drugged up hoodie? And if so, where’s your hood?”
Well, it wasn’t the first time he’d heard that. For some reason, Jamie’s multiple tattoos and piercings seemed to make people think the worst, or maybe it was this month’s bright purple buzz cut. “Do you have any money?”
“Um, no.”
“Then what would be the point?”
The woman stared at him, mouth open
“You shut her up! Well done.” The man held out his hand. “Hello -- I’m the Doctor, and this is Donna. Anything suspicious go on in that building?” He gestured toward Bridgewater Place.
Jamie shook his head. “Jamie.”
“Jamie goes on in the building?”
“That’s my name.”
“Right, good name, well done. Disappearances? Strange energy discharges? Reports of flying machines?”
“It’s an office building.” Jamie shrugged. “I’m more concerned right now about you two murdering children.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, while Donna, looking offended, drew back. “We would not kill children!” she insisted.
“You just asked if you were going to have to kill a baby.” It suddenly occurred to Jamie that confronting two child murderers alone didn’t count as his brightest idea ever. Still, they could have that poor baby locked inside the blue police box, for all he knew.
Wait -- police box?
“No one dies today. Not a child, not anyone.” The Doctor drew a key from his pocket and advanced toward the box. “Now, if you’ll excuse us --”
Jamie’s mind raced. He didn’t have a mobile, there was no one around, and screaming for help would likely get him nothing more than a sore throat. His only possible weapon was the cross hanging from his neck, and unless these people were vampires that wouldn’t help.
Donna cleared her throat. “Nothing to see here,” she said in a commanding tone, while the Doctor paused at the door.
“If you’ve got a baby locked up in there ...” Jamie tried to give his voice a warning tone, but he couldn’t come up with a single threat that would hold water.
“What?” Donna demanded.
“Well ... then I’m going to have to stop you.”
The two looked at each other. After a moment a grin spread over The Doctor’s face. “I like him!”
“You’re both out to save babies,” Donna said, adding something under her breath that sounded like “bollocks”.
“Right.” The Doctor exchanged a look with Donna. “Jamie, how are you at handling surprises?”
“Surprisingly bad.”
Now Donna smiled. “Do you have a heart condition? Back problems? Trouble facing reality?”
“Oh, that last one.”
“You’ll fit right in, then. Allons-y!” Spinning around, The Doctor unlocked the door and marched in, with Donna right behind him.
At first Jamie thought they’d simply send the baby out. They couldn’t be expecting him to crowd in there too, could they? But when they didn’t return he stepped reluctantly through the door -- and froze.
Then he walked out, in a surreal kind of calm, to inspect the outside of the box. Everything around it looked normal: brick walls, overcast sky, litter.
Then he stepped in again, walking up the ramp into a room big enough for hundreds of babies. “This is --”
“The TARDIS,” The Doctor supplied, as he dashed around a console in the center of the space, throwing switches and working controls. “Time And Relative Dimension in Space.”
“It’s --” It looked like someone raided a junkyard after running out of money for their science fiction movie.
“A time machine,” Donna told him, from where she’d positioned herself by a column near the console. “And a spaceship. We’re going after that evil baby and we’re going to spank him good … which is a sentence I never expected to speak in my life.”
“Ah.” Something in a transparent column above the console began working up and down, while the whole room wheezed and shook like an ancient steam engine. “And will we be home by tea?”
“It is a time machine,” The Doctor told him, looking offended. “I can set you back on that walk at the exact moment you left.” Donna made a harrumphing sound, but the Doctor ignored her.
“Right.” He was having a flashback to his youth, Jamie told himself. A bad trip, the result of long-term brain damage from teenage indiscretions. Or, brain damage from that bottle of whiskey he’d polished off over New Year’s. “So ... when do we leave?”
With a flourish, The Doctor threw one last switch. “We’re there.”
His wife was going to kill him. Jamie could hear Gina now: “You went on an interstellar time traveling trip without me? And didn’t bring back milk?”
The Doctor strode to the door, but paused to give them a warning look. “Remember, this child is extremely dangerous. Don’t be fooled by what you see.”
“Nothing could surprise me,” Jamie assured him.
Donna made still another harrumphing sound, and the three headed out the door.
Sure enough, they were no longer on a street in Leeds. On the contrary, they stood now in a curving gray corridor that looked like it belonged on the Death Star. Looking back, Jamie saw the same old blue police box, simply transposed to a different spot.
