A.N: I Do Not Own Doctor Who
This is one of my enteries for the 'HAHA no so funny Doctor challenge' on The TARDIS forum.
The prompting joke for this fic was number 208: Do doctors make housecalls? Yes, but your house has to be really sick.
OC: Contains an OC. I've tried to make a bit of an introduction to get the gist of what he's about. If you want to find out more about him, I introduce him in Psych.
April House
The room hummed and buzzed, vibrant colours rolling themselves around the curving edge, leaping through the large room and tucking itself into all the holes nooks and crannies available, a tidal wave of colour that seemed to have broken around the central pillar, depositing a jumble of nick-nack, odds and ends, a built up collection of bizarre parts that whizzed tumbled and clicked in a confusing haphazard way: A pile, Phelk reasoned, that had to have a button in it somewhere, but he just couldn't for the life of him find it.
"You found the Meterophysical transliteral dimension decomissioner yet?" The equally haphazard owner of the ship stuck his head around the pillar, his brown mop of hair attempting to migrate across his forehead and into his eyes, prevented from success only by the shuddering of the ship, which also set the red bowtie dancing under his chin.
"What?" Phelk asked, before being sent stumbling to one side as a particularly violent shudder from the Tardis almost flung him away from the console, but he kept holding on and pulled himself back towards it to spot the Doctor as he pulled the screen round to have a look at it.
"We took a bit of a sharp corner around the thirteenth century- must have knocked a connection loose or something because the Tardis is now trying to tell me what the weather in the space time vortex is, and not where we're going which is frankly a bit useless." The Doctor pushed the screen around towards Phelk, who batted it on back to the Doctor who fielded it neatly. "That button can turn this off, and if we can find it in time, it'll mean that we don't crash into the twentieth century." There was another loud crash and a violent jolt, they hung on until it subsided a bit and the Doctor looked around slightly nervously. "Again."
"What does it look like?" Phelk finally asked, exasperated at the Doctors ramblings.
"Erm…" The Doctor swung round to where Phelk was, dangling off the screen with one arm and peering intently at the panel. He pushed and pulled a few levers and dials, checking the screen. "No, that's no good." The Doctor passed the screen to Phelk. "Tell me if that changes."
Phelk stared at the whirling display of circles, muttering to himself. "Try defining change." Meanwhile the Doctor laid to and intense inspection of the panel, determined to find the button before they crashed into somewhen they shouldn't.
"Doctor," Phelk called and the Doctor looked round at him questioningly. "It's predicting rain." The Doctor shook his head.
"No good." He punched a few knobs and pulled a few more levers. "Try that." This time it was Phelks turn to shake his head before the Tardis gave another significant jolt, sending the Doctor sprawling over the console and causing Phelk to be half dragged around by the screen , clinging on with one arm before his grip slipped and he was deposited on the floor of the ship. On the other side of the console the Doctor rolled onto his back just in time to see the now loose screen whiz past above his nose. He caught it on it's next journey round and quickly pressed the little green button that was hiding round the back of it, the screen in response went dark for a moment, before resuming its normal, far more relaxed mode. Around them the Tardis settled a bit and Phelk clambered to his feet and moved cautiously to where the Doctor was now sat up on the console.
"It's back to normal now." He stated, shifting out of the way to let the Doctor jump off his perch and watched as he work around the console, pushing button and working various gadgets- the normal routine of flying the Tardis. "Did you find it?" Phelk asked, and the Doctor appeared in front of him, gesturing at the now fairly smooth flight of the Tardis, the glass column in the central pillar pumping up and down regularly like a heart, or breathing, the colours flooding the console room now a little less panicked.
"No." The Doctor concluded. "But I did find the activation switch for the screen, and as I'd managed to isolate the dislocated circuit I reset the system and it sorted itself out. Everything back to normal. Problem solved!"
"You just turned it off and on again didn't you?" Phelk stated bluntly, the Doctor almost protesting before busying himself with the controls, beginning to direct them towards their next location.
"It did give me an idea. The grand botanical amalgamation: Ten planet, and the biggest collection of plants, trees and fungi around, and what's more is that it'll be fairly quiet as there's never usually more than a couple million visitors each year and the head keeper is a good friend of a pal of mine- I'm sure she'd get you a post there if you wanted to stay. What do you think?" Phelk pondered the Doctors offer for a minute before replying.
"Worth a shot. Wouldn't say I'm the most green fingered person around but you might be right about the noise. Trees don't tend to have much in the way of telepathy." The Doctor was busily at work, sending the Tardis towards it's destination, and after a moment landing her.
"Kew, entrance planet of the gardens- they decided to name each planet after famous old Earth gardens: Kew, Eden, Babylon, Dixy…"
Phelk half nodded, already over by the door and on his way out. He disappeared outside and there was a moments silence.
"Oh." Phelks disappointed voice drifted back into the Tardis, swiftly followed by Phelk himself. "You've done it again. Earth; I've already told you it's too busy." The Doctor tapped frantically away at the keypad.
"Are you sure?" The Doctor asked, causing Phelk to stick his head out the door again, wrapping his hand to his ear.
"Err yep, I'd know that tone of incessant worry anywhere."
"Earth."
"Told you."
"In the year 200." The Doctor continued, with an air of intrigue. "A bit of a party year, lots of worry about a millennium bug and a number of projects which don't all go according to plan but there you go." The Doctor spotted Phelk disappearing back out the Tardis. "That wasn't meant literally!" He called after him, and following him out when he got no reply. "I know you don't like it here, and I appreciate you making the effort but you don't have to stay here, I can try and get us to the gardens again."
