calliopes_pen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
calliopes_pen) wrote2009-04-18 09:16 am
calliopes_pen) wrote2009-04-18 09:16 am
Entry tags:
Fic: A Beautiful, Pie-Filled Disaster
Title: A Beautiful, Pie-Filled Disaster
Author:calliopes_pen
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Word Count: 4153 words
Summary: The Doctor’s routine visit to Torchwood goes wrong when aliens invade the Hub, and the Doctor is turned into a marionette. Only pear pie can save him now, to his everlasting horror.
Beta Readers: Huge thanks go out toseandc and persiflage_1.
Notes: Written for the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
multific Finish-A-Thon. frenchroast helped with the prompt of: “Donna must use pie to save the Doctor from a tiny alien race that have used a shrink ray on him and imprisoned him in their ship with other assorted animals and sentient beings.” It veered off into the Doctor becoming a marionette after aliens attack Torchwood, but pie is used...and so are baguettes. A few spoilers for Journey's End.
In the Hub, Jack was filling out paperwork from the latest bout of strangeness Torchwood had managed to clean up. The cost of using retcon on approximately three hundred people because of them seeing fifty Weevils wearing ripped tutus (stolen from a nearby costume shop) and performing their own extremely feral rendition of what appeared to be either a warped mating ritual or a Nutcracker ballet of the Waltz of the Flowers would just have to go in the record books.
The fact that Martha had joked that Jack might have gassed the Weevils, sewn the costumes and dressed them himself out of boredom was just an interesting footnote in his report. Shaking his head, his thoughts were happily turned from the image of Weevils writhing around a fountain by the sound of the familiar and almost always welcome vworp vworp of the TARDIS' entrance into the Hub.
Almost before the TARDIS had finished materializing, the Doctor was leaping out with his arms spread, and ready for a hug. “Brilliant--didn’t overshoot and hit the formerly lost moon of Poosh again. Jack! How are you?”
Jack’s smile was equal parts relief and amusement, as he abandoned his desk for another time, and threw down his pen. “Doc! Just the man to give me a reprieve from this mountain of paperwork!” He grasped the other man in a tight hug, and let his hands go slightly lower than the Doctor liked--just narrowly missing his chance to goose the Time Lord as he dashed away. Looking behind him, he spotted Donna Noble leaning against the door--smiling as though she knew exactly what he had tried, and beamed his most dashing smile.
“Ah, Donna Noble! My favorite redheaded companion, with the scream of an angel, and a slap like a dream. How have you been?” He bent to kiss her hand, slightly fearful of a slap that might actually move mountains.
The flattery was just Jack Harkness all over. Even the sudden quick lift as he picked her up without warning, spun her, and set her down gently. Donna shared a look with the Doctor--he, too, had had this same treatment in the past, and he had warned her of it. She was a bit breathless as she replied, “Good, Captain. Of course, what day wouldn’t be better after a greeting like that?”
The Doctor just covered his face with one hand, and whispered, “There’s two of them…I should have known at the Crucible.” He continued, slightly louder and with a quirk of an eyebrow, “Break it up, you two. All hands where I can see them.” Turning so he wouldn’t (possibly) regenerate under the combined glares, he added innocently, “So...give us a proper tour of the Hub? We’ve never had the royal treatment when there wasn’t an invasion. Or a dissection. And, if we count Torchwood One, both at the same time...”
He quickly sidestepped and ducked before Donna could manage to ruffle his hair. Jack reached over and did the job instead, earning a wicked grin from her corner.
"You should be glad I'm not wearing my unlucky tuxedo--you'd all be dead now! Death, disaster, and dismemberment...the tuxedo causes it all! Or just death repeatedly in your case, Jack." He paused and tugged his ear in thought. "Well, with you around, and me having landed in the Hub, I should be thankful I've not been forced into a toga and told to dance."
“I represent that remark--happily, might I add. Oh, and Martha’s around here somewhere. It’s Mickey’s day off, so he’ll be annoyed that he missed you. And as for Ianto...” He just grinned as Ianto appeared directly behind the Doctor, and quietly tapped his shoulder. He took an unexpected amount of pleasure at the sight of the Doctor getting caught off guard, and spinning around in surprise. Donna covered her mouth to try to hold in a laugh.
The Doctor half-heartedly glared at Ianto, when he merely offered one cup of tea for him. “Don’t make me regenerate today, please! My hearts are still racing.” Even so, he gratefully accepted his cup, and took a wary sip. “Mmm...this tea is almost better than the TARDIS makes! How’d you know how I like my tea?” Silently, he sent the telepathic message to his ship, Sorry, old girl. Please don’t throw my room into the vortex, or poison my tea.
“It’s on your file...and I know everything.” The Doctor quietly smiled, ignoring that. Maybe someday they could contest that with a battle of wits. Finishing the tea, he put the cup on the nearest table, and looked around. “So...where’s my favorite doctor, then? Not lurking behind me like some?”
“Our nightingale felt like checking on rift activity, since things keep beeping urgently. A slight spike.”
The Doctor was ready to go find her when Donna stopped him. “She’s behind you, Martian. Everyone is tonight.” The Doctor scrunched his nose, spun around and grabbed Martha for a good and thorough hug, which she gladly returned.
