It isn't every day that a blue police box that looks like something out of an old 21st century post card lands in the middle of the Enterprise's engineering deck, but apparently, today is the day that it does. Scotty had been doing routine checkups on the engines when it suddenly appears out of nowhere, just a few feet in front of him.
The blue box crashes into one of the engines, spins haphazardly, and clunks to the ground, leaving a dent in the floor. A dark haired man in a gray trenchcoat that looked like somewhat vintage collapsed onto the floor on his back. Scotty realized with a start that the man had actually been holding on to the box as it was falling.
The police box opens, and a skinny brunette man in a blue suit and glasses steps out, his hands on his hips and scowling at the man on the floor.
"How many times do I have to tell you to stop grabbing hold of my TARDIS when we're in the Time Vortex?" the brunette demands angrily. "You'll keep dying!"
"It's worth it to see your pretty face," the man on the floor says, his voice strained. He is obviously in pain by the way he is curled in on himself, and when he coughs, blood spills from his mouth. However, the man in the blue suit rolls his eyes and acts as if nothing is wrong.
"Besides," the man on the floor continues, "how else am I supposed to get your attention?"
"Maybe by not burning out my engines with the extra strain of you," answers the man in the blue suit. He turns towards his blue box and rubs the side of it lovingly. "She doesn't like it."
The man on the floor coughs again, this time with more blood. Scotty finally gets over his initial shock and hurries over.
"Are you alright?" he asks the man on the floor. Turning to the man in glasses, "Is he alright? He looks like he's goin' ta keel over!"
"No, no, he's fine," the man in glasses waves his hand to brush him off. "Just give him a minute."
The man on the floor groans. "One of my kidneys just failed," he informs them.
"I'll call sickbay," Scotty says hurriedly, whipping out his communicator. "Doctor McCoy will come down here, he can help—"
"Are we in a starship?" questions the man in glasses, now holding strange device that lit up on the end and made a sonic buzzing sound. "I love starships. I've always wanted to pilot a starship. There are so many buttons and levers."
"I can give you a lever to pull," grunts out the man on the floor, attempting to leer but it coming out more as a wince.
"Oh, no," says the man in glasses, his nose wrinkling in distaste. "That was bloody awful. You're trying too hard."
The security team suddenly shows up, circling the intruders and locking on their phasers. The man in glasses holds his hands up in defense, and the man on the floor groans again.
"Are those really necessary?" the man in glasses asks, nodding his head towards a phaser.
"Who are you?" demands an officer, jostling the phaser.
"Captain Jack Harkness, nice to meet you," says the man on the floor, looking up at the officer and winking.
"Stop it," the man in glasses snaps at him. "You're dying, try to have some dignity." He turns to the officer. "I'm the Doctor. I come in peace, no need to point those things at me."
"Second kidney failed," announces Jack, his face twisting in pain. He looks up at the security team. "Could someone be kind enough to shoot me? I'd really like to get this over with."
"What?" balks Scotty. "Even set on stun, in your condition it would kill ya!"
"That's the point," cringes Jack. "Oh forget it, I think I'm—"
He abruptly cuts off, and slumps down, unmoving.
"Finally," mutters the Doctor.
"Somebody get this man ta McCoy!" shouts Scotty. "Now!"
The officers move in a flurry, hauling Jack up and caring him away. The Doctor tries to follow, but is stopped by another security guard.
"You're not going anywhere," a guard growls out.
"No, see, I really have to follow him," says the Doctor. "He's quite dangerous when he's alone."
"Orders are that you are to be taken to the bridge to see the Captain."
"Starship Captain, ooh." The Doctor looks excited, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "I suppose Jack can be tame for a while. Oi!" he shouts over his shoulder at a guard who was examining the police box. "Hands off my ship!"
"That's a spaceship?" asks Scotty, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, and don't touch it. She bites."
"She what?" repeats Scotty, but the Doctor is ignoring him, staring at the TARDIS.
"Be a good girl while I'm gone," he tells it earnestly. "No disappearing." Turning back to the security team, he smiles. "Right then. Starship Captain. Allons-y!"
The second he got on the Bridge, the Doctor became like a child, wide-eyed and wondering.
"Wow!" he exclaimed. "Look at you humans and your lovely technology. Brilliant! I love the 23rd century."
He strolled up to the captain's chair and held out his hand to Kirk. "I'm the Doctor, nice to meet you. Is this your ship then?"
