In which our heroine wrote the first chapter of a Who/Victorious crossover.
Chapter One: A Little Less Sonic
“Would you two like to see something beautiful?” The Doctor spun with flair to face his companions, placing his hands behind him on the console of the TARDIS and eying them with a mischievous look.
Standing directly across from him next to the railing were Rory and Amy Pond, who had only moments previous been engaged in a quiet conversation, their faces close with privacy, but now they both were looking at the Doctor, trying to suss him out. Clearly, he didn’t like being left out of the conversation and needed some attention. That was the trouble with traveling with a married couple; they always came first to each other and the Doctor got left out of the conversation.
“Please, don’t unbutton your shirt.” It was Rory who was first to respond, and it was Amy who stifled a laugh and pushed her husband in the chest. He grinned back at her flirtatiously and the Doctor groaned to himself as he twisted back around to the console, hurriedly pressing some buttons and pulling some levers and turning some knobs and tapping some screens.
“Yes, yes, ha, ha, you’re very funny, Rory, but about that beautiful something! Do you Ponds want to see it or not?” There was more pushing of buttons, and a lot of guess work, and a little typing.
Amy parted herself from her husband and sauntered up alongside the Doctor and leaned forward next to him. “Alright, I’ll bite. What is it that’s so beautiful?” She smiled, recognizing what he was doing. He was such a funny man in that there were times where he was an old, mysterious, kind, yet dangerous man-and then there were times like these. Times where he collapsed into an organized mess, begging for attention in the cleverest ways like an intelligent child.
The Doctor didn’t answer her question, he instead made his way around the console, lifting his eyes slightly and grinning at Amy when he was across from her, but only for a second, and then he was focused back on his routing. While he typed, examined screens, thumbed at buttons, Rory joined his wife and the Doctor at the console, a little sore at his mumbled conversation having been interrupted. Except he was used to things like that happening to him with these two. There was hardly a private moment aboard the TARDIS. These days, he didn’t mope or get sour anymore, he just let it happen and moved along with the other two. Rory traced absently around a few buttons with his finger while he watched the Doctor work.
It was only a few seconds more of work, however, before the Doctor darted from the center of the control room, down the steps, and to the doors, turning to press his back against them and grin excitedly at his companions. Amy responded accordingly, affected by his enthusiasm, and rushed to the steps, stopping there to watch. Rory, of course, as always, followed.
And there were a couple more seconds while the Doctor grinned, ever enthralled. “Lady and Centurion… Brace yourselves as I present to you…” He paused again and Rory raised his eyebrows expectantly. “The greater Los Angeles area-” He flung the doors open behind him to reveal a black emptiness. “-by night-” The Doctor spun around and looked downwards through the open doors. “-and by sky.”
At that, Amy ran to the Doctor, clutching on to his tweeded arm and gazing down with him. “Doctor…” she began, mouth hanging open at the sight. For once, the Doctor had apparently actually landed them somewhere he had intended to and Amy Pond was staring down on a million glittering, blinking, bursting lights of every color. The TARDIS floated easily over speeding red car lights, tasteless neon green signs, and a hundred-thousand homely lightbulbs that all came together in a symphony of color and light like nothing Amy had seen before. From the ground, it was likely impossible to see the stars, but from the sky, it was like the stars had made the ground their new home. “It’s gorgeous…” she whispered, still holding on to the Doctor’s sleeve. She knew she was safe standing in the TARDIS, but she was still slightly worried that she’d go plummeting to the ground if she let go of him.
Rory, however, had hung back a few moments more on the steps. Sometimes, it was worth it to hang back just to watch Amy’s reaction.
“How high are we?” Amy asked, finally tearing her eyes away to look at the Doctor.
With a swift, fluid moment, he took the Sonic Screwdriver from the inside of his jacket and pointed it at the ground. How this was going to tell him the height, Amy would never know, but after a couple moments, the Doctor was eyeing the device curiously. “Oh, about 14,000 feet, low enough that we won’t get in the way of any airplanes that may be getting pushy about their space.”
This was when Rory finally became curious enough to come take a look. He started down the steps a little too quickly and when he was supposed to get his footing on the bottommost step, something wrong and strange happened with his feet. The first one didn’t go far enough forward and the second one didn’t make it far enough over and they became entangled in one another. He tried righting himself, but everything happened to clang together and Rory made it a couple of clumsy feet forward before catching the back of the Doctor’s jacket with his hands. Rory hit the ground first, his chin knocking on the floor painfully, and the Doctor’s feet gave out under him as he was pulled downwards as well, and since she was still holding onto his arm, naturally, Amy took her place in the dumbshow and collapsed with her two men.
“Ow… oh, ow… I am so-ow… sorry…” Rory began his apology with a couple proclamations of pain as he moved back onto his haunches, rubbing his chin. “That was entirely clumsy of-ow…” While Amy scurried on her knees to her husband, moving his hand away from his chin to take stock of the damage, the Doctor shot in the other direction, back to the still-open door of the TARDIS. He stared out for half a second, and then turned, frantically throwing his hands about the floor and crawling around in a panic.