“Quickly, now.” The Doctor led them through the corridor, their footsteps echoing off the bare metal floor. Within minutes they came to a huge round door that, as soon as they approached it, rolled back into the wall.
“We’re never any good at stealth,” Donna murmured. She followed the Doctor, who simply walked right in as if he’d been invited. After a moment’s hesitation, Jamie followed.
“Well, Doctor -- I’ve been expecting you.” Jamie took an immediate dislike to the officious, domineering voice ... until he saw the owner, at which point confusion replaced dislike.
Their prey had positioned himself at the top of what could only be called a throne, although it was a tiny throne accessed by tiny steps, and came barely to Jamie’s head. The only other occupants of the large room included a bank of electronic equipment that stretched from floor to ceiling behind the throne, a metal chair with some kind of wired helmet hovering above it, and a small white dog that stood quietly near the chair.
In the throne sat ... a baby. A baby holding a ray gun. A baby with a head shaped like an American football.
“Hello, Stewie,” The Doctor said.
“How nice of you to visit us here on the planet Griffin.” Stewie wore a red jumper and white baby shoes, and might have passed for a normal toddler with an oddly shaped head except for those huge, unquestionable intelligent eyes.
“I told you I’d stop you.” The Doctor calmly took in their surroundings, doing a double take only when he saw the portrait of Stewie that took up the entire area from one side of the door to the machine. The curved wall made it seem as if the giant painted Stewie was reaching out to grab up everything.
“You’ve been a bad baby!” Donna added. “When you stole that equipment, it left all of northern England without television service.”
Jamie felt his blood run cold. No television? Bloody hell, that odd shaped little kid was a monster!
Stewie ignored Donna. “Stop me? Ah, Doctor, you jest. You have yet to understand how critical you are to my plans for world domination.”
The Doctor shrugged. “Which world?”
“Yours, mine, theirs -- when I finish with one, I’ll simply move to the other.” Stewie gestured with the weapon. “The chair, Doctor. Sit in it.”
The Doctor only glanced toward the chair, which waited between Stewie and the machine. “I’m fine, thanks.”
A ray of light shot from Stewie’s gun. With a shower of sparks. a smoldering hole appeared in the wall, right where the nose of Stewie’s portrait had been.
“Oh, dear. Well, I’ll simply commission a statue of me to replace it.”
“Excuse me,” Jamie ventured, “but we wouldn’t be able to see the beam from a blaster, would
we?”
Stewie aimed the gun at him. “What are you, some kind of physics comedian?”
“Never mind.”
“Don’t make me disintegrate your companions, Doctor. You know I’ll do it. Brian, escort the good Doctor to the memory extractor.”
Brian? Looking around, Jamie saw only the dog, which now came forward -- on two feet. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Stewie,” the dog said.
Huh. This was like some kind of cartoon world, then, complete with visible laser beams.
“I don’t care what you think, Brian! I need The Doctor’s TARDIS.”
The Doctor’s only reaction was a tilt of his head, while Donna gasped.
“That machine will allow me to energize my superweapon, and also give me access to every seat of power in the world -- and the Doctor’s memories will give me access to the machine. Now, Doctor ... who will die first?”
Escorted by the talking dog, the Doctor moved slowly toward the chair, all the while chattering on about Stewie’s plans and the operation of the machines. Jamie, who didn’t claim to know all that much about high technology, examined the chair and saw that heavy wires ran from it to the bank of electronics against the wall. His gaze followed that to another black power cord, which disappeared behind the throne. After a moment he realized that wire fed into back of Stewie’s ray gun.
“You’re weak here,” the Doctor told Stewie. “We’re not on Griffin at all, are we? The energies you depend on don’t work the same for me as they do on your planet.” Suddenly Jamie realized the Doctor was giving Donna a meaningful look. But what did the look mean?
“I’m powerful enough!” Stewie shot back. “And once I’ve taken control of your time machine, no one will be able to stop me!”
Donna took a few steps to Jamie’s right, putting the chair between her and Stewie, while she also examined the workings of the room. “Power ...” she murmured.
Right. What do the good guys usually do in these situations? Jamie shuffled to the left, thinking that putting distance between him and Donna would separate the crazed toddler’s attention. He glanced at Donna and realized she wore a disgusted expression, as if suddenly realizing she’d gone the wrong way, and after a moment she sent Jamie a pleading look.
Jamie realized that although he and Donna were equally close to the bank of machines, Stewie’s attention remained on the chair – which meant the evil tyke would catch any move Donna made to get past it.
