Chapter 4: K-9's Special Purpose
Out in the forest, Jo was wondering aimlessly; she was totally and utterly lost, as usual. Somewhere else in the forest, the first Doctor's eyes were still lit up. Considering what Nyssa was wearing, she wouldn't have to waggle his tail to turn him on. Nyssa was still baffled about K-9. She tried to remove the automatic kill-the-battery circuit, but she was unable to charge his batteries, mainly because there was still a story to be resolved. Nyssa scrambled to her feet wonderingly, when suddenly, a daintily dressed man came skipping along the path and tripped over the inert K-9. The man crashed head first into a nearby tree and slipped to the ground, unconscious once again. K-9's eyes suddenly lit up; now that he had played his role in the story, his batteries automatically recharged themselves. The first Doctor looked at Nyssa triumphantly. "Congratulations, my dear. You've cured my third self. Now, we must get him back to UNIT."
The fourth Doctor sat on a rock on the edge of the woods, where he had been for the last hour, trying desperately to undo the seventeen knots in his yo-yo string, that he had acquired from doing his world famous triple-decker, super-duper, backward forward, around-the-world, loop-to-loop trick. Suddenly he stood up and whirled around to face his unwilling disgruntled companions Polly, Steven, and the Mascot. "Don't hit me! This is important work!"
Steven turned to the Mascot. "Did you do that, Mascot?"
The fourth Doctor shook his head. He couldn't fathom how he, in any of his incarnations, could have picked up such a mental reject as this.
The fifth Doctor was running up a very large long-distance phone bill. Good thing that he had the Brigadier's charge card, he thought. He was currently trying to pick up Debbie- - a one time girlfriend from Darrowby. "Come on, Debbie; live a little! We'll go for dinner, go back to my place, then who can tell?" Click! It was time to go leafing through his little black book again, but before he could find another number, he suddenly screeched, "OUCH!!" he spun his chair around, expecting to find Turlough behind him; he mused aloud, "I wonder who keeps doing that?"
Back at the cafeteria in UNIT HQ, Tegan had decided they should go after the third Doctor. She was tired of watching the sixth Doctor eat, but he showed no sign of ever stopping. he was beginning his fifth eclair when Tegan's patience snapped.
"Quit stuffing your face, and let's get going!" The Doctor totally ignored her. He had two more eclairs to go/ She stamped her feet in impatience. Then suddenly, the sixth Doctor cried out through a mouthful of eclair, "Ouch! Tegan, stop that! I'm coming already!"
Tegan turned around. She hadn't hit him, but she wished she had thought of it. The Doctor grabbed the remaining eclairs and shoved them into his pockets. Tegan, Romana, Vicki, and the Doctor left. Romana made sure they left the still unconscious Master behind.
Although she realized that the group's splitting up had been for the best, Mel could not figure out how she had gotten the short end of the stick. She had decided to take the second Doctor with her, because he seemed in dire need of direction and he took orders well, but, unfortunately, this knobby kneed man in a skirt had immediately insisted on tagging along and could not be persuaded otherwise. Since he was bigger than she was, she graciously accepted his company. Mel was forced to take charge, as the second Doctor seemed incapable of going anywhere but around in circles, but even under her charge, they were unable to find the smallest trace of the third Doctor. After some hours, Jamie decided that it was time to stop searching for the third Doctor and start searching for food. naturally, being the subtle soul he was, he loudly voiced his stomach's opinion.
"Ah'm starved! Doctor, I think it is time to go back to that UNIT place and grub up some food."
"Now, now, Jamie," Mel responded, "You can't give up now. Why the third Doctor could be lying in a ditch somewhere injured or even worse. Would you want that guilt on your head?"
"Ah would like some grub in ma stomach, is what Ah'd like!" Jamie growled.
Mel gave him a disapproving look and searched her pockets for a bag of trail mix or some raisins. She came up with two homemade granola bars, whose main ingredient looked like sawdust. She offered them to the second Doctor and Jamie. "Here, this should keep you from starving to death."
The second Doctor took his obediently. He bit into it and lost a front tooth. He looked at it in amazement and put it in his pocket in case he needed it to defend himself from wild animals. Jamie looked at his in amazement also. Did she actually expected to eat this?
"Oh well, if you don't want to eat your granola bar now, put it in your pocket for later," Mel mothered.
"Mel, Ah'll tell ye where ye should put it . . ." Jamie began.
