The Doctor was feeling lost. He was in his TARDIS, a time traveling device the size and shape of a British Police Telephone box on the outside, but infinitely large on the inside. He had somehow lost track of Perpugilliam Brown, his female American companion, somewhere in the TARDIS storage holds. Luckily, he had just found her again lying on a bed made of sealed plastic bags of jelly-babies. He twiddled his thumbs in an impatient matter as he sat in the console room. The Doctor was a Timelord, a race from the ancient planet of Gallifrey. A Timelord had thirteen lives to live, and the Doctor was now on his sixth. He brushed his hand through his blond mop of hair. He walked in eternity, had no home, and ended up with many century overdue library books. This was perfectly normal for a Timelord, and so the Doctor dozed softly for a few moments. He jolted slightly when Peri suddenly spoke.
"Doctor, can we go somewhere nice for a change?"
"What do you mean, 'nice?' I do NOT find that funny!"
The Doctor stood to confront his companion on even ground.
"Where would you like to go?"
Peri withdrew from the argument for a moment. To say the Doctor attracted trouble would be wrong. It is more apt to say the Doctor was attracted to trouble. Everywhere the Doctor went, all hell would break lose.
"Just somewhere where they won't try to kill us!"
The Doctor sighed. "How about a nice holiday on ancient earth? A time before even the fish thought of going on the land. No one would bother us there."
Peri nodded in resignation. The Doctor activated the controls and set a course. Peri sat down in the lawn chair that the Doctor had recently occupied; leaving the Timelord to stand at the controls as the machine traveled its way through the time-space vortex. All was pleasant, until a deep tone resonated from the very depths of the TARDIS.
"The cloister bell?"
The Doctor stood confounded. He examined the controls as the TARDIS materialized.
"Doctor, what's happening?"
Peri screamed as the Doctor activated the scanner screen. A stream of lava flowed menacingly towards the police box shell of the TARDIS.
"I missed the decimal point on the temporal coordinates ... I've set us down next to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius."
The Doctor was a blur as he operated the controls.
"They've all packed up!" he exclaimed, furiously hammering at the console.
"Doctor, what does this emergency dematerialization button do?" Peri stood and examined the control more carefully.
"DON'T TOUCH THAT!" the Doctor yelled -- but it was too late. His companion had already activated the control. The TARDIS dematerialized before the lava poured over, burning all in its path. The Doctor sat down immediately.
"Whatever you do, do not concentrate on what is about to happen. You must concentrate only on my voice."
The Doctor began to count slowly. Peri stood and gripped the console, preparing for whatever was about to happen. The friendly TARDIS hum grew in volume. It drowned out the Doctor's counting. Peri screamed. In an inky black void, the TARDIS shattered into a billion pieces. Peri clutching the console plummeting downwards, and the Doctor, spiraling off, away from his companion, was all that remained.
In fair Verona?
The Doctor snapped awake. An army of sweet smells assaulted his nose. He stood up dusting off his multi-colored coat. He breathed the sweet scent deeply as he surveyed the surroundings. An Italian marketplace bustled around him. From what he gathered, it was about thirteenth or fourteenth century. He stood out of his chair which promptly vanished. This did not startle the Doctor in the least as inexplicable experiences were part of his everyday routine. He walked over to a nearby fruit stand and began to prod the melons in search of quality produce. To his surprise, an argument began to brew behind him.
"Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?"
"I do bite my thumb, sir."
The tension grew, but the Doctor took no notice until a blade struck down a melon near his hand. He turned around and was greeted by a large body that rammed into his middle. The force knocked the Doctor backward, and he promptly knocked the fruit stand over. He slowly stood up, carefully removing bits of melon from his coat. He turned to leave, but a rapier poised at his throat halted his progress.
"Who doth thou side with stranger? The Capulets or the Montagues?"
The Doctor stood silent for a moment. He gazed into the eyes of the man who wielded the offending blade. The eyes were soft, not that of a killer, but that of a man who could bluff his way through the situation. However, due to several hundred years of experience, the Doctor could see this characteristic. The Doctor instantly stepped back and with a cry of "AIKIDA!" chopped at the assailant's neck. The would-be attacker slumped to the ground. However, he had only brought even more attention to himself. A man with a larger sword than all the rest approached him.
