A/N; I just realized I forgot to put a disclaimer on the first chapter, so here you go.
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or any of the characters or creatures from Doctor Who. I also do not own the Beatles, and the representations of them in this story are fictionalized and based to some extent on the dramatized versions of them in their films.
Ha. That's out of the way. Here you go; Chapter Two.
Ringo was tired feeling a bit tired, a bit hungry, and a bit sick of wearing this hot costume (consisting of fluorescent orange pants that were a bit tight {which were the least of his discomfort}, a large, undefined furry mass wrapped around his torso, a chicken head over his head {not a real chicken head. That might have smelled better}, and John's glasses perched on his beak {he had complained that he couldn't see anything with the mask on, so John had jokingly shoved his glasses on Ringo, and Ringo, wrapped so heavily in quite novel garb, was unable to raise his arms high enough to remove them}).
Aside from all this, Ringo was having a bit of fun. He was out on a grassy plain on a nice day, drumming to his heart's content. He wasn't the only one in an uncomfortable costume. George was wearing a rabbit's head (which he had informed the others had little to no air circulation factor), John was dressed as a walrus, and Paul as a hippo. He had forgotten whose idea the whole thing had been, but he thought the whole thing seemed like a decidedly John thing to be doing.
The line of dancing eggs had been marching around them all morning as they played John's new song over and over, trying to get enough shots to put together for the film. Ringo had been peering at them all suspiciously. He had yet to see any of them that looked like mechanical hate machines, but he wasn't about to let his guard down.
Today was the third day of filming, and the lads all knew what they had to do. George had been reading in his old electrical manuals, trying to remember what he had once learned about wiring, thinking it might come in handy disarming the bomb. The others had reminded him, "It's not a lightswitch, Geo, it's a bleedin' bomb!", but he had persisted. John had been trying to memorize exactly what the fourth string on his guitar felt like so he would know which one they should cut. Paul had been trying to get them all to relax, and Ringo had been relaxing. It was no big deal, they just had to save the whole cast and crew of the film from an intergalactic threat.
Ringo was lost in thought when someone tapped his shoulder. He jumped nearly a full foot in the air and whirled around, ready to fend off a Dalek with his drumsticks. When he turned and was finally able to get a good view of his tapper through the poor eyeholes of his costume, he saw that it was a hippo.
"Relax, Rings,", said Paul lazily.
"God, Paul, you nearly scared me half to death,", said Ringo, rising from his drums.
"It's time to go to lunch now,", said Paul, though it was clear by his tone of voice that 'go to lunch' meant something besides eat a sandwich.
"Ah. Right,", said Ringo, tripping over himself, following Paul away from the set.
Once they were all gathered in their trailer for 'lunch', the removed their masks.
"Ha, good,", sighed Ringo as he cast his mask to the side, very glad that the he no longer had a beak and comb.
"All right, fellows, Parliament is in session,", said John, placing his partial egg-head hat over his head and his glasses on the bridge of his nose.
"Hey, why don't we reduce the taxes, then?", proposed George, flopping down on the sofa.
"'Ey, good idea,", said John, writing with an imaginary pen on an imaginary paper.
"All right, fellas, let's get serious,", said Paul. "Who's gonna go get the bomb?".
"Are you totally potty, Macca? We can't bring it in here! What if it goes off or something?", said John.
"It's not going to go off until 2:23, remember?", reminded Ringo. "Plus, we can't be seen handling it out in the open. People'll start to ask questions.".
"Right,", said George. "'Ave we got all the stuff? The screwdriver, the cutters?".
"Yes and yes,", said Paul producing both items from his pockets.
"All right, fellows, are we ready?", said Paul, starting back towards the door.
They all gulped. They got up soberly, and started to follow Paul.
"All right, lads,", said John. "For England, Harry, and St. George!".
"'Ey, and for Peace, love, and Rock 'n roll!", added Ringo.
"What about for space, time, and the universe?", chimed George.
"How about for Doctor, TARDIS, and, and - A-CHOO!", Paul sneezed.
