Fic: Baby's Comin' Back To Me || Fandom: Doctor Who
Edit for posterity: Oh, crap, I think I managed to crib an entire exchange from The Venture Brothers in here. Damn, I just seem to have that show on the brain. Let's pretend it was a clever reference instead of straight-out plagiarism. I mean, it's fanfiction, so it's plagiarism anyway. *sigh*
Baby's Comin' Back To Me
(Part 2 in the Unnecessary Tyler Series)
Rating: PG
Genre: Satire
Characters: Romana, Rose, Leela, obligatory TenRose spawn
Pairings: Valeyard x Rose, Romana x Rose
Baby's Comin' Back To Me
Unnecessary's mother always said she'd run off with the Valeyard if he promised to blow up 18th century France. The problem being that until now, they'd always figured she'd been joking.
This--Unnecessary realized--had been a fatal mistake. That and the refusal to accept the fundamental truth when it came to Unnecessary's mother, which in hindsight could be boiled down to one simple equation. He drew it up now, in his mind: My mum + The Doctor (any incarnation) = No rational thought whatsoever. Yes. That summed it up pretty nicely.
It was a bit harsh, to be sure, but so was leaving your lover of an odd hundred years and a planet that had granted you an Ambassadorial position to humanity in all 13 dimensions without so much as a note.
And against his better judgment, he was heading to said jilted lover's now, because Being There is what good stepsons did. Not that there were such a thing as stepsons on a world where procreation was accomplished entirely through machinery and marriage was an antiquated ceremony practiced very rarely in order to cement House alliances. It was, Unnecessary believed, the thought that counted. Besides which, his stepmother had always been there when he'd needed a sensible person to talk to, so it was only right that he didn't leave her in the lurch now--no matter how much his gut was telling him to run and hide until this was all over.
Getting into the Citadel was always a bit of a pain. First you had to empty your pockets and step through a number of metal archways that scanned you for illegal substances and weaponry. It was sort like of getting through Airport security at Heathrow, if you've ever done that sort of thing. Unnecessary came from a parallel universe where the wealthy owned private blimps however, so he wouldn't have appreciated the analogy one bit.
Leered was the one to come down and escort him upstairs. Tall, dark, and stern, the son of the Lord and Lady Castellan was the only other person on the entire planet who shared Unnecessary's human-hybrid status. He'd foolishly thought at one time that this would mean they might be chums. Consequently, they'd never quite gotten along.
The tall guard didn't even try to insult Unnecessary once, which put him ill at ease immediately. Normally the Arcalian would have gotten a few digs in by now. Instead he was just standing there, oddly quiet. Unnecessary swallowed convulsively and nearly choked on his own saliva. Wiping his hands on his robes and noting the way the other man didn't so much as sneer at him, he concluded that things were even worse than previously expected. As they stepped into the elevator and they started to ascend, Unnecessary wondered if there was still time to trap his fellow crossbreed in a time loop and make a run for it. Sure, it was a felony to cause temporal instability in the Citadel but anything, even exile, would be better than this.
He knocked on the apartment door with some trepidation. It opened diagonally with a soft tsst.
Romana's eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with red and Mirkosch was stumbling away from her, rubbing his cheek. Leered's mother was pulling him away with a scowl on her face. In a burst of quick thinking, Unnecessary caught the man and led him to the kitchen, stating in a loud voice that it looked like they all needed some tea to put everything into perspective.
"What did you do?" Unnecessary hissed the moment they were out of earshot.
"Nothing! I didn't do a thing!" Mirkosch moved over to the food storage unit and wrinkled his nose at the flavours of protein the President's kitchen had on offer. "Just... tried to calm her down, is all," he continued defensively.
Unnecessary sighed. Having an illegal clone of the Master for your boyfriend had its definite pros and cons. On the up side, the guy always knew what to get you for Otherstide and never forgot your Nameday. On the other hand, he did occasionally declare himself Queen of the odd planet when he went off his meds and had the tendency to think mind control was the solution to everything. "Well, that was stupid. You can't hypnotize the President. I mean, she's the bloody President. There's a reason she-- are you even listening to me?"