Elsewhere in the forest, the third Doctor, having now regained full consciousness, decided he and present company should go back to UNIT. As they began the long walk back to UNIT compound, the third Doctor got the feeling of deja vu. It seemed to him that he had done this before, and a nagging feeling told him that he would be doing it again and again and again. The going was slow due to the fact first Doctor had to stop and rest every two minutes. The third Doctor's patience began to wear thin. The first Doctor had apprised the third Doctor of the presence of his four other selves in search of him. the third Doctor felt it was urgent to hurry back to UNIT and show the other Doctor that the problem was solved and get rid of them. The third Doctor was also worried about the Brigadier; considering the problem he'd had with the idea of two Doctors, the third Doctor shuddered to think of the Brigadier's reaction to six! Besides that, the third Doctor had to go to the bathroom, so he doubled his pace, leaving the once again exhausted first Doctor, Nyssa helping him and K-9, batteries once again failing, far behind.
At the edge of the woods, the fourth Doctor gave up disgusted. He had spent the better part of two hours working on the knots in his yo-yo string to no avail. Polly was also quite disgusted; she had done her nails six times already and was thoroughly bored. Only Steven was unconcerned. He was having an animated conversation with the Mascot. But then again, he could an animated conversation with a brick. The fourth Doctor got up quietly, motioning for Polly to follow him back to the TARDIS to get his spare yo-yo, hoping to steal away and leave Steven behind.
They crept along for about twenty minutes, not daring to look back in the hopes that Steven had gotten lost. Suddenly a voice shattered the stillness. "Doctor, the Mascot wants to know where we are going?"
The Doctor and Polly jumped about three feet, and the Doctor cursed fluently in seventeen alien tongues. He turned to Steven and wagged his eyebrows furiously. If only Steven or the Mascot knew Delphon, they certainly would have beaten him to bits. Unable to rid themselves of Steven, the fourth Doctor and Polly ignored him instead, as they commenced their walk to the TARDIS.
Back at UNIT, the sixth Doctor, Vicki, Tegan, and Romana were heading back to the woods again, but were halted in the parking lot bay Tegan, who suddenly announced, "I have some business to take care of in the TARDIS . . ."
The sixth Doctor looked blank. What could she possibly want? Romana noticed his look and said warningly, "Don't ask, just let her in!"
Suddenly it dawned on him. "Why didn't you go before we left? UNIT has toilets, too, you know," he complained mother-like.
"Hmph! You have been hanging around Mel too long. She's rubbed off on you. Besides, the toilets at UNIT are grody! Let me in the TARDIS!" Tegan demanded. "Now, wait here and don't leave me. I'll be right out." The sixth Doctor opened the fifth Doctor's TARDIS. Tegan paused a moment. She walked over the still unconscious body of Turlough, now surrounded by orange traffic cones and kicked him hard in the head.. Turlough didn't react. Tegan nodded in satisfaction and strutted into the TARDIS leaving the door opened. They waited for fifteen minutes, when suddenly the fourth Doctor appeared, whistling filthy Venusian barroom tunes, followed by a reluctant Polly and Steven, who was playing Superman with the Mascot. Polly turned to see this and sighed. One played with a yo-yo and the other with a teddy bear. Was there any intelligent life left on Earth?
The fourth Doctor saw the sixth Doctor and companions loitering about the TARDISes, and as he was in a nasty frame of mind, made a nasty remark.
"Look, kids; it's the Goodyear blimp!" he said poking the sixth Doctor in the tummy.
The sixth Doctor sneered back. He might not be taller, but he was bigger and certainly meaner. The sixth Doctor noticed the yo-yo in the fourth Doctor's hands and made a rude remark. "Baby broke his toy?"
The fourth Doctor quickly hid the yo-yo behind his back and tried to act nonchalant. "Hmph! Actually, we came back for an important piece of equipment we needed that's in the TARDIS," he lied.
"Oh, what's that?" asked the sixth Doctor sardonically.
"Well, it's . . . the ah . . . lateral rectifying . . . um . . . gravity adjuster . . . um . . . Whatmahiggy!" the fourth Doctor bullshitted.
"Oh sure; right," the sixth Doctor replied. Polly and Romana snickered with him. Vicki was too dim to realize that the Doctor was full of it, and Steven was otherwise occupied.
It was then that the fourth Doctor noticed Romana. "Hullo, Romana," he said amiably. "Goodbye, Romana," and nipped into the TARDIS.
Romana leaned into the opened door, "Doctor," she hissed, "this isn't our TARDIS!"
"Our TARDIS! Our TARDIS?! Since when did my TARDIS become YOUR TARDIS?!" he shouted, "Besides," he added in a lower tone, "this is the fifth Doctor's TARDIS. I'm bigger than him. I am taller than him. I can beat the shit out of him. Therefore, I can go into his TARDIS if I want to. And I want to!" He slammed the door in Romana's face.
