This oneshot is the result of a little writing exercise that I do from time to time. I have a list of "genres" numbered, and I randomly pick one, out of a hat like. "Doctor Who" is one of my genres. Then I choose three words randomly out of a dictionary, and I see what kind of story I can come up with, based on the three words in the given genre. Most of the time, the story has nothing to do with the three words in the end. For this story, the words were: hitch, parts, above.
Anyway, I wrote the story in an hour, I did not edit, because that's how it works. In particular, I'm not happy with the way it ends, but... c'est la vie! Perhaps next week, I'll come back and fix it. Hope you enjoy!
By the way, I do not wish to offend anyone, British or American or otherwise with this fic. Some of the chracters might come off as stereotypes - I was just trying to prove a point, and do it quickly!
The Doctor had rarely bothered to wonder at the lives of his companions. But he had heard Martha Jones, on several occasions, mention that she was a "hitcher," or that those who travel with the Doctor in the TARDIS are like "stray dogs." He began to wonder, after she left him, what that must feel like. What was it like to travel along with someone who was entirely in control? To have absolutely no idea what to do, until you were told the rules. Like, this is planet so-and-so, the beings here are x and y, and the customs are like this. Sure, they had a say and a hand in what happened next, but if the Doctor was lost, how would they fly home?
Well, he decided to find out what that was like. It wasn't quite the same, just because he knew how to drive a lorry in a pinch. But there were worlds, even parts of the human world, which he had never explored.
So, one Sunday, he had nothing to do, and so decided to go for a walk down I-70, smack in the middle of Kansas, USA, mostly uncharted territory for him. He grabbed a rucksack, filled it with some perfunctory provisions and began hitching. It was fun. He got some strange looks. He reckoned that a tall, thin man in a blue pinstriped suit was not the usual sight as far as hitchers went, along these parts. The thought of that made him smile.
After less than an hour, a trucker stopped. "How far you goin'?" the man asked, without even saying hello.
"Oh, wherever. Want a…" he almost said companion, and then thought better of it. "…someone to talk to?"
"You got gas money?"
"Sure," the Doctor said.
"All right then."
The trucker climbed out of the cab and motioned for the Doctor to go inside. This was, apparently, better than braving the traffic on the other side of the truck. The man was about the Doctor's height, wore a green baseball cap with a puffy front and some netting in the back, jeans, and a tee-shirt that said, "No fat chicks." Ironic, since these words seemed to stretch over a belly long-cultivated by years of judicious beer-drinking.
The Doctor settled in, put the rucksack between his feet and fastened his seatbelt. He looked behind him, and saw that the cab was equipped with a little room behind the seats. There was a bed, a fridge, microwave, television and sink. The cab of this long-haul lorry was equipped with living quarters! He'd never had occasion to give pause and wonder about what was inside these tractors! "Wow, this thing is bigger than it looks!" He chuckled to himself. Bigger on the inside – now he was the passenger.
"Well, you know," the trucker mumbled, settling himself back in. "Weeks on the road."
The Doctor smiled a little to enthusiastically at the driver. "I'm John Smith. It's nice to meet you."
"Now listen," the man said. "Just so we're clear. I pick up hitch-hikers whenever I can, just to be a nice fella. My dad brought me up to help people. But you look like… well, I'll be honest. You look like a bit of a dandy."
"A dandy?" the Doctor asked, eyes wide.
"Yeah, you know, a fop. A fag, whatever."
"Oh, I see," the Doctor nodded. "I catch your meaning."
"Mm, and you sound like one too."
The Doctor was aware that when he spoke English, he sounded, well, English. He forgot about it sometimes, until he met up with an American or an Australian, or someone else prone to comment on his accent. He'd also thought that the Americans of the twenty-first century had basically grown out of their suspicions of foppishness on the part of the Brits, but apparently, in some cells of the U.S., the stereotype was alive and well. To be fair, this was one bloke he'd met.
"Now, I don't have a problem with that," the man went on. "But I don't want no shenanigans. That's not why I picked you up, all right?"
"Gotcha," the Doctor said, saluting earnestly. "No shenanigans."
"Good," he said. "I'm Delbert Hutton. My friends call me Del."
They shook hands. The Doctor wondered, "Can I call you Del, then?"
"Sure," Del said. "Til you prove you ain't no friend to me."
"Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that."
Del told him how he'd come to be a trucker. His brother had got into some trouble with some unsavory fellers in Chicago while Del was living in Texas. He got a frantic phone call one night from the brother asking, begging him to drive a U-Haul truck up to the Windy City, to a place called Otto's Pizzeria. Del could read between the lines and didn't want to see his brother with two broken legs or worse, so he followed the unsavory fellers' directions to where the U-Haul was parked, made the trip in good time, and handed over the goods, whatever that meant. But in doing so, he realised he liked the driving.
