This Won't Do At All! | Part One
Title: This Won't Do At All!
Author: mercury_pheonix
Genre: Crack!Fic, Children of Earth Fix-It
Characters: Ianto Jones, The Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Disgruntled Tourists, A Very Confused Seagull
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Some language, some sexual references
Spoilers: All series: a basic knowledge of Doctor Who: Series 5, Children of Earth, and the Cardiff Bay area in general would help, but aren't required.
Summary: When the Doctor mistakenly lands his companions in Wales at the beginning of the 21st Century, he realises that someone, somewhere, has made a very silly mistake indeed...
Authors Note: This is so cracky that there is currently an eye staring at me from the screen of my laptop, demanding that I tell it where "Prisoner Zero" is or it will incinerate my residence. Whilst I try and sort out this little misunderstanding, please feel free to read on...
This Won't Do At All!
Part One
The sound of grinding filled the air, rippling violently out across the otherwise-calm waters. The outline of a blue police box materialised suddenly, blinking in and out of reality for a few seconds before landing gently on the sun-drenched wood.
A soft creaking ricocheted along the length of the quay as the door sprang open, the wood groaning as it readjusted to the weight of its new addition. A scrawny, young-looking man with floppy brown hair appeared at the open doorway, his arms hooked importantly on his hips as he stepped out and over the threshold.
"Voila!" he yelled into the air, startling a passing seagull with his enthusiasm as he flung his arms out widely. "The Carzinian Expanse!"
Another head popped out behind him, the fiery strands of red hair glowing deep scarlet in the sun.
"The Carzinian Expanse?" the soft Scottish voice was tainted with an ounce of scepticism.
"Yup."
"What's that then? Anyway, you promised us Rio."
"I always promise you Rio. And yet we always end up somewhere much more interesting and ultimately a lot more fun. Now…" the tall man, also known to the wider Galaxy as the Doctor (not that any of the pleasantly oblivious bystanders would know that, as they threw mouldy bread at the recently-alarmed seagull), clapped his hands together, rubbing his fingers against each other gleefully.
"The Carzinian Expanse is one of the richest areas of the whole Galaxy - food wise that is, of course. No such thing as money here. Or jewels. Or gold. Or anything worth much value at all. But, they do have the best cheese this side of Gorgonzola," he rolled his eyes as his companion, also known as Amy Pond (not that the pleasantly oblivious bystanders knew that either, or even cared as they found themselves being attacked by the now-very-annoyed seagull) looked at him questioningly.
"What, you really think you human's came up with that name on your own? You always were such a narcissistic little species - always giving yourself far too much credit."
"Oi!" Amy opened her mouth to retort, right before a gust of biting wind caught hold of her hair, sending goose bumps prickling along her arms. She shivered, wrapping herself in a hug to try and retain some of her warmth.
"Is the Carzinian What's-Its-Face always this cold then?" her teeth chattered as she spoke, obstructing her words slightly. "Why do you always insist on bringing us to cold places - would a bit of sun really kill you…?" she stopped suddenly, noticing how the Doctor's face fallen as if it had been tied to a dead weight.
"Doctor…what is it?"
"Cold…you said it was cold…"
"Yeah, can't you feel it? It's freezing…"
"Exactly. The Carzinian Expanse doesn't get cold - well, not in a way that you humans would recognise as being cold. S'why they're renowned for their food: they could cook your basic meal on any rock that happened to be knocking about on a summer's day."
"Okay…"
"They're also not renowned for their jetties," the Doctor stamped his foot on the wooden planks, the vibrations trembling along the length of the jetty and reverberating along the length of the wooden expanse (earning him a glare from both hen-pecked tourists and disgruntled seagull). "You see, Amy, the Carzinian population hates water - it has to be purified to within an inch of its life before they can even touch it. That's evolution for you; no one said it was infallible. So, how could they possibly build a jetty…?"
He knelt down, brushing his hand along the rough material and popping a finger into his mouth.
"Thought so. Definitely Earth wood."
Amy brightened, a hopeful expression spreading across her face.
"Rio?"
"Nope. I'd say Wales, early twenty-first century."
Amy seemed to sink a few inches, her arms folding irritably across her chest as her bottom lip jutted out.
"So, let me get this straight. Instead of Rio, or an alien planet, or a far off galaxy, or a valley made of chocolate and honeycomb…you offer me Wales. Wales, Doctor. And not even Wales when it was interesting, but Wales now!"
"Oi, there's nothing wrong with…"
"If I wanted to come here, I could get the train."
"Yeah, but it'd be more expensive. And not half as much fun."
"Doctor…" there was a dangerous glimmer in her eyes; her foot tapped out an impatient beat on the wooden jetty, each tap-tap-tap more threatening than the last.
