"Well, I agree this whole situation is a bit rubbish, but at least we're all dressed for the occasion, aren't we?"
The doctor adjusted his bow tie and grinned at the selection of people in front of him, all who were wearing their most dapper Jazz Age attire. It had been one of those Gatsby party things, as far as he could tell. At least, that was the only reason he could think of why a bunch of young people in 2034 would be wearing fringed flapper frocks and wide-legged oxford bags. That was, of course, unless fashions in the twenty-first century had taken a dramatic turn he hadn't remembered.
"We're being terrorized by ghosts!" a blonde girl dressed in enough sparkles to blind a man squeaked out.
"Ghosts smotz," the Doctor said, giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder as he. "It never is really ghosts, by the way. Just astronauts caught in another dimension or the Geith on the loose or land developers in costume scaring off the local populace– oh, wait, that last one didn't really happen. Forget I said that. It was just an episode of Scooby Doo."
"You're mad." The blonde girl said, stepping backward.
"Only if I'm wrong."
"Are you wiggling your eyebrows?" A Charlie-Chaplin-lookalike asked. "I can't tell."
"Oi! That hurts." The Doctor patted his nearly non-existent eyebrows, hurt. "They're just delicate."
"Whether or not it is ghosts," a girl said, stepping forward and crossing her arms, "we're not doing any good just sitting here. I still say it's burglar, anyway."
"But our phones don't work," another guest reminded her. "Why won't any of the phones work? And the lights…"
"I think thieves might be a little more intelligent than you give them credit for, Cindy," the arms-crossed girl said. "It's not too difficult to jam a signal these days, not with all the tech out. And any idiot can take out power if they've got an EMP."
"You" the doctor pointed at her and ran up close to her, looking closely into her eyes, his face centimeters from her face. "There's something about you. Have we met before? I may have forgotten—seen a lot of people. Name?"
She made a disgusted face and moved her head backward. "And you're a bold one. It's Evie, thanks. And I've never seen you before in my life."
At that moment the walls rattled again, followed by an eerie howling sound. One could almost trick oneself into thinking it was the wind, but there was an underlying, human-like scream that formed the base of the noise, too otherworldly to ignore. They'd first heard it in a billowing gust thirty minutes ago, when it had opened and shut all of the doors and windows in the house as it rattled through, before all of them slammed shut loudly— locked securely from the outside and leaving them in darkness. After a few tries, no one could unlock the doors, and none of their phones seemed to work. They'd all congregated into the main room, which had been decorated with surprisingly nice and authentic décor inspired by the 1920s. The Doctor had never been averse to a party, though he had wondered why the TARDIS had dropped him off here, in an out-of-the-way, somewhat mediocre celebration thrown on by a bunch of twenty-first century college students.
This, he assumed, was why.
Even the intrepid Evie seemed a little frightened by the noise again, and she moved closer towards one of the guests, a man about her age who touched her arm—though to reassure her or himself, it was impossible to tell.
"All right, all right. Just hang tight—wait, is that slang right? I forget." The Doctor snapped his fingers. "Doesn't matter." He pointed to the man next to Evie. "You. With the torch."
"Me?" he pointed at himself.
"Yes, torch-man, toss me your light."
The flashlight flew through the air and the Doctor caught it in one hand. He laughed at his catch, before sobering and clearing his throat. "Thank you." He shined the light first on the man, then on Evie. "You two related?"
"He's my brother, Will."
"Ah yes, you've got the same scowl. Also nose. Reminds me of someone…Ah! Here it is!"
The doctor was on the floor in a second, shining the light along the cracks in the hardwood. He reached for his sonic screwdriver and scanned the floor. "Well," he said. "You're not from this world."
"What is it?" Evie asked, crouching on the floor and knocking the wood. "It's a floor. A normal floor."
"Ah, yes. But the radiation it's emitting, that is not normal."
"Radiation!" One of the men gasped, and immediately the room was full of panicked voices.
The Doctor made a face. "Shouldn't have said that out loud, shouldn't I?"
"Will it kill us?" Evie asked.
"Nope!" He frowned. "At least, I don't think so. Unless you're secretly Chelonian, or have been exposed recently to sunlight from the planet Esto, which I think is unlikely."
