City On The Edge of Destruction.Chapter Two
The Finest Dinner in the Universe
(or why Xander should do as he is told).

Giles smiling was the first thing Buffy saw as she woke up. 'Thank God! Are you alright Buffy?'

'Blood loss and shock. Perfect for sleep time.' She answered groggily, 'Giles If I ask "Where are we?" would I get an answer I will like?'

'Ahem, well you see… err… possibly not, no.' His hand flickered for his glasses but didn't move them.

'Pretend I asked anyway.' She picked up her scythe from her feet, glad she remembered to pick it up from the bus and give it to herself. This time travel stuff was enough to make her head spin.

'We're inside the TARDIS Buffy. This is the sitting room.'

'The sitting room.' The ceiling stretched on forever, slowly standing up she got out of a large ornate chair and glanced at the walls. 'You must like this place.' Large bookcases dominated most of the room, a smallish table had about three books piled on it and an old wind up gramophone with one of those really big shell/cone like speakers.

'Yes, well the Doctor has an extensive collection, for example this,' Giles was pointing at a rat chewed scroll. 'Is an original copy of the Darine codex, only eight were ever made.'

'That's great Giles, really, so where exactly is this tardis.' Buffy looked around some more and saw Willow passed out on another ornate chair, it looked like she was alright and from the way Giles was behaving she probably was.

'Anywhere it wants to be' He said slightly embarrassed.

'What's that suppose to mean?'

Then the Doctor entered. 'Ah I see your awake, nasty shock you and your friend had. Sorry about that, Mr Harris and the other one took it much better.' He frowned for a moment, like he was trying to figure out what 29 times pi was in his head. Then the Doctor shrugged and smiled again.

'Where is Xander and Dawn?' Buffy asked suddenly worried.

'He's in the control room and the young lady is in the cinema.' Once again he frowned, Buffy missed this but he seemed to do it whenever he talked about Dawn.

'The cinema? Look buddy where are we?'

'My TARDIS, of course.'

'That's what Giles said but what is it.'

'TARDIS is an acronym…'

'Isn't that when a bunch of words start with the same letter?'

'No Miss Summers, that is called alliteration. An acronym is the first letter of each word; in this case Time And Relative Dimensions In Space becomes T-A-R-D-I-S'

'I like the short vision.' She grumbled

'As do I. It's my ship.'

'Ship?'

'Yes Buffy.' Giles pushed his glasses further up his nose. 'You see The Doctor is a Time Lord and this is his time ship.'

'It's an older model but it still works.' The Doctor admitted with some aplomb.

'Time ship. You mean it travels in time.'

'And space. Yes.' The Doctor smiled in a way that made Buffy question her own sanity.

'A time machine?'

'Yes.' Again the smile but this time with a hint of annoyance.

'That looks like a blue wooden box in the middle of the desert.'

'Yes.' His answers were getting shorter and more abrupt.

'A small wooden box that could not possibly fit the six of us let alone all this.' She waved her hands around at the astoundingly large room they were in.

'Well there's a good reason for that.' He suddenly went from aggravated to embarrassed.

Buffy waited for the "good reason".

'Yes, well you see this is an older model TARDIS and it had a prototype chameleon circuit when I got it. That malfunctioned quite some time ago and is impossible to fix. I don't mind, helps me remember what it looks like. You have no idea the difficulties of finding a TARDIS with a working chameleon circuit on a desert world, nothing but rocks and sand.'

'A what?'

'A desert world? Well you see…'

'Not that the other thing, camel-lion something.'

'A chameleon circuit, would you like me to explain.'

'Would it help?'

He shared a glance with Giles, some sort of deep sigh came from both of them that annoyed her no end 'No I suppose not really. It makes the TARDIS look like a British 1950's police call box. It should make it look like other things too, but it doesn't.'

'That's better. Can we keep all the revelations like that please.'

'What is it with the early twenty-first century and words with more than two syllables' The Doctor directed the question to the infinite expanse above. 'Why invent something as complex and contradictory as the English language and then not use half of it.'