"Look at them," Mirkosch said peevishly, peering around the corner at Romana who was now alternately barking orders at her scantily clad bodyguard and blowing her nose into a wad of facial tissue. "The Three Sisters, divided. I never thought Rose had it in her. I mean, if it were one of the handsome Doctors I'd understand, but this is just--"
"Not helping," Unnecessary spat. "Go boil some water."
Mirkosch let out a sigh and punched some buttons on the face of a machine that Unnecessary didn't recognize. "Not everyone lives back in the dark ages, you know. That said, I will miss your mother's cooking. The things that woman could do with raw ingredients...." He chuckled under his breath. "Hey, remember the time Borusa managed to de-calcify himself and burst into that meeting of the Supreme Council and was all, 'Give me the Key of Rassilon!' and Rose stood up, right, and was all, 'Give me head!'?"
"Why, no," Unnecessary snapped sarcastically. "Although now that you mention it I believe I had a pistol in my face at the time."
"That's right! And then he turned to your mum and said, 'You didn't just say that,' And she was all, 'I most certainly did, now what'cha gonna do abou' it?' And he was like, 'I'm going to kill your son!' And Rose was all, 'join the club!?' Best. Day. Ever."
The machine beeped and a plate jutted out holding five cups of what appeared to be tea (although with these contraptions one could never be sure.) Unnecessary motioned for Mirkosch to bring the tray in and went to join the women.
The tea was handed out quietly. Everyone took a cup; nobody drank.
After a time, Romana said something along the lines of, "how could she?" or possibly, "how dare they?" (Since she blew her nose partway through, it was hard to tell.)
Leela began to rub her shoulders, muttered something about it being a phase--and trailed off. Psychology was not a Sevateem warrior's department, unless it involved tricking the enemy into rushing in your direction so you could stick them with an implement considered to be either A) sharp; B) pointy; C) poisonous or D) all of the above.
Romana let out a shuddering, "Whatever did I...?" This was followed by Leered looking up into the air and his mother saying "there there," uncertainly, while her expression conveyed she'd much rather have somewhere to aim her laser rifle than be stuck doing this.
Unnecessary bit his lip and refrained from answering, Well, wiping the Doctor's memories and making him think he was the Time Lord version of Hitler, for one. First of all, it wasn't constructive. Secondly, the whole 'let's hide our planet from the Daleks' idea had been the Doctor's to begin with. The fact that he'd gone insane from guilt and isolation afterward, transforming into an entity so evil that one of his arch nemeses ended up being the good guy and warning everyone by default was neither here nor there.
The crying was getting to him. Unnecessary shifted from foot to foot. He didn't like seeing his stepmother like this. It was extremely out of character. He'd much prefer it if she started spewing technical or sociological jargon at him. Insulted his intelligence a little. That sort of thing. After all, this was the woman who'd graduated with a triple first and once carried manacles made from the ore of a Dwarf Star in her teeth. Who rebuilt the Tharil civilization in E-Space and was now holding the longest term in Gallifreyan history as President since the big "R" man himself. While his mother... well, his mother... looked good in tight clothing and could burp out a few alien alphabets when she had a pint?
Unnecessary opened his mouth, and closed it. He frowned. One had to admit, his mother and the President didn't have much in common--other than the fact that they'd both been with the Doctor at some point or another, they were different as night and day. Romana was every bit the haughty intellect, cold and clinical. Her logic and her accent (in any language) was clean and crisp--well, usually--and beyond reproach.
Unnecessary's mother, on the other hand, was every bit the immigrant who refused to integrate entirely, using difference (in Romana's words) "as a constructed locus of cultural resistance." This culminated in a sort of anti-academic, homespun, organic approach to living that involved things like frying magenta slices in beer batter and refusing to cover her hair with a tight-fitting cap when she went out. (And continuing to pronounce "think" as "fink" and wear lime green underwear and gigantic gold hoop earrings past the age of 150, but what could one say? As Mirkosch delighted in pointing out, at least she still had the body for it. Unnecessary believed he'd just have to take his friend's word on that.)