"I know you're speaking English but I don't think you're using real words."
"The radiation," The Doctor said, slowing down his words to explain, "isn't coming from anything that's found on earth."
"So you're saying…it's from outer space?" Evie raised an eyebrow and looked amused. "You really are mad, aren't you?"
"You humans," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "You see things so amazing every day and still find the most ordinary things—like radiation from space—beyond belief." He rose up and scanned the room. "Is there a basement here? There has to be a basement. There's always a basement."
No one answered.
"Doesn't anybody live here? Whose house is it?"
"It's rented for the party," Charlie Chaplin said. "I don't know if there's a basement or not."
"I think I saw a door in the kitchen that might lead there," Evie said. "I could show you."
"Are you sure you should be going down with him?" Cindy asked. She turned to the Doctor. "Who are you?. I don't think you were invited to the party."
"I'm the Doctor!" He announced, spreading his arms out.
"A doctor of what?"
"Fun, laughter, and general shenanigans." He quirked his head. "Wait—you don't think I was invited? Whose party is this, anyway?"
The silence in the room was telling as the guests looked to one another.
"Wasn't it you, Cindy?" Chaplin asked. "I thought—"
"No," Will interrupted "It was you, Frank. Wasn't it?"
The Chaplin impersonator looked confused. "No, it wasn't."
"I thought it was Karen," Evie said. "I mean, the invite didn't say who was giving it, but I thought the handwriting looked kind of like hers."
Karen shook her head. "The invitations we got did not use recycled paper, Evangeline. How could you think I'd send that?"
"Wait, wait, wait." The Doctor said. "Are you saying none of you threw this party?"
When no one answered, he laughed and clapped his hands. "Oh, this is good. Amy and Rory are going to be disappointed they missed this." He flew through the hall.
"Where are you going?" Evie called after him.
"Finding the basement!"
The Doctor loped through the hallway, scanning the area with his sonic. Footsteps chased after him—human, so no worries. It was Evie and her brother.
"Ah, you two," he said. "I thought it would be the two of you."
"You're strange, but you're the only one who is doing anything," Evie responded.
"Fair enough," the doctor said, turning into a small mudroom. He noticed a door in the corner and opened it. "Aha! Here we go." He turned a put a finger to his lips. "Quiet."
"We're not the loud ones," Evie whispered as they followed the doctor down.
In the center of the basement was a large console-like structure, not entirely different in shape from the TARDIS's. The center of if was large and glowing and bubbly, a bit like a lava lamp.
"What on earth—?" Will breathed as they moved slowly towards the object. "What is it?"
"I'm not sure, yet," The doctor scanned it with the sonic. "Ooooh, that's interesting. You're just warming up, aren't you girl?"
"What is it?" Evie asked
"It's a trap. How brilliant."
"A trap?"
"Definitely not from the planet, not from this galaxy—I don't recognize the handiwork precisely, but I could maybe narrow down if—"
"What do you mean it's a trap?" Will asked. "Aren't you afraid you'll set it off?"
"Hmmm, what? Oh! No, this isn't the trap. The whole thing is a trap. The party, the building—it's like you humans trying to catch an animal. Mousetrap, maybe. You set out a bit of cheese, the mouse sees it comes to get a nibble, and wham! They're caught."
"Wait." Evie held up a hand. "Are you saying we're the mice?"
"What better way to catch a human than with a party? I say this isn't the first this house has thrown. Not a bad idea, to be honest. Trap a houseful guests in an old, overlooked house, leaving no trace of them when it—well, whatever it does."
"Why do you keep saying "humans?" Evie asked. "Like you're not one."
"What does this thing do?" Will asked.
"Not sure exactly. But I think I have an idea. I thought this was alien, and I think I'm right, but not in the way I thought at first. He looked to the shelf and picked up a jar of canned goods." "This—oh, it's been left here a long time. The stuff upstairs—very deco, wasn't it. Too deco. Too authentic."
"Are you saying that whoever through this party is using stuff that's really from the 1920s?" Richard asked.
"I think something happened here around that time. Something that left this"—he pointed to the glowing console—"here."
The machine started to whir again and wind rushed around the console like a small tornado, whipping their hair into their faces and blowing against their clothes. The wailing noise grew louder.