“Sorry about this,” Brian said, as he placed the wired helmet on The Doctor’s head.
“And what do you get out of this?”
“Nothing -- I lost a bet.”
Jamie moved a few more steps to the side, until he could see the wall beside the complicated machine. If Stewie was from a cartoon world, and worked by cartoon world rules …
“What bet?” the Doctor asked, sounding honestly curious.
“It’s a long story. I thought Stewie’s father would do something halfway intelligent … it was silly of me. So I’m stuck helping Stewie plan world domination, plus we now have a stolen police car in the living room and two elephants in the garage.” The dog shrugged. “This is my life.”
“Enough stalling!” Stewie cried out. “Brian, flip the switch.”
“Sorry, man.” Brian flipped the switch.
Nothing happened.
“How do you like that physics comedy!” Donna stepped into Stewie’s view and sent him a rude gesture.
“I’ve had enough of you – take that!” Pointing the weapon at her, Stewie pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“What’s going on?” Stewie stomped down the steps, but the cord reached its end and yanked him backward. Cursing, he threw the gun down. “My plan was perfect!”
“It’s a cartoon world,” Jamie told him.
Turning, Stewie found Jamie standing by the dark, silent machine. “What? What have you done?”
“It’s a cartoon world,” the Doctor repeated, pulling off the helmet.
Jamie nodded. “and that means cartoon solutions.” He waved a power cord through the air, a cord with three prongs at the end. “I may not know where the off switch is, but I knew how to pull the plug. Now, let’s get this equipment back to England: Being Human comes on in a few
hours.”
#
True to the Doctor’s word, the little blue police booth deposited Jamie back in Leeds, not far from the shop he’d been entering when he first heard Donna. The Doctor stepped outside long enough to pull a strange little electronic wand from his pocket, wave it at Bridgewater Place, and cast a doubtful look at the readings. With one last suspicious glance toward the building, he patted Jamie on the shoulder and headed back in.
“So …” Donna paused at the door. “We have to drop Stewie and Brian off on their home
planet; would you like to come along?”
Jamie gazed through the door, into the TARDIS. “It is tempting … although I’ve already
gotten a bit tired of Stewie threatening to exterminate me.”
“Well, you’d be angry too if you went from conquering a world to being shoved into a
dog cage.”
“Yeah, that. Just the same, I’ve got my own little corner of this world to rescue, in my own way.”
“Advocating for children, as you said on the trip back – although I don’t blame you for passing on Brian’s request to straighten up his household.” Leaning forward, Donna kissed him on the cheek. “Well, you’ve got your children to deal with, and I’ve got mine.”
“You’re not just talking about Stewie, are you?”
Grinning, Donna stepped back and closed the door.
Once the time machine wheezed on to its next destination Jamie hurried home, all the way trying to decide whether to tell this tale to his wife. The closer he got, the more he realized he wouldn’t be believed, despite having Stewie’s now non-functioning ray gun as proof. In the light of day the weapon seemed awfully … plastic.
As soon as he got home, Jamie shoved the gun into the cupboard under the stairs. “Is that you, Jamie?” he heard Gina call from the kitchen.
“It’s me – be right there.” Sally Samsung was also calling him, but best to check in with the wife first.
“You’ve been gone for hours, and you missed Being Human. Did you get the milk for the baby?”
Jamie froze. Bugger.
Times like this, a man could find practical uses for a time machine.
jaded_jamie introduced me to the wonder that is Doctor Who, and he's also a great guy who I felt he should be rewarded with one of the things he wants most: A chance to meet the Doctor and Jamie's favorite companion, Donna Noble. Also, I've missed writing fanfiction! So here's the Doctor's newest adversary ... who I believe many of you will recognize.Title: Doctor Who and the Toddler of Terror
Author: Ozma914
Summary: The Doctor and Donna take on an ally in their fight against a tiny terror with a diabolic plan and a cute laser gun.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Extreme silliness, cartoon violence.
Length: 2,750 words
Disclaimer: The characters belong to who they belong to, and Jamie belongs to himself.
Characters: The 10th Doctor, Donna Noble, and a few surprises.
DOCTOR WHO AND THE TODDLER OF TERROR
“Are we going to have to kill that baby?”
Frozen in the act of pushing open the shop door, Jamie shot a look at the couple who’d passed him. Did that redhead woman just say --?
“No, of course not -- we just have to stop the little thing.” This from the thin, wild haired man in a trench coat, who strode on down the Leeds city street while the woman struggled to catch up.