It was an impossibility perhaps to ascertain the exact nature of Rose Tyler's worth. Unnecessary figured it had to do with people liking her quite a bit. It didn't matter what language you spoke or molecular composition you came in. The plain truth of it was, everybody fancied his mum. She was pink and yellow and scrumptious all over in a way that had the lads back at Torchwood cracking the sorts of jokes that would make someone with a bit more personality quite upset indeed. (Unnecessary, however, preferred to ball his feelings up inside. As a result, he was a spectacular Prydonian where he'd been a rather lousy human being. His Auntie Innocet quite approved. Granted, Innocet's greatest pride lay in marrying a building, which goes to show just how very odd Gallifreyans can be, when it comes down to it.) But the important thing was that people loved and trusted Rose Tyler. She was a great Ambassador because people wanted to do what she said, not because they understood it was in their best interest, but because they liked her. Including the Lady President, which was kind of a problem.
There were so many questions now. Who was going to fill Rose's unique role? And how were they going to pull the President back together before the Council meeting in an hour? (Could they send a hologram?)
No, no, pull yourself together. What did he normally do in this situation? Well, that was simple enough. Call his--right. Moving on.
One had to face the facts. Despite the rather immature nature of the nickname his boyfriend used, The President, The Lady Castellan, and The Ambassador for Humanity had been a sort of... team. Time, Death, and... the other one. One might suppose she was living up to that now.
He couldn't very well say, it's just temporary, I'm certain she'll snap out of it and come right back.
And he couldn't under any circumstances say, hey, at least on the up side, we know where they're going....
What he did say, was: "Look, they can't get far. The CIA will--"
"OH!" Romana exclaimed. Leela's hands tightened their grip on her shoulders. "The CIA!"
"--won't be a problem if we have an inside man," said Unnecessary, his mouth running on automatic. "We just need someone to make sure that if anything... happens... it won't... you know... er... why are you looking at me like that?"
He had the sudden sense he'd just missed something important.
Behind him, Mirkosch swore.
Baby's Comin' Back To Me
(Part 2 in the Unnecessary Tyler Series)
Rating: PG
Genre: Satire
Characters: Romana, Rose, Leela, obligatory TenRose spawn
Pairings: Valeyard x Rose, Romana x Rose
Baby's Comin' Back To Me
Unnecessary's mother always said she'd run off with the Valeyard if he promised to blow up 18th century France. The problem being that until now, they'd always figured she'd been joking.
This--Unnecessary realized--had been a fatal mistake. That and the refusal to accept the fundamental truth when it came to Unnecessary's mother, which in hindsight could be boiled down to one simple equation. He drew it up now, in his mind: My mum + The Doctor (any incarnation) = No rational thought whatsoever. Yes. That summed it up pretty nicely.
It was a bit harsh, to be sure, but so was leaving your lover of an odd hundred years and a planet that had granted you an Ambassadorial position to humanity in all 13 dimensions without so much as a note.
And against his better judgment, he was heading to said jilted lover's now, because Being There is what good stepsons did. Not that there were such a thing as stepsons on a world where procreation was accomplished entirely through machinery and marriage was an antiquated ceremony practiced very rarely in order to cement House alliances. It was, Unnecessary believed, the thought that counted. Besides which, his stepmother had always been there when he'd needed a sensible person to talk to, so it was only right that he didn't leave her in the lurch now--no matter how much his gut was telling him to run and hide until this was all over.
Getting into the Citadel was always a bit of a pain. First you had to empty your pockets and step through a number of metal archways that scanned you for illegal substances and weaponry. It was sort like of getting through Airport security at Heathrow, if you've ever done that sort of thing. Unnecessary came from a parallel universe where the wealthy owned private blimps however, so he wouldn't have appreciated the analogy one bit.