"Thou art handy with thy hands, stranger. How good are thee with a blade?"
"I would not know. I despise weapons. Always end up useless in the end."
"O stranger, I hope thou learn quickly, for I, Tybalt, challenge thee to a duel for attacking my kinsman!" The Doctor backed away. To his relief, a sudden powerful, but calm voice echoed over the crowd.
"Rebellious subjects! Enemies to peace!" The Doctor smiled. The prince of Escalus had saved him from a duel.
Meanwhile, in a darkly lit control area, a man sat watching the Doctor's progress.
"Oh my," the man said. "How did he get here?"
A klaxon sounded, and the man's attention was brought upon the arrival of a female in the cavern that led to the control area.
"What is she doing! I must get her out of ... " The man stopped as a powerful pulse entered his brain from the large computer behind him. With a sudden menace, he spoke. "GIRL TO BE DISPOSED OF IMMEDIATELY." The pulse left his mind, and the man reluctantly began to write on the pad of paper in front of him.
Peri treaded her way through a dark, wet cavern. She pointed the torch she had discovered down the tunnel in front of her. A light reflected back at her.
"Doctor? Is that you?" She screamed at the top of her lungs. A beast from her worst nightmares stared back at her. Her legs seized up and refused to move. All she could do was scream. She thought to herself 'it doesn't exist' repeatedly, and to her relief, when she opened her eyes, it didn't. She carefully made her way deeper into the cavern.
The Doctor wandered through the scenery. He sat down to sort out the events of the morning in his head.
"Of course, this is the land of fiction. But Jamie and Zoey destroyed it a long time ago ... I must have slipped sideways in time, to an alternate universe. So what is going on around me? Of course! It's Romeo and Juliet! My favorite play Bill wrote," the Doctor chuckled quietly. "I can still remember telling him 'change this bit to star-crossed lovers,'" he sighed. "Now if memory serves me correct, Romeo should appear down this road right ... now."
As if on cue, an adolescent of sixteen appeared at the end of the road.
The control center was roaring with klaxons. The man hooked up to the computer rabidly wrote, knowing his words of fiction would become real, and would stop the intruding female. He tried to resist, but a pulse from the computer overdid his moral judgement.
"No, she's harmless. Why can't you ... " Again a pulse from the computer crippled the man's mental control, and the menace returned to his voice. "SHE IS AN INTRUDER. SHE MUST BE DEALT WITH." The man's hand began to write at the pad again.
Peri surveyed the large pit that spread across the tunnel. She picked up a small stone and threw it into the abyss. Not a sound could be heard from the plummeting stone. Frightened for her life, she carefully made her way round the edge. A squeak resonated from the deep chasm. Peri shuffled a little faster around the edge of the pit. A thousand squeaks erupted as a flurry of furry bats flew up from the abyss. She attempted to scream, but the force of the bats flying from pit made her lose her balance. She fell into the deep chasm.
The Doctor was having quite a good time. He had settled down at a very nice party. He observed Juliet dancing with the masked Romeo and smiled. The feast began to slow down, and the exhaustion from the adventure left the Timelord napping in a corner of the hall.
Unknown to the Doctor, the surroundings changed to the inside courtyard of the Capulets. Romeo was now approaching Juliet's balcony. However, due to the Timelord's previous position, he found himself lying on a cold stone bench. This snapped him awake and he observed Romeo. The adolescent seemed to be unaware of what to say, and stood dumbfounded below his new love's balcony. The Doctor brushed off his coat, stood up and took it upon himself to be Cyrano De Begerac to Romeo. He listened as Juliet and Romeo both talked to themselves. He popped his head out from some bushes next to Romeo.
"What are you waiting for? Talk to her!"
Romeo startled.
"Art thou a Capulet? Am I lost in the company of my love? Who art thou who interrupts my dreaming?"
"You can call me the Doctor. Quick, speak up before she leaves!"
"What could I say that would not sour in her sweet ears?" The conversation was broken by Juliet's speech.