“But it’s rather the devil, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not a real baby ... exactly. And nobody on this world would even miss it!”
Jamie looked longingly into the shop. Milk for the baby -- that was the only thing left to get before he could hurry home to his wife, his offspring, and Sally Samsung. If pushed, he would admit to loving his family more than Sally, the big widescreen TV, but it was a close call.
The couple headed on down an alley, their argument continuing. With a groan of frustration, Jamie let the door swing shut and rushed after them.
Within two blocks he started huffing and puffing, and only caught up because the others paused beside an old blue police booth. The man stopped short, his gaze having caught a tall building looming in the distance, and now the woman started harping that they had to hurry.
“But it looks just like a Dalek.” The man stared, eyes wide. “Can’t you see it?”
“It looks like a big tall round building. Now let’s go track down that evil toddler.”
“It’s Bridgewater Place,” was all Jamie could get out before he had to pause and catch his breath. Sometimes people told Jamie he should get more exercise, but if he plugged his ears and shouted “lalalala” long enough, those people went away.
The two turned to him. “What do you want?” the woman demanded, with a quick glance down the deserted alley. “You look terrible. Are you a drugged up hoodie? And if so, where’s your hood?”
Well, it wasn’t the first time he’d heard that. For some reason, Jamie’s multiple tattoos and piercings seemed to make people think the worst, or maybe it was this month’s bright purple buzz cut. “Do you have any money?”
“Um, no.”
“Then what would be the point?”
The woman stared at him, mouth open
“You shut her up! Well done.” The man held out his hand. “Hello -- I’m the Doctor, and this is Donna. Anything suspicious go on in that building?” He gestured toward Bridgewater Place.
Jamie shook his head. “Jamie.”
“Jamie goes on in the building?”
“That’s my name.”
“Right, good name, well done. Disappearances? Strange energy discharges? Reports of flying machines?”
“It’s an office building.” Jamie shrugged. “I’m more concerned right now about you two murdering children.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, while Donna, looking offended, drew back. “We would not kill children!” she insisted.
“You just asked if you were going to have to kill a baby.” It suddenly occurred to Jamie that confronting two child murderers alone didn’t count as his brightest idea ever. Still, they could have that poor baby locked inside the blue police box, for all he knew.
Wait -- police box?
“No one dies today. Not a child, not anyone.” The Doctor drew a key from his pocket and advanced toward the box. “Now, if you’ll excuse us --”
Jamie’s mind raced. He didn’t have a mobile, there was no one around, and screaming for help would likely get him nothing more than a sore throat. His only possible weapon was the cross hanging from his neck, and unless these people were vampires that wouldn’t help.
Donna cleared her throat. “Nothing to see here,” she said in a commanding tone, while the Doctor paused at the door.
“If you’ve got a baby locked up in there ...” Jamie tried to give his voice a warning tone, but he couldn’t come up with a single threat that would hold water.
“What?” Donna demanded.
“Well ... then I’m going to have to stop you.”
The two looked at each other. After a moment a grin spread over The Doctor’s face. “I like him!”
“You’re both out to save babies,” Donna said, adding something under her breath that sounded like “bollocks”.
“Right.” The Doctor exchanged a look with Donna. “Jamie, how are you at handling surprises?”
“Surprisingly bad.”
Now Donna smiled. “Do you have a heart condition? Back problems? Trouble facing reality?”
“Oh, that last one.”
“You’ll fit right in, then. Allons-y!” Spinning around, The Doctor unlocked the door and marched in, with Donna right behind him.
At first Jamie thought they’d simply send the baby out. They couldn’t be expecting him to crowd in there too, could they? But when they didn’t return he stepped reluctantly through the door -- and froze.
Then he walked out, in a surreal kind of calm, to inspect the outside of the box. Everything around it looked normal: brick walls, overcast sky, litter.
Then he stepped in again, walking up the ramp into a room big enough for hundreds of babies. “This is --”
“The TARDIS,” The Doctor supplied, as he dashed around a console in the center of the space, throwing switches and working controls. “Time And Relative Dimension in Space.”
“It’s --” It looked like someone raided a junkyard after running out of money for their science fiction movie.
“A time machine,” Donna told him, from where she’d positioned herself by a column near the console. “And a spaceship. We’re going after that evil baby and we’re going to spank him good … which is a sentence I never expected to speak in my life.”
“Ah.” Something in a transparent column above the console began working up and down, while the whole room wheezed and shook like an ancient steam engine. “And will we be home by tea?”
