Chapter Text
One Thing Leads To Another But Not In That Order
by Charles Mento
The slop of organic gene pool.
"I live. Therefore I need. I hunger. I want. Meet me. Meet my need. I live. You live. Arrive."
Freighter. You know the one. About to crash into Earth. Dark place. Tense moment. Holding his brother Varsh's vine rope tightly. "Now I'll never know if I was right..." Adric stared intently at the screen as the Earth loomed closer and closer. Of course, the planet wouldn't hit the Freighter or it wouldn't happen the other way around...he would be blown up long before the Freighter actually touched into the...wheezing groaning sound. A pain in Adric's upper chest caught him. Wasn't it too late? To have the TARDIS appear her now only to have it destroyed along with him...could there be a chance for him? The door opened and a blur flew out. Brown jacket, floppy hat, a checkered vest with barely seen white button down shirt underneath, a disgruntled red bowtie, brown shirt sleeves, and gray pants to match the very long gray jacket. Patches on the elbows. Oh and a 16 foot multi colored scarf worn around the neck. Not that Adric had time to view that in any detail.
A hand grabbed the black haired 15 year old. "You look like a nice boy! Get in here!" Across the dimensional threshold. Door slammed. Wheezing groaning sound. BOOM! Great big blast.
Adric and the Doctor were thrown against the wall of the TARDIS console room. Then it spun. And spun. The pair found themselves on the ceiling of the TARDIS and then on the floor again as the friction spun the room round and round. There was so much spinning that eventually they remained in one place until the spinning stopped. Adric lost consciousness on the 7th spin.
Blurry. Eyes cleared. The face of his old friend, the old Doctor appeared as large the Earth had not long ago. The fresh faced boy stared at the Doctor, who was wide eyed...and believe me this Doctor could do wide eyed better than any of the others. Others? Adric sat up. "You're all right!" The Doctor yelled loud enough to wake...well Adric didn't want to think about dead right now. "Stand up!" The Doctor lifted Adric up, off the floor. No I mean it, feet completely off the floor. Adric's feet found the floor soon enough as he was slammed back to it.
Adric oriented himself and looked around. Clearly the TARDIS but as he turned, he looked the Doctor up and down, "Doctor? It's you you. I mean you're him."
"Of course I'm him! Him him. NOW," his voice filled the room and Adric shut his eyes in response. "The first thing we have to do is get you out of those clothes!"
"WHAT?" Adric opened his eyes.
"No one likes them you know! No one!"
"Well, I do."
The Doctor leaned in close and whispered, "Tell me boy, do you take showers?"
"Of course I do, I..." Adric moved back, dislocating the invasion of his personal space. He cleared his throat, "Doctor...you're acting strange...even for you..."
The Doctor looked at the wall behind him and spun back around to the boy, "Well, of course I'm acting strange, I've just regenerated!!!!" He realized THEY may be listening so he bent down and put a finger to his mouth, "Shhhhhhh! Shhhhhh...." He was whispering on the second shhhh. "They may be listening."
"They?" Adric looked around as he was caught in the delusion also, "Who are they?"
"Who indeed!" The Doctor stood up at full length again, moving away from Adric. "Who are you?"
"I'm Adric, Doctor, don't you remem..."
"No, don't tell me!"
Adric thought. This Doctor. "You look younger..."
"Yes, I am. I just turned younger not a few moments ago. Locked him in the closet where he belongs."
Adric noticed a wrinkled hospital gown on the floor. "Doctor, you just...changed?"
"Yes, I just...didn't I just say that, hmmmm? Didn't I?"
"Well yes, YES you did!!!" Adric was yelling now, "IT'S....!!!" He caught himself again, "It's just that it's so confusing, that's all." He would have to be very careful if he were to not create any time anomalies or warps, "Doctor, I think you should know something...I know..." He angrily corrected himself, "KNEW! Knew you....and..."
"NO! Know? Knew? No, don't tell me! NOT EVER YOU UNDERSTAND! DON'T ASK ME TO EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN, THERE ARE SOME THINGS I CANNOT DO EVEN WITH THE TARDIS. Am I shouting, Adric?"
"You're shouting but not Adric." Adric frowned.
"Sorry," the Doctor said and ran out through the door into the deeper parts of the TARDIS. "Sorry boy. You're a sorry boy." Silence then.
Adric stood there. "Well come on," he heard the Doctor yell, "If you want to change those clothes!"
"But I don't," Adric looked around speaking to the voice.
"Nonsense, come on in, you'll find a little bit of style...well style!"
Adric smiled, "Yes, that I must admit is your style..." After a shrug, and smiling he followed the Doctor.
After the adventures with the Mordee expedition during the Great Break Out (Adric: "I had one of those once." The Doctor: "I've had several and I'm only 749 or is it 649, difficult to keep track of that age thing.") Adric and the Doctor continued their travels. Those are other stories to be told at other times. One of these included...