Amy placed a kiss on Rory’s chin and patted his cheek lovingly. “You’re alright. Probably gonna smart and get a handsome bruise, though.”
“Oh, and that qualifies as alright to you,” Rory complained back, returning to rubbing his chin. He could already feel the swelling. At least he was lucky he didn’t bite his tongue. He was a nurse, after all, but he didn’t look forward to the day when he’d have to give himself stitches, especially if they were going to be on his tongue.
Amy lowered her chin and her voice sultrily. “Hey. Battlescars are sexy, even if they’re just battlebruises.”
“Will you two stop with the flirting, we have a crisis!” the Doctor bellowed, flying on his knees back to the door and staring down with a sense of panic.
Amy and Rory exchanged a look before crawling the few feet to join the Doctor and look out as well. “What is it?” Amy asked, genuinely worried. Usually, when the Doctor panicked, it was for a good reason.
“The Sonic…” the Doctor confessed with strain in his voice. Amy and Rory both stared until it began to make sense. “I dropped the Sonic out the door.”
Guilt began to make a home in the pit of Rory’s stomach. “Oh… oh, god, I’m-I’m such a klutz, I am so sorry, Doctor…”
For a moment, it seemed from his silence as though the Doctor was very angry with Rory until he sprung to his feet and started hurriedly to the console. “No, no, no, it’s not your fault-well, it is your fault, it’s entirely your fault, your mind was clearly not in a state to send you walking and instead sent you falling, and as your mind is a part of you, it is all your fault.” Already feeling guilty enough, Rory sighed and rose to his feet, Amy following suit. The Doctor began furiously pressing buttons and rushing his way around the console as he spoke. “You really ought to make sure you know where your feet are going before you try sending them places and then things like this wouldn’t happen and I would still have my Sonic, so the next time you feel like tripping down some stairs, Rory Pond-” the Doctor had made his way around and back down the stairs and now came close to Rory’s face, eying him curiously. “…please don’t.”
And he was back up the stairs and typing and pulling on things.
Rory, who had been tense and worried, dropped his shoulders and looked helplessly at Amy, who gave him a sympathetic look. Rory’s arms flopped at his sides before he followed the Doctor up the stairs, moving up next to him at the console. “I said I was sorry.”
“And I heard you say you were sorry and I accept your apology,” the Doctor responded without looking at Rory.
“Well… great.” Rory turned back to Amy, questioningly shaking his head.
She sighed and came along the Doctor’s other side. “Look, can’t you just cook up a new Sonic Screwdriver? Like you did with that one. I saw it come out of the TARDIS that one time.”
“I could,” the Doctor answered, stepping around Rory to get at some more buttons and controls. “But the problem right now isn’t that I don’t have the Sonic.”
Ever comfortably on a page many chapters back, Rory shook his head. “I don’t understand, what’s the problem then, why are we panicking?”
And ever in another book entirely, the Doctor groaned under his breath, halting in his rushed button-pushing to lean forward and look at his companions seriously. “The problem is that someone else, someone down there in Los Angeles, California, city of glamour and horror, someone we don’t nearly know nor should we trust does have the Sonic.”
…
“Hey, Rob, whatcha got there?”
When Beck took his regular seat at the lunch table in the Asphalt Café, Robbie was holding a slender metal contraption between his index fingers, his eyes very close to it. He shrugged, not taking his eyes off the device. “Dunno. Found it on my lawn on the way out the door this morning. Is it a car part?”
Beck set down his tray and took the cylindrical… thing and examined it, scrunching up his nose a little. “Not one I’ve ever seen.” He handed it back to Robbie, who set it on the table to stare at it a little more. “I mean, it could be,” Beck continued. “It’s just new to me.”
“What the hell is that freakish thing?” Jade snapped as she and Cat came up to the table and seated themselves.
Beck sighed and gave a lifeless smile to his girlfriend. “Lovely and eloquent as ever.”
Cat, though, looked deeply offended as she sat down next to Robbie and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Jade, you shouldn’t be so mean to Robbie!” Then she raised her eyebrows at him, shaking her head. “She didn’t mean it, Robbie.”
Beck even had to grin and lower his head to hide it when Robbie’s mouth dropped open and he frowned at Cat. Jade didn’t hide her own smile while she took out her phone to text. “I was talking about the metal thing on the table, but that works, too, Cat.”
“Good one, Red!” Rex commended from his place on the edge of the table.
“You shush,” Robbie scolded just as Tori and André sat down to complete the group.
Tori looked over the expressions around her before she frowned down at the metal thing she’d heard Jade mention. “What’s that?”
