Title: The Spielberg Corollary to Murphy's Law
Author: Gillian Taylor
Rating: PG
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Summary: Murphy didn't have that right, you know. It's only 'sometimes anything that can go wrong, will.' It's not a constant. More like a suggestion.
Spoilers: Christmas Invasion
Disclaimer: Don't own them. I just like playing with them...a lot.
Archive: Sure, just let me know.

A/N: Part of the Easter Egg Fic Challenge for Dune. The challenge: Ten/Rose, Ten totally confused, Shippiness and angst and terrible, terrible danger, The Brig/anyone else from the Pertwee era, a reference to Gallifrey.

Thanks, as always, to my wonderful betas NNWest, WMR, and ChloeAz.

The Spielberg Corollary to Murphy's Law
by Gillian Taylor

Chapter 1: Murphy's Law

Alistair took another long sip of his tea and regarded his companions through slightly narrowed eyes. The longer he stretched the silence, the more the two seemed to resemble children who had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. The short glances exchanged between them, the barely perceptible brush of their legs, and the glum expressions on their faces led to only one possible conclusion.

Guilt.

He braced his mug against his knee. "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

"The beginning? You sure you don't want the middle? I know you don't want the end, since this is sort of it. Maybe a different story would suffice?" The Doctor smiled disarmingly as he raked his hand through his hair. "I know several. Did I ever tell you the one about..."

"Doctor," he interrupted. "The beginning?"

"Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away... Oh, wait. That's Star Wars. Sorry 'bout that. The beginning. Yes. Er. Well, it really started yesterday - was it only yesterday? We had just arrived - parked the TARDIS just next to the rhododendrons, and made sure to avoid trampling the beds this time - and...oh, yeah. It was sunny."

"No, it wasn't," Rose corrected, glancing at the Doctor with a faintly amused look. "It was cloudy."

"Oi! Who's telling this story? Me or you?"

"Go on, then. Just get your facts straight," Rose encouraged.

He cleared his throat. "Doctor?" he prompted.

"Right. Anyway. The beginning...it was a cloudy day..."

He beamed as he pulled open the doors, revealing the lush landscape of the Brigadier's gardens. "See? No aliens, no megalomaniacs, no running. Just a nice visit with an old friend, and then we'll be off again. Adventuring, getting into trouble, getting out of trouble, saying the wrong thing, kissing complete strangers - oh, wait, that's just Paris - seeing the sights, buying tacky gifts, and seeing what there is to see."

Rose looked rather sceptical. He assumed a hurt expression. "What? It's not like it hasn't happened before."

"Doctor, it doesn't matter. I know you. An' I know what this life's like. There's gonna be running. And some sort of danger. And we're going to end up right in the middle of it. As usual."

He clutched at his chest. "My lady doth wound me!"

Rose poked the tip of her tongue between her lips and grinned. "No, I just know you."

It was probably best that he change the subject now. He knew that particular expression of hers far too well. "Well, daylight won't last forever. Can't change that even with a time machine. So, shall we? Explore the estate, poke our noses where they don't belong, see if Alistair's kept Bessie in tune?" He held out his hand and wiggled his fingers suggestively.

She grinned at him as she took his hand. Her jovial expression faded as she cast a concerned glance deeper into the TARDIS. "You're sure that leavin' that thing in the lab's safe, right? It kinda reminds me of one of those eggs from Alien."

"'Course I'm sure. The environment's strictly controlled. Nothing can go wrong." At least, he believed that to be true. It was a rather interesting egg - the rainbow colours of its shell reminded him of something. However, he couldn't put his finger on just what.

She groaned. "Doctor, I can't believe you said that!"

"What?" he asked, confused. "What did I say?"

"Don't you know that when you say 'nothing can go wrong,' it will?" Rose shook her head.

"Oh. Murphy didn't have that right, you know. It's only 'sometimes anything that can go wrong, will.' It's not a constant. More like a suggestion. A guideline that the universe sometimes follows. But Murphy didn't believe me, even when I tried to explain that to him." And look where Mr. Murphy had led him? Explaining the true laws of the universe to a human who had been brought up on a world defined by Murphy's Laws.

That was when he heard a faint noise that seemed to originate from deep within the TARDIS. It sounded like the crash that mechanical equipment would make should it get shoved roughly to the ground. Mechanical equipment that was, for example, kept in the lab.

The climate-controlled lab.

Oh.

Well wasn't that just fantastic. He had been fiddling with the environmental controls a bit earlier - it had been a bit nippy in the living areas of the TARDIS. Great. Once again, Mr. Murphy had decided to pull the wool over his eyes.

Rose looked at him with an odd expression on her face. "You were saying?"

Right. This was a job for... Wait. That was a rather superhero-grade camp expression. Besides, he didn't wear tights. "Stay here, Rose. I'll go and investigate."