Martha smiled, and poked his chest with a finger. “Was just on the way to see if that sound I heard was real, or I was losing my mind. You should have called ahead, Mister--we’d have had banana cupcakes with ball bearings ready for you.” Dropping the smile, she looked at Jack, and continued, “We might have a problem in a minute. Something keeps shimmering around the Rift Manipulator...and you really need to hide your rare porn collection harder--right there on the desktop? Really?”
The Doctor bounded ahead practically before she could finish, with his sonic screwdriver at the ready, and Jack close behind. Martha looked at Donna, the two sharing a quick look of amusement at the danger never ending before they hurried after them.
They were just in time to see creatures fall through the Rift, and straight into the Hub. The three creatures almost looked like marionettes without the strings...weasel marionettes. Three-foot tall weasel marionettes, with glowing yellow eyes. The Doctor skidded to a stop as he saw them, and tried to go through a few possible languages in an attempt to communicate with them. Unfortunately, wearing red and white trainers had a tendency to mean, “I want to become like you, and then destroy your planet,” in their language, as the Doctor remembered, moving too slowly to hide behind a box.
A large red stick in the palm of one creature glowed, before zapping the Doctor. As he started to fall and began to shrink, Donna grabbed him, shoving Jack and Martha into another room, before slamming the door. Slightly out of breath, but nonetheless undeterred, she glanced at the other two. “Everyone okay?”
Martha nodded, before going around to check on the Time Lord. Both hearts appeared to be beating fine, and he was blinking up at her in confusion before staring down at himself. “I’m fine, Martha. But this...this is a bit different...I’ve been turned into a whole host of other things, including something that looked like a Smurf once...but never this.”
The Doctor had become a marionette, complete with strings.
--
Hiding from the aliens in the autopsy area was starting to look like a bad idea. For one thing, they hadn’t a weapon at hand--not even Jack, as he’d been cleaning his favorite hidden weapons in his office before he’d started in on the paperwork. For another, Martha had sheepishly admitted that she had been busy with some bodies, and the scalpels needed replacing--alien blood was, occasionally, acidic.
Donna sorted through some sacks she had bumped into, in the desperate hope there would be something they could use. “Let’s tear through this thing, shall we? Everyone, we’ve got...striped socks, knitting needles, and three new coffee pots. Oi! Whose are these? Yours, Ianto?” At his nod, she shoved the bag into his hands, where he carefully put them in a safe place under the table. “Well, keep them out of the way--might use those knitting needles to stab something, though.” Digging into the next bag, she pulled out the first item.
“We have...eight stale baguettes, five pies…” At this point, she tore open the container and took one little taste, making a face in disbelief. “Five pear pies. We could bash their brains out with the baguettes, and smash the pie in their faces for good measure? Who bought this?” Jack quietly raised his hand, and she shook her head. Of course it couldn’t have been Ianto--he wouldn’t have bought anything that was in less than ideal shape.
Jack shrugged. “I was distracted. Thinking of Ianto, back in my room.” He smirked, and stopped when she held up a hand--whether it was just to stop him, or to threaten him with a slap, he wasn’t sure. He expected it would be worth it, though. She rolled her eyes at his expression, and looked over at the marionette seated on a stool.
“Doctor, you have your sonic screwdriver in that tiny suit, right?” After a moment of no response from the Doctor, Donna tried again, calling out, “Oi! Spaceman, are you listening?”
The Doctor shuffled, having a little trouble tugging on his ear, or ruffling his hair with all the attached strings in the way. “Well...it’s wooden, just like me. Out of commission, I’d say. Never worked on wood, remember? And since it is wooden now, there’s not a chance it would work on itself--might burst into a brilliant ball of flames, most likely. Just a little flaw that I really need to work out of it once we’ve learned what to do...oooh, yes! No...yes! She’s a genius! I’d ruffle my hair this very second if I could make it through the tangled strings!”
Donna, Martha, and Jack had been through the machine gun fire decision-making before, of course, but Ianto had not. “Who is a genius, Sir?” It wouldn’t do for him not to know something.
“The TARDIS! Her data banks have got information on the aliens, and she’s been trying to tell me. Marionette mayhem got in the way, but she did get through.” He paused, then scrunched his nose up and glanced over at Ianto subtly. “She says if you want the Hub covered in so much orange alien goo, stab the little weasels in the left temple. She also says it’s hard to find the correct neural pathways in something with only stuffing and sawdust for brains...hey, do you want me to find that mallet the previous me played with? Didn’t think so. Carry on, Old Girl.”
At Ianto’s mixed look of weariness, and wariness, the Doctor beamed. “You want a method not as messy? She says bean them with the baguettes to stun them, and then slap their faces with the putrid pear pie promptly. Love those p’s.” Even being turned into a marionette couldn’t stop him from rambling--and, obviously, he hadn’t been paying attention when Donna had brought up that very same plan. She was shaking her head fondly, when she realized they might all be turned into marionettes by the end of the day, or the Rift might break and destroy the universe.
“Oi! Hurry it up and tell us what it does do, before me and Martha use you for so much kindling!” An evil grin spread across her face. “Or we get Mum to come visit with her trusty axe.”
He nodded hurriedly, distractedly wishing his hair wasn’t so much brittle plastic--and that he could pace around the Hub, without worrying about being shot again by an alien that looked like a wooden weasel (might set him on fire), or that the resident pterodactyl wouldn’t come swooping by again--it wouldn’t do for a Time Lord to end his tenth life as so much wood for a comfortable nest, now would it?