Robbie, happily refocused on the device and not on his friends calling him freakish, picked it up with one hand, keeping the other one in Rex’s back. “I don’t know yet. I found it in my yard and Beck says it’s not a car part and Jade says it’s freakish and I say it’s probably a piece of junk that I’m thinking too hard about.” With that, he tossed it back on the table and when it hit the tabletop, one end shot forward and opened up, causing everyone at the table to jump, and in Cat’s case, squeal.
There were a few moments of silence before Jade slowly set her phone on the table. “…what… did it just do?” she asked, knowing perfectly well that no one knew the answer, and her tone didn’t suggest it was really a question at all.
The six of them just stared at the thing for a few seconds. It was André who slowly reached out to pick it up gingerly with the ends of his fingers. “Guys…” he began, looking seriously at his friends. “It just popped apart. Why are we looking at it like it came to life?” Realizing how irrationally they’d all reacted, everyone relaxed easily and Jade, a little embarrassed, picked her phone back up to continue her text. “I think it might be a pen,” André continued, turning it over in his hands. Moving forward with this train of thought, he tried pulling on one end, the end that seemed to have already popped off a bit. But when nothing happened, he dropped it with a sigh and shrugged, going back to his food. “Never mind, not a pen.”
“Oh!” Cat interjected as Robbie reached for the device again. “I know what it is!”
Robbie threw his hands up and frowned at the redhead, upset she hadn’t said something earler. “You do?”
“Uh-huh!” Cat grabbed the metal object and, having spotted a button on the side, pointed the open end at Jade and pressed it. “It’s a flashlight!” But it didn’t act like a flashlight at all. It shone green from the end and started making a very strange warping sound.
Jade lifted her gaze from the screen of her phone long enough to see Cat pointing the thing at her and opened her mouth to protest, but instead shrieked when she looked back to her phone. “Cat! What did you do?!”
Cat set down the thingy and looked worriedly at Jade. “What? I turned on the flashlight!”
“I don’t think it’s a flashlight,” Beck replied, gently taking Jade’s phone from her hands. “I think it’s some kind of scrambler or something.”
“You trashed my phone, Cat!” Jade was quick to accuse, slamming her hands on the table and baring her teeth at Cat, who pouted and leaned closer to Robbie, fully ready to use him as a human shield if the need should arise.
Robbie recognized this often-utilized move, many girls having used it before, and put his hand up defensively. “She didn’t mean to! Jade, she thought it was a flashlight, she didn’t know it would-”
“Fixed.” Beck put a hand on Jade’s shoulder to lower her back into her seat as he pushed her phone back at her. Her expression fell, phone back in her hand and butt back in her seat. “Must have just tripped up, it just suddenly stopped freaking out.”
“Can that happen?” Tori asked, frowning as André shrugged at her.
“Don’t care,” Jade mumbled, back to texting furiously.
Tori rolled her eyes, feeling her temper being tested once again by Jade’s bad manners. “Who are you even texting? You don’t have any friends that aren’t sitting at this table.”
“Wazz off, Vega! I’m updating my Slap page,” Jade snapped, giving Tori a dangerous look before returning to her screen. “Besides, I don’t have any friends sitting at this table.”
Beck sighed heavily and rolled his eyes dramatically to settle on his ill-tempered girlfriend. “Jade. What did we say about saying our friends aren’t actually our friends?”
“Whatever!” Jade growled, grabbing her barely-touched tray and storming away from the table. Beck sighed again and gave his friends an apologetic smile before following after her.
At first, everyone was quiet for a few seconds, then, almost simultaneously, they shrugged and began finishing their lunches. This was the sort of thing you had to get used to with Jade.
…
Amy was sitting back down in a seat b the railing tiredly rubbing her eyes while the Doctor continued to type and turn and pull and push with Rory following him around trying to be helpful. It was the same thing they’d been doing for hours. Or if it wasn’t hours, Amy felt like it had been, because at first, she’d been very invested in helping to find the Sonic Screwdriver, but now she was just tired. But she felt guilty going bed while the Doctor was being all brilliant and searchy and Rory was feeling guilty enough to act as his assistant.
“Since we can’t track it,” she suddenly shouted, her stress and exhaustion having reached a point she was uncomfortable with. “I really am starting to question the effectiveness of staying in the TARDIS pushing buttons!” and let her head fall back with a moan.
Rory swallowed at his wife’s outburst and looked expectantly at the Doctor who seemed surprised, his mouth open slightly and his eyebrows raised. “Well, Amy,” the Doctor began, leaning an arm on the console of the TARDIS and placing the other one on his hip, “since you so kindly asked me to explain what it is I’m doing, I’m tracking the Sonic in a different way, scanning LA for signs of it being used or activated or sending out a signal or something being affected by it. Simple as that.”
“And it’s taking you this long? Why don’t we just go looking for it?” Amy groaned, rolling her head to the side and squeezing her eyes shut. Maybe if she just got into the right position she could sleep right here, no need for a bed.
The Doctor was about to respond, but a screen beeped in front of Rory and he interjected cleverly, “Uhm, Doctor,” and pointed at the screen. “I… believe you’ve got… a message.”