"But Tegan's in there," she added sweetly, knowing how well the fourth Doctor loved Tegan. He couldn't hear her, but Romana wished she could hear him when he found out.
The third Doctor came rushing through UNIT's gates leaving Nyssa, K-9, and the first Doctor five miles behind. Passing through the car park, the third Doctor noticed the TARDISes, sitting in the middle of traffic, a group of strange people, surrounding them, and an unconscious young man on the ground, surrounded by orange cones. He took another look to make sure he was not hallucinating, then he continued to UNIT's main building in search of tyhe little boy's room.
Ten minutes later, much relieved, the third Doctor returned to the car park to see what was going on and see if he couldn't stick his nose into it. He recognized Polly, Vicki, Steven, and unfortunately the Mascot, all the companions of his earlier incarnations. He did not know the unconscious youth on the ground. He also didn't know the blonde young woman, leaning against one of the TARDISes with an evil grin on her face. So, that only left the bizarrely dressed fool about whom the third Doctor had a sinking feeling he knew all too well who he was.
The third Doctor looked the sixth Doctor up and down. "Okay," he asked, "when did I go insane?"
"Right after I turned into Tinkerbell!" the sixth Doctor bawled.
Groans of disgust came from the companions' mouths. This was a truly low blow. They all looked around for good seats to view the massacre.
"I suppose you'd be afraid to throw a punch at me. Might break a fingernail!" the sixth Doctor taunted.
"Alright, alright! Where's another one of myselves? I refuse to deal with a mental defective," the third Doctor demanded. He wanted the sixth Doctor to end his taunts; they were bruising his delicate feelings.
Inside the fifth Doctor's TARDIS, the fourth Doctor reached under the console and popped open yet another secret compartment. He took the object out of it, removed his hand and studied his find with admiration.
"My Duncan Butterfly yo-yo!" he exclaimed, "I'd forgotten I'd put it there. If I could find a penlight battery, it would light up! Now, where would the wimp keep the batteries, I wonder." He wandered the corridors and began opening doors at random. He opened seven or eight doors when an ear-shattering shriek pierced his ear drums.
"Doctor, what do you think you are doing? Get out of here!!" Tegan screamed.
The Doctor had inadvertently wandered into Tegan and Nyssa's bedroom, where Tegan sat at her vanity in her underwear, doing her makeup. When Tegan had told the sixth Doctor that she had something to attend to in the TARDIS, she had meant a shower, a hair wash, a manicure, a re-do of her makeup, three loads of laundry, and two hours of soaps. After all, she couldn't miss The Young and the Restless: Rick was in the hospital, desperately ill, and Jessica, his wife, was pregnant with John's, his boss', baby, but John had a contract out on him . . . Thus, when the fourth Doctor entered the room and disturbed her in the middle of her important business in her unmentionables, Tegan reacted naturally by throwing at him anything she could get her hands on, which at the moment were Nyssa's things: Nyssa's curlers, Nyssa's shoes, Nyssa's gerbil cage (gerbil included). The fourth Doctor backed out quickly, ducking all sorts of flying objects. Tegan grabbed her house coat and chased after him, still throwing things, stooping every once and awhile to snatch up Turlough's junk, lying in the corridor to use as ammunition on the fourth Doctor.
Outside of the TARDIS, the sixth Doctor had had enough of the third Doctor's arrogance and decided he would start by breaking the latter's fingernails and moving up from there. He advanced on the quivering third Doctor, who hid his hands behind his back and retreated between the TARDISes in fear.
At that moment, inside the fifth Doctor's TARDIS, the fourth Doctor scrambled for the door lever, trying desperately to escape the enraged Tegan, who had run out of things to throw. Spying a dusty, ancient , but heavy looking book propping up one side of the hat stand, Tegan leaned over and grabbed it. It was the perfect weapon; she hefted it experimentally in one hand and lobbed it with all her might at the fourth Doctor, who by this time by some miracle had opened the TARDIS doors. He nipped out the door, ducking the flying tome, but the third Doctor, his back to the TARDIS door, did not see it nor was so lucky as to duck. It hit him squarely in the back of the head, and three voices chorused in a painful unison, "OUCH!" For the fifth time that day, the third Doctor slide to the ground, apparently unconscious.
Sprawled out in the stuffed armchair in the Sergeant Benton's office, the fifth Doctor was chattering busily with Lucy, when he yelped, "Ouch!" Lydia promptly hung up the phone. he sighed and consulted his black book once more. "Oh pooh!" he exclaimed, "Only one left. Julia." He gave this matter serious thought; was he really THAT desperate?