'Hey.' Buffy found that some what of an insult 'We can't all be English and Giles-like.'

'The English are worse, out of all the races in the galaxy only they could have created it.'

Xander was very close to shock, things were getting out of hand. He could take saving the world but actually standing in a time machine that was taking them to L.A to help Deadboy and his gang on the word of a mad, fictional, t.v. character was to much.

He finally stopped waling around the centre piece getting board of the same views. He thought about exploring but from what the Doctor guy said this place was far larger than it looked and the idea of getting lost was a frightening one. The warning he gave Dawn as he gave her directions to the cinema was more than enough to know not to experiment. After he told her where to go he had told Xander what was going on.

Turning around Xander lent against the pedestal. 'Mr Harris! Do not move!' Half shouted the Doctor as he and Giles came in from one of the other doors.

'What?'

'You are right next to the temporal stabilisation control switch. It may be advisable for you to slowly move away… As soon as possible if you would.'

Xander did as he was told, turning around he raised his hands and backed off. Catching the very switch he was told not to touch.

Nothing happened.

Nothing continued to happen

Xander let out a breath he was holding. He saw Giles glare at him and open his mouth.

Then the room began to spin. The two humans in the room were sent spinning into the walls and onto the ceiling. The Doctor, however, merely swung around the control column as if a disaster like this was normal.

After a few seconds the Doctor flipped the switch and the TARDIS stopped spinning. Buffy and Willow half flew into the control room, landing almost on top of each other. 'What happened?'

'Xander touched the controls.' Giles said as Dawn came in from the other door pulling popcorn from her hair.

'Thanks Xand.' She said

'Sorry I… I didn't think. Is it alright now Doctor?'

'I've reactivated the temporal stabilisers but the Crono-coordinator and pan-dimensional drive have disconnected from the trans-photon matter converter and the queble flurx inverter' The Doctors hands moved in a blur over the controls. They weren't doing much, other than point.

'In English, preferably the one syllable variety' Buffy asked worriedly, They were on an alien's time ship and now it sounded like they were out of control.

'It's broken'

'Thanks Dawn, I guessed that much. Can it be fixed.' Buffy rolled her eyes what was with that girl today .

'I need to manually correct the induction cables and then reboot the whole temporal location manifold.' Said the strange man, in a bit of a panic.

He was doing this on purpose she just knew it. 'How long?'

The Doctor kicked the consol and it lit up again.

'About that long Buffy.' Said Dawn happily.

'The problem now is I don't know when we are, the controls are fine but the location fix is gone. We need to stop and find out when we are.' The Doctor pulled down a large switch and the central column dropped deep into the controls. 'There we go, would you mind popping your head out and seeing what's there my dear.'

Buffy chose not to complain and went through the opening door expecting to see the Californian desert. Instead there was a rather tacky, trying to look expensive, restaurant.

Looking to ether side Buffy saw what could only be described as a parking lot for star ships. So many ships were parked for just about as far as the eye could see, all of them different shapes, styles and colours. 'Whoa'.

A man sized robot walked up to her, pistons hissing. It looked exactly the way a robot should look, all rectangles and metal.

Marvin headed towards the depressing sight. The small blond biped was looking around in awe. 'Hello.' The android spent a fraction of a nanosecond calculating and then modulating his voice to carry the precise amount of boredom and despair required for the situation before speaking.

'Oh hello you couldn't…'

'I take it this is your ship.' He interrupted

'Yes, no… Its my friends. But that's…'

'I suppose you want me to park it for you.'

'Urr no, I'm just wondering…' The being was getting aggravated

'Your not late if that's what your asking.'

'Late? Late for what.'

'That.' Marvin pointed to the enormous black hole that was busy sucking in every piece of mater in the universe.

Xander was explaining to Willow what was going on when Buffy burst back in side. 'Giles! There's this big black swirly thing in the sky! And a robot wanting to park the tardis!' Xander looked at Willow and then Dawn in case they made more sense from the sentence.

'A what?' Giles asked.