Well, that was unexpected. And inconvenient to boot. The Doctor was in the middle of a crisis, the last thing he needed was for someone to need him. He stared expectantly at Rory for a few moments while Rory’s mouth moved silently, finally leading up to his continuation. “Do-do you want me to read it?” he asked, pulling the screen down slightly to see it. “Uhm, it says…” Rory squinted, presumably at the content of the message and not at the screen itself. “…‘Phone had a spazz attack. Thanks, Cat.’ Who’s Cat?”
“A-ha!” the Doctor barked before Rory could even finish speaking. “There it is! That’s our clue! Our signal!” He danced around to Rory’s side of the console, grinning proudly at the text on the screen. After a few admiring seconds, he began typing and pressing buttons until the image switched from the text to what appeared to be a radar screen. “That message was sent to the TARDIS from a cellular device that’s been affected by the Sonic Screwdriver!” the Doctor proclaimed, clapping his hands together and looking from Rory to Amy to Rory, smile huge all the while.
“Good reading, Rory.” The Doctor clapped his companion’s shoulder and Rory’s lips tightened as he nodded. Why the Doctor seemed to think Rory needed constant praise to continue functioning was baffling.
Amy sat up, eyes suddenly open and serious. “This means we can find the Sonic and go to bed.”
“Right!” the Doctor shouted, pointing at the ginger as he walked, suddenly much more relaxed, around the console. “This means we can find the Sonic.”
“And go to bed,” Amy hurriedly added on.
“What’s that, Pond? I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up!” The Doctor began pushing buttons rapidly and pulling on things and Amy was pretty sure half the things he did only to make the TARDIS louder than usual to cover up her complaints. So she resorted to giving him a dirty look while he ran around like a mad man and Rory grabbed on to the console in front of him as the TARDIS rerouted to the position indicated on the radar.
When everything quieted and the Doctor lifted his eyes upwards with his mouth open curiously, looking around the inside of the control room as if he were expecting something to happen. Of course, nothing did, and Rory and Amy felt silly for watching him and allowing themselves to be affected by his sense of anticipation when he tore for the door and went out. The married couple exchanged a look before taking off after him, Rory being much more careful about the stairs this time around. Luckily, when they made it outside, they were on the ground, so chances were that it would be safer for Rory to trip this time, although he preferred not to.
The three of them were standing on a sidewalk in a nice neighborhood of slightly-larger-than-average light-colored split-level homes that caused Rory to raise his eyebrows, impressed. Palm trees lined the street, which was sloped much more drastically than any in Leadworth and just off in the distance was a line of white letters spelling out “Hollywood.” As Amy’s eyes landed on it, she laughed with glee, seemingly forgetting how tired she was only minutes ago. The Doctor himself even turned to see what was distracting Amy and Rory so much. “Ah! The illustrious Mount Lee. I remember when they put that up. Accidentally knocked down one of the O’s myself, once…” He made a face, a touch of guilt hitting him with the memory.
Seeing the need to bring him back from memory lane, Amy cleared her throat loudly. “Sonic?”
“Right! The Screwdriver!” the Doctor hollered, thrusting a finger into the air. “I traced that cell phone signal to…” He spun around a bit before landing in a spot and pointing at one particularly large white house with a long driveway. “This house. Whoever’s inside probably has my Screwdriver.”
…
Every other day after school, Beck and Jade headed to Jade’s house to sit on the couch and watch dumb cartoons. Well, the word “watch” was relative, because there was never a lot of watching going on. The days they went to Beck’s RV were even better because there wasn’t a television to even pretend to pay attention to. Which only left a couple of options for entertainment. Everything had become pretty routine, and as Jade’s parents were both working until eveningtime, the two teens had her living room all to themselves for a good, long while without any interruption.
…that was assuming no one rang the doorbell. But, of course, this would be the day someone did.
On the couch, Jade was on Beck’s lap, facing him, her knees on either side of his hips when the ring echoed into the living room. She pulled her face away from his with a screaming glare. Jade didn’t like being interrupted. Seeing her anger, Beck touched her face soothingly to redirect her attention back to him. “It’s probably a solicitor, just ignore it…” he consoled, his voice silky and attractive. The sound of him brought Jade back down, ready to return to her business.
But whoever was at the door was a jerk and began insistently jamming the doorbell, making it ding relentlessly over and over.
“Alright!” Jade screamed, dismounting her boyfriend and pounding towards the door. “Someone’s gonna die!”
The door flung open, Jade’s fierce and heavily eyelinered stare being met with the stupidest grin she’d ever seen. The tall, ridiculous-looking man stood on her front step with his hands steepled in front of him and the goofiest bow tie around his neck. Not to mention he was wearing a tweed jacket in the Hollywood Hills. Behind him was a plaid-laden couple, both clearly from out of town.