“They dry out and collapse into dust. Much easier to clean up, unless someone happens to sneeze too hard. Then you just get dead aliens in your hair. Bleh. Been there before, but it was banana pie--such a waste of lovely bananas--and I was scraping alien dust out of the grating in the console room for the next sixty years! Inhabitants from Ettenoiram tend to be easy to clean up unless a stiff breeze blows through.” He lifted his nose in what should have been a haughty look of disgust, but looked more like he was trying to sniff something foul. “They also come ready-made looking like weasels as you observed, and without a single string to trip them up. I think I’m jealous. Of the lack of string, not the weasel bit.”
Jack just rolled his eyes, wondering what kissing a marionette felt like, and if it would make the Doctor stop talking for five minutes. Probably not. “Doc, we have a room filled with the things. They were confiscated from a bakery that we thought was making pies from aliens, a la Sweeney Todd.” He waved his hand in the Doctor’s direction before he could protest. “They weren’t! We kept them--they’re a bit stale, but otherwise fine.”
“Give me a baguette in one hand and a pie in the other, and we’ll go to war, then, Jack!”
Jack critically eyed him, as he tried to shake one tiny wooden finger at him. “Do you really think you can hold anything without snapping your hands off? You can barely shuffle without help.”
While the two debated on whether or not the Doctor could (or even should) try to join the eventual mêlée, Martha, Ianto, and Donna quietly went to the door and left them behind. At the sound of alien shrieks and zaps hitting the side of the wall, the Time Lord and the Immortal turned. “Martha?”
Martha stumbled back in the room, glared at them, and waved them to hurry up. “We finished it without you. You were taking too long, so now they’re dust. Donna’s a better shot than anyone I’ve ever seen...even in UNIT!”
Carefully peeking around the door, Jack shook his head as he stared in awe at the mayhem. Broken baguettes littered the floor, along with alien dust and messy pie debris. There was one singed area of the wall nearest the Rift, where the aliens had obviously tried to fight back. A few extra pear pies were still easily seen, and he pointed at the Doctor. “You said you needed extra ones to be fixed? There you go...want to eat it, or bathe in it? Think a marionette can eat?”
The Doctor was still blinking in disbelief at the scene in front of him, before he shook himself. He was about to voice his opinion on the idea of a Time Lord being forcibly fed the petrifying pear pie, when he felt the little strings on his wooden arm jerk up. Glancing up, he put as much of the Oncoming Storm into his glare as could be feasibly accomplished by a medium-sized marionette, and grimly grinned when Jack held his hands up in a gesture of mock fear. “Jack...stop it! I’m not Pinocchio. You’re not Gepetto...so kindly keep your hands to yourself, along with all those frightening innuendos involving wood that I know you’re thinking. I don’t have to be slightly telepathic to know your thoughts!”
The Doctor lifted his presently tiny wooden arms to ward off the very idea of the pie, accidentally bumping into Donna as he tried to shuffle away. Trying to maintain what little shred of dignity still remained, he slowly tilted his head as she couldn’t keep a stern expression, and snorted a laugh. Of course, walking away proved interesting, as Martha helpfully--and literally--pulled his strings, without so much as a comment about being a puppet master. Although, he couldn’t help the tickle of fear that crept in at her grin. He just sighed, resigned to it as she took a quick snapshot of him.
“For when Mickey comes back, you see. He’ll be sad he missed this.”
“Of course he would. Mickety Mick Mick would be devastated if he couldn’t goad me about this the next time I saw him.” He sighed, putting one hand over his face in an attempt to look put-upon. Not exactly hard to accomplish, in his current state.
Even Jack seemed to have his limits in this situation, as proven by him passing a couple remaining strings over to Martha, before he ducked into his office with a slight whimper. Ianto and Donna ducked in soon after, leaving the Doctor very worried as the silence stretched. Gradually, it was broken by loud laughter, causing both Martha and the Doctor to begin a desperate fit of giggling, that threatened to grow into hysteria.
He realized with a sort of gallows humor that perhaps he should be thankful he hadn’t become a muppet with various detachable parts. Jack would have stolen one item--he probably has a jar ready and labeled, he darkly thought. He shook himself gently from those disturbing notions, blaming it on being in the Hub too long...and trying to pry his mind from the tangent that was leading it to wonder what a marionette (or muppet) regeneration would look like. Would stuffing fly? Would body parts appear, to be sewn back on? Sweet Rassilon, I need to be turned back soon, or I’ll just lose it.
Looking at a concerned Martha when she rubbed his back, he muttered, “At least there’s not a fireplace here. There’s that, right?” Then again, he thought, as he heard the resident pterodactyl scream and whoosh by overhead, there could still be the possibility of Myfanwy using him as part of the lining for her nest. Wouldn’t that be the ball bearings on the cupcake? Worst indignity a Time Lord turned marionette could suffer.
Donna left the office, still looking terribly amused, wiping her eyes from the mirth--and wiping some crusty baguette off her sleeves. She took a deep breath, and let it all out. “Right, then. Ooh, I’ll have to be sponge bathing you in the pears, then, since you won’t eat it even under threat of regeneration. Come along, then, Spaceman.” Holding in another bout of laughter, she took hold of the reins, so to speak, making the marionette Doctor walk with her into a deeper level of the Hub.
“What...what?! No, Donna, wait...I can adapt? You don’t have to bathe me. Just pull some strings, and put a blindfold on.”
