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All in the TARDIS
by Charles Mento
The Doctor ran to the scanner and banged on it, "Damn. I must see what is happening outside! What has the Eye of Harmony done to the rest of the Earth, the Universe! Grace! Chang Lee! Now the universe..."
"Boy the way Glenn Miller played!"
"Songs that made the hit parade..."
"What is this?"
"Those were the days!"
The Doctor hit the scanner over the console and the image of Archie Bunker and Edith Bunker finishing their song over New York City came into view. The Doctor caught notice of this but then hit a switch, "The Eye! It can bring them back! I know how...if I just...it would mean, old girl, that I will have to...now where is that switch?" The Doctor's eyes darted back and forth..."Ahhhhahhhhh! Ah-ha! Found it! No time like the present!" He pulled it so hard the switch broke off and a glaring blast engulfed him and knocked him out of it all at the same time. While the glare flared up, the image of Archie Bunker took in the Doctor and the Doctor took in the image of Archie Bunker...
"We...we're alive," Grace shook herself as she rose from the debris covered floor of the giant TARDIS. Leaves were on the floor as well. But all seemed well again with the universe. The TARDIS bats, yes bats, flew overhead. Jasper and Stewart, the Doctor told Grace, their
names were. They usually stayed in the library. "Hey, Lee, are you all right?"
The Chinese boy shook his head, "Hey yeah but where is the Doctor...and the Master?"
"I...I don't know," Grace helped him up and both of them almost stumbled. "I don't know what we're...he's in the control room!"
"Let's...find him," Chang Lee said. The two ran, looking around them, toward the overly huge console room.
They heard a loud voice issuing from the floor. A large figure was on the ground beneath the console, the face unseen. "Doctor?" Grace called.
"Doctor," Chang Lee echoed.
"Doctor, you're scaring me," Grace called. Then they spotted the feet. The shoes were okay but the pants were a bit too small for this body and the waist band was stretched to the limit. "Doctor!"
Chang Lee, before Grace could stop him, pulled the legs of the Doctor out. The face they saw was not that of the young-ish, curly haired man but a man with less hair, some gray, some white hair. An older man. A chunky face. The eyes closed. He was talking. "What's wrong with him?"
"Look, the Doctor was disoriented when he changed...I...oh no!"
"What!? What is it?"
"Look, he's done it again, he's changed again, Chang Lee!"
"He...he's the Doctor but he's not?"
"No he is fully the Doctor but not our Doctor. A new body and voice and...oh my God!"
"Edith, is that you?! Hey, I'm parched out here! Git me a beer, willya? So I wrote that President, dear ole Mr. Nixon a letter....he's ain't done nothing wrong that any other President woulda done if given half the chance to tape himself..."
"What is this?" Chang asked and leaned closer, "Doctor, wake up!"
"Oh geeze, what's this?" The Doctor sat up but his eyes were still closed. The man was now chubby and shorter, the buttons on his shirt starting to pop open to show his undershirt.
"Doctor, open your eyes," Grace said.
"Oh Goodnight Nurse...Nurse? Nurse?" The Doctor opened his blue eyes, "Hey, you're not Edith...not a nurse..."
"I'm a Doctor..."
The Doctor grabbed her shoulder and stared at her in the face, "Nurse? Doctor? Oh Goodnight Doctor, you? A nurse? A female nurse? The very thought...the very thing..." He turned to the boy, "A nurse a doctor, what gives, son?"
"I'm not your son!" Chang Lee spat.
"I should say not. It would be a shame if you were. It would mean one of them there mixed merenges there, you know," he waved his hand and fingers like a flurry and turned back to the girl, "Who's da chink kid? He needs a hair cut."
Grace blinked herself now and swallowed, "Doctor, what is this?"
"I'm me, and I ain't never felt as good as I do now," he leaned forward and almost fell but she and Chang Lee caught him and he fell backward onto the console, "Oi I must have had one of my little things...."
Grace said, "What was that about a female doctor, Doctor?"
"Doctor, Doctor, that group? They really took the cake...cake? That diet I am on is making me...yeah, a female Doctor, well, she ain't got the right parts fer it, does she?"
"I was your Doctor..."
Chang Lee snickered, "Not really."
"Stay out this, kid," Grace snapped, "Now what do you mean exactly, Doctor?"
"Them there femalists, don't know jack squat about how to operate. They might break there nails, there," the Doctor sniggered and looked at Chang Lee, who laughed and nodded with him.