“Hello,” the bow-tied freak began in an accent. “I believe you and I have got some speaking to do, Jade."
“Would you two like to see something beautiful?” The Doctor spun with flair to face his companions, placing his hands behind him on the console of the TARDIS and eying them with a mischievous look.
Standing directly across from him next to the railing were Rory and Amy Pond, who had only moments previous been engaged in a quiet conversation, their faces close with privacy, but now they both were looking at the Doctor, trying to suss him out. Clearly, he didn’t like being left out of the conversation and needed some attention. That was the trouble with traveling with a married couple; they always came first to each other and the Doctor got left out of the conversation.
“Please, don’t unbutton your shirt.” It was Rory who was first to respond, and it was Amy who stifled a laugh and pushed her husband in the chest. He grinned back at her flirtatiously and the Doctor groaned to himself as he twisted back around to the console, hurriedly pressing some buttons and pulling some levers and turning some knobs and tapping some screens.
“Yes, yes, ha, ha, you’re very funny, Rory, but about that beautiful something! Do you Ponds want to see it or not?” There was more pushing of buttons, and a lot of guess work, and a little typing.
Amy parted herself from her husband and sauntered up alongside the Doctor and leaned forward next to him. “Alright, I’ll bite. What is it that’s so beautiful?” She smiled, recognizing what he was doing. He was such a funny man in that there were times where he was an old, mysterious, kind, yet dangerous man-and then there were times like these. Times where he collapsed into an organized mess, begging for attention in the cleverest ways like an intelligent child.
The Doctor didn’t answer her question, he instead made his way around the console, lifting his eyes slightly and grinning at Amy when he was across from her, but only for a second, and then he was focused back on his routing. While he typed, examined screens, thumbed at buttons, Rory joined his wife and the Doctor at the console, a little sore at his mumbled conversation having been interrupted. Except he was used to things like that happening to him with these two. There was hardly a private moment aboard the TARDIS. These days, he didn’t mope or get sour anymore, he just let it happen and moved along with the other two. Rory traced absently around a few buttons with his finger while he watched the Doctor work.
It was only a few seconds more of work, however, before the Doctor darted from the center of the control room, down the steps, and to the doors, turning to press his back against them and grin excitedly at his companions. Amy responded accordingly, affected by his enthusiasm, and rushed to the steps, stopping there to watch. Rory, of course, as always, followed.
And there were a couple more seconds while the Doctor grinned, ever enthralled. “Lady and Centurion… Brace yourselves as I present to you…” He paused again and Rory raised his eyebrows expectantly. “The greater Los Angeles area-” He flung the doors open behind him to reveal a black emptiness. “-by night-” The Doctor spun around and looked downwards through the open doors. “-and by sky.”
At that, Amy ran to the Doctor, clutching on to his tweeded arm and gazing down with him. “Doctor…” she began, mouth hanging open at the sight. For once, the Doctor had apparently actually landed them somewhere he had intended to and Amy Pond was staring down on a million glittering, blinking, bursting lights of every color. The TARDIS floated easily over speeding red car lights, tasteless neon green signs, and a hundred-thousand homely lightbulbs that all came together in a symphony of color and light like nothing Amy had seen before. From the ground, it was likely impossible to see the stars, but from the sky, it was like the stars had made the ground their new home. “It’s gorgeous…” she whispered, still holding on to the Doctor’s sleeve. She knew she was safe standing in the TARDIS, but she was still slightly worried that she’d go plummeting to the ground if she let go of him.
Rory, however, had hung back a few moments more on the steps. Sometimes, it was worth it to hang back just to watch Amy’s reaction.
“How high are we?” Amy asked, finally tearing her eyes away to look at the Doctor.
With a swift, fluid moment, he took the Sonic Screwdriver from the inside of his jacket and pointed it at the ground. How this was going to tell him the height, Amy would never know, but after a couple moments, the Doctor was eyeing the device curiously. “Oh, about 14,000 feet, low enough that we won’t get in the way of any airplanes that may be getting pushy about their space.”
This was when Rory finally became curious enough to come take a look. He started down the steps a little too quickly and when he was supposed to get his footing on the bottommost step, something wrong and strange happened with his feet. The first one didn’t go far enough forward and the second one didn’t make it far enough over and they became entangled in one another. He tried righting himself, but everything happened to clang together and Rory made it a couple of clumsy feet forward before catching the back of the Doctor’s jacket with his hands. Rory hit the ground first, his chin knocking on the floor painfully, and the Doctor’s feet gave out under him as he was pulled downwards as well, and since she was still holding onto his arm, naturally, Amy took her place in the dumbshow and collapsed with her two men.
“Ow… oh, ow… I am so-ow… sorry…” Rory began his apology with a couple proclamations of pain as he moved back onto his haunches, rubbing his chin. “That was entirely clumsy of-ow…” While Amy scurried on her knees to her husband, moving his hand away from his chin to take stock of the damage, the Doctor shot in the other direction, back to the still-open door of the TARDIS. He stared out for half a second, and then turned, frantically throwing his hands about the floor and crawling around in a panic.