Leered was the one to come down and escort him upstairs. Tall, dark, and stern, the son of the Lord and Lady Castellan was the only other person on the entire planet who shared Unnecessary's human-hybrid status. He'd foolishly thought at one time that this would mean they might be chums. Consequently, they'd never quite gotten along.
The tall guard didn't even try to insult Unnecessary once, which put him ill at ease immediately. Normally the Arcalian would have gotten a few digs in by now. Instead he was just standing there, oddly quiet. Unnecessary swallowed convulsively and nearly choked on his own saliva. Wiping his hands on his robes and noting the way the other man didn't so much as sneer at him, he concluded that things were even worse than previously expected. As they stepped into the elevator and they started to ascend, Unnecessary wondered if there was still time to trap his fellow crossbreed in a time loop and make a run for it. Sure, it was a felony to cause temporal instability in the Citadel but anything, even exile, would be better than this.
He knocked on the apartment door with some trepidation. It opened diagonally with a soft tsst.
Romana's eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with red and Mirkosch was stumbling away from her, rubbing his cheek. Leered's mother was pulling him away with a scowl on her face. In a burst of quick thinking, Unnecessary caught the man and led him to the kitchen, stating in a loud voice that it looked like they all needed some tea to put everything into perspective.
"What did you do?" Unnecessary hissed the moment they were out of earshot.
"Nothing! I didn't do a thing!" Mirkosch moved over to the food storage unit and wrinkled his nose at the flavours of protein the President's kitchen had on offer. "Just... tried to calm her down, is all," he continued defensively.
Unnecessary sighed. Having an illegal clone of the Master for your boyfriend had its definite pros and cons. On the up side, the guy always knew what to get you for Otherstide and never forgot your Nameday. On the other hand, he did occasionally declare himself Queen of the odd planet when he went off his meds and had the tendency to think mind control was the solution to everything. "Well, that was stupid. You can't hypnotize the President. I mean, she's the bloody President. There's a reason she-- are you even listening to me?"
"Look at them," Mirkosch said peevishly, peering around the corner at Romana who was now alternately barking orders at her scantily clad bodyguard and blowing her nose into a wad of facial tissue. "The Three Sisters, divided. I never thought Rose had it in her. I mean, if it were one of the handsome Doctors I'd understand, but this is just--"
"Not helping," Unnecessary spat. "Go boil some water."
Mirkosch let out a sigh and punched some buttons on the face of a machine that Unnecessary didn't recognize. "Not everyone lives back in the dark ages, you know. That said, I will miss your mother's cooking. The things that woman could do with raw ingredients...." He chuckled under his breath. "Hey, remember the time Borusa managed to de-calcify himself and burst into that meeting of the Supreme Council and was all, 'Give me the Key of Rassilon!' and Rose stood up, right, and was all, 'Give me head!'?"
"Why, no," Unnecessary snapped sarcastically. "Although now that you mention it I believe I had a pistol in my face at the time."
"That's right! And then he turned to your mum and said, 'You didn't just say that,' And she was all, 'I most certainly did, now what'cha gonna do abou' it?' And he was like, 'I'm going to kill your son!' And Rose was all, 'join the club!?' Best. Day. Ever."
The machine beeped and a plate jutted out holding five cups of what appeared to be tea (although with these contraptions one could never be sure.) Unnecessary motioned for Mirkosch to bring the tray in and went to join the women.
The tea was handed out quietly. Everyone took a cup; nobody drank.
After a time, Romana said something along the lines of, "how could she?" or possibly, "how dare they?" (Since she blew her nose partway through, it was hard to tell.)
Leela began to rub her shoulders, muttered something about it being a phase--and trailed off. Psychology was not a Sevateem warrior's department, unless it involved tricking the enemy into rushing in your direction so you could stick them with an implement considered to be either A) sharp; B) pointy; C) poisonous or D) all of the above.
Romana let out a shuddering, "Whatever did I...?" This was followed by Leered looking up into the air and his mother saying "there there," uncertainly, while her expression conveyed she'd much rather have somewhere to aim her laser rifle than be stuck doing this.