The Doctor righted himself quickly, hopping briskly to his feet to meet her gaze head on. A delicate swallow shook his throat as he readjusted his tie, fingers lingering on the material for a few seconds as he scraped together one of his all-too-common spur-of-the-moment explanations. Eventually, something seemed to click within his brain, and his face contorted into a bright, breezy smile. He looked squarely in her direction, his mouth opening to deliver his answer…
…but, before he could get the words out, his whole body froze.
Amy could see his frame tensing, the jaw tightening so that the mouth hung open unnaturally; his fingers clawed ever so slightly, a tremor shaking him with the force of keeping his muscles still. She swallowed, taking a step backwards as a wave of confusion and bewilderment crashed over the face of the Timelord in front of her.
"Doctor…"
"This isn't right."
"What?"
"No, no, no," he seemed to relax all of sudden, as if woken from a trance. His limbs supple again, he bounded forward, stopping just short of her and peering intently over her shoulder.
"This won't do…this won't do at all…"
Amy looked at him questioningly, noting the way his eyes were fixated on whatever it was that was behind her. Curiosity got the better of her, and she started to turn…
…only to have him grip the crook of her elbow, hauling her back into the Tardis with a force that was, she quickly decided, far more intense than the situation actually required.
"Doctor!"
The door slammed behind her, leaving her face to face with a very confused looking Rory.
"Erm…" Rory's fingers curled around the camera at his neck, his eyes following the Doctor in his mad rush around the room; he was tapping things into the console, ransacking boxes, flinging papers around and generally making a right old mess of the place. The young human turned back to Amy, leaving the Doctor to his business and arching an eyebrow.
"So…no Rio, then?"
"Nope…so you can change your trousers," she waggled her eyebrows suggestively at the patterned shorts he was wearing. "Or you can keep them on, I don't mind…"
"Aha!"
They both turned.
"I knew it," the Doctor hurtled past them, tapping at a few keys on the console. "This was never supposed to have happened. It's one of those big things that just happens; a thing that was never, in the history of time, intended to happen. One of those things that needs to be fixed - like a big gaping hole in the world, and if you don't patch it up it'll just get infected and yucky and then bits start falling off here, there and everywhere…"
"What's he talking about?" Rory leant towards Amy conspiratorially whilst the Doctor ranted.
"I don't know. He landed us in Wales by mistake, on a jetty somewhere. Looked like he recognised it too, only he saw something behind me and then…well…this…" she motioned towards the Doctor.
The maniacal man continued in his journey around the console, fingers moving nimbly over the keys before clasping at one of the Big Levers (as Amy had christened them) and yanking down. Hard.
The Tardis lurched forward.
Amy grabbed hold of Rory.
Rory grabbed hold of Amy.
They both fell over anyway.
"For God's sake, Doctor!" Amy yelled, fighting her way out from beneath the heap of patterned material that was her fallen husband. "What…?"
The Doctor grinned at her from his (annoyingly) balanced position against the centre of the ship, as it prepared to leave its current moorings.
"Something's gone very wrong with the Universe," he said quietly, his eyes gleaming. "Very wrong indeed. Nothing will be right until it's fixed. So we" - he pointed to Amy, Rory, and then poked himself in the chest - "are going to jolly well do something about it."
"Yes, but," Rory's voice was muffled as he fought his way out of various pieces of clothing, the camera hanging awkwardly from his ear. "What are we actually doing?"
The grin on the Doctor's face stretched impossibly wide, determination shining through those ancient, yet youthful, features.
"We're fixing the world, Rory. We're making things right."
Back on the jetty, the seagull looked on in awe and surprise as the big blue box began to groan, rippling away until it had evaporated completely into the air. The bird blinked, wondering just how mouldy that bread had been, before shaking his feathered head and flying away.
As he left, however, he cast a quick glance at where the box has been nestled.
There was stood a wooden wall, covered in metal grating. Only, the mesh was almost completely invisible, covered in white paper and coloured decoration which flapped starkly in the breeze. Floral tributes adorned the top, wrapped around the rusting metal wires protectively, and a few candles were balanced precariously along the top of the metal structure.
At the edge, just behind the spot where Amy had been standing, a single lone piece of paper flapped in the wind. It read:
This is a memorial to Ianto Jones…
TBC...
This was inspired by the pictures of the Doctor Who props van sitting just above the Ianto Shrine down at Cardiff Bay. The wonderful coffee_n_retcon suggested this as a possible storyline, and I grabbed hold of it - actually, I dragged it kicking and screaming into the light of day. I can neither deny nor confirm rumours that I subsequently went and stalked the Doctor Who crew for many hours (yes, I went to Cardiff University for the Educational Value), or that I did indeed see Matt Smith in glasses and Arthur Darvill in a dressing gown. I can say that I definitely didn't oggle either Karen Gillian OR Alex Kingston in any way. Are we all clear?
Now that's cleared up (and this big eye thing is subdued) please feel free to drop me a line and tell me what you think!