“Won’t work, bucko. I think it might work better if I get it covering every inch of you--just smeared in. You’ll have a few bananas when it’s done, if Captain Jack’s feeling generous enough.”
“Ooh…we don’t speak of this ever again, got that? Please?”
Donna snorted. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, you dummy--you didn't think your clone sprang forth fully clothed during the metacrisis, did you?" And with that, she slammed the door shut, and began dumping pear pie into a bucket.
The cries of horror and disgust that came from the bathroom echoed through the Hub.
--
And so it was that following the pear bath, the Doctor did indeed gradually turn back into his old Time Lord self. It was so gradual, that for another hour he still had stray strings hanging off his arms, and one or two wooden spots.
To his great joy, the Time Lord did indeed get a huge bushel of bananas. The Doctor was slowly and steadily devouring one of the many bananas that Jack had left outside the bathroom. “Mmm...so good. Didn’t think I’d ever get the taste of pears out of my mouth. Bleh. Might never get the smell out of my suit.” He wrinkled his nose, and gave Jack a mischievous sideways glance.
“Thank Rassilon my trousers shrank along with the rest of me. Can you picture a Time Lord wandering through space and time without his trousers? The very idea!” He pointedly ignored Jack practically spraying the glass of water he’d been drinking, and simply patted him on the back to help with the choking.
It was all over, things had been cleaned up—except for a few pie crusts and pear residue that were still being found in odd corners, to Ianto’s bemusement--and alien dust had been vacuumed up and thrown into the freezer to be dealt with later. Now came the Doctor’s attempt at goodbye, while Donna was off having one last chat with Martha. “A pleasure as always, Doc...but promise me something? Next time you visit, call ahead. Make sure we’re ready for an invasion of the Hub.”
The Doctor grinned, ruffling his own hair with one hand with a rather large amount of glee (movable arms without strings are a wondrous thing) on his face, and waving him over with the other. “Of course, Captain. And let me know if that team of yours feels like a vacation, you got that? Call me, I still have Martha’s phone. Make the most of the offer...fabric of reality won’t unravel just because one of you goes off with me, now will it?”
Jack raised an eyebrow, while the Doctor’s beaming grin wavered for a moment, and he wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, with me involved, it could. But the offer still stands! Me and Donna would welcome you aboard with open arms, you know that.”
“Maybe someday, Doc. Gwen will hate having missed you, you know--she’s on vacation with Rhys in Amherst, Massachusetts; they needed a break from aliens for a few weeks, and she wanted to see Emily Dickinson’s birthplace.”
The Doctor was definitely back to his old self and in good spirits, as he suddenly dashed around to pick up a fallen baguette that had survived knocking out an alien, pointed it at Jack with a wry quirk of a grin, and shouted, “En garde! Ha! Oh, but I’ve missed a good old fashioned friendly fencing match--haven’t done this in ages!” Jack shrugged as the Doctor tossed him another firm baguette, shoved aside his own reservations, and soon a very strange fencing match was ongoing as Donna, Martha, and Ianto watched in amusement.
Shouts of “Rassilon, Jack—you’re better at this than I expected,” and “Good sir, you shall never have the fair maidens...nor Ianto” caused the three observing to laugh. A muttered “There can be only one” from Jack caused Martha to chuckle. The duel ended bloodlessly after five minutes as Jack laughed and got in a rather good hit, causing the Doctor’s baguette to explode in a rather impressive haze of bread chunks.
The Doctor’s response was merely tossing the leftover bread at Jack, snickering as it bounced off his nose. Donna rolled her eyes, laughingly muttered, “They’re children--both of them!” and walked on into the TARDIS. She popped back out, glanced at the two and tapped a finger on the outside, as if to ask if he was going come on or not.
The two seemed to silently argue with each other for a few moments before Donna grinned. She had apparently won the battle, as the Doctor ruefully grinned back. He started to walk away before stepping back over for a warm hug--barely jumping in surprise when Jack managed to sneak in a quick kiss on the forehead. “Behave, Captain.”
“Never, Doc. Never.”
He shook his head, not surprised in the least. “Next stop, Donna’s house. We promised to take Wilf to a few of Donna’s favorite planets. We’ll take him to a few little gift shops for souvenirs, too. Love a gift shop.”
He quickly turned, heading straight for Martha with a determined stride. “And I’m forgetting something, hmm? Getting old, aren’t I?” He squeezed her tight one more time, grinning at her laugh as he quickly spun her around. “I’ll miss you, Miss Jones. The TARDIS always does, judging by how much she loves playing Me and Mrs. Jones.”
Keeping one arm around her for a moment, the Doctor raised an eyebrow at Ianto, and held out his hand for a quick shake, which was immediately taken. “Good seeing you again--maybe next time we won’t be fighting aliens? Maybe we can go on a quick trip, if Jack isn’t around?”
Ianto grinned, shooting Jack a quick look out of the corner of one eye. “We’ll have to see about that.”
The Doctor nodded, hurrying away before Jack could make any protests, and gave them all an impish grin.
And with that, he ducked back inside the TARDIS, stuck out a hand in one last wave goodbye, and closed the door. Soon, they would be off on yet another grand adventure.
“Ready, Spaceman?” The Doctor’s beaming grin as they hit switches and pressed buttons said everything that needed to be said. Of course he was ready. He was always ready. Well, he mused, except for when it came to the mothers of companions, but other than that--always ready!