Out in the forest, night began to fall. Mel, Jamie, and the second Doctor were still lost, and Mel had decided that they should rest in a small glade for the night. Jamie protested vehemently he was still hungry and growing more famished by the moment.
"Ah still thinks we should get back to UNIT. Ah'm hungry, and Ah'm not going to beddy-bye without any real food in ma stomach!" Jamie growled.
"No problem," Mel replied cheerfully, "I'll just toast us some toadstools"
"Good night!" Jamie replied and threw himself on the ground, snoring loudly to convince her of his sleep.
Mel smiled knowingly. Men were so predictable. She fixed herself a bed of moss, where she could keep an eye on both of her charges. The Doctor lay a little way off in a patch of poison ivy already fast asleep.
Along the highway, between the woods and UNIT headquarters, making their slow return to UNIT, were the first Doctor, Nyssa, and K-9. After four hours of unsuccessful hitchhiking, K-9's batteries were once again dead. The first Doctor's died hours ago. Nyssa gave up on urging him along in disgust. They would simply have to sleep out here on the road, then start anew in the morning. She helped the old man to the grass edging the road, then picked up K-9 and moved him. She wished that his batteries weren't so dead. She was afraid of the dark, and she wanted to use his eye screens as a nightlight, like the one she had in the TARDIS. She sighed and settled down in the grass. Soon they were fast asleep.
Back in the woods, still lost and confused as ever, Jo stumbled over a tree root and fell. Luckily only her head impacted on a stone, so nothing important was hurt. She slept.
In the parking lot of UNIT headquarters, the sixth Doctor picked up the book, that had bashed the third Doctor in the head and dusted it off. The title of the volume read TARDIS Manual. "Hmm," the sixth Doctor commented, "First time that was of use to me. Better keep it. I might need it later." He pushed open the door of his TARDIS, which he had neglected to lock, and chunked the book in. A loud thump was heard, followed by a giant crash, a loud bang, and the tinkering sound of shattered glass.
"Oops," the sixth Doctor remarked nonchalantly. "I must remember to have Mel clean that up later," and he banged the door shut.
The fourth Doctor, kneeling on the asphalt, peeled back the third Doctor's eyelids. "He's out," he announced, "probably sleep until morning." Then his empty stomach growled. "I'm hungry! How about a late night snack?"
Six heads nodded in agreement, and Steven made the Mascot jump up and down in glee. The sixth Doctor moved the orange cones to surround both Turlough and the third Doctor. Having finished this, they moved off to the UNIT cafeteria.
Descending the staircase to the cafeteria, Romana noticed a dark shape huddled on the floor and remembered where she had left her would-be-Romeo. She approached him cautiously and kicked him experimentally. When he didn't respond, she kicked him harder, and when that failed to rouse him, she felt the coast was clear. By now, the cafeteria was closed, but a row of vending machines stood along the wall, promising Twinkies and candy and soda to the lucky person with change. Everyone began filtering their pockets for change, and in desperation, the fourth Doctor and Steven hoisted the Master up by his heels and shook him in a vain search for change, but they had no luck. All this shaking woke the Master, but he was promptly dropped on his head when his pockets failed to produce any silver. he soon became unconscious once again. The fourth Doctor stood depress, chin sunk to his chest, and he stuck his hands in his pockets. he was hungry! His fingers found the sonic screwdriver, and a wonderful idea came into his head. He whipped out the sonic screwdriver and opened all the vending machine, swinging their fronts wide open. "Help yourselves!" he cried, "UNIT's treat!" Then he unlocked the change box and appropriated all the quarters for later use in video games. They could always take it out of his check.
Out in the parking lot, the third Doctor woke earlier than the fourth Doctor anticipated. It was nearly midnight, and the third Doctor was aghast to find himself in the parking lot. He should be in the woods with his fairy friends, dancing by the light of the full moon. He got up and dusted himself down. He noticed a flagon of perfume on the ground and he picked it up. He sprayed himself and his invisible fairy wings with it, then he pranced off carrying his perfume bottle, not smelling the cologne nor noticing the bottle's label, that read "Evening Skunk." He pranced back tot he woods and sprayed the night guards with the perfume. The guards promptly fainted from the stench.
He tripped along the road gaily, skipping happily to the fairy music in his head; it was quite obvious that the Doctor had been hit too many times today. Making his way along the highway, he noticed Nyssa, K-9 and the first Doctor huddled in the grass fast asleep. He smiled angelically and sprayed the sleeping trio beneficently. He tripped off again much pleased with himself. the first Doctor half woke and sniffed the air. "Oh, good grief! What died?" he murmured, then being too exhausted to investigate, he fell back to sleep.