Unnecessary bit his lip and refrained from answering, Well, wiping the Doctor's memories and making him think he was the Time Lord version of Hitler, for one. First of all, it wasn't constructive. Secondly, the whole 'let's hide our planet from the Daleks' idea had been the Doctor's to begin with. The fact that he'd gone insane from guilt and isolation afterward, transforming into an entity so evil that one of his arch nemeses ended up being the good guy and warning everyone by default was neither here nor there.
The crying was getting to him. Unnecessary shifted from foot to foot. He didn't like seeing his stepmother like this. It was extremely out of character. He'd much prefer it if she started spewing technical or sociological jargon at him. Insulted his intelligence a little. That sort of thing. After all, this was the woman who'd graduated with a triple first and once carried manacles made from the ore of a Dwarf Star in her teeth. Who rebuilt the Tharil civilization in E-Space and was now holding the longest term in Gallifreyan history as President since the big "R" man himself. While his mother... well, his mother... looked good in tight clothing and could burp out a few alien alphabets when she had a pint?
Unnecessary opened his mouth, and closed it. He frowned. One had to admit, his mother and the President didn't have much in common--other than the fact that they'd both been with the Doctor at some point or another, they were different as night and day. Romana was every bit the haughty intellect, cold and clinical. Her logic and her accent (in any language) was clean and crisp--well, usually--and beyond reproach.
Unnecessary's mother, on the other hand, was every bit the immigrant who refused to integrate entirely, using difference (in Romana's words) "as a constructed locus of cultural resistance." This culminated in a sort of anti-academic, homespun, organic approach to living that involved things like frying magenta slices in beer batter and refusing to cover her hair with a tight-fitting cap when she went out. (And continuing to pronounce "think" as "fink" and wear lime green underwear and gigantic gold hoop earrings past the age of 150, but what could one say? As Mirkosch delighted in pointing out, at least she still had the body for it. Unnecessary believed he'd just have to take his friend's word on that.)
It was an impossibility perhaps to ascertain the exact nature of Rose Tyler's worth. Unnecessary figured it had to do with people liking her quite a bit. It didn't matter what language you spoke or molecular composition you came in. The plain truth of it was, everybody fancied his mum. She was pink and yellow and scrumptious all over in a way that had the lads back at Torchwood cracking the sorts of jokes that would make someone with a bit more personality quite upset indeed. (Unnecessary, however, preferred to ball his feelings up inside. As a result, he was a spectacular Prydonian where he'd been a rather lousy human being. His Auntie Innocet quite approved. Granted, Innocet's greatest pride lay in marrying a building, which goes to show just how very odd Gallifreyans can be, when it comes down to it.) But the important thing was that people loved and trusted Rose Tyler. She was a great Ambassador because people wanted to do what she said, not because they understood it was in their best interest, but because they liked her. Including the Lady President, which was kind of a problem.
There were so many questions now. Who was going to fill Rose's unique role? And how were they going to pull the President back together before the Council meeting in an hour? (Could they send a hologram?)
No, no, pull yourself together. What did he normally do in this situation? Well, that was simple enough. Call his--right. Moving on.
One had to face the facts. Despite the rather immature nature of the nickname his boyfriend used, The President, The Lady Castellan, and The Ambassador for Humanity had been a sort of... team. Time, Death, and... the other one. One might suppose she was living up to that now.
He couldn't very well say, it's just temporary, I'm certain she'll snap out of it and come right back.
And he couldn't under any circumstances say, hey, at least on the up side, we know where they're going....
What he did say, was: "Look, they can't get far. The CIA will--"
"OH!" Romana exclaimed. Leela's hands tightened their grip on her shoulders. "The CIA!"
"--won't be a problem if we have an inside man," said Unnecessary, his mouth running on automatic. "We just need someone to make sure that if anything... happens... it won't... you know... er... why are you looking at me like that?"
He had the sudden sense he'd just missed something important.
Behind him, Mirkosch swore.