Finis
Cross-posted todoctor_donna here, and dwfiction over here.
Author:
calliopes_penRating: PG-13
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Word Count: 4153 words
Summary: The Doctor’s routine visit to Torchwood goes wrong when aliens invade the Hub, and the Doctor is turned into a marionette. Only pear pie can save him now, to his everlasting horror.
Beta Readers: Huge thanks go out to
seandc and persiflage_1.Notes: Written for the
multific Finish-A-Thon. frenchroast helped with the prompt of: “Donna must use pie to save the Doctor from a tiny alien race that have used a shrink ray on him and imprisoned him in their ship with other assorted animals and sentient beings.” It veered off into the Doctor becoming a marionette after aliens attack Torchwood, but pie is used...and so are baguettes. A few spoilers for Journey's End. In the Hub, Jack was filling out paperwork from the latest bout of strangeness Torchwood had managed to clean up. The cost of using retcon on approximately three hundred people because of them seeing fifty Weevils wearing ripped tutus (stolen from a nearby costume shop) and performing their own extremely feral rendition of what appeared to be either a warped mating ritual or a Nutcracker ballet of the Waltz of the Flowers would just have to go in the record books.
The fact that Martha had joked that Jack might have gassed the Weevils, sewn the costumes and dressed them himself out of boredom was just an interesting footnote in his report. Shaking his head, his thoughts were happily turned from the image of Weevils writhing around a fountain by the sound of the familiar and almost always welcome vworp vworp of the TARDIS' entrance into the Hub.
Almost before the TARDIS had finished materializing, the Doctor was leaping out with his arms spread, and ready for a hug. “Brilliant--didn’t overshoot and hit the formerly lost moon of Poosh again. Jack! How are you?”
Jack’s smile was equal parts relief and amusement, as he abandoned his desk for another time, and threw down his pen. “Doc! Just the man to give me a reprieve from this mountain of paperwork!” He grasped the other man in a tight hug, and let his hands go slightly lower than the Doctor liked--just narrowly missing his chance to goose the Time Lord as he dashed away. Looking behind him, he spotted Donna Noble leaning against the door--smiling as though she knew exactly what he had tried, and beamed his most dashing smile.
“Ah, Donna Noble! My favorite redheaded companion, with the scream of an angel, and a slap like a dream. How have you been?” He bent to kiss her hand, slightly fearful of a slap that might actually move mountains.
The flattery was just Jack Harkness all over. Even the sudden quick lift as he picked her up without warning, spun her, and set her down gently. Donna shared a look with the Doctor--he, too, had had this same treatment in the past, and he had warned her of it. She was a bit breathless as she replied, “Good, Captain. Of course, what day wouldn’t be better after a greeting like that?”
The Doctor just covered his face with one hand, and whispered, “There’s two of them…I should have known at the Crucible.” He continued, slightly louder and with a quirk of an eyebrow, “Break it up, you two. All hands where I can see them.” Turning so he wouldn’t (possibly) regenerate under the combined glares, he added innocently, “So...give us a proper tour of the Hub? We’ve never had the royal treatment when there wasn’t an invasion. Or a dissection. And, if we count Torchwood One, both at the same time...”
He quickly sidestepped and ducked before Donna could manage to ruffle his hair. Jack reached over and did the job instead, earning a wicked grin from her corner.
"You should be glad I'm not wearing my unlucky tuxedo--you'd all be dead now! Death, disaster, and dismemberment...the tuxedo causes it all! Or just death repeatedly in your case, Jack." He paused and tugged his ear in thought. "Well, with you around, and me having landed in the Hub, I should be thankful I've not been forced into a toga and told to dance."
“I represent that remark--happily, might I add. Oh, and Martha’s around here somewhere. It’s Mickey’s day off, so he’ll be annoyed that he missed you. And as for Ianto...” He just grinned as Ianto appeared directly behind the Doctor, and quietly tapped his shoulder. He took an unexpected amount of pleasure at the sight of the Doctor getting caught off guard, and spinning around in surprise. Donna covered her mouth to try to hold in a laugh.
The Doctor half-heartedly glared at Ianto, when he merely offered one cup of tea for him. “Don’t make me regenerate today, please! My hearts are still racing.” Even so, he gratefully accepted his cup, and took a wary sip. “Mmm...this tea is almost better than the TARDIS makes! How’d you know how I like my tea?” Silently, he sent the telepathic message to his ship, Sorry, old girl. Please don’t throw my room into the vortex, or poison my tea.
“It’s on your file...and I know everything.” The Doctor quietly smiled, ignoring that. Maybe someday they could contest that with a battle of wits. Finishing the tea, he put the cup on the nearest table, and looked around. “So...where’s my favorite doctor, then? Not lurking behind me like some?”
“Our nightingale felt like checking on rift activity, since things keep beeping urgently. A slight spike.”
The Doctor was ready to go find her when Donna stopped him. “She’s behind you, Martian. Everyone is tonight.” The Doctor scrunched his nose, spun around and grabbed Martha for a good and thorough hug, which she gladly returned.
Martha smiled, and poked his chest with a finger. “Was just on the way to see if that sound I heard was real, or I was losing my mind. You should have called ahead, Mister--we’d have had banana cupcakes with ball bearings ready for you.” Dropping the smile, she looked at Jack, and continued, “We might have a problem in a minute. Something keeps shimmering around the Rift Manipulator...and you really need to hide your rare porn collection harder--right there on the desktop? Really?”