Out in the forest, Jo was wondering aimlessly; she was totally and utterly lost, as usual. Somewhere else in the forest, the first Doctor's eyes were still lit up. Considering what Nyssa was wearing, she wouldn't have to waggle his tail to turn him on. Nyssa was still baffled about K-9. She tried to remove the automatic kill-the-battery circuit, but she was unable to charge his batteries, mainly because there was still a story to be resolved. Nyssa scrambled to her feet wonderingly, when suddenly, a daintily dressed man came skipping along the path and tripped over the inert K-9. The man crashed head first into a nearby tree and slipped to the ground, unconscious once again. K-9's eyes suddenly lit up; now that he had played his role in the story, his batteries automatically recharged themselves. The first Doctor looked at Nyssa triumphantly. "Congratulations, my dear. You've cured my third self. Now, we must get him back to UNIT."
The fourth Doctor sat on a rock on the edge of the woods, where he had been for the last hour, trying desperately to undo the seventeen knots in his yo-yo string, that he had acquired from doing his world famous triple-decker, super-duper, backward forward, around-the-world, loop-to-loop trick. Suddenly he stood up and whirled around to face his unwilling disgruntled companions Polly, Steven, and the Mascot. "Don't hit me! This is important work!"
Steven turned to the Mascot. "Did you do that, Mascot?"
The fourth Doctor shook his head. He couldn't fathom how he, in any of his incarnations, could have picked up such a mental reject as this.
The fifth Doctor was running up a very large long-distance phone bill. Good thing that he had the Brigadier's charge card, he thought. He was currently trying to pick up Debbie- - a one time girlfriend from Darrowby. "Come on, Debbie; live a little! We'll go for dinner, go back to my place, then who can tell?" Click! It was time to go leafing through his little black book again, but before he could find another number, he suddenly screeched, "OUCH!!" he spun his chair around, expecting to find Turlough behind him; he mused aloud, "I wonder who keeps doing that?"
Back at the cafeteria in UNIT HQ, Tegan had decided they should go after the third Doctor. She was tired of watching the sixth Doctor eat, but he showed no sign of ever stopping. he was beginning his fifth eclair when Tegan's patience snapped.
"Quit stuffing your face, and let's get going!" The Doctor totally ignored her. He had two more eclairs to go/ She stamped her feet in impatience. Then suddenly, the sixth Doctor cried out through a mouthful of eclair, "Ouch! Tegan, stop that! I'm coming already!"
Tegan turned around. She hadn't hit him, but she wished she had thought of it. The Doctor grabbed the remaining eclairs and shoved them into his pockets. Tegan, Romana, Vicki, and the Doctor left. Romana made sure they left the still unconscious Master behind.
Although she realized that the group's splitting up had been for the best, Mel could not figure out how she had gotten the short end of the stick. She had decided to take the second Doctor with her, because he seemed in dire need of direction and he took orders well, but, unfortunately, this knobby kneed man in a skirt had immediately insisted on tagging along and could not be persuaded otherwise. Since he was bigger than she was, she graciously accepted his company. Mel was forced to take charge, as the second Doctor seemed incapable of going anywhere but around in circles, but even under her charge, they were unable to find the smallest trace of the third Doctor. After some hours, Jamie decided that it was time to stop searching for the third Doctor and start searching for food. naturally, being the subtle soul he was, he loudly voiced his stomach's opinion.
"Ah'm starved! Doctor, I think it is time to go back to that UNIT place and grub up some food."
"Now, now, Jamie," Mel responded, "You can't give up now. Why the third Doctor could be lying in a ditch somewhere injured or even worse. Would you want that guilt on your head?"
"Ah would like some grub in ma stomach, is what Ah'd like!" Jamie growled.
Mel gave him a disapproving look and searched her pockets for a bag of trail mix or some raisins. She came up with two homemade granola bars, whose main ingredient looked like sawdust. She offered them to the second Doctor and Jamie. "Here, this should keep you from starving to death."
The second Doctor took his obediently. He bit into it and lost a front tooth. He looked at it in amazement and put it in his pocket in case he needed it to defend himself from wild animals. Jamie looked at his in amazement also. Did she actually expected to eat this?
"Oh well, if you don't want to eat your granola bar now, put it in your pocket for later," Mel mothered.
"Mel, Ah'll tell ye where ye should put it . . ." Jamie began.