"Where is your brother now?" the Doctor asked.
Del just cleared his throat and asked, "What about you, Smith? What brings you all the way out here?"
The Doctor made up a story about how he'd got there – something about an art show in Kansas City (he reckoned this man would believe he'd be an art patron, effeminate Brit that he was) and a compact car breaking down. He wasn't sure where he was headed next because, well, the life on an artist is Bohemian indeed.
"Well, I'm going as far as Grand Junction," Del told him. "Maybe there's something there you can paint or sculpt or give birth to."
Their first stop was in Colby, Kansas at a petrol station. The Doctor was unduly excited about the miles and miles of corn, and the smell of a real Earth autumn in the air. He voiced this opinion, met with a steely, warning gaze from Del. He reminded himself that they had now driven high on fifty miles, and that to be abandoned here would not make it easy to get back to the TARDIS.
"I'll help you unload," the Doctor offered.
"Can't let you do that, sorry," Del said gruffly. "Union rules. Just… I don't know, go use the head or something. I'll let you know when it's time to get back on the road."
The Doctor shrugged and headed toward the front of the petrol station, while Del unloaded crates of soft drinks.
"Howdy," said the clerk. Female, perhaps fifty, gruff, nicotine-injured voice.
"Hi! May I use your loo?"
"Wha?" the clerk asked.
"Sorry," said the Doctor. "The toilet?"
"Oh, yeah," she said. "You'll need this." She reached down under the counter and handed him a standard-sized key, attached to an eighteen-inch burlap string tied to a Ford Motors hubcap.
The Doctor held the key between his thumb and forefinger, a foot away from his body. He examined the strange concoction of materials, the hubcap spinning in a slow circle in front of him, then said, "Thanks. Where is it?"
"Outside, aound the back," she said, pointing. "Men's room on the right, ladies' room on the left. You know, just in case."
"Right," he sighed, moving toward the door. He could see that this foppish Brit thing was going to get old fast. Oh well – long as I'm in corn country USA, I might as well be on a different planet. Well, more different from usual.
He went round the back of the station, and Del was there, along with an employee, heaving crates into stacks. "What the hell?" he asked, eyes squinting at the key-slash-hubcap.
Del looked. "It's so you can't run off with it."
"Is there a high demand for petrol station bathroom keys in this part of the country?"
Del chuckled. "No, but sometimes people forget. Put it in their pocket and go. This way, they can't."
"Hmph," the Doctor said, before turning and stepping into the men's room.
Driving off, Del asked, "Are you hungry? I'm starved."
"Yeah, I could eat."
"All right," Del said. He turned the truck into the parking lot of a restaurant just off the highway. A bright orange sign read Village Inn. They parked in a special section designated for big-rig trucks behind the building.
"Oh, I've heard of this place," the Doctor exclaimed. "It's a chain, yeah?"
"Yeah. Now, try not to be too conspicuous in there. Some of these folks are a little… well, you know, narrow-minded."
"Okay," the Doctor agreed. "I'll try to blend in, seem human."
They were seated at a booth to the side of the restaurant, and were waited on by a twentysomething waitress, very pregnant, her face very bruised. "Hey, Del," she chirped. "Who's your friend?"
"This is John Smith," he said. "Smith, this is Fontina. She always waits on me when I come here."
The Doctor greeted her, and Fontina seemed taken aback. She tittered a bit over his accent, and then asked, "So what can I get you, milord?"
He found her charming. "Er, I don't know. A cup o' Joe and grits?" He said this exaggeratedly, and Fontina laughed.
Del didn't get the joke, so he whispered, "Smith, you don't have to do that."
The Doctor retreated, and said, "Just some toast and…"
"Tea?" asked the waitress.
"Sure, okay," he said.
"Good guess, eh?" Fontina said, winking before she took Del's order.
As soon as Fontina was out of earshot, the Doctor asked, "So what's with the bruises?"
Del looked at him with a combination of anger, warning and worry. "Oh, don't start. A bunch of us have tried to get her to ditch that loser, but… and now that she's got a bun in the oven, she might as well just write herself off."
"No way," the Doctor protested. It was the first contrarian thing he'd said since entering Del's presence. He was becoming plucky. "Write herself off? How can you say that?"
"Well, I don't know how things work in your neck of the woods, but around here, there's nowhere to go unless you got a lot of money, family in the city, or a big set of wheels. She doesn't have those things."
"Doesn't she have friends or family in town? Neighbours she can stay with?" the Doctor asked, trying to keep his voice down. "Thirty dollars for a motel room?"
Del shrugged. "Maybe not. It's a small town, Smith."