The Doctor bounded ahead practically before she could finish, with his sonic screwdriver at the ready, and Jack close behind. Martha looked at Donna, the two sharing a quick look of amusement at the danger never ending before they hurried after them.
They were just in time to see creatures fall through the Rift, and straight into the Hub. The three creatures almost looked like marionettes without the strings...weasel marionettes. Three-foot tall weasel marionettes, with glowing yellow eyes. The Doctor skidded to a stop as he saw them, and tried to go through a few possible languages in an attempt to communicate with them. Unfortunately, wearing red and white trainers had a tendency to mean, “I want to become like you, and then destroy your planet,” in their language, as the Doctor remembered, moving too slowly to hide behind a box.
A large red stick in the palm of one creature glowed, before zapping the Doctor. As he started to fall and began to shrink, Donna grabbed him, shoving Jack and Martha into another room, before slamming the door. Slightly out of breath, but nonetheless undeterred, she glanced at the other two. “Everyone okay?”
Martha nodded, before going around to check on the Time Lord. Both hearts appeared to be beating fine, and he was blinking up at her in confusion before staring down at himself. “I’m fine, Martha. But this...this is a bit different...I’ve been turned into a whole host of other things, including something that looked like a Smurf once...but never this.”
The Doctor had become a marionette, complete with strings.
--
Hiding from the aliens in the autopsy area was starting to look like a bad idea. For one thing, they hadn’t a weapon at hand--not even Jack, as he’d been cleaning his favorite hidden weapons in his office before he’d started in on the paperwork. For another, Martha had sheepishly admitted that she had been busy with some bodies, and the scalpels needed replacing--alien blood was, occasionally, acidic.
Donna sorted through some sacks she had bumped into, in the desperate hope there would be something they could use. “Let’s tear through this thing, shall we? Everyone, we’ve got...striped socks, knitting needles, and three new coffee pots. Oi! Whose are these? Yours, Ianto?” At his nod, she shoved the bag into his hands, where he carefully put them in a safe place under the table. “Well, keep them out of the way--might use those knitting needles to stab something, though.” Digging into the next bag, she pulled out the first item.
“We have...eight stale baguettes, five pies…” At this point, she tore open the container and took one little taste, making a face in disbelief. “Five pear pies. We could bash their brains out with the baguettes, and smash the pie in their faces for good measure? Who bought this?” Jack quietly raised his hand, and she shook her head. Of course it couldn’t have been Ianto--he wouldn’t have bought anything that was in less than ideal shape.
Jack shrugged. “I was distracted. Thinking of Ianto, back in my room.” He smirked, and stopped when she held up a hand--whether it was just to stop him, or to threaten him with a slap, he wasn’t sure. He expected it would be worth it, though. She rolled her eyes at his expression, and looked over at the marionette seated on a stool.
“Doctor, you have your sonic screwdriver in that tiny suit, right?” After a moment of no response from the Doctor, Donna tried again, calling out, “Oi! Spaceman, are you listening?”
The Doctor shuffled, having a little trouble tugging on his ear, or ruffling his hair with all the attached strings in the way. “Well...it’s wooden, just like me. Out of commission, I’d say. Never worked on wood, remember? And since it is wooden now, there’s not a chance it would work on itself--might burst into a brilliant ball of flames, most likely. Just a little flaw that I really need to work out of it once we’ve learned what to do...oooh, yes! No...yes! She’s a genius! I’d ruffle my hair this very second if I could make it through the tangled strings!”
Donna, Martha, and Jack had been through the machine gun fire decision-making before, of course, but Ianto had not. “Who is a genius, Sir?” It wouldn’t do for him not to know something.
“The TARDIS! Her data banks have got information on the aliens, and she’s been trying to tell me. Marionette mayhem got in the way, but she did get through.” He paused, then scrunched his nose up and glanced over at Ianto subtly. “She says if you want the Hub covered in so much orange alien goo, stab the little weasels in the left temple. She also says it’s hard to find the correct neural pathways in something with only stuffing and sawdust for brains...hey, do you want me to find that mallet the previous me played with? Didn’t think so. Carry on, Old Girl.”
At Ianto’s mixed look of weariness, and wariness, the Doctor beamed. “You want a method not as messy? She says bean them with the baguettes to stun them, and then slap their faces with the putrid pear pie promptly. Love those p’s.” Even being turned into a marionette couldn’t stop him from rambling--and, obviously, he hadn’t been paying attention when Donna had brought up that very same plan. She was shaking her head fondly, when she realized they might all be turned into marionettes by the end of the day, or the Rift might break and destroy the universe.
“Oi! Hurry it up and tell us what it does do, before me and Martha use you for so much kindling!” An evil grin spread across her face. “Or we get Mum to come visit with her trusty axe.”
He nodded hurriedly, distractedly wishing his hair wasn’t so much brittle plastic--and that he could pace around the Hub, without worrying about being shot again by an alien that looked like a wooden weasel (might set him on fire), or that the resident pterodactyl wouldn’t come swooping by again--it wouldn’t do for a Time Lord to end his tenth life as so much wood for a comfortable nest, now would it?