"Doctor, that house…" The Doctor spun round to look at it. It was a gleaming new house in the Georgian style with a near white and duck egg blue façade that spanned five windows across and three floors up, set in a cleared area surrounded by woods, a driveway now broken up by weeds leading through the woods to the front door, and a hint of lightness and grass indicated a sizable lawn around the other side. It was an impressive sight.
"It's a nice house." The Doctor complimented, peering through the thick trees trying to see how far the grounds stretched, and maybe work out where they were.
"I thought I saw it move." Phelk finished, almost hesitantly, but it caught the Doctors full attention and he buzzed over Phelk and then the house with the sonic screwdriver, holding it up with a flick.
"Odd." The doctor commented, looking between the house and his screwdriver.
"In what way?" Phelk asked.
"It just is?" The Doctor started shaking the sonic, trying to check it was working, buzzing at the area around where they stood before centring it back on the house.
"But how? Why?" Phelk asked, more insistently.
"I don't know!" The Doctor exclaimed. "I tried working it out with the sonic but it's just giving me 'odd'. Odd. The house is odd." The Doctor stood looking at it and repeated himself. "The House is odd." They looked at it trying to see it's oddness, before Phelk broke the silence, having decided he couldn't actually spot anything odd.
"Want to go have a look?"
"Yeah."
They wandered up towards the house, gravel crunching as they made their way up the driveway towards the bright white front door.
"10 acres." The Doctor stated.
"The price?" Phelk responded, drawing up beside hi at the door.
"Nah, old style measurements. It's the size of the grounds- it's a fairly big house, quite important in this area I'd think. Shall we see if anyone's in?" Without waiting to hear Phelks protests the Doctor sharply rapped on the door. The knocks could be heard echoing down the empty hallway within. "Of course the owners might just be asleep or out shopping and maybe just a very bit behind on the upkeep of the grounds." The Doctor challenged Phelk. "Could've just imagined seeing it move."
"I am not going mad. I saw it move. Anyhow your sonic said it was odd." Phelk replied curtly, hand clenching round the doorknob.
"Yes." The Doctor held the sonic up level with his eyes. "Looks like a house, feels like a house, smells like a house. Odd house." He buzzed the lock and it clicked, Phelk pushing the door open to reveal a bright interior.
"Wow, someone's been looking after this place well." Phelk complimented, gazing around the entrance hallway. The black and white checked diamond floor stretched out from the door, folding itself around the base of the polished wooden staircase that ran up one side of the room and along a balcony landing at the top, a shining chandelier hung in the center gleaming brightly.
"I'll have a look around upstairs, you can take the ground floor." The Doctor was already leaping towards the top of the stairs. "And remember, we're looking for anything odd." The Doctor disappeared into one of the rooms and Phelk wandered to the nearest door and went in. It was a large living room with an ornate fireplace, sofas and a couple of cabinets, all decorated with vases brimming with flowers. Pausing to sniff one of the roses in the nearest vase Phelk moved on into the next room, a library, then another reception room, a dining room and eventually came to the kitchen. Phelk was beginning to get bored. Absolutely nothing seemed to be even slightly out of the ordinary. Even the plumbing was working perfectly so he rinsed out a mug and poured himself a drink of water, which even tasted uninteresting. Maybe he had just imagined the house moving.
There was a crack as the mug in his hand broke, depositing a load of cold water over his feet. He cursed collecting the remains into a pile in the corner, discovering the small roundish stone that was responsible as he did. He turned and looked out the window behind him catching sight of a young face disappearing with a rustle into the bushes.
"Hey!" Phelk began to give chase, being brought to an abrupt halt by the door, or rather the solid brick wall where he could've sworn the door had been. He didi a double take, glancing around the room. Nothing else had changed, and the other two doors were exactly where they were before. He closed his eyes and leant against the wall. Maybe he had been overdoing it recently, and was just imagining things. He almost decided that was the problem when there was a clunk and the door swung open sending him backwards into the gravel with an oof. He gingerly sat up; feeling the back of his head, deciding no damage was caused before glaring at the door in front of him, swinging almost half mockingly open. But? Had it…? Phelk scrambled to his feet, stumbling away from the house before breaking into a run around towards the front where he'd heard a loud crash.
"Doctor!"
Meanwhile the Doctor was bored. There had been nothing particularly interesting that he could find. Sure there's been a pretty dolls house in one of the rooms- a nursery by the looks of it, but otherwise it was just bedrooms, bathrooms and a really stuffy cupboard. He tossed a pillow to one side in the bedroom and looked out over the lawn, catching sight of a hint of movement. He heard the sound of something breaking on the ground floor, and decided to abandon the search and see if Phelk was okay, sweeping past the king sized bed and a full length mirror on the way out.
The corridor fell silent of footsteps and slowly, cautiously the Doctor put his head back around the door, looking at the mirror intently. He moved in front of it, waved a hand close to it and stood back.
"Impossible." The doctor suddenly span around on the spot, turning to face the mirror again, glancing over his shoulder and then quickly patting himself up and down before drawing close to its face. "Well I'm definitely here." He chucked a small pot from a nearby table across the front of the mirror, watching its progress being reflected as it went. "And," he declared, "you're definitely a proper mirror." The Doctor carefully held a hand in front of the mirror. "So where's my reflection?" The mirror continued to stubbornly show the contents of the bedroom, ignoring the Doctor as he laid his hand on the mirrors surface. "Where's my reflection?" The mirror cracked, a web of lines running from each fingertip, the Doctor quickly drawing his hand away and bounding out of the room, half running, half jumping around, darting into the next bedroom, peering into the mirror on the dressing table. "Where's my reflection?" He danced over to the windows looking out over the front of the house, ducking and weaving, trying to spot his persistently absent reflection.
"Where's my reflection?" He made to bring the sonic out, but the floorboard beneath him cracked and splintered, knocking him off balance, before cracking again and sending him sliding and falling to the floor below.