"Doctor! What is this new you!?"
"Oh please, you know I'm right. I mean look at you. I bet you would kill me..." he moved forward, "...right there on the operating table....probably leaving a good piece of hardware in me body just to go listen to some classical sissy fruit soundtrack to some play..."
Chang laughed again, "Again, you have a point, Doc."
"Don't call me Doc, Meathead chinko, don't you have some one you gotta rob?"
"Doctor!"
"Well, he stabbed me in back with that dar Master fag there. Kissed Chang and all. I mean he's as sneaky as them dere Japs who bombed the Harbor there in the big one, you know WW One. I was there a few times."
"That was WW Two..." Grace crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, "And stop the racial slurs...it's the 1990's, Doctor!"
"Oh what does dat there mean. I been to the 2000s and 3000s...Klaidatu was black and so was one of my companions, Roz...I mean I shoulda let her make me them der Aunt Gemima pancakes she was always braggin about. But the dumb ass girl got herself killed charging the hill. Well, if it were me, I wouldn't have gotten killed. Like when I charged the hill in the big one, WW Two, there. I took a bit of sharp-nel in ...well I took a bit of it in me Keyster!"
"Doctor, when will this new body of yours stabilize?"
"I ain't saying fer sure there, toots," the Doctor went to a large plush chair, "I think this ill be me new chair here. I like the way it feels..."
"It was in your ass?" Chang Lee said, "Is that what keyster means?"
"He's a bit of a ass himself," the Doctor said, "Well to make me stabilize, I think I'll go find some of my former companions if this here TARDIS can get me to them. It's a female too you know. It's rather temper-mentallity during some times of the month...I mean if it's gonna change...let it change already...clean out the tubes if you know what I mean!"
"Doctor!" Grace yelled, then stopped, "Will that help?"
"Let's try it, voice activator, activate," the Doctor shouted, and lit up a cigar and bit on it, making a face, "Get me 1980, where the woman's bibber Sarah Jane Shit is...I mean she oughtta get my new persona in line..." he chuckles, "As if..." In response, the TARDIS seemed to hickup and wheezed into action.
"It's working...it's actually working for him," Chang Lee said.
"I wish he could drop us off first..." Grace moaned, "I don't think I want to be a Doctor companion..."
"He's a funny guy..."
"I don't think I will ever laugh at him..."
"Aww, shucks, little girl, Gracie, is it? Give me a chance!"
"It's Grace like in Amazing Grace..."
"I don't know I don't sing those damn folksie hippy pinko commie bast songs in church. I mean when I do go to church...like to baptize a baby Fenric to make sure...hey I think we've arrived..."
****
"Doctor, we've arrived," Grace said, "I...I, uh, think."
"Aww, geeze, I'll be right up," the Doctor's new Brooklyn-ese voice shouted.
Chang Lee came out of another room and into the console room, "Where is he?" He was eating a piece of chicken.
Grace nodded, and pointed downward.
"Where's that? What's that supposed to mean?"
Suddenly they heard a loud flush of a toilet and the sound of a bowl swishing around. Then the footsteps up a set of stairs. Then a loud voice, "Ahh, that plumbing is not any good...geeze, the other Doctor...."
"You mean you?" Grace asked.
"Yeah me, I think," the Doctor said, "He..."
"Was British..." Chang Lee added.
"I was not no limmie..."
"He...you...yes you were," Grace said.
"No, no fag limmie fer me."
"You are half human..."
"Half...what? I ain't no zebra?"
"What?" Chang Lee asked.
"Half breed, a Mr. Spock pantie waist..."
"Doctor, you said you were human..."
"Oh that previous me..in fact all my limmie previous mes were all full of malarkey there, you see," the Doctor smiled a half smile. He had also changed and was wearing a white button shirt, a pair of black trousers with a belt and black shoes. "Oh and I ain't no human either there. So don't insult me."
"But..."
The Doctor half smiled again and turned away, "No butts about me, hee hee."
"Well we found out from the data file that your mother's name was Penelope..."
"A human name if I ever heard one," Chang Lee put in, getting between the two of them.
"But I ain't human!" The Doctor yelled.
"And see how he talks with his hands..." Grace noticed..."Definitely a human trait..."
"Naw, not either," the Doctor took his cigar out of his mouth, "It's the Dalfrims from the planet Ester, a bunch of fruits if I ever met them. But nice card players, suckers! In more ways than one, there, Gracie, honey."
"I asked you to stop calling me that," Grace said and pouted.