“It is a time machine,” The Doctor told him, looking offended. “I can set you back on that walk at the exact moment you left.” Donna made a harrumphing sound, but the Doctor ignored her.
“Right.” He was having a flashback to his youth, Jamie told himself. A bad trip, the result of long-term brain damage from teenage indiscretions. Or, brain damage from that bottle of whiskey he’d polished off over New Year’s. “So ... when do we leave?”
With a flourish, The Doctor threw one last switch. “We’re there.”
His wife was going to kill him. Jamie could hear Gina now: “You went on an interstellar time traveling trip without me? And didn’t bring back milk?”
The Doctor strode to the door, but paused to give them a warning look. “Remember, this child is extremely dangerous. Don’t be fooled by what you see.”
“Nothing could surprise me,” Jamie assured him.
Donna made still another harrumphing sound, and the three headed out the door.
Sure enough, they were no longer on a street in Leeds. On the contrary, they stood now in a curving gray corridor that looked like it belonged on the Death Star. Looking back, Jamie saw the same old blue police box, simply transposed to a different spot.
“Quickly, now.” The Doctor led them through the corridor, their footsteps echoing off the bare metal floor. Within minutes they came to a huge round door that, as soon as they approached it, rolled back into the wall.
“We’re never any good at stealth,” Donna murmured. She followed the Doctor, who simply walked right in as if he’d been invited. After a moment’s hesitation, Jamie followed.
“Well, Doctor -- I’ve been expecting you.” Jamie took an immediate dislike to the officious, domineering voice ... until he saw the owner, at which point confusion replaced dislike.
Their prey had positioned himself at the top of what could only be called a throne, although it was a tiny throne accessed by tiny steps, and came barely to Jamie’s head. The only other occupants of the large room included a bank of electronic equipment that stretched from floor to ceiling behind the throne, a metal chair with some kind of wired helmet hovering above it, and a small white dog that stood quietly near the chair.
In the throne sat ... a baby. A baby holding a ray gun. A baby with a head shaped like an American football.
“Hello, Stewie,” The Doctor said.
“How nice of you to visit us here on the planet Griffin.” Stewie wore a red jumper and white baby shoes, and might have passed for a normal toddler with an oddly shaped head except for those huge, unquestionable intelligent eyes.
“I told you I’d stop you.” The Doctor calmly took in their surroundings, doing a double take only when he saw the portrait of Stewie that took up the entire area from one side of the door to the machine. The curved wall made it seem as if the giant painted Stewie was reaching out to grab up everything.
“You’ve been a bad baby!” Donna added. “When you stole that equipment, it left all of northern England without television service.”
Jamie felt his blood run cold. No television? Bloody hell, that odd shaped little kid was a monster!
Stewie ignored Donna. “Stop me? Ah, Doctor, you jest. You have yet to understand how critical you are to my plans for world domination.”
The Doctor shrugged. “Which world?”
“Yours, mine, theirs -- when I finish with one, I’ll simply move to the other.” Stewie gestured with the weapon. “The chair, Doctor. Sit in it.”
The Doctor only glanced toward the chair, which waited between Stewie and the machine. “I’m fine, thanks.”
A ray of light shot from Stewie’s gun. With a shower of sparks. a smoldering hole appeared in the wall, right where the nose of Stewie’s portrait had been.
“Oh, dear. Well, I’ll simply commission a statue of me to replace it.”
“Excuse me,” Jamie ventured, “but we wouldn’t be able to see the beam from a blaster, would
we?”
Stewie aimed the gun at him. “What are you, some kind of physics comedian?”
“Never mind.”
“Don’t make me disintegrate your companions, Doctor. You know I’ll do it. Brian, escort the good Doctor to the memory extractor.”
Brian? Looking around, Jamie saw only the dog, which now came forward -- on two feet. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Stewie,” the dog said.
Huh. This was like some kind of cartoon world, then, complete with visible laser beams.
“I don’t care what you think, Brian! I need The Doctor’s TARDIS.”
The Doctor’s only reaction was a tilt of his head, while Donna gasped.
“That machine will allow me to energize my superweapon, and also give me access to every seat of power in the world -- and the Doctor’s memories will give me access to the machine. Now, Doctor ... who will die first?”
Escorted by the talking dog, the Doctor moved slowly toward the chair, all the while chattering on about Stewie’s plans and the operation of the machines. Jamie, who didn’t claim to know all that much about high technology, examined the chair and saw that heavy wires ran from it to the bank of electronics against the wall. His gaze followed that to another black power cord, which disappeared behind the throne. After a moment he realized that wire fed into back of Stewie’s ray gun.