"Ah, God,", cursed George, who had been the recipient of the sneeze.
"Sorry, George, I just, I j-j - ACHOO! - ACHOO! - ACHOO! Ack...", Paul sneezed violently, reaching for a nearby handkerchief.
"Sorry fellows, don't know what came over me,", he sighed, blowing his nose.
"'S all right, mate,", said George.
"Catching a cold, are we?", asked Ringo.
"Glss rn-n,", sniffled Paul incoherently into his handkerchief.
"I've got it!", exclaimed John, his ridiculous hat falling off.
"Got what?".
"That's it! Those are the words!", he rushed back over to his dressing table, grabbing for his notes he had lying around, involuntarily spraying papers all over the floor in his haste.
"The words to what?".
"Looking through the bent-backed tulips, To see how the other half live, Looking through a Glass Onion!", he sang the last two words triumphantly.
"That song again, John?", said Paul, sighing a little.
"I've had the tune stuck in me 'ead for a week now.".
"But John. The words. What do they mean?".
"Nothing. I've got loads more,", he said, flipping through his loose papers.
"See? Ehem... I told you 'bout the fool on the hill. I tell ya, man, he's livin' there still. And I've got I told ya 'bout strawberry fields, you know the place where nothing is real,", he sang.
Paul was now intrigued.
"I like it. But John - why onion?".
"Well, Macca, why walrus?", retorted John, raising his eyebrows at his friend.
"Touche.".
"Guys!", exclaimed Ringo.
Three shaggy heads turned and looked back at him.
"Bomb?".
"Oh.".
As soon as they were sure no one was looking, the lads (after changing out of their very conspicuous costumes, that is) could be seen trodding carefully across the grass to where the psychedelically-painted bus has been parked. They kept looking over their shoulders to see if they were being pursued by any hostile-looking eggs, which they weren't.
As they were trying to make it across the set while attracting the least amount of attention as possible, they skirted around the backs of all the tents that had been set up (for costuming and production reasons). Just as they were turning the corner around such a tent, Ringo (who was in the lead), bumped smack into a man.
"Do watch where you're going, my dear lad,", said the man.
"Yeah, you do the same, dad", Ringo shot back in his instinctive Liverpool way, and then as he pushed past the man, he realized what his suit was made of. Red and white pinstripes. He looked up a little. Asparagus.
"Oh no-", said Ringo out loud by accident. He stood in silence for a moment, at a dead stand-still.
"Ringo, what-", Paul started to say, then he saw the suit too.
Then they all started running.
The man was jostled a little as George and John broke into a lope, pushing past him quite forcefully. He just pursed his lips and shook his head, looking after them.
"Boy, that was close,", said Ringo, heaving for breath as they arrived next to the bus.
"Y- ACHOO!", sneezed Paul for about the millionth time.
"Got a touch of fever there, Paul?", asked John.
"ACK-HOO!", he sneezed again. His eyes were watering now, and he entered into a coughing fit.
Paul was incapacitated, sneezing and coughing his head off. The others were ignoring him, looking for the suspicious object.
They were about to start wondering if there was a bomb at all when Ringo's hand finally stumbled upon a round, metal object.
He instantly broke out into a cold sweat.
"Here it is,", he said, frozen. The other two able-bodied Beatles rushed over to him.
"Can you get it out, Rings?".
"I - I think so,", he said, grasping it gently but with force. He tried pulling down on it, and it fell into his hand easily.
He brought it out into the light with caution and slightly shaky hands.
"Damn,", breathed John.
It looked like one of the round-things in Dalekanium. It was a bronze color, and it was almost like a perfect sphere, except the bottom was flat.
"O-okay,", said Ringo, carefully rising to his feet.
"George, you got the screwdriver?".
George felt all his pockets.
"John, you must've picked it up,", George dismissed.
"I didn't.".
"You must've done.".
"I didn't, though.".
"Don't be a Charlie, Lennon,", said George, still double and triple checking his own pockets.
"I'm not joking, George. I don't have it. I really don't.".