"Yeah, Jim Kirk," said Kirk, standing and ignoring the hand. "How the hell did you get on it?"
"My ship materialized inside it," answered the Doctor. "But not on purpose. See, my friend was hanging on to the outside and she was trying to shake him off. Burnt out her engines trying to do so, poor thing. Just give her an hour or so to recuperate and I'll be out of your hair."
"What kind of ship can materialize itself inside of another?" asked Spock, coming up behind Kirk to stand at his shoulder.
"It's called a TARDIS—that's Time And Relative—hold on, are you a Vulcan?"
Blinking, Spock nodded his head once. The Doctor grinned.
"Aww, lovely! I've never met a Vulcan before! Came across a few Romulans before on Delta IV, but they are a teensy bit aggressive, wouldn't you say?"
"I thought Delta IV was inhabited and couldn't support life," said Kirk, his brow furrowing.
"Oh. I must be farther back than I thought," he muttered. "Time travel is like that. All wibbly-wobbly and timey-wimey."
"Timey-wimey?" repeated Spock, raising an eyebrow.
"You can time travel?" asked Kirk.
"Yes, and go anywhere in the universe," answered the Doctor, "but why go anywhere but here? I mean, look at you!" He opened his arms to gesture to the whole Bridge, beaming. "Tiny little humans in this big starship that you made by hand, working alongside peacefully with other races to explore the stars! Brilliant, that is! Absolutely brilliant!"
"Fascinating. Doctor, am I correct in assuming that you are not of human origin?" inquired Spock.
"Yes, yes you are—smart, too. I've always heard that Vulcans are an intelligent race. I've tried to read up on them, but your language is so mussed up with all those nasty throat vowels," the Doctor rambled, his nose wrinkling up. "How's my accent? Na'shaya besu!"
Spock looked ready to reply, but he got cut off when Kirk got hailed by the sickbay.
"Jim!" shouted Bones through the intercom. A crashing sound was heard in the background. Jim heard Nurse Chapel shriek, and McCoy swore under his breath. "You'd better get down here!"
The Doctor winced. "That'd be Jack, then. He probably woke up."
"On my way," replied Kirk, ending the transmission and making his way to the lift. "Spock, come with me. Sulu, you've got the con."
"I should come too," intercepted the Doctor. "My friend is the one who your doctor is examining, he's probably causing trouble and I am responsible for him."
Kirk briefly hesitated, but relented. "Fine. Come on."
Grinning, the Doctor practically bounced over to the lift to join the Captain and his First to go the medbay.
Kirk didn't know what to expect when the doors to the medbay swooshed open, but whatever it was, it wasn't this. In one corner, an examination table was overturned onto its side, and Christine Chapel was cowering behind it. In the other corner, Bones was sitting on the floor, looking dazed and cradling his jaw in his hand. Standing in the center of the room was a very strange, very naked dark haired man.
"Jack!" scolded the Doctor, moving out from behind the two senior officers and crossing over to Christine. "Did you frighten these people?"
"Look, it wasn't my fault," said Jack, holding up his hands in defense. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at McCoy, "He was coming at me with a drill."
"I thought you were dead," snapped McCoy, getting helped to his feet by Kirk. "It's not every day that the body you're tryin' to autopsy suddenly punches you in the face."
"Perhaps you should take better readings before attempting to perform an autopsy to verify that the person is indeed dead," said Spock smoothly.
McCoy glared at him. "Listen here, hobgoblin, my readings were perfectly sound. This guy was dead as a doornail two minutes ago. Now he's alive and kickin' and I have no idea what's causing it!"
"Yeaah, that'd be Rose's fault," said Jack. "Overexposure to time vortexes can really mess up a blonde's head."
"She saved your life," snapped the Doctor over his shoulder. Christine was shaking from shock, and he helped her sit down into a chair.
"I didn't say I wasn't happy for it," Jack said defensively. "I am." He looked away from the Doctor and trained his eyes on Spock, as if just now noticing that he was there. Grinning at the Vulcan, he said, "And I'd be even happier if I knew your name."
"Jack," warned the Doctor.
"I'm just saying hello!"
"Who the hell are you people?!" demanded Bones.
"I'm the Doctor, and this is Jack. Don't listen to a word he says."
McCoy frowned. "Doctor who?"
Jack and the Doctor shared looks of amusement, as if there was an inside joke between the two of them that the rest of them missed out on.