Elsewhere in the forest, the third Doctor, having now regained full consciousness, decided he and present company should go back to UNIT. As they began the long walk back to UNIT compound, the third Doctor got the feeling of deja vu. It seemed to him that he had done this before, and a nagging feeling told him that he would be doing it again and again and again. The going was slow due to the fact first Doctor had to stop and rest every two minutes. The third Doctor's patience began to wear thin. The first Doctor had apprised the third Doctor of the presence of his four other selves in search of him. the third Doctor felt it was urgent to hurry back to UNIT and show the other Doctor that the problem was solved and get rid of them. The third Doctor was also worried about the Brigadier; considering the problem he'd had with the idea of two Doctors, the third Doctor shuddered to think of the Brigadier's reaction to six! Besides that, the third Doctor had to go to the bathroom, so he doubled his pace, leaving the once again exhausted first Doctor, Nyssa helping him and K-9, batteries once again failing, far behind.
At the edge of the woods, the fourth Doctor gave up disgusted. He had spent the better part of two hours working on the knots in his yo-yo string to no avail. Polly was also quite disgusted; she had done her nails six times already and was thoroughly bored. Only Steven was unconcerned. He was having an animated conversation with the Mascot. But then again, he could an animated conversation with a brick. The fourth Doctor got up quietly, motioning for Polly to follow him back to the TARDIS to get his spare yo-yo, hoping to steal away and leave Steven behind.
They crept along for about twenty minutes, not daring to look back in the hopes that Steven had gotten lost. Suddenly a voice shattered the stillness. "Doctor, the Mascot wants to know where we are going?"
The Doctor and Polly jumped about three feet, and the Doctor cursed fluently in seventeen alien tongues. He turned to Steven and wagged his eyebrows furiously. If only Steven or the Mascot knew Delphon, they certainly would have beaten him to bits. Unable to rid themselves of Steven, the fourth Doctor and Polly ignored him instead, as they commenced their walk to the TARDIS.
Back at UNIT, the sixth Doctor, Vicki, Tegan, and Romana were heading back to the woods again, but were halted in the parking lot bay Tegan, who suddenly announced, "I have some business to take care of in the TARDIS . . ."
The sixth Doctor looked blank. What could she possibly want? Romana noticed his look and said warningly, "Don't ask, just let her in!"
Suddenly it dawned on him. "Why didn't you go before we left? UNIT has toilets, too, you know," he complained mother-like.
"Hmph! You have been hanging around Mel too long. She's rubbed off on you. Besides, the toilets at UNIT are grody! Let me in the TARDIS!" Tegan demanded. "Now, wait here and don't leave me. I'll be right out." The sixth Doctor opened the fifth Doctor's TARDIS. Tegan paused a moment. She walked over the still unconscious body of Turlough, now surrounded by orange traffic cones and kicked him hard in the head.. Turlough didn't react. Tegan nodded in satisfaction and strutted into the TARDIS leaving the door opened. They waited for fifteen minutes, when suddenly the fourth Doctor appeared, whistling filthy Venusian barroom tunes, followed by a reluctant Polly and Steven, who was playing Superman with the Mascot. Polly turned to see this and sighed. One played with a yo-yo and the other with a teddy bear. Was there any intelligent life left on Earth?
The fourth Doctor saw the sixth Doctor and companions loitering about the TARDISes, and as he was in a nasty frame of mind, made a nasty remark.
"Look, kids; it's the Goodyear blimp!" he said poking the sixth Doctor in the tummy.
The sixth Doctor sneered back. He might not be taller, but he was bigger and certainly meaner. The sixth Doctor noticed the yo-yo in the fourth Doctor's hands and made a rude remark. "Baby broke his toy?"
The fourth Doctor quickly hid the yo-yo behind his back and tried to act nonchalant. "Hmph! Actually, we came back for an important piece of equipment we needed that's in the TARDIS," he lied.
"Oh, what's that?" asked the sixth Doctor sardonically.
"Well, it's . . . the ah . . . lateral rectifying . . . um . . . gravity adjuster . . . um . . . Whatmahiggy!" the fourth Doctor bullshitted.
"Oh sure; right," the sixth Doctor replied. Polly and Romana snickered with him. Vicki was too dim to realize that the Doctor was full of it, and Steven was otherwise occupied.
It was then that the fourth Doctor noticed Romana. "Hullo, Romana," he said amiably. "Goodbye, Romana," and nipped into the TARDIS.
Romana leaned into the opened door, "Doctor," she hissed, "this isn't our TARDIS!"
"Our TARDIS! Our TARDIS?! Since when did my TARDIS become YOUR TARDIS?!" he shouted, "Besides," he added in a lower tone, "this is the fifth Doctor's TARDIS. I'm bigger than him. I am taller than him. I can beat the shit out of him. Therefore, I can go into his TARDIS if I want to. And I want to!" He slammed the door in Romana's face.