Both looked at eachother with suddenly terrified eyes. Ringo then contemplated what it would feel like to be holding a bomb when it went off.
"Paul?", they both said, turning to Paul, who was still feeling quite sick.
Paul sniffled and searched his own pockets. They thought he started to say he didn't have it before he let out a bloody great sneeze. He looked miserable, but he was the least of their worries at the moment.
"Cor, lads!", said John, taking out at a run across the grass back to the trailer.
"WAIT!", said Ringo before they could all run off and leave him. "We can't run with a bomb!".
"It's not a pair of scissors, Ringo,", chided John.
"Well!", said Ringo indignantly, his blue eyes looking rather pouty. "What if it excites the particles, or, or something! They're deadly particles, they are!".
"Yeah, it's a vicious thingie!", agreed George.
"Well, whad'you propose we do?", said John, giving up.
"We walk quickly,", said Ringo, starting out. The others followed him.
They looked a bit comical from a distance. They looked as though they were in a tremendous hurry, but they couldn't run, only walk in hastened, uneven paces.
As they were trying to get back to the trailer, they passed another man, whom Paul thought was very well dressed.
"'Ey, cool jacket, man,", said Paul before hacking a couple of times.
"Ta, mate,", the man replied.
Something about the man's voice struck Paul. And something about the jacket, too.
"Hey, that's my jacket!", said Paul. Then he realized. "That's the jacket I'M WEARING!", exclaimed Paul, turning back to the other man. The man turned back around, and then Paul went totally white.
"Oh, it's you, then,", said the other man.
Paul tried to form words, but couldn't. This seemed to amuse the man.
"Tell me, mate, how d'you keep this accent up all the time? It's exhausting.".
Just then the others realized that Paul wasn't following and they turned back around to see what Paul was seeing, and then they too were gobsmacked.
"But - He looks just like you!", Ringo finally managed to blurt out.
The real Paul fainted.
"Oh, dear. We've gone and fainted, haven't we? Hate it when they do that. Ends then fun. Don't get to see what it looks like from the outside when their little brains are trying to figure it all out,", laughed the Paul doppelganger with sinister glee.
"Who are you?", demanded John, hostility boiling up in his voice. The other Paul just laughed.
"That's a good question, Lennon. Because I know all about you. I remember when it took you a full hour to find a rhyme for "purple", and I know that you wet your bed until you were 14. And you,", he said, turning to George. "I know everything about you, too. I was there when you got married, when you bought your first car. I know about the rabbit's foot you keep in your guitar case,", he continued. "And Ringo, I remember how hard it was for you to confess when you stole that pack of ciggies in Hamburg, and I remember when you were still sleeping with your teddy bear at 22.".
"Are we just gonna stand here and let him fire off all this crap?", said Ringo, the teddy bear comment setting him off.
Suddenly, the man in the pinstriped suit jumped out of nowhere. He attacked the other Paul with shrubbery, rubbing it in his face. The other Paul was screaming and trying to fight him off, but couldn't.
"Run, lads! RUN!", shouted the Doctor.
"But... What's that?", George couldn't help but ask.
"PARSLEY!", replied the Doctor.
Just then, the real Paul woke himself up with a huge sneeze.
"Come on, Paul!", said George and John, pulling Paul up off the grass and dragging him away from the scene of herbal assault.
Paul sneezed all the way back to the trailer. Ringo was running by then, not caring remotely about exciting particles.
They all piled in the trailer and slammed the door behind themselves. Paul fell over on the couch in a pile of sneezes and coughs. His face was red, and he was wheezing loudly.
"Damn, damn, damn, damn,", Ringo cursed, setting the bomb down on the dressing table hastily.
Almost as soon as he set it down, it started vibrating across the table and making ticking noises.
"AHH!", they all screamed.
John attacked it with the screwdriver to no avail.
"John, what are you doing?!", George screamed. "Open it, open it!", he prodded.
John found the crevice in the side that the Doctor had been talking about. He started prying at it with his screwdriver, but then he made a terrible discovery.