She shook her head. "No. I'm coming with you."

Stubborn humans. He shrugged. "On your head, then. Come on and stay behind me. We still don't know what was in that egg."

"Probably something short, mean, and with sharp pointy teeth."

"Such an optimist you are. Might be cute and fluffy. An alien version of a rabbit, perhaps?" he suggested. Maybe he'd be lucky. Maybe it'd end up being just that. Cute and fluffy.

How did that saying go? Ah, yes. Denial wasn't just a river in Egypt.

"Once more unto the breach. Or was that into? I can never remember that line." With those words, he led her deeper into the TARDIS.

Alistair shook his head as he repeated, "An alien version of a rabbit?"

"Hold on. I'm getting there," the Doctor protested. "Haven't even got to the good part."

"Which was what? Where you realised that you forgot where the lab was?" Rose asked, tongue-in-cheek.

"And who's telling this story, Rose Tyler?" the Doctor asked in an affronted tone. He seemed a bit mollified by Rose's hand on his knee.

"Might want me to tell the story, Doctor. I, after all, didn't forget where the lab was." Rose grinned.

The Doctor glanced at him in silent query and he shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me, Doctor. I just want to know what happened."

"Go on, then, Rose."

"Right. So we were heading deeper into the TARDIS..."

Was it her imagination, or had the long corridor - one she walked every day - gained an ominous feel? She knew that she shouldn't have made the comparison to the Alien movie. Cute and fluffy? The Doctor needed a serious dose of Ritalin - or whatever the equivalent was for his alien biology.

The Doctor paused at the next junction and he wrinkled his nose as he looked both ways. "Right. If I were a lab, where would I hide myself?"

"You've lost the lab." The words were not a question. They were a statement of disbelief.

"Well, not lost. Not really. Just misplaced. Sort of. Kind of. A bit. Rooms tend to move. It used to be here. Now it's not." His lost expression was rather endearing, but she refused to let it sway her.

"Doctor, can't we just, I don't know, follow the sound of breaking glass?" she suggested.

His quicksilver mood shifted to a bright and manic grin. "You, Rose Tyler, are a genius!" The Doctor tilted his head and listened intently. "Right. This way!" He pulled her down the left corridor.

The sounds of destruction grew louder as they walked down the hallway, and she glanced suspiciously at the various alcoves that dotted the passage. This was the part, had this been Alien, where the monster would attack. Or the heroes would get separated from one another. Or something.

The lab was just ahead. And, as befitted a horror movie, she knew that they were not alone.

"Doctor?" she asked.

"Hush. I'll take a look. Stay right here, okay? We don't know what it is just yet." The Doctor released her hand and moved cautiously forward.

She watched as he pulled off his tie, holding the fabric loosely in his hand. He held it just in front of him, eying it intently.

"Doctor, what're you doing?" she asked, but was answered by an impatient wave of his hand. She knew that gesture. He was busy.

He had gained a routine - step, pause, stare intently at the tie, step, pause, stare intently at the tie. What point his tie had in his slow stalk to the laboratory entrance was beyond her. However, he seemed to find what he was looking for, as he shoved the fabric into his pocket once he reached the doorway.

The Doctor seemed to brace himself before looking inside the lab. Whatever he saw, however, seemed to have startled him.

That was when she heard it.

Whatever it was, it roared.

And the Doctor started running. Grabbing her hand with a terse "Run!" on his lips, he pulled her a few steps before she caught on.

And he had insisted that there would be no running this time. She had been right to be sceptical.

Clickety-clackety, click, click, clack.

Something rather large was following them. She knew it. Just as she knew it was most definitely not something cute and fluffy.

She couldn't help herself. She violated rule number five of the horror movie heroine's guide - she glanced back.

And saw a...

Dragon?

"Doctor, why did you take off your tie?"

"Hmm? Oh, that? Good way of detecting temporal distortions. If the tie turned purple, I'd know we were in trouble."

"Your tie can detect temporal distortions?" Rose sounded as if she could barely contain a laugh.

The Time Lord grinned. "Sure it can. Just like a piece of celery, or a brolly, or a scarf, or a..."

Alistair interrupted the other man before the list could get too tedious. "Yes, quite. So, you were saying? About this dragon?"

"It was not a dragon. Dragons are much bigger, a lot greener, and they do not have cerulean eyes," the Doctor corrected.

He felt a headache coming on. "If it's not an alien rabbit and it's not a dragon, what was it?"

"Something that shouldn't exist." The Doctor fingered the cuff of his sleeve and sighed. "From a world that doesn't exist. Not anymore."

Rose entwined her fingers with the Time Lord's, giving them a firm squeeze.

"Doctor?" he asked gently, sensing that they had crossed into a sensitive subject.