"But Tegan's in there," she added sweetly, knowing how well the fourth Doctor loved Tegan. He couldn't hear her, but Romana wished she could hear him when he found out.
The third Doctor came rushing through UNIT's gates leaving Nyssa, K-9, and the first Doctor five miles behind. Passing through the car park, the third Doctor noticed the TARDISes, sitting in the middle of traffic, a group of strange people, surrounding them, and an unconscious young man on the ground, surrounded by orange cones. He took another look to make sure he was not hallucinating, then he continued to UNIT's main building in search of tyhe little boy's room.
Ten minutes later, much relieved, the third Doctor returned to the car park to see what was going on and see if he couldn't stick his nose into it. He recognized Polly, Vicki, Steven, and unfortunately the Mascot, all the companions of his earlier incarnations. He did not know the unconscious youth on the ground. He also didn't know the blonde young woman, leaning against one of the TARDISes with an evil grin on her face. So, that only left the bizarrely dressed fool about whom the third Doctor had a sinking feeling he knew all too well who he was.
The third Doctor looked the sixth Doctor up and down. "Okay," he asked, "when did I go insane?"
"Right after I turned into Tinkerbell!" the sixth Doctor bawled.
Groans of disgust came from the companions' mouths. This was a truly low blow. They all looked around for good seats to view the massacre.
"I suppose you'd be afraid to throw a punch at me. Might break a fingernail!" the sixth Doctor taunted.
"Alright, alright! Where's another one of myselves? I refuse to deal with a mental defective," the third Doctor demanded. He wanted the sixth Doctor to end his taunts; they were bruising his delicate feelings.
Inside the fifth Doctor's TARDIS, the fourth Doctor reached under the console and popped open yet another secret compartment. He took the object out of it, removed his hand and studied his find with admiration.
"My Duncan Butterfly yo-yo!" he exclaimed, "I'd forgotten I'd put it there. If I could find a penlight battery, it would light up! Now, where would the wimp keep the batteries, I wonder." He wandered the corridors and began opening doors at random. He opened seven or eight doors when an ear-shattering shriek pierced his ear drums.
"Doctor, what do you think you are doing? Get out of here!!" Tegan screamed.
The Doctor had inadvertently wandered into Tegan and Nyssa's bedroom, where Tegan sat at her vanity in her underwear, doing her makeup. When Tegan had told the sixth Doctor that she had something to attend to in the TARDIS, she had meant a shower, a hair wash, a manicure, a re-do of her makeup, three loads of laundry, and two hours of soaps. After all, she couldn't miss The Young and the Restless: Rick was in the hospital, desperately ill, and Jessica, his wife, was pregnant with John's, his boss', baby, but John had a contract out on him . . . Thus, when the fourth Doctor entered the room and disturbed her in the middle of her important business in her unmentionables, Tegan reacted naturally by throwing at him anything she could get her hands on, which at the moment were Nyssa's things: Nyssa's curlers, Nyssa's shoes, Nyssa's gerbil cage (gerbil included). The fourth Doctor backed out quickly, ducking all sorts of flying objects. Tegan grabbed her house coat and chased after him, still throwing things, stooping every once and awhile to snatch up Turlough's junk, lying in the corridor to use as ammunition on the fourth Doctor.
Outside of the TARDIS, the sixth Doctor had had enough of the third Doctor's arrogance and decided he would start by breaking the latter's fingernails and moving up from there. He advanced on the quivering third Doctor, who hid his hands behind his back and retreated between the TARDISes in fear.
At that moment, inside the fifth Doctor's TARDIS, the fourth Doctor scrambled for the door lever, trying desperately to escape the enraged Tegan, who had run out of things to throw. Spying a dusty, ancient , but heavy looking book propping up one side of the hat stand, Tegan leaned over and grabbed it. It was the perfect weapon; she hefted it experimentally in one hand and lobbed it with all her might at the fourth Doctor, who by this time by some miracle had opened the TARDIS doors. He nipped out the door, ducking the flying tome, but the third Doctor, his back to the TARDIS door, did not see it nor was so lucky as to duck. It hit him squarely in the back of the head, and three voices chorused in a painful unison, "OUCH!" For the fifth time that day, the third Doctor slide to the ground, apparently unconscious.
Sprawled out in the stuffed armchair in the Sergeant Benton's office, the fifth Doctor was chattering busily with Lucy, when he yelped, "Ouch!" Lydia promptly hung up the phone. he sighed and consulted his black book once more. "Oh pooh!" he exclaimed, "Only one left. Julia." He gave this matter serious thought; was he really THAT desperate?