'A big black thing that's sucking everything up like a giant plug hole! We've got to get out of here!'

'Nothing of the sort my dear,' the Doctor calmly smiled. 'Was there anything else?'

'A big restaurant.' she said. Xander's mind boggled, he expected he would never hear anything as ridicules again.

'Perfect I could do with a good meal. Come dinner awaits.' Xander was wrong.

'But it's the end of the world out there and your talking about lunch?' Willow gaped at the Doctor.

'Universe my dear, it's the end of the universe.'

'That's worse! Is there anything we can do.'

'Well there is…' the Doctor looked thoughtful. 'No I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about that now.'

'So?' The Scoobies asked in unison.

'So we might as well have lunch.' The Doctor took his hat and scarf of a hat stand that simply appeared next to the tardis door before opening it.

Xander thought about what the Doctor had said; 'Guys, am I going mad or did that make sense?'

'Xander,' Giles said placing his hand on the young man's shoulder, 'yes and yes, in that order.'

'Good, at least its not just me then' Dawn said before taking the last piece of popcorn from her hair.

The five of them picked up their stuff and left the Tardis, Xander was the last to leave and closed the door behind himself.

The Doctor was talking to a robot. 'And I've got a terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.' The robot said in a voice that seemed to lack the ability to convey anything resembling happiness.

'Is that so, I quite understand.' The Doctor said.

'It gets worse. Here I am, a brain the size of a planet and I've been parking cars for the last ten thousand eons.'

'How interesting, As I'm sure you know, due to the relative curve of the universe and the most basic laws of physics your lack of enjoyment of in every event in your life means that someone, somewhere, has the most fabulously, amusingly, wonderful existence in the history of this misbegotten reality. Thanks to your faithful diligence in finding the worst of every possible situation this person is the centre of intelligent conversation and well received at dinner parties. As this person I thank you and wish upon you every misfortune. Good evening.' With that the Doctor literally swept into the large building.

'I'm feeling very depressed.' Muttered the android before sulking off.

Giles immediately recognised where he was, the large glowing sign at the door read "Milliways". As the Doctor explained it to the others Giles did the only thing a diligent thing a straight thinking Englishman does on holiday. He went to the bar and bought the strongest drink in existence. A pan galactic gargle blaster, the drink equivalent of having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.

Dawn listened to the Doctor as he politely explained something that not even Willow could possibly understand. Something to do with a "time bubble" and a restaurant built at the end of the universe to celebrate the big nothing. Apparently it had the best food ever. The best thing was that The Doctor was willing to pay for all of it because by the end of the universe bank interest was great. Or something like that.

She had long since come to the decision that she was both mad, asleep and whatever was happening had nothing to do with her anyway. Flicking her fingers she looked around and stopped herself from bouncing from foot to foot, she was bursting with energy for some reason she couldn't quite fathom. Now the Doctor was talking to the waiter and introducing them. '…and this is?'

'Dawn Summers.' Looking at him Dawn had the impression that she'd seen him before, even though the Doctor that Andrew had made her watch was nothing like this one. That one wasn't as tall and was no where near as mad. He on the other hand knew everyone here, except her.

'Of course.' He smiled at her, his eyes never rested on her. It was like he was looking for something but couldn't find it.

The group, including Giles who was carrying a tall thin glass of something, were shown to a table.

'Doctor,' Willow started, 'If we're supposed to be helping Angel and his friends why are we here. Shouldn't we be going there?'

'Little lady I am the Doctor and I know exactly what I am doing, as I have said.' he stopped to thank the waiter for the menus. 'Each of you have a task, The good master Harris has fulfilled his by bringing us here.'

'Really?' Xander asked.

'Yes, there is one problem however.'

'And that is?' Buffy asked, taking the menu.

'Lightly fried memusian dodo in plomtic gravy, quite nice if I do say so myself. As for the problem, she has no task.' He was pointing directly at Dawn. 'She has no future or even a past for that matter. To put it simply our quick mouthed companion with us in this journey does not even exist in the time stream. I find it quite unnerving to say the least.'

End Chapter 2