In a quicksilver change of mood, the Doctor grinned. "Anyway, where were we?"

"Dragons," Rose prompted.

"It wasn't a dragon."

"It looked like a dragon to me." She shrugged. "'Sides, who's the one tellin' the story here?"

"Just trying to help out. Fix the problems with the narrative, and so on."

He was too old for this. All of this trouble just to find out what happened?

"Problems with the narrative? Think you can do better?" Rose asked.

"In a word?" The Doctor grinned cheekily. "Yeah."

She shook her head. "Well, go on, then. Give us your side of the story."

"Right, then. We were being chased..."

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of all the daft things he could've done, he had done the daftest of the lot. Nice egg, pretty colours, and he didn't even think of what it could be. Just conveniently forgot his history. Just conveniently forgot his training. Just conveniently forgot that a rainbow egg just might hatch a dangerous, Time Lord-eating creature that was better suited for a Steven Spielberg movie than real life.

Stupid.

Which led, as ever, to running. Running from the creature. Running from his past - though, in this case, he figured that that was a good thing. It wasn't often, after all, that his past might eat him.

Right. New man. Same mantra. Enough guilt. He had to find a way out of this particular mess. He certainly did not fancy ending up the main course for some should-not-exist Spielbergian monster on his own ship.

So he ran.

Clickety-clackety, click, click, clack.

And, of course, his friend the Spielbergian monster followed. There had to be some place he could go, some place where he and Rose would be safe. At least, until he could figure out a way of stopping the creature before anyone got hurt. Or eaten.

Ah! The library! Of course. That would work. He could pull out a few old texts, flip through the pages, and find the information that he needed. It would be simple. Now, if he could only remember where it was...

Yes. That was it. Just down the corridor, second right, first left, past the potted plant collection. Or was it the ancient weapons collection? He never could get that straight.

"Library," he told Rose as he pulled her after him.

Clickety-clackety, click, click, clack.

One hungry Spielberg-monster-wanna-be. Check. One mad dash through endless corridors. Check. One rather annoyed companion. Check. No plan. Check. Yup. That just about summed it up. It was just another day in the TARDIS.

Second right, first left - ah, it was Ace's weapons collection - and the library doors were straight ahead. He paused long enough to open the door, shove Rose inside, and to check on the creature. It definitely looked hungry. And, he suspected, it rather fancied him for a main course.

Not today. With a manic grin, he slipped inside and slammed the door shut just as the creature reached it. The door reverberated within its frame, but the old girl was strong. "That should keep it entertained. At least for a bit."

BOOM! The monster seemed to redouble its efforts to get inside. BOOM!

"Do you mind? I'm trying to think in here!" he complained. However, the creature did not seem to care. How rude.

"Doctor, mind tellin' me what we're doing in here?" Rose's expression was far from amused.

"Oh, you know, pick up a good book, find some tea, have a couple of scones, and get lost in a good mystery novel. Or an adventure story. Or, I know, pirates! Though I did encounter some once and they weren't that nice. Or friendly. They just smelled. A lot." He grinned as he moved to the shelves. The one problem with this particular plan was that he had a lot of books. And the TARDIS tended to rearrange them. Sometimes it was by the date they were published, sometimes by subject, sometimes by author, and once it was categorized by the colour of the book cover. "This might take a while."

He should have known that she would not be appeased by his prattle. "Doctor, what is that thing?"

"Hold on, middle of a thought. Or beginning. Not quite the end, though. Give me a moment." Hitchhiker's Guide to... Nope. 500 Year Diary... He thought he'd lost that. A Tale of... Nope. Omnipedia... Nope. Kuma S... Definitely not. Telenodrulundar's Guide to Ancient Gall... Yes. That was it. "Ha! There you are!"

He carried the book to one of the tables, his every movement punctuated by the resounding BOOM of the creature hitting the doors. Dropping it onto the table, he flipped through the pages. When he turned the next page, he found precisely what he was looking for. "Thought as much."

"Doctor?" Rose asked as she leaned over his shoulder.

"That creature should not exist. Much as I shouldn't exist. But I do. And it does. So the universe either has an odd sense of humour or Spielberg out there was lucky." He tapped the page and sighed.

She slid an arm around his waist. Even now, even when he was not as guilt-ridden as before, she still knew him far too well. "So how can we stop it?"

"You mean you don't fancy being stuck in here? Lots of books to read, scones to eat, tea to drink, and a pet outside? Admittedly the pet wants to eat us, but no one ever said that the idea was perfect." He looked at her with an innocent expression.

With her free hand, she slapped his shoulder.

He rubbed at the injury with a hurt expression. "Stopping it's simple. Just let it go outside. What's hard is getting out of here, to the console room, and through the TARDIS doors without Spielberg catching us."