“They dry out and collapse into dust. Much easier to clean up, unless someone happens to sneeze too hard. Then you just get dead aliens in your hair. Bleh. Been there before, but it was banana pie--such a waste of lovely bananas--and I was scraping alien dust out of the grating in the console room for the next sixty years! Inhabitants from Ettenoiram tend to be easy to clean up unless a stiff breeze blows through.” He lifted his nose in what should have been a haughty look of disgust, but looked more like he was trying to sniff something foul. “They also come ready-made looking like weasels as you observed, and without a single string to trip them up. I think I’m jealous. Of the lack of string, not the weasel bit.”
Jack just rolled his eyes, wondering what kissing a marionette felt like, and if it would make the Doctor stop talking for five minutes. Probably not. “Doc, we have a room filled with the things. They were confiscated from a bakery that we thought was making pies from aliens, a la Sweeney Todd.” He waved his hand in the Doctor’s direction before he could protest. “They weren’t! We kept them--they’re a bit stale, but otherwise fine.”
“Give me a baguette in one hand and a pie in the other, and we’ll go to war, then, Jack!”
Jack critically eyed him, as he tried to shake one tiny wooden finger at him. “Do you really think you can hold anything without snapping your hands off? You can barely shuffle without help.”
While the two debated on whether or not the Doctor could (or even should) try to join the eventual mêlée, Martha, Ianto, and Donna quietly went to the door and left them behind. At the sound of alien shrieks and zaps hitting the side of the wall, the Time Lord and the Immortal turned. “Martha?”
Martha stumbled back in the room, glared at them, and waved them to hurry up. “We finished it without you. You were taking too long, so now they’re dust. Donna’s a better shot than anyone I’ve ever seen...even in UNIT!”
Carefully peeking around the door, Jack shook his head as he stared in awe at the mayhem. Broken baguettes littered the floor, along with alien dust and messy pie debris. There was one singed area of the wall nearest the Rift, where the aliens had obviously tried to fight back. A few extra pear pies were still easily seen, and he pointed at the Doctor. “You said you needed extra ones to be fixed? There you go...want to eat it, or bathe in it? Think a marionette can eat?”
The Doctor was still blinking in disbelief at the scene in front of him, before he shook himself. He was about to voice his opinion on the idea of a Time Lord being forcibly fed the petrifying pear pie, when he felt the little strings on his wooden arm jerk up. Glancing up, he put as much of the Oncoming Storm into his glare as could be feasibly accomplished by a medium-sized marionette, and grimly grinned when Jack held his hands up in a gesture of mock fear. “Jack...stop it! I’m not Pinocchio. You’re not Gepetto...so kindly keep your hands to yourself, along with all those frightening innuendos involving wood that I know you’re thinking. I don’t have to be slightly telepathic to know your thoughts!”
The Doctor lifted his presently tiny wooden arms to ward off the very idea of the pie, accidentally bumping into Donna as he tried to shuffle away. Trying to maintain what little shred of dignity still remained, he slowly tilted his head as she couldn’t keep a stern expression, and snorted a laugh. Of course, walking away proved interesting, as Martha helpfully--and literally--pulled his strings, without so much as a comment about being a puppet master. Although, he couldn’t help the tickle of fear that crept in at her grin. He just sighed, resigned to it as she took a quick snapshot of him.
“For when Mickey comes back, you see. He’ll be sad he missed this.”
“Of course he would. Mickety Mick Mick would be devastated if he couldn’t goad me about this the next time I saw him.” He sighed, putting one hand over his face in an attempt to look put-upon. Not exactly hard to accomplish, in his current state.
Even Jack seemed to have his limits in this situation, as proven by him passing a couple remaining strings over to Martha, before he ducked into his office with a slight whimper. Ianto and Donna ducked in soon after, leaving the Doctor very worried as the silence stretched. Gradually, it was broken by loud laughter, causing both Martha and the Doctor to begin a desperate fit of giggling, that threatened to grow into hysteria.
He realized with a sort of gallows humor that perhaps he should be thankful he hadn’t become a muppet with various detachable parts. Jack would have stolen one item--he probably has a jar ready and labeled, he darkly thought. He shook himself gently from those disturbing notions, blaming it on being in the Hub too long...and trying to pry his mind from the tangent that was leading it to wonder what a marionette (or muppet) regeneration would look like. Would stuffing fly? Would body parts appear, to be sewn back on? Sweet Rassilon, I need to be turned back soon, or I’ll just lose it.
Looking at a concerned Martha when she rubbed his back, he muttered, “At least there’s not a fireplace here. There’s that, right?” Then again, he thought, as he heard the resident pterodactyl scream and whoosh by overhead, there could still be the possibility of Myfanwy using him as part of the lining for her nest. Wouldn’t that be the ball bearings on the cupcake? Worst indignity a Time Lord turned marionette could suffer.
Donna left the office, still looking terribly amused, wiping her eyes from the mirth--and wiping some crusty baguette off her sleeves. She took a deep breath, and let it all out. “Right, then. Ooh, I’ll have to be sponge bathing you in the pears, then, since you won’t eat it even under threat of regeneration. Come along, then, Spaceman.” Holding in another bout of laughter, she took hold of the reins, so to speak, making the marionette Doctor walk with her into a deeper level of the Hub.
“What...what?! No, Donna, wait...I can adapt? You don’t have to bathe me. Just pull some strings, and put a blindfold on.”
“Won’t work, bucko. I think it might work better if I get it covering every inch of you--just smeared in. You’ll have a few bananas when it’s done, if Captain Jack’s feeling generous enough.”