"Romeo, doff thy name, And for thy name, which is no part of thee, take all myself."
"Romeo, quick, say ... "
Peri was free floating for a brief moment, until a hand gripped her arm tightly. She slapped against the side of the pit like a rag doll, but was relieved as she was pulled onto the other side of the pit. She looked up at her rescuer. A large muscular man in black trousers, a black cloak and a mask, which covered the top of his head, stared down at her.
"I am the Karkus. You shall come with me." The large strangely shaped pistol he carried convinced Peri to do as he said.
The Doctor smirked as his handiwork made the story line go along the right path.
"Now tell her 'I would if I were thy bird.'"
Romeo did as he said, and the Doctor listened as the sweet poetry flowed from Juliet's voice.
"I thank thee Doctor, and bid thee a goodnight."
The Timelord nodded to the boy's comment and laid down to continue his snooze.
"Where are you taking me?" Peri protested. She had taken enough of being pushed around by the masked muscle man.
"You shall not question the Karkus!" He pointed his gun at Peri again.
"And what's that supposed to be?"
"An antimolecular disintegration ray. If you do not be quiet I shall use it on you."
"Antimolecular ray? Those don't exist!"
The Karkus' gun disappeared.
The Karkus growled.
"What are you going to do about it now? You're gun is gone!" The Karkus growled again. Peri made a dash for it, hoping the Karkus could not keep up with her.
The Doctor was sopping wet. In his sleep, the scenery had changed back to the marketplace, and he now occupied a large fountain. He stood up and took off his coat.
"Oh dear ... " The Doctor shook his arms trying to get rid of the water. "I must have slept through the scene with Friar Lawrence. Pity, he was always my favorite character. Bill always said he based him on me."
The Doctor stepped out of the fountain briskly shaking the water off his clothes. He spotted Juliet's nurse across the marketplace. He casually walked over to her.
"Madam, I believe Romeo is over there."
"God bless you sir, you save a poor woman many aches from searching." the Doctor grinned toothily and bowed to her.
"Good day milady."
"A good day to you sir." She giggled as she headed off in the direction the Doctor had pointed.
The man in the control center smiled. No matter what the computer that influenced his mind threw at her, she had avoided it, even if he had helped her a little. He tried to let her near the control center, but the computer would not let him. He tried to overpower the computer, but the surge of power numbing his cerebral cortex stopped his attempt. He started to plead with the computer.
"Please, she isn't going to be able to do any harm ... Let me talk to her, please." The menace entered his voice again.
"NO. YOU WILL NOT COOPERATE, SO THE ROBOTS SHALL BE DISPATCHED."
"Why? You stupid thickheaded automated abacus! She isn't going to do any harm!"
"YOU SHALL NOT PROTEST. SHE WILL BE DESTROYED IN A MOMENT."
The man sat down, and wrote, hoping the computer would not notice.
Peri was about to break down. After escaping from the Karkus, she did not stop running. She collapsed onto the ground and gasped for breath. She lay there; hoping that danger wouldn't be waiting for her. Unfortunately, two large white robots walked up to her. She tried to get up, but her tired legs would not agree with her mind. She tried to scream, but her lungs were out of air. The robots aimed their deadly chest weapons at her. Her eyes looked up in true desperation.
The Doctor looked on as he secretly watched Juliet arrive at Friar Lawrence's cell. He smiled; not knowing his companion was in dire danger.
Peri tried to stand once more without luck. She cried, but the robots showed no pity. They fired their offending chest weapons trained on the poor American. Her mind wailed in pain, and her body went limp with unconsciousness. The robots leant over and slowly carried her body with them down the cave.
Two men walked through the Italian marketplace, one clowning a bit, while the other almost gravely serious. They soon became engrossed in an argument, and their squabble alerted the Doctor. He wandered away from the stand of fine Italian cloth and observed the two men by the fountain. To his disbelief, he saw the brute Tybalt and some of his kinsman enter the area. He tried to alert the two by the fountain, but they had already spotted their enemies.
"By my head, here comes the Capulets!"