"Where are we anyways," the Doctor looked at the scanner.
"It's still not working," Chang tried to turn it.
"Oh I think I de-ducooshed why that is."
"Tell us," Grace said.
"When I brought you to life...back to life..."
Grace's face changed, "Doctor...?"
Chang Lee began, "...you..."
The Doctor nodded, "..." and smiled, "...saved you both at the cost of my limmie fag body..." Grace kissed the Doctor on the cheek and he looked at her. "What was that for?"
'You risked everything for us," Grace smiled and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Naw," the Doctor tried to cover up, "Naw I didn't either. It was just that body was killin me. I needed a man's body, you know," he burped loudly... Grace shut her eyes at this.
Chang Lee said, "But you did bring us back to life."
"Yeah with that thing called the Eye of Harmony there. The one on Gallifrey is a fake."
"It's not," Grace said, "I read it in the databank. It just powers..."
"Oh don't believe everything you read in the databank, some fool wrote those things in there to fool people..."
"Doctor, you did save us."
"Doctor, indeed," he snorts, "I did. Get over it. I didn't do it for you. I did it for me!"
Grace smiled and took his head in her hands, "Doctor, this new you...sometimes you can be so....and other times you can be...I think I can get to like you..."
He smiled at her, "Of course, there, little girl. Now, do something useful like getting me and Charlie Chan there a beer..."
Grace dropped her hands and rolled her eyes, "Doc..."
Chang Lee said, "You were going to tell us about the scanner..."
"It was tuned into this guy on TV. A very hot fellow if I say so myself. Archie Bunker...the force of the negative neutron charge reversed with the beer flow of the inner septum of my second watery system was blasted into the fusation of ...."
"In English..."
"That's just telepathic language..."
"Doctor....!"
"Aw, okay in lingo you lower life forms can understand. Heehee. The tv show fused with my body and the Eye of Harmony there's power and I became the image of the TV character..."
"Oh no! I thought you looked familiar."
"You can't wear that body...it belongs to an actor," Chang Lee laughed.
"Well, we're not going to meet him, are we?"
"I don't think so," Grace said.
"Then why can't I just wear it. It fits well," the Doctor smiles. "By the way, where in Sam Hill are we?"
"It doesn't look like Earth, Doctor," Chang Lee hit the TARDIS door switch.
"Look you meathead," the Doctor said, "Don't open the kissers if we haven't tested the air."
"I already did that, Doctor," Chang Lee said.
"See, Grace, I always gave credit to the ahh, Orientalists there, they know how to raise their kids smart like, even if they take shots at you when you walk out a door. I mean between the kid and you, I went through, what three lives already, aw geeze....can't a man just relax in his own TARDIS...okay let's go out."
"Do you ever stop talking?" Grace asked and followed the Doctor and Chang Lee out.
They found themselves in a metal corridor...completely metal. A metal ceiling. "Oh geeze, there," the Doctor looked around, "I been here before."
"What?" Chang Lee asked.
"Get wid the program, slant eyes," the Doctor spouted, "I said I been here before. I think I got mugged here when I taxied the Venus-Mars run."
"Doctor," Grace smiled, "You can't expect us to believe that crap?"
"Cursing is the sign of a small mind, there, Gracie."
"Exterminate! Exterminate! Extreminate!" A round shaped object came spiraling out of a hall alcover and a long sticker arm and a gun swiveling around at them.
"Aw shut the hell up!" The Doctor yelled.
"It is the Doctor or Archibald...Bunker from the planet Earth..."
"Aw, don't insult me, no need to call me a blooming Earth man now!"
"We must take him to be interrogated!"
"Aw stifill!"
"What are we going to do?" Chang Lee asked.
The Doctor half smiled and turned to Chang, "Can't you whip up some that der kung fu-ginsu ate youse people got there?"
"You know I don't know that stuff."
"Aw, watch a man at work," the Doctor said and moved up to the Dalek.
"We have the curse of your fatal death," the Dalek shouted, "Now follow us or we will kill you and your companions."
"Aw, go ahead and try to kill them," the Doctor moved closer and turned, waving at his friends, "Start with the fem Doc who killed me...twice."
As the Dalek moved at Grace, the Doctor grabbed it and twisted the gun off and spun the Dalek into another uncoming Dalek which fired and the beams blew them both up. Grace tried to say something but alarms drowned her out.
"Arr, you two get the hell inside the TARDIS over there!"
They ran...
end