"What's it doing?" Evie yelled over the noise.
"It was just warming up before!" The Doctor yelled. "Now it's time for the main event!" the stumbled forward in an effort to reach the console. "We've got to shut it down!" He motioned to Will. "You, get that lever over there! Evie, get that one!" The noise was deafening. The world around them began to drain of color, and the walls started to become translucent.
"It's taking us!" Evie yelled, trying to brace herself against the wind as her fingers touched the lever on the console.
"Pull!" The Doctor yelled. As they pulled the levers at the same time, the Doctor buzzed the console with his sonic, hanging on to the lever with one hand as well as he could. Faces began to swarm around him, their mouths open with the wailing that they'd been hearing all night. The machine started to spark, and he saw Richard and Evie duck their heads. The wind started to die down and the world grew solid again when the machine exploded, the center compartment bursting and sending yellow-ish goo in every direction and coating the three occupants of the room in it entirely. The small window above them, level with the yard, unlocked of its own volition. They sighed in relief.
"Ow," Evie said softly as she rested on the floor, covered in goo.
"Everyone all right?" The Doctor said, hopping up and helping Will to his feet.
"Just…sticky." Will tried to shake himself of the goo. "This stuff isn't going to kill us, is it?"
"I wouldn't say so. Skin might have a tint for a few days, though."
"Who was trying to take us?" Evie asked, standing. "Aliens?"
"Ah, no. The house was." He nodded towards the remains of the console. "I think that…bonded with the house. Transformed it. Maybe it developed a consciousness, maybe not. But to keep itself running, it needed to provide sustenance for itself."
"And we were the sustenance?"
"Yes. And we weren't the first it tried to take, and we wouldn't have been the last."
Evie narrowed her eyes. "You're really not from around here, are you?"
"How'd you figure that out?" He looked down at himself. "Was it the bowtie? I didn't even wear my fez tonight."
"It was calling us all humans that really tipped me off, Spaceman." She rolled her eyes, but with good humor as if there was a secret joke.
"Spaceman?" The Doctor said, feeling a sudden pang. He hadn't heard that title in awhile.
Evie laughed. "It's nothing."
"Just bedtime stories my mom used to tell us," Will said, smiling at Evie. "It was silly, but we liked them. What kid wouldn't want to travel the universe with a Spaceman in a blue box?" He wiped his arm, not noticing the stricken look on the Doctor's face. "We should see if everyone else is okay."
"Yes," the doctor said slowly. "We really should."
Later than evening, after Evie had gone back to her apartment and taken a bath, she walked out to take out the trash.
Fantastical, improbable evenings didn't mean the everyday mundane chores got left to the wayside.
"Evangeline Temple," a voice said from the shadows, startling her. "You never told me your last name."
"Didn't seem relevant at the time," Evie said dumping the bag in the outside can. "Where'd you go? Will and I tried to look for you after we checked everyone at the party, but you were gone."
"Had to get rid of the toxic waste from that explosion, didn't I?" the doctor said. "Spaceman duties, and all."
"Sorry about that. I know you're not really an alien or whatever. Family joke."
"Your mom's name is Donna, isn't it?"
"Yeah. How'd you—?"
"I knew her once." He frowned. "She should have forgotten about me. I thought she had. She was supposed to."
"I know you like to talk in nonsense and riddles like some Alice in Wonderland character, but what on earth are you talking about?"
"She was the most important woman in the world, your mother. And she was my best friend. We did a lot together, her and I."
"I don't understand—"
The Doctor snapped his fingers and something in Evie's peripheral vision caught her eye and she turned to see a blue police box, its doors opening.
Her mouth dropped open. "You—you're—" She turned. "You're real?" She cocked her head. "It's not bigger on the inside, is it?"
The doctor grinned. "Why don't you find out? I thought we could go pick up your brother and I could tell you a few stories of my own. And who knows, maybe the three of us will have some tales you can tell to your own kids as bedtime stories, huh?"
This fic was inspired by a headcannon that I've always had-that little glimpses and echoes of her time with the Doctor never really left Donna, and that it somehow came out in bedtime stories to her kids, even if she herself didn't realize they were memories.