“You’re weak here,” the Doctor told Stewie. “We’re not on Griffin at all, are we? The energies you depend on don’t work the same for me as they do on your planet.” Suddenly Jamie realized the Doctor was giving Donna a meaningful look. But what did the look mean?
“I’m powerful enough!” Stewie shot back. “And once I’ve taken control of your time machine, no one will be able to stop me!”
Donna took a few steps to Jamie’s right, putting the chair between her and Stewie, while she also examined the workings of the room. “Power ...” she murmured.
Right. What do the good guys usually do in these situations? Jamie shuffled to the left, thinking that putting distance between him and Donna would separate the crazed toddler’s attention. He glanced at Donna and realized she wore a disgusted expression, as if suddenly realizing she’d gone the wrong way, and after a moment she sent Jamie a pleading look.
Jamie realized that although he and Donna were equally close to the bank of machines, Stewie’s attention remained on the chair – which meant the evil tyke would catch any move Donna made to get past it.
“Sorry about this,” Brian said, as he placed the wired helmet on The Doctor’s head.
“And what do you get out of this?”
“Nothing -- I lost a bet.”
Jamie moved a few more steps to the side, until he could see the wall beside the complicated machine. If Stewie was from a cartoon world, and worked by cartoon world rules …
“What bet?” the Doctor asked, sounding honestly curious.
“It’s a long story. I thought Stewie’s father would do something halfway intelligent … it was silly of me. So I’m stuck helping Stewie plan world domination, plus we now have a stolen police car in the living room and two elephants in the garage.” The dog shrugged. “This is my life.”
“Enough stalling!” Stewie cried out. “Brian, flip the switch.”
“Sorry, man.” Brian flipped the switch.
Nothing happened.
“How do you like that physics comedy!” Donna stepped into Stewie’s view and sent him a rude gesture.
“I’ve had enough of you – take that!” Pointing the weapon at her, Stewie pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“What’s going on?” Stewie stomped down the steps, but the cord reached its end and yanked him backward. Cursing, he threw the gun down. “My plan was perfect!”
“It’s a cartoon world,” Jamie told him.
Turning, Stewie found Jamie standing by the dark, silent machine. “What? What have you done?”
“It’s a cartoon world,” the Doctor repeated, pulling off the helmet.
Jamie nodded. “and that means cartoon solutions.” He waved a power cord through the air, a cord with three prongs at the end. “I may not know where the off switch is, but I knew how to pull the plug. Now, let’s get this equipment back to England: Being Human comes on in a few
hours.”
#
True to the Doctor’s word, the little blue police booth deposited Jamie back in Leeds, not far from the shop he’d been entering when he first heard Donna. The Doctor stepped outside long enough to pull a strange little electronic wand from his pocket, wave it at Bridgewater Place, and cast a doubtful look at the readings. With one last suspicious glance toward the building, he patted Jamie on the shoulder and headed back in.
“So …” Donna paused at the door. “We have to drop Stewie and Brian off on their home
planet; would you like to come along?”
Jamie gazed through the door, into the TARDIS. “It is tempting … although I’ve already
gotten a bit tired of Stewie threatening to exterminate me.”
“Well, you’d be angry too if you went from conquering a world to being shoved into a
dog cage.”
“Yeah, that. Just the same, I’ve got my own little corner of this world to rescue, in my own way.”
“Advocating for children, as you said on the trip back – although I don’t blame you for passing on Brian’s request to straighten up his household.” Leaning forward, Donna kissed him on the cheek. “Well, you’ve got your children to deal with, and I’ve got mine.”
“You’re not just talking about Stewie, are you?”
Grinning, Donna stepped back and closed the door.
Once the time machine wheezed on to its next destination Jamie hurried home, all the way trying to decide whether to tell this tale to his wife. The closer he got, the more he realized he wouldn’t be believed, despite having Stewie’s now non-functioning ray gun as proof. In the light of day the weapon seemed awfully … plastic.
As soon as he got home, Jamie shoved the gun into the cupboard under the stairs. “Is that you, Jamie?” he heard Gina call from the kitchen.
“It’s me – be right there.” Sally Samsung was also calling him, but best to check in with the wife first.
“You’ve been gone for hours, and you missed Being Human. Did you get the milk for the baby?”
Jamie froze. Bugger.
Times like this, a man could find practical uses for a time machine.