Disclaimer: All the rights etc belong to legal owners etc. Of course it is just a fan story, and as such doesn't bring any profits.
Continuity note: This story is preceded by following episodes of "Doctor Who – The Virtual Series Five":
1 – "Past Future Continuous"
2 – "The Art of Forgetting"
3 – "The August Sky"
4 - "On a Pale Horse"
DOKTOR WHO
VIRTUAL SEASON 5 – EPISODE 5
MOTHER NATURE
.1. The Doctor is Bored
The Doctor was bored.
There is, of course, a popular notion that intelligent people are never bored, but the Doctor wasn't sure if the same rule applied to Time Lords. The level of his boredom – he'd have to be a complete idiot. Were it possible to translate boredom into energy, the Doctor would be able to power a sizeable town. Maybe even a whole country. Or half the continent.
With his chin resting in the palm of his hand – fingers digging into his cheek – and with a desperately elongated face, he was watching tourists walking up and down the promenade. He spotted three tall women in green gowns; their skin dark and woody. There was a man toting a huge beer belly and three wobbly chins. A married couple accompanied by several noisy kids. Two elderly gentlemen, antique walking sticks in their hands (the Doctor smiled briefly to his memories of early incarnations). A portly matron with radioactive yellow hair. A teenager stomping a pair of large, leather boots studded with metal plates and diamonds. Naah, they couldn't have been diamonds. Zircons surely.
The fact that most of those tourists belonged to species other than various kinds of Homo Sapiens, did not bewilder the Doctor in the slightest. Donna, on the other hand, was sqeaking not only at the sight of strange faces, limbs, outgrowths and hairstyles, but also every time she noticed some extraordinary dress, blause, tunic, jacket, top, skirt or pendant. Although armed with the indisputable fashion sense (at least in the present incarnation) the Doctor couldn't understand Donna's chuckly admiration for the pair of – as he would put it – slacks. So far he hadn't spotted anything which would come up to his own coat (version 1.2 of it).
He would gladly have gone to one of the complimentary trips on offer, but Donna hadn't hesitated to remind him the infamous escapade to the sapphire waterfall on the Midnight, and although he had tried to explain the difference between the Midnight's X-tonic sun and the Eden's red dwarf, somewhere along the way he had lost all the will to go for any trips anymore. What was more important, he had decided not to lose sight of Donna again. Donna was a trouble magnet. The Doctor stubbornly ignored the fact, that he was a twice as powerful trouble magnet himself.
He was watching the promenade and a flame-red sea. Boredom was paralysing his mind and turning his usual enthusiasm into a sad, kiwi collored jelly.
In front of him there was a fanciful goblet full of fresh fruit salad. Rainbow coloured umbrellas, paper fans and bunches of shiny tinsel swayed above the salad in a gentle sea-breeze.
The Doctor craved a steak, chips and peas; a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs, and macaroni cheese consisting mostly of cheese. He could sense his cholesterol level dropping below an acceptable level. Being a Time Lord, he didn't have to worry about saturated, unsaturated and all the other kinds of fats. His metabolism couldn't care less; his taste buds – the other way round.
On his head he had a towel turban with an Eden logo – a holografic, spiralling fig leaf. On his shoulders and back he was plastered with mud derived from hot mineral springs – a stinking goo containing a large concentration of something called a kergrador. He couldn't move not to smear everything around him with the mud (and not to be scowled at by a large and extremely healthy Edenian woman, who had covered him with mud in the first place); he couldn't slip away unnoticed; and he couldn't stop being bored!
This was the worst day of his 906 year long life!
"This is – honestly – this is wizard!"
The Doctor lowered his hand and turned his desperately elongated face towards Donna.
"Don't you think? Wizard!" she repeated enthusiastically. "Donna Noble, citizen of the Earth, from Chiswick, London, in EDEN!"
The way she punctuated the last word suggested she found herself in an actual Paradise.
"It's just barmy!" she added as if to dispel all doubts.
"Mmm..." the Doctor said. The hand on which he had been resting his face left red marks on his chin and cheek.
"You don't like it." Donna was very sensitive about any symptoms of dissatisfaction.
"No, I like it!" the Doctor protested immediately and unconvincingly. "It is so... peaceful."
With a blissful sigh Donna rolled onto her back and turned her face towards the sun.
"This is gorgeous. I wish I could... I could spend the rest of my life here. Just the sand, sun and sea. Wonderful!"
The Doctor's right eyebrow climbed high up his forehead; every inch of his expressive face reflecting a dread.
"Mmm," he mumbled. "Wonderful."
"What time is it?" Donna shaded her eyes with a forearm, trying to see the clock on one of the hotel's turrets. "We have a Kolerian thermal zen-massage at three, and a pneumatic jacuzzi at four. And we can't be late for the dinner. There'll be a show."
She gave him a quick glance.
"Why aren't you eating your salad?"
The Doctor lowered his head on his folded hands with a sigh.
"There are pears in it," he mumbled. "I hate pears. I can't eat pears."
"They are not pears," Donna stated. "They just taste like pears."
"It's like you were trying to say that the poison is not a poison, it just has the effect of the poison" the Doctor moaned. "Or that a square pumpkin is not a pumpkin."
"I haven't seen a square pumpkin in my life."
"Aah, see, you put them into plastic or glass containers while they are still small and as they grow..." The Doctor brightened up for a moment, but his gloom returned almost immediately. "Doesn't matter."
"If you want to know, I've noticed how sour you are, and I'm telling you..."
Just then a piercing scream catapulted Donna from her deckchair, both hands pressed tightly to her chest. The Doctor was already on his feet, struggling with sleeves of his white dressing gown (adorned with the Eden's logo of course), which he was trying to pull over a thick layer of mud covering his back (and everything around him). He finally managed to do that and he briskly tied the belt. His face, for the first time that day, wore an expression of unadulterated joy.
"At last!" he exclaimed.
And he was gone.
To be continued...
Author's note: This story waited to be writen for a very long time. In the meantime I cried my eyes out watching the 10th Doctor's last moments, and I kinda accepted the 11th Doctor (he's not so easy on the eye, but does it matter, really?). And since today is the day I watched "The Eleventh Hour" for the first time it seemed only right to post this short introduction into another of 10th and Donna's virtual adventures in an alternate reality of my spinning-off series. I need to hurry. I saw the spoilers, and Mr Moffat is stealing my ideas :). Does he have cameras planted in my room?
Anyway, sorry for a prolonged silence. I hope you will come back to this story, and will be reviewing it just like you did before. It is always greatly appreciated. Oh, and I am sorry, but my English got a bit rusty again... I'm working on it.
Happy Easter. All the best to all the Doctor's fans. We stand united!:D
HermitsUnited.