Amy placed a kiss on Rory’s chin and patted his cheek lovingly. “You’re alright. Probably gonna smart and get a handsome bruise, though.”
“Oh, and that qualifies as alright to you,” Rory complained back, returning to rubbing his chin. He could already feel the swelling. At least he was lucky he didn’t bite his tongue. He was a nurse, after all, but he didn’t look forward to the day when he’d have to give himself stitches, especially if they were going to be on his tongue.
Amy lowered her chin and her voice sultrily. “Hey. Battlescars are sexy, even if they’re just battlebruises.”
“Will you two stop with the flirting, we have a crisis!” the Doctor bellowed, flying on his knees back to the door and staring down with a sense of panic.
Amy and Rory exchanged a look before crawling the few feet to join the Doctor and look out as well. “What is it?” Amy asked, genuinely worried. Usually, when the Doctor panicked, it was for a good reason.
“The Sonic…” the Doctor confessed with strain in his voice. Amy and Rory both stared until it began to make sense. “I dropped the Sonic out the door.”
Guilt began to make a home in the pit of Rory’s stomach. “Oh… oh, god, I’m-I’m such a klutz, I am so sorry, Doctor…”
For a moment, it seemed from his silence as though the Doctor was very angry with Rory until he sprung to his feet and started hurriedly to the console. “No, no, no, it’s not your fault-well, it is your fault, it’s entirely your fault, your mind was clearly not in a state to send you walking and instead sent you falling, and as your mind is a part of you, it is all your fault.” Already feeling guilty enough, Rory sighed and rose to his feet, Amy following suit. The Doctor began furiously pressing buttons and rushing his way around the console as he spoke. “You really ought to make sure you know where your feet are going before you try sending them places and then things like this wouldn’t happen and I would still have my Sonic, so the next time you feel like tripping down some stairs, Rory Pond-” the Doctor had made his way around and back down the stairs and now came close to Rory’s face, eying him curiously. “…please don’t.”
And he was back up the stairs and typing and pulling on things.
Rory, who had been tense and worried, dropped his shoulders and looked helplessly at Amy, who gave him a sympathetic look. Rory’s arms flopped at his sides before he followed the Doctor up the stairs, moving up next to him at the console. “I said I was sorry.”
“And I heard you say you were sorry and I accept your apology,” the Doctor responded without looking at Rory.
“Well… great.” Rory turned back to Amy, questioningly shaking his head.
She sighed and came along the Doctor’s other side. “Look, can’t you just cook up a new Sonic Screwdriver? Like you did with that one. I saw it come out of the TARDIS that one time.”
“I could,” the Doctor answered, stepping around Rory to get at some more buttons and controls. “But the problem right now isn’t that I don’t have the Sonic.”
Ever comfortably on a page many chapters back, Rory shook his head. “I don’t understand, what’s the problem then, why are we panicking?”
And ever in another book entirely, the Doctor groaned under his breath, halting in his rushed button-pushing to lean forward and look at his companions seriously. “The problem is that someone else, someone down there in Los Angeles, California, city of glamour and horror, someone we don’t nearly know nor should we trust does have the Sonic.”
…
“Hey, Rob, whatcha got there?”
When Beck took his regular seat at the lunch table in the Asphalt Café, Robbie was holding a slender metal contraption between his index fingers, his eyes very close to it. He shrugged, not taking his eyes off the device. “Dunno. Found it on my lawn on the way out the door this morning. Is it a car part?”
Beck set down his tray and took the cylindrical… thing and examined it, scrunching up his nose a little. “Not one I’ve ever seen.” He handed it back to Robbie, who set it on the table to stare at it a little more. “I mean, it could be,” Beck continued. “It’s just new to me.”
“What the hell is that freakish thing?” Jade snapped as she and Cat came up to the table and seated themselves.
Beck sighed and gave a lifeless smile to his girlfriend. “Lovely and eloquent as ever.”
Cat, though, looked deeply offended as she sat down next to Robbie and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Jade, you shouldn’t be so mean to Robbie!” Then she raised her eyebrows at him, shaking her head. “She didn’t mean it, Robbie.”
Beck even had to grin and lower his head to hide it when Robbie’s mouth dropped open and he frowned at Cat. Jade didn’t hide her own smile while she took out her phone to text. “I was talking about the metal thing on the table, but that works, too, Cat.”
“Good one, Red!” Rex commended from his place on the edge of the table.
“You shush,” Robbie scolded just as Tori and André sat down to complete the group.
Tori looked over the expressions around her before she frowned down at the metal thing she’d heard Jade mention. “What’s that?”