The Doctor sighed. He began to metacogitate. He'd managed to go nigh on two hours without having done this – it was time. His carefree trek had turned suddenly into a problem to be solved. Trouble was, he wasn't in control now. He didn't have the right to invite her to come along with them, because the vehicle was not his. Something that he didn't like was happening in a world he didn't really understand, he didn't know how he could help, and the man in charge was resisting him. Now he was getting it. The stray dog experience, the hitcher's ride.
Before long, she was back with the food, and the Doctor and Del chatted a bit as they ate. As they paid their bill, tipping Fontina extra, she thanked them and said, "I'm going on my break now, just to let you know, so I'll just say goodbye to you now." She and Del hugged, and she shook hands with the Doctor, and disappeared through the kitchen door.
When they got outside and went around to find the truck, they heard commotion. "Shit," said Del. He put his arm out across the Doctor's chest to keep him from going forward any further. He peeked around the corner, then looked at the Doctor. "You stay here."
The Doctor's eyebrows raised as Del snuck back into the restaurant. When he snuck back out again, he said, "Ron's calling the cops. That bastard's giving Fontina a hard time again."
A man in a Village Inn polo shirt came outside. His nametag indicated that he was the Ron in question. "Cops are on their way. Where are they?" he asked.
Del pointed.
Ron nodded and whispered, "Let's go."
The three men moved forward, but then Del turned to the Doctor and said, "No, not you. You can't get involved in this."
"Why not? I want to help!"
"Because you'll get hurt," Del insisted. "This dude is big and tough and he hates… guys like you, all right? Best if you just stay the hell out of it."
The Doctor opened his mouth to protest, and then stopped. How many times had he been in this exact situation, except on the other side of the argument?
Del and Ron went around the corner, and the Doctor trailed distantly behind. They'd been right. The dude was big and tough. Although how tough a guy could be while he was screaming obscenities at his pregnant girlfriend was a matter still up for debate.
"Hey! Bowman! Give it a rest, would ya?" Del yelled out.
"Fuck off, Hutton," the man called Bowman yelled back. "This don't concern you."
Bowman had Fontina by the arm, in a grip that was sure to give her more bruises later on. She had a frantic look on her face, though she had not yet been reduced to tears. The Doctor reckoned it probably took a lot to make her cry these days.
"So what is it this time, big man?" Ron asked, still daring to approach. "Did she not dry the dishes right? Smile at a store clerk, what?"
"None of your goddamn business, now go back into your little restaurant, and keep putting whip cream on those pies, like they're paying you to do," Bowman said slowly. As an afterthought, as Ron got close, he flicked him on the forehead with his thumb and middle finger.
"Fontina, why don't you go back inside, and let us handle this?" Ron said.
Fontina struggled to pull away, but Bowman's grip was too strong. She let out a screech of frustration. "Let me go, Bowman! You're fucking insane! Let me go!"
"You ain't goin' nowhere, toots," he said. "You're coming with me."
He began to drag her across the parking lot toward a large blue pickup truck. It looked brand-new. Fontina was screaming and yelling, demanding he let go of her, that she didn't want to go anywhere with him, that he was crazy and insane and needed help. Del and Ron did their best, but frankly, Bowman was twice their size and half their age.
It was around this time when they heard sirens. Two police cars were coming up the highway and turned off at the exit leading to the Village Inn. Bowman had forced Fontina into the truck and was peeling out of the parking lot just as the cops arrived. Ron and Del started screaming obscenities, but as they were giving up hope, the Doctor extracted something metal from his pocket. A strange sound emitted from it, and suddenly, the pickup truck stopped in its tracks.
John Smith, the foppish Brit, smirked.
The police officers hauled Bowman out of the truck and bent him over the back of the squad car. It took all four to hold him down in his size and rage. Del and Ron flew to the scene, ostensibly to help out the cops, but really to give Bowman a piece of his mind. While they did that, the Doctor went around to the side of the pickup truck and stuck his head inside.
Fontina was startled, crying. He winked at her and used the sonic to repair the damage he'd done. She watched him with her jaw agape.
"You know how to fix cars?" she asked.
"Well," he said. "I spent time in Germany in my gap year."
"Wow!"
"Now, the way I see it, there's no getting out of this town unless you've got a lot of money, family in the city or a big set of wheels," he said. "Which have you got?"
A smile slowly spread across her face. She scooted over to the driver's side, said goodbye and peeled out of there.
In Kansas, on a trucker's route, the Doctor, the universe's last surviving Time Lord, was second-fiddle. But he'd learned enough from his own second-fiddles to see that there was always something that only the companion can do.
He hoped that someday all of the second fiddles in the universe got to have their day, and that those in charge would let them.