"Just the Doctor," replied the Doctor.
"Mind tellin' me how he is up and moving right now?" asked McCoy, crossing his arms.
"I told you," said Jack sparingly, "I can't die. And if anyone is supposed to be scrutinized here, it should be him. I mean, he's a Time Lord."
"Time Lord?" repeated Kirk, frowning as the Doctor picked up a bed sheet and threw it at Jack to cover himself with. "I've never heard of that race before."
"That is because they are extinct," said Spock.
"Nope, last one," said the Doctor. "I'm the one and only."
"Fascinating."
"I've read about them in my med books back at the academy," said McCoy. "Don't you have two hearts then?"
"Thaaat's right," nodded the Doctor, smiling. "Good for you. You're a good doctor for remembering that much about extensive species."
"Um," McCoy blinked. "Thanks."
"Doctor," Spock said carefully, "under different circumstances, I would not ask this of you, but considering that the probable likely hood of ever coming in contact with another Time Lord again is 1543.46 to 1, I wish to extract data from you to complete a future record."
"Oh, my God," said Jack. "I think just listening to you use those statics gave me a migraine."
Bones snorted. "I like him," he told Kirk.
Jack leaned over into McCoy's personal space. "Does that mean we can play doctor now?"
"Not no, but hell no."
Jack shrugged. "Eh, worth a shot."
It took the Doctor a moment to figure out what Spock wanted. "Ooh, you mean to meld? Yeah, yeah, sure! I've done that with others before; why not give it a shot."
"Thank you," said Spock, and brought his hand up to the meld points at the Doctor's temple.
Almost instantly, Spock was bombarded with thousands of memories—pictures, places, and people he never met, all flashing in front of his eyes. It was peculiar; ten different faces were connected to the same person. Everywhere he went, he was followed by the faces of others—Susan, Barbara, Sarah Jane, Ramona, Harry, Grace, Rose, Mickey, Jack, Martha, Donna. All of them he loved, all of them left him one way or another. It was strange how one name stuck out, was repeated over and over. RoseRoseRose—
Pushing deeper, Spock found a language that he did not understand. He found memories of the TARDIS, of something called the Time War, of creatures called Daleks and the Gallifreyan High Council and—
BadwolfBadwolfBadwolfBadwolfBadwolfBadwolfBadwolfBadwolfBadwolfBadwolfBadwolfBadwolfBadwolf—
Spock jerked backwards, falling against Kirk as if he had been thrown. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow and his breathing was slightly uneven. The Doctor raised an eyebrow at him.
"You okay? Sorry, I should have warned you. My mind is a little much for some people," said the Doctor apologetically.
"I am…fine," Spock answered, his control wavering for a moment to allow his voice to shake. The Doctor opened his mouth, but a beeping noise came from his pocket.
Whipping out his sonic screwdriver, he looked at it for a moment before grinning again. "She's all fixed," announced the Doctor. "Jack, we can leave now."
On the way back to Engineering, the Doctor continued to talk to Kirk ("You mean you're in an alternate timeline? That's bloody brilliant!") and Jack sent winks at ensigns that sent them turning all different colors of the rainbow.
When they arrived, Gaila was scanning the TARDIS with a PADD. She looked up when they arrived.
"These readings are really weird," she said, handing the PADD to Kirk. "Look. It has no stable form. Technically, this thing shouldn't exist."
"It's not a thing," cried the Doctor.
"It's also not a police box."
"It got stuck this way," the Doctor said defensively. "It's not her fault."
"Gaila—" Kirk started.
"Beautiful name," Jack swooped in, grinning wolfishly at the Orion. "Along with a beautiful face." He stuck out his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness."
"Gaila," she greeted, taking his hand. Jack raised it to his mouth and kissed it. Gaila giggled.
"Jack!" snapped the Doctor. "No!"
"Your hands are soft," complemented Jack.
"So is the rest of me," said Gaila, winking.
"Is that a proposition?"
"You tell me."
"Gaila!" said Kirk the same time the Doctor shouted, "Jack!"
"We. Are. Leaving," said the Doctor, grabbing Jack by the shoulder and pulling him inside the TARDIS. "Thanks again for everything, Captain Kirk!"
"Safe travels!" said Kirk.
"Call me!" said Gaila.
The police box doors slammed shut, and with the sound of wheezing engines, it began to disappear.