Robbie, happily refocused on the device and not on his friends calling him freakish, picked it up with one hand, keeping the other one in Rex’s back. “I don’t know yet. I found it in my yard and Beck says it’s not a car part and Jade says it’s freakish and I say it’s probably a piece of junk that I’m thinking too hard about.” With that, he tossed it back on the table and when it hit the tabletop, one end shot forward and opened up, causing everyone at the table to jump, and in Cat’s case, squeal.
There were a few moments of silence before Jade slowly set her phone on the table. “…what… did it just do?” she asked, knowing perfectly well that no one knew the answer, and her tone didn’t suggest it was really a question at all.
The six of them just stared at the thing for a few seconds. It was André who slowly reached out to pick it up gingerly with the ends of his fingers. “Guys…” he began, looking seriously at his friends. “It just popped apart. Why are we looking at it like it came to life?” Realizing how irrationally they’d all reacted, everyone relaxed easily and Jade, a little embarrassed, picked her phone back up to continue her text. “I think it might be a pen,” André continued, turning it over in his hands. Moving forward with this train of thought, he tried pulling on one end, the end that seemed to have already popped off a bit. But when nothing happened, he dropped it with a sigh and shrugged, going back to his food. “Never mind, not a pen.”
“Oh!” Cat interjected as Robbie reached for the device again. “I know what it is!”
Robbie threw his hands up and frowned at the redhead, upset she hadn’t said something earler. “You do?”
“Uh-huh!” Cat grabbed the metal object and, having spotted a button on the side, pointed the open end at Jade and pressed it. “It’s a flashlight!” But it didn’t act like a flashlight at all. It shone green from the end and started making a very strange warping sound.
Jade lifted her gaze from the screen of her phone long enough to see Cat pointing the thing at her and opened her mouth to protest, but instead shrieked when she looked back to her phone. “Cat! What did you do?!”
Cat set down the thingy and looked worriedly at Jade. “What? I turned on the flashlight!”
“I don’t think it’s a flashlight,” Beck replied, gently taking Jade’s phone from her hands. “I think it’s some kind of scrambler or something.”
“You trashed my phone, Cat!” Jade was quick to accuse, slamming her hands on the table and baring her teeth at Cat, who pouted and leaned closer to Robbie, fully ready to use him as a human shield if the need should arise.
Robbie recognized this often-utilized move, many girls having used it before, and put his hand up defensively. “She didn’t mean to! Jade, she thought it was a flashlight, she didn’t know it would-”
“Fixed.” Beck put a hand on Jade’s shoulder to lower her back into her seat as he pushed her phone back at her. Her expression fell, phone back in her hand and butt back in her seat. “Must have just tripped up, it just suddenly stopped freaking out.”
“Can that happen?” Tori asked, frowning as André shrugged at her.
“Don’t care,” Jade mumbled, back to texting furiously.
Tori rolled her eyes, feeling her temper being tested once again by Jade’s bad manners. “Who are you even texting? You don’t have any friends that aren’t sitting at this table.”
“Wazz off, Vega! I’m updating my Slap page,” Jade snapped, giving Tori a dangerous look before returning to her screen. “Besides, I don’t have any friends sitting at this table.”
Beck sighed heavily and rolled his eyes dramatically to settle on his ill-tempered girlfriend. “Jade. What did we say about saying our friends aren’t actually our friends?”
“Whatever!” Jade growled, grabbing her barely-touched tray and storming away from the table. Beck sighed again and gave his friends an apologetic smile before following after her.
At first, everyone was quiet for a few seconds, then, almost simultaneously, they shrugged and began finishing their lunches. This was the sort of thing you had to get used to with Jade.
…
Amy was sitting back down in a seat b the railing tiredly rubbing her eyes while the Doctor continued to type and turn and pull and push with Rory following him around trying to be helpful. It was the same thing they’d been doing for hours. Or if it wasn’t hours, Amy felt like it had been, because at first, she’d been very invested in helping to find the Sonic Screwdriver, but now she was just tired. But she felt guilty going bed while the Doctor was being all brilliant and searchy and Rory was feeling guilty enough to act as his assistant.
“Since we can’t track it,” she suddenly shouted, her stress and exhaustion having reached a point she was uncomfortable with. “I really am starting to question the effectiveness of staying in the TARDIS pushing buttons!” and let her head fall back with a moan.
Rory swallowed at his wife’s outburst and looked expectantly at the Doctor who seemed surprised, his mouth open slightly and his eyebrows raised. “Well, Amy,” the Doctor began, leaning an arm on the console of the TARDIS and placing the other one on his hip, “since you so kindly asked me to explain what it is I’m doing, I’m tracking the Sonic in a different way, scanning LA for signs of it being used or activated or sending out a signal or something being affected by it. Simple as that.”
“And it’s taking you this long? Why don’t we just go looking for it?” Amy groaned, rolling her head to the side and squeezing her eyes shut. Maybe if she just got into the right position she could sleep right here, no need for a bed.
The Doctor was about to respond, but a screen beeped in front of Rory and he interjected cleverly, “Uhm, Doctor,” and pointed at the screen. “I… believe you’ve got… a message.”