A girl named Justine Bateman. Pity about her name though. As an American with British roots, Justine had moved back to England. Avon On Bath. She didn't know who Avon was but had she ever watched BLAKE'S 7, she wouldn't have found the name as clever as she did her whole life. At 17, she was independently wealthy but that didn't stop her from being annoyed. Justine liked to think her move had nothing to do with the fact that she had the name of a not very famous TV actress who flopped in the cinema when she had tried to make that career move. She told everyone she wanted to get back to her roots and so off to England she went...to the last place anyone would know that her name was the same name as the girl who played in FAMILY TIES on the telly. There she used a British word. Telly. Justine didn't care that her name was the focus of so much attention. It was the fact that she not only had the name...but the physical appearance of the girl too. Mousy features. Longish, shortish brown hair. Skinny. Not tall but not short. Yes, this Avon place was a nice place to be. A tornado. A time tornado. A wheezing groaning sound. As she stood in front of her undercover bushes (undercover because these kept her hidden from her neighbors...as well as anyone riding their bicycles past her home, for she had the nasty habit of allowing them to hang over onto the walkways and bicyclists always rode on the walkways) she heard this sound. It was not the first time she heard it. She heard it just before her cousin Flora had vanished, not that she could remember it from that event for she blocked that event out. Perhaps it was some English form of auto travel. Either way, it took her. And just in time too. A bicyclist, who was one of her American neighbors was about to ride by, spot her, and claim he wanted her autograph...as he loved the TV show FAMILY TIES. The hedge cutters she had in her hands clanged to the floor and the bike sped by.
While the Doctor was gathering clothes in a huge cupboard room, Adric watched for a little while, "This is a cupboard? It's huge. And the state of the configuration of the TARDIS..."
"State? Configuration? What about it?" The Doctor tossed out a long purple cape and it hit Adric briefly in the face before the boy cast it aside.
"You see it's just that some of the halls look so old."
"Old? I'm old. Or rather was." The Doctor didn't take his bent over form out of the cupboard chest he was digging in.
"Okay look Doctor, you showed me a Viking outfit, a court jester..."
"Some think you act like a court jester..."
"Doctor, you're not talking sense."
"Ahh," the Doctor stood up with something that looked like a green cloak for a very thick rounded creature wrapped around his front, "Ahh, you've noticed that?"
"Doctor," Adric said, "I'm tired..."
"It's only because I just regenerated that I'm tired and not making sense." He looked at the cloak, "Very see through isn't it?" He hesitated and looked at Adric for the first time since entering the room, "Oh, very well, then." He threw aside the cloak and moved to the door, "I'm going for a lay down then. No, I mean you go for a lay down." He went out into the corridor which looked like a stone pool changing area.
Adric followed but didn't exit yet, "Where are you going for a lie down?"
"I'm going to the bathroom."
"The bathroom?"
"Yes, the bathroom!" The Doctor took off.
Adric looked after him. He turned and decided to go back to the console room. Once there he began to look up records in the Databank using the Index File. He'd have to learn a lot more about the Tardis and flying it since the Doctor was in his right mind.
Justine was wearing a leather bikini. Gruff men and women were gathered around her. They looked to her like cave men but not cave men as they appeared in the movies. They were smooth for the first thing, little hair except on their heads. Little clothing. Justine arrived shaking and not knowing what was going on. Shivering from fear, not from any type of weather conditions, for here it was very hot, Justine made good her celebrity-ness. For as soon as she appeared here, or landed or whatever it was that made her get time tornadoed here, she was surrounded by these cavemen and women. They were young mostly but there were some older ones. They seemed to know her. Be amused by her and have expected her arrival in this manner. Which was more knowledgeable about what had happened to her than she knew. All she knew was that her family had had members vanish before. All female. All 17 like herself. Her grandfather told her the family had a curse on it. Every first born female of her family, when they reached a certain age, vanished. 17. Like herself. The female members of the tribe took her and dressed her, burning her clothing. Maybe they thought the clothing was evil. They thrust her under a strange object. Two giant white bones forming a giant top, a giant wishbone. She looked up.
It was then she saw them MOVE! Move. Slightly. The natives bent down in worship, chanting lightly. "I live, therefore I need. I need you." Justine screamed loudly and ran. "It is not supposed to happen that way."
Adric looked at the coordinates. He was ready to give it a try. He hit a switch but looked at a recurring number. A huge number ONE. Flashing. Adric tried again. "Doctor, where are you?"
‘RIGHT BEHIND YOU, DEAR BOY!" The Doctor rose up behind Adric. In his hands he held a clown's yellow outfit.
Adric jumped in fear, "Doctor!" He shut his eyes and swallowed his fear, "Doctor." Finishing his fear, Adric looked at the outfit. He knew it was another try of the Doctor getting him to take on a new set of clothes. Suspicious, he asked anyway, "Doctor, what is that?"
"Clothing."
"I'm fine the way I am. These clothes clean themselves. They are from a plant that...well why am I explaining this to you? I'm not wearing that."
"Oh this?" The Doctor held it up. "This old thing? No, no, oh no." He moved backward. "Of course not. I brought this so that you'd compare it to the thing you're wearing and come up smelling like a rose for it. I mean compare that to this and this is much, much more garish. I used to have a great sense of dress."
Adric mumbled, "Operative word being used to."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"No," the Doctor moved to the console, "No, I mean about this?"
"It's stuck on the number ONE," Adric looked over the Doctor's huge form.
"So it is and on the number 7, too," the Doctor shrugged.
"7 and 2?"
"No, number 7 too."
"I thought...Doctor, look, it's stuck on the number one and the number seven. There's no number 2."
"There's no number 2. I mean it had a number one and a number 7, too, oh look never mind. I have to unstuck it."
"How?" Adric looked, "I have tried."
"Easy!" The Doctor bangs his hand against the console and the numbers flash more wildly now. The TARDIS is lurched to one side and Adric falls against the back wall. The Doctor manages to hold onto the console.
"Finally, you are coming. Coming to me. I have you now, traveler in time and space. And I know you."
End Part 1