"By my heel, I care not!" the Doctor watched carefully as Tybalt approached the less serious man.
"Gentlemen, good e'en. A word with one of you." Tybalt announced to the two. The Doctor edged closer. Tybalt began to squabble with the one the Doctor knew to be Mercutio. Benvolio, the more serious of the two, attempted to calm the situation, but he could not cool a hot of a head as Tybalt had. The newly wed Romeo soon arrived on the scene, and the situation worsened. After a few moments of squabbling between Mercutio and Tybalt, with calm interjections by Romeo and Benvolio, a duel broke out among Tybalt and Mercutio. The fight continued. The Doctor searched his cluttered pockets frantically.
"I must do something!" he continued the search of his pockets. He found a cricket ball in his pocket, and frantically bowled it at Tybalt's upraised heel. To the Timelord's luck, the ball struck the ill-tempered man square in the foot, making him lose balance as Romeo and Benvolio attempted to beat down the weapons of Tybalt and Mercutio. Mercutio's rapier clattered to the ground, but Tybalt held his fast. In a temperament of rage, he thrust his blade. The Doctor gasped in horror. Tybalt's blade clattered to the ground, stained with the blood of Benvolio. Tybalt and his kinsman routed, leaving Romeo and Mercutio to tend to the wounded Benvolio.
The man in the control area stared at the monitor displaying the Doctor.
"He's messed the entire story up! Who does he think he is!" the man eyed the unconscious Peri lying in a padded chair nearby.
"Guards to capture the man in the wet clothes in the Romeo and Juliet zone. Commence action now." the man could not smile at his actions, not knowing what would happen if the computer reacted to bringing yet another person into the control area. He breathed deeply and sighed.
"Oh crumbs."
The Doctor slammed against the dusty ground of the marketplace. He had tripped over the cricket ball while he ran to stop Romeo from going off to kill Tybalt. However, he only had succeeded in knocking the wind out of himself and getting his already damp clothes covered in dust. He pried himself off the ground, put the ball back into his pocket, and breathed deeply. He rubbed his head and sat down next to the fountain. He cupped a hand, dipped into the water, and used the liquid to clean out his hair. He looked at himself.
"Good thing I don't plan on going to any fancy dress parties in the immediate future." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a brown paper bag. He reached into the bag and pulled out a jellybaby.
"A yellow one! My favorite." he instantly popped the sweet into his mouth. He leant over to the fountain, startled to see a small fish in it. The doctor laughed to himself as he pointed the bag of sweets in the direction of the aquatic animal.
"Would you like a jellybaby, fish?" the Doctor gasped in disbelief, as he saw the reflection of two metal faces behind him in the water. He spun around to confront the two. He looked the two aggressors over. Both looked exactly like tin soldiers, both with large turnkeys in the middle of the backpacks. Both of them wielded rifles, and projected a beam of light from their tall hats at the Doctor.
"I surrender." The Doctor said regretfully. The two giant tin soldiers led him away at gunpoint.
A few minutes later, the Doctor entered a glass doorway adorned with gold hexagons. He looked at his companion unconscious on the padded chair.
"Peri! I completely forgot about you!" the Timelord ran over to his neglected assistant. "Peri, wake up. Peri? Are you alright?"
"She is alright, she only fell unconscious due to the robot's chest beams."
The Doctor spun around. He saw a man in checkered trousers, a black coat, and a blue shirt with a blue bow tie sitting at a writing desk. A black skullcap with two wires coming off it adorned his head. The Doctor stood agape.
The man spoke again.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor. Who are you?" The Doctor barely found himself able to form the words.
"I'm also the Doctor." The other man's jaw dropped.
"Oh my giddy aunt."
The doctor rubbed his head.
"How did you end up like this?"
"You don't remember? If you are me then how come you don't know?"
"Because I am from another universe. I am from a universe where I, well, we escaped from this place."
"What? I couldn't ... They had Jamie and Zoe, and I couldn't bear to see them suffer." The other doctor pouted. "I agreed to take over the computer, and they let Jamie and Zoe free. When I discovered their true plan, I was able to stop it. But that doesn't matter much now, does it?"
