It was one of those mornings. Well, technically it was already the afternoon, but he hadn't a clock nearby. He woke with a gravelly feeling behind his eyes, a dull throbbing in his temples. He dragged himself off the couch where he had collapsed the night before and on toward the tiny bathroom. There in the little mirror he was presented with the mess of himself --bleary red eyes, tousled dark hair. The skin of his cheek felt tight with dried drool and --ridiculously-- there was a woolong piece stuck on his face. He decided then and there he would never touch alcohol again for as long as he lived. His discarded the woolongs and splashed water on his face.
He meandered his way to the kitchen and opened the fridge. It was empty. Or, mostly empty anyway. There was a note in there from Jet, saying--If you're looking for beer, you drink it, you buy it. I took the kid to try and find some leads. If you're bored, try cleaning house. Do you know where Faye went?
He frowned and slammed the fridge door. Wouldn't you know it? He pulled a crumpled cigarette from one of his pockets and lit it on one of the burners. He took half the pathetic thing in one long draw, and headed back to the bathroom. At least he could shower and brush the taste of hangover from his mouth. He liked to brush his teeth out on the deck, partly because it was much more open, but mostly because the drain was often clogged. So after his nice, ice-cold shower (the waterheater was broken again) he grabbed his woebegone toothbrush and headed out into the rather annoyingly cheerful afternoon sunshine.
He brushed his teeth thoughtfully, mindful of the back molars --"nice and bright, clean and white!" his mother used to say, one of the few things he actually remembered about her-- and let his mind drift. Gradually he became aware of a strange chuffing sound his teeth were apparently making. He quickly removed the toothbrush but the sound persisted a moment longer. He leaned as far as he could over the side of the ship to look at the water --but there was nothing. Perhaps something else was malfunctioning. It wouldn't have surprised him. He spit and rinsed and turned to head back inside but froze.
There was most curiously a large and old-fashioned blue police box on the other side of the deck. He rather comically rubbed his eyes and looked again, but the image did not waver. He stepped toward it slowly, numbed by disbelief. Surely it had not been there the whole time?
The police box opened. He jumped back --he did not have his gun --oh faithful gun!-- and brandished his toothbrush in front of him in what he hoped was an alarming fashion.
A very tall and strange-looking man stepped out of the police box. The mop of dark curls atop his head were in an even greater disarray than the best of hangovers. He had a long hookish nose and a pair of wild eyes ready to pop out of his head at any moment. But that was nothing compared to the old-fashioned coat, and the twenty-odd foot multicolored scarf. The man seemed to study the surroundings a moment without seeing him, before looking back inside the police box and saying, "It's safe to come out, Sarah, the terraformation of Mars has already begun!" Then the man seemed to say to himself, "that's no good then, we must be well into the twenty-first century."
A pretty young woman came from the police box, brushing herself off. "What a landing!" she huffed. "Honestly, Doctor."
The bescarfed man opened his mouth to reply, but the great warrior of the toothbrush cut him off. "Excuse me," he said testily, "Can I help you with something?"
The strange man looked at him for the first time. "Oh, hello there!" he said. He smiled a manic, tooth-filled sort of terror. "You may help us, yes...You wouldn't happen to know the year, would you?"
Spike sighed. Yes, definately one of those mornings.