"Spielberg?" she repeated, but when he didn't answer, she continued. "So how do we stop it?"

"We don't. But the Earth can." She looked rather befuddled and he took pity on her. "The atmosphere: 78 Nitrogen, 21 Oxygen, and 1 other. It's poisonous to good ol' Spielberg. Can't take that much Nitrogen in the air - he came from an oxygen rich environment. So, we open the doors, let him out, and that's it. No more Spielberg."

"But wouldn't it have time to, I dunno, hurt someone? If it got out?" Rose asked.

"Nope. Not enough time. Alistair's place is pretty remote and Spielberg wouldn't last more than ten steps outside of these walls." He hoped.

"Right. Then how're we going to get out of here and lead it outside?"

"Ah, but that's what a back door's for, Rose. Step out, swing around the exterior, and then come in the front entrance. Then we'll just have to ring the dinner bell and wait for Spielberg to come for his supper." He clicked his fingers and grinned. "Simple. What could..."

His words were cut off by her fingers on his lips. "Don't say it. Don't even think it. Just don't. We've already had Murphy strike once today. Don't need it to happen again, yeah?"

He nodded mutely and she pulled her fingers away, but not before he caught them with his own. "Back door, then. Right this way."

Last time he had seen it, the door had been behind the Mona Lisa. Should be just though the door - not the one that Spielberg was merrily pounding away at - and to the right. Simple. Easy. Nothing could...right. He had given Mr. Murphy enough corroborating evidence for his theory for the day.

He opened the library's back door cautiously, even though he could hear the repeated BOOM of the monster's impact on the other side of the room. Clear. "Whatever you do, Rose, don't let go of my hand. The back door's not too useful, unless you're me. Which reminds me, I do need to fix that. For the next time we have a Spielberg running loose."

And there it was. Mona Lisa. Well, one of them. The other was in Paris. Lovely town, good pastries, lousy tea.

"Doctor, is that the Mona Lisa?" Rose asked as he used his free hand to swing the picture away from the wall.

"Yup. An original too." While that was technically correct, he had written 'THIS IS A FAKE' on the canvas before Leonardo had started painting. A copy, perhaps, would be the best term for it.

"Then what's at the Louvre?" Her brow furrowed in confusion.

"An original." He grinned as he tugged her hand. "C'mon, then. Right through here, and do not let go of my hand."

"What happens if I do?" Rose asked.

He opened his mouth and closed it again. He honestly was not sure. However, he suspected that it would be bad. Especially since using the back door tended to make him slightly nauseous. So he settled for a shrug. "Best not to find out, yeah?"

"Okay."

Hand-in-hand, as ever, they stepped through the back door. A moment of dizzying mathematical computations that were better suited for theoretical discussions than actual experience later, they were outside.

"See?" he said, giving her hand a brief squeeze. "Easy."

She looked rather unconvinced. "What was that?"

"Dual-plex logarithmic equations with a dash of quadratic differentials. Think I spotted one or two formulas straight out of temporal mechanics, too. Actually, wouldn't surprise me. Not a pleasant experience, sure, but necessary. Got us out, didn't it?"

"Yeah. That? I don't want to do that again." Rose shook her head. She did seem a bit green around the gills.

"Only used for emergencies. And getting around Spielberg definitely counts. So, to the front door." He patted the side of the TARDIS in silent apology as he led Rose around the side to the main entrance. He didn't like leaving Spielberg running free inside her. However, there was nothing he could have done. Not at this point.

He slid the key into the lock and turned it, swinging the doors wide. A muffled BOOM-CRACK indicated that Spielberg had finally managed to break his way into the library. He held up a finger to shush Rose even before she began to speak. "Wait for it..."

And there it was. The frustrated roar of a beast that had just lost its prey.

"Dinner bell, dinner bell," he murmured to himself as he dropped Rose's hand and darted to the main console. He used to have an air raid siren, or at least the equivalent, in his younger days. That would do nicely. Provided, of course, the button had not been removed at some point by either the TARDIS or himself.

And there it was. Even in a lovely candy red - strange, he didn't remember that being there before. "Ready?" he asked with a wicked grin, finger poised above the button.

"Remind me again jus' what this is going to do?"

"Bring Spielberg running and we lead it outside. Simple."

She shook her head. Companions. Why did they never believe him?

"Here we go!" He pushed the button and the console room filled with the wail of the siren. "Soup's up!"

That was, of course, when he realised that there was a problem. He would never be able to hear Spielberg's approach over the noise. Which meant...

He glanced from Rose to the door that led deeper into the TARDIS and then from her to the exit. Not enough room. Not enough space. It was time to run. "Rose! Run!"

She looked at him, her brow furrowed in confusion. She couldn't hear him over the sound.

And, behind her, he saw Spielberg come to a sliding stop.

To be concluded...