Well, that was unexpected. And inconvenient to boot. The Doctor was in the middle of a crisis, the last thing he needed was for someone to need him. He stared expectantly at Rory for a few moments while Rory’s mouth moved silently, finally leading up to his continuation. “Do-do you want me to read it?” he asked, pulling the screen down slightly to see it. “Uhm, it says…” Rory squinted, presumably at the content of the message and not at the screen itself. “…‘Phone had a spazz attack. Thanks, Cat.’ Who’s Cat?”
“A-ha!” the Doctor barked before Rory could even finish speaking. “There it is! That’s our clue! Our signal!” He danced around to Rory’s side of the console, grinning proudly at the text on the screen. After a few admiring seconds, he began typing and pressing buttons until the image switched from the text to what appeared to be a radar screen. “That message was sent to the TARDIS from a cellular device that’s been affected by the Sonic Screwdriver!” the Doctor proclaimed, clapping his hands together and looking from Rory to Amy to Rory, smile huge all the while.
“Good reading, Rory.” The Doctor clapped his companion’s shoulder and Rory’s lips tightened as he nodded. Why the Doctor seemed to think Rory needed constant praise to continue functioning was baffling.
Amy sat up, eyes suddenly open and serious. “This means we can find the Sonic and go to bed.”
“Right!” the Doctor shouted, pointing at the ginger as he walked, suddenly much more relaxed, around the console. “This means we can find the Sonic.”
“And go to bed,” Amy hurriedly added on.
“What’s that, Pond? I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up!” The Doctor began pushing buttons rapidly and pulling on things and Amy was pretty sure half the things he did only to make the TARDIS louder than usual to cover up her complaints. So she resorted to giving him a dirty look while he ran around like a mad man and Rory grabbed on to the console in front of him as the TARDIS rerouted to the position indicated on the radar.
When everything quieted and the Doctor lifted his eyes upwards with his mouth open curiously, looking around the inside of the control room as if he were expecting something to happen. Of course, nothing did, and Rory and Amy felt silly for watching him and allowing themselves to be affected by his sense of anticipation when he tore for the door and went out. The married couple exchanged a look before taking off after him, Rory being much more careful about the stairs this time around. Luckily, when they made it outside, they were on the ground, so chances were that it would be safer for Rory to trip this time, although he preferred not to.
The three of them were standing on a sidewalk in a nice neighborhood of slightly-larger-than-average light-colored split-level homes that caused Rory to raise his eyebrows, impressed. Palm trees lined the street, which was sloped much more drastically than any in Leadworth and just off in the distance was a line of white letters spelling out “Hollywood.” As Amy’s eyes landed on it, she laughed with glee, seemingly forgetting how tired she was only minutes ago. The Doctor himself even turned to see what was distracting Amy and Rory so much. “Ah! The illustrious Mount Lee. I remember when they put that up. Accidentally knocked down one of the O’s myself, once…” He made a face, a touch of guilt hitting him with the memory.
Seeing the need to bring him back from memory lane, Amy cleared her throat loudly. “Sonic?”
“Right! The Screwdriver!” the Doctor hollered, thrusting a finger into the air. “I traced that cell phone signal to…” He spun around a bit before landing in a spot and pointing at one particularly large white house with a long driveway. “This house. Whoever’s inside probably has my Screwdriver.”
…
Every other day after school, Beck and Jade headed to Jade’s house to sit on the couch and watch dumb cartoons. Well, the word “watch” was relative, because there was never a lot of watching going on. The days they went to Beck’s RV were even better because there wasn’t a television to even pretend to pay attention to. Which only left a couple of options for entertainment. Everything had become pretty routine, and as Jade’s parents were both working until eveningtime, the two teens had her living room all to themselves for a good, long while without any interruption.
…that was assuming no one rang the doorbell. But, of course, this would be the day someone did.
On the couch, Jade was on Beck’s lap, facing him, her knees on either side of his hips when the ring echoed into the living room. She pulled her face away from his with a screaming glare. Jade didn’t like being interrupted. Seeing her anger, Beck touched her face soothingly to redirect her attention back to him. “It’s probably a solicitor, just ignore it…” he consoled, his voice silky and attractive. The sound of him brought Jade back down, ready to return to her business.
But whoever was at the door was a jerk and began insistently jamming the doorbell, making it ding relentlessly over and over.
“Alright!” Jade screamed, dismounting her boyfriend and pounding towards the door. “Someone’s gonna die!”
The door flung open, Jade’s fierce and heavily eyelinered stare being met with the stupidest grin she’d ever seen. The tall, ridiculous-looking man stood on her front step with his hands steepled in front of him and the goofiest bow tie around his neck. Not to mention he was wearing a tweed jacket in the Hollywood Hills. Behind him was a plaid-laden couple, both clearly from out of town.
“Hello,” the bow-tied freak began in an accent. “I believe you and I have got some speaking to do, Jade."