“Ooh…we don’t speak of this ever again, got that? Please?”
Donna snorted. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, you dummy--you didn't think your clone sprang forth fully clothed during the metacrisis, did you?" And with that, she slammed the door shut, and began dumping pear pie into a bucket.
The cries of horror and disgust that came from the bathroom echoed through the Hub.
--
And so it was that following the pear bath, the Doctor did indeed gradually turn back into his old Time Lord self. It was so gradual, that for another hour he still had stray strings hanging off his arms, and one or two wooden spots.
To his great joy, the Time Lord did indeed get a huge bushel of bananas. The Doctor was slowly and steadily devouring one of the many bananas that Jack had left outside the bathroom. “Mmm...so good. Didn’t think I’d ever get the taste of pears out of my mouth. Bleh. Might never get the smell out of my suit.” He wrinkled his nose, and gave Jack a mischievous sideways glance.
“Thank Rassilon my trousers shrank along with the rest of me. Can you picture a Time Lord wandering through space and time without his trousers? The very idea!” He pointedly ignored Jack practically spraying the glass of water he’d been drinking, and simply patted him on the back to help with the choking.
It was all over, things had been cleaned up—except for a few pie crusts and pear residue that were still being found in odd corners, to Ianto’s bemusement--and alien dust had been vacuumed up and thrown into the freezer to be dealt with later. Now came the Doctor’s attempt at goodbye, while Donna was off having one last chat with Martha. “A pleasure as always, Doc...but promise me something? Next time you visit, call ahead. Make sure we’re ready for an invasion of the Hub.”
The Doctor grinned, ruffling his own hair with one hand with a rather large amount of glee (movable arms without strings are a wondrous thing) on his face, and waving him over with the other. “Of course, Captain. And let me know if that team of yours feels like a vacation, you got that? Call me, I still have Martha’s phone. Make the most of the offer...fabric of reality won’t unravel just because one of you goes off with me, now will it?”
Jack raised an eyebrow, while the Doctor’s beaming grin wavered for a moment, and he wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, with me involved, it could. But the offer still stands! Me and Donna would welcome you aboard with open arms, you know that.”
“Maybe someday, Doc. Gwen will hate having missed you, you know--she’s on vacation with Rhys in Amherst, Massachusetts; they needed a break from aliens for a few weeks, and she wanted to see Emily Dickinson’s birthplace.”
The Doctor was definitely back to his old self and in good spirits, as he suddenly dashed around to pick up a fallen baguette that had survived knocking out an alien, pointed it at Jack with a wry quirk of a grin, and shouted, “En garde! Ha! Oh, but I’ve missed a good old fashioned friendly fencing match--haven’t done this in ages!” Jack shrugged as the Doctor tossed him another firm baguette, shoved aside his own reservations, and soon a very strange fencing match was ongoing as Donna, Martha, and Ianto watched in amusement.
Shouts of “Rassilon, Jack—you’re better at this than I expected,” and “Good sir, you shall never have the fair maidens...nor Ianto” caused the three observing to laugh. A muttered “There can be only one” from Jack caused Martha to chuckle. The duel ended bloodlessly after five minutes as Jack laughed and got in a rather good hit, causing the Doctor’s baguette to explode in a rather impressive haze of bread chunks.
The Doctor’s response was merely tossing the leftover bread at Jack, snickering as it bounced off his nose. Donna rolled her eyes, laughingly muttered, “They’re children--both of them!” and walked on into the TARDIS. She popped back out, glanced at the two and tapped a finger on the outside, as if to ask if he was going come on or not.
The two seemed to silently argue with each other for a few moments before Donna grinned. She had apparently won the battle, as the Doctor ruefully grinned back. He started to walk away before stepping back over for a warm hug--barely jumping in surprise when Jack managed to sneak in a quick kiss on the forehead. “Behave, Captain.”
“Never, Doc. Never.”
He shook his head, not surprised in the least. “Next stop, Donna’s house. We promised to take Wilf to a few of Donna’s favorite planets. We’ll take him to a few little gift shops for souvenirs, too. Love a gift shop.”
He quickly turned, heading straight for Martha with a determined stride. “And I’m forgetting something, hmm? Getting old, aren’t I?” He squeezed her tight one more time, grinning at her laugh as he quickly spun her around. “I’ll miss you, Miss Jones. The TARDIS always does, judging by how much she loves playing Me and Mrs. Jones.”
Keeping one arm around her for a moment, the Doctor raised an eyebrow at Ianto, and held out his hand for a quick shake, which was immediately taken. “Good seeing you again--maybe next time we won’t be fighting aliens? Maybe we can go on a quick trip, if Jack isn’t around?”
Ianto grinned, shooting Jack a quick look out of the corner of one eye. “We’ll have to see about that.”
The Doctor nodded, hurrying away before Jack could make any protests, and gave them all an impish grin.
And with that, he ducked back inside the TARDIS, stuck out a hand in one last wave goodbye, and closed the door. Soon, they would be off on yet another grand adventure.
“Ready, Spaceman?” The Doctor’s beaming grin as they hit switches and pressed buttons said everything that needed to be said. Of course he was ready. He was always ready. Well, he mused, except for when it came to the mothers of companions, but other than that--always ready!
Cross-posted to
doctor_donna here, and dwfiction over here.
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Love the idea of the TARDIS playing "Me and Mrs Jones" to remind Ten of Martha!
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