Out in the forest, night began to fall. Mel, Jamie, and the second Doctor were still lost, and Mel had decided that they should rest in a small glade for the night. Jamie protested vehemently he was still hungry and growing more famished by the moment.
"Ah still thinks we should get back to UNIT. Ah'm hungry, and Ah'm not going to beddy-bye without any real food in ma stomach!" Jamie growled.
"No problem," Mel replied cheerfully, "I'll just toast us some toadstools"
"Good night!" Jamie replied and threw himself on the ground, snoring loudly to convince her of his sleep.
Mel smiled knowingly. Men were so predictable. She fixed herself a bed of moss, where she could keep an eye on both of her charges. The Doctor lay a little way off in a patch of poison ivy already fast asleep.
Along the highway, between the woods and UNIT headquarters, making their slow return to UNIT, were the first Doctor, Nyssa, and K-9. After four hours of unsuccessful hitchhiking, K-9's batteries were once again dead. The first Doctor's died hours ago. Nyssa gave up on urging him along in disgust. They would simply have to sleep out here on the road, then start anew in the morning. She helped the old man to the grass edging the road, then picked up K-9 and moved him. She wished that his batteries weren't so dead. She was afraid of the dark, and she wanted to use his eye screens as a nightlight, like the one she had in the TARDIS. She sighed and settled down in the grass. Soon they were fast asleep.
Back in the woods, still lost and confused as ever, Jo stumbled over a tree root and fell. Luckily only her head impacted on a stone, so nothing important was hurt. She slept.
In the parking lot of UNIT headquarters, the sixth Doctor picked up the book, that had bashed the third Doctor in the head and dusted it off. The title of the volume read TARDIS Manual. "Hmm," the sixth Doctor commented, "First time that was of use to me. Better keep it. I might need it later." He pushed open the door of his TARDIS, which he had neglected to lock, and chunked the book in. A loud thump was heard, followed by a giant crash, a loud bang, and the tinkering sound of shattered glass.
"Oops," the sixth Doctor remarked nonchalantly. "I must remember to have Mel clean that up later," and he banged the door shut.
The fourth Doctor, kneeling on the asphalt, peeled back the third Doctor's eyelids. "He's out," he announced, "probably sleep until morning." Then his empty stomach growled. "I'm hungry! How about a late night snack?"
Six heads nodded in agreement, and Steven made the Mascot jump up and down in glee. The sixth Doctor moved the orange cones to surround both Turlough and the third Doctor. Having finished this, they moved off to the UNIT cafeteria.
Descending the staircase to the cafeteria, Romana noticed a dark shape huddled on the floor and remembered where she had left her would-be-Romeo. She approached him cautiously and kicked him experimentally. When he didn't respond, she kicked him harder, and when that failed to rouse him, she felt the coast was clear. By now, the cafeteria was closed, but a row of vending machines stood along the wall, promising Twinkies and candy and soda to the lucky person with change. Everyone began filtering their pockets for change, and in desperation, the fourth Doctor and Steven hoisted the Master up by his heels and shook him in a vain search for change, but they had no luck. All this shaking woke the Master, but he was promptly dropped on his head when his pockets failed to produce any silver. he soon became unconscious once again. The fourth Doctor stood depress, chin sunk to his chest, and he stuck his hands in his pockets. he was hungry! His fingers found the sonic screwdriver, and a wonderful idea came into his head. He whipped out the sonic screwdriver and opened all the vending machine, swinging their fronts wide open. "Help yourselves!" he cried, "UNIT's treat!" Then he unlocked the change box and appropriated all the quarters for later use in video games. They could always take it out of his check.
Out in the parking lot, the third Doctor woke earlier than the fourth Doctor anticipated. It was nearly midnight, and the third Doctor was aghast to find himself in the parking lot. He should be in the woods with his fairy friends, dancing by the light of the full moon. He got up and dusted himself down. He noticed a flagon of perfume on the ground and he picked it up. He sprayed himself and his invisible fairy wings with it, then he pranced off carrying his perfume bottle, not smelling the cologne nor noticing the bottle's label, that read "Evening Skunk." He pranced back tot he woods and sprayed the night guards with the perfume. The guards promptly fainted from the stench.
He tripped along the road gaily, skipping happily to the fairy music in his head; it was quite obvious that the Doctor had been hit too many times today. Making his way along the highway, he noticed Nyssa, K-9 and the first Doctor huddled in the grass fast asleep. He smiled angelically and sprayed the sleeping trio beneficently. He tripped off again much pleased with himself. the first Doctor half woke and sniffed the air. "Oh, good grief! What died?" he murmured, then being too exhausted to investigate, he fell back to sleep.