"Paul, curse ya for livin'!", John screamed uncharacteristically.
"Why?!", replied Ringo and George for Paul who was unable to talk.
"This is a Phillips blade!", wailed John, dropping the screwdriver and starting to try to pry the bomb open with his teeth.
"It's 2:19!", exclaimed Ringo, looking at the clock with fear in his eyes.
"Oh, no,", said George. He stood stone still for a moment before rushing out of the trailer.
"Where are you going?!", Ringo shouted after him.
"To get a screwdriver from the crew!".
He slammed the door behind himself, leaving his bandmates alone with a ticking time bomb.
John got up and started pacing around the room at an atomic rate, looking for anything that could pry the sphere open.
"HA!", said John, seizing a guitar pick of the dressing table. He inserted it in the crevice and started prying. He almost thought it was coming when the pick snapped.
"Damn,", John cursed.
"Wait, John,", said Ringo, over near where Paul was.
"I 'aven't got time to wait, Ring, we've got three minutes!", John exclaimed, looking at the clock. It was 2:20. "And don't tell Geo I broke his lucky pick,", said John, just then realizing which pick he had in fact used.
"Wait, John!", Ringo repeated more emphatically.
"What?".
"Paul's trying to tell us something!".
Paul's face was a bit swollen by then, and he couldn't form intelligible words.
"What is it, Paul?", John asked.
Paul struggled to talk for a moment before realizing that neither of them could understand a word he was trying to gasp out. He then starting pointing wildly at a carton of cigarettes on the table.
"Paul, you don't need a smoke! Look at ya!", cried John.
Ringo picked up the carton and looked inside. There was the flat-blade screwdriver. It was a rather short one, albeit, but it was there. He produced it and showed it to John.
"Give the man a pat on the back!", rejoiced John, grabbing the screwdriver from Ringo and applying it to the bronze-colored death trap. Ringo patted Paul on the back, only to accidentally restart his coughing fit.
John was prying on the thing for a few seconds before it finally snapped open. It opened rather like a clam-shell, revealing not a pearl, but a mess of wires and electronic boards with blinking lights.
Just at that moment, George rushed back in, totally breathless and disheveled. He was holding another screwdriver triumphantly up in the air until John raised up the tiny one that he was holding a little. George totally deflated.
"Right, lads. Which wire?", said John, looking over the intertwined, tangled mess.
The thing was full of wires, tangled and intertwined.
They started sorting through the whole thing, examining each wire, until Paul exclaimed, "It's 2:21!".
Then they sped up their searching a bit.
"Here it is!", Ringo and John said at the same time, both holding up different blue wires. Their expressions soured instantly.
"I've got this sorted,", said John, turning away and starting to rummage in the pile of instrument cases in the corner.
"John, we've got 90 seconds!", shouted Ringo, looking at the clock.
John got out his guitar and started running his finger up and down neck.
"JOHN!", they all shouted.
"Hold it, hold it, just relax, fellas,", he said, finally turning away and coming back.
He then took one blue wire and pressed it up against his left ring finger.
"What are you doing?", asked Ringo.
"Testing the size, Rings. Remember what the Doctor said the size of the wire was like? Like a fourth string,", he said, showing them all the indention the fourth string had made in the callus on the pad of his finger. "Always thinking,", he said, tapping the side of his nose.
He matched the first wire, and it was much too large to match the size. The second, however, fit perfectly into the indention.
"Ah ha. Cutters, Harrison,", said John, motioning for him to hand him the wire-cutters.
George handed them over, and John snipped the wire.
The bomb stopped ticking.
They all exhaled.
"Well, that's over,", said George.
*Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!*
They all jumped.
Someone was knocking at the door.
"Gentlemen, on set, please!", came a voice.
They all got up and started out the door.
"I didn't even get to eat me lunch,", moped Ringo, hanging back, looking forlornly at his brown paper bag containing a sandwich and apple.
"Come on, Rings,", said John playfully, pulling him on out the door.
*A/N; Thanks ever so much for reading. Hope you liked it :) Peace and love