"It does matter that I can get you out of here. We just need to disconnect the computer lead and you will be freed!"
"You don't understand. If I am disconnected, all of this will fall apart! All of the Earth's fiction stored in one place ... It's fascinating."
"But very, very lonely."
"Yes, quite. Wait a minute. Oh yes!" The other doctor clapped his hands in excitement.
"What?"
"My TARDIS is still out there. Jamie and Zoe are probably in there too."
"Jamie and Zoe ... Do you mean to say they are waiting in your TARDIS for you? How long have you been controlling this place?"
"Actually, I told Zoe how to set up a time dam around the TARDIS until I figured out a way to get back to the TARDIS. Unfortunately I never seemed to break that stupid computer's hold over me."
Suddenly, the Computer behind the other doctor sprung to life. Power surged into his brain, and the menace entered his voice. "YOU SHALL NOT ATTEMPT TO LEAVE. YOU ARE NECESSARY FOR THE CONTINUATION OF THIS UNIT'S OPERATION. ROBOTS TO ENTER CONTROL AREA IMMEDIATELY AND DESTROY THE TWO FOREIGN ORGANIC ENTITIES IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT, IMMEDIATELY."
The other doctor collapsed onto the desk. "Oh my word, this is horrible. We must get out of here."
"Doctor, what's going on?" Peri asked. The Doctor spun round.
"Peri, there is no time for explanation, take the sonic screwdriver, and use it on that panel over there." The Doctor gestured over at a large computer panel. "Just do as much damage as possible! Quickly, before the robots get here.
Peri did as she was told. Smoke and foam billowed from the computer. The Doctor took advantage of this, and quickly removed the skullcap from his other self's head.
"Peri, quickly, we must get out of here!" the Doctor yelled. Both Doctor's and Peri ran out of the control area, as the computer broke down.
The land of fiction was breaking apart. The Doctors and Peri ran through the streets of France as the scenery shattered like glass around them.
"It is a far, far better thing, than I have ever done before." The Doctor stared at the man just as he disappeared, crumbling into a pile of letters. The other doctor didn't let up.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here!" Again, they started running, now through a hedge maze. They ran and ran, watching as the surroundings fell apart. They arrived at the friendly TARDIS exterior. The Doctor stopped.
"Who's is this, yours or mine?" the other doctor felt the exterior.
"Slight temporal freeze. I believe it's mine." The Doctor shook his other self's hand.
"I told Zoe to have the time dam on a frequency that would break down from a signal from my sonic screwdriver."
The other doctor pulled out his more simple and antiquated version of the device. "Very clever, hmm?" The Doctor nodded. "Goodbye." The other Doctor pushed open the doors, and walked inside. The Doctor peeked in for a moment.
"Doctor, you got out!" Jamie exclaimed.
"Well of course, Jamie, you can't really expect a computer to defeat me, can you?"
"Doctor, who was that?" Zoe asked, as the doctor removed his head from view.
"A self absorbed blustering buffoon."
The Doctor and Peri walked on, not caring that the surroundings might fall apart at any moment.
"That was you wasn't it?"
"Yes it was Peri, but not the same as you met in that business with the Androgums. The TARDIS slipped into another universe, by your hasty action, I might add."
"Doctor, would you stop disciplining me, I've had a bad day."
"Oh really? Maybe we should take that holiday now," the Doctor looked around. "I almost forgot something. Peri watched as the Doctor walked over to a strangely dressed teenager walking towards a large stone building. She looked confused as the Doctor carefully threw a cricket ball at the teenager's head, knocking him over.
"Wait just a few minutes, Juliet isn't really dead. And you sir," the Doctor turned to another strangely dressed man "Don't lay a hand on him, he's trying to rescue his wife Juliet. Good day to you both." The Doctor walked back to Peri. "Let's get to the TARDIS shall we, this place will go up at any moment."
"Doctor, what were you doing over there?"
"Oh, just changing a tragic end to happily ever after."
"Oh Doctor, you're such a softie."
"Am I really? I never really noticed. Come on, we've got planets to save." Peri giggled as they walked off into the sunset.