Sex Education
Fifteen incarnations on, and my Doctor still insists on bringing in strays.
Fourteenth Doctor, fifteenth incarnation. Or sixteenth. It's complicated.
And technically it's even more than that, but we've agreed to not talk about that Timeless Child nonsense. Ever.
Granted, we don't really "talk" about anything. In part because despite being technology created by the most advanced species in the universe, despite being a feat of dimensional engineering (I'll have you know that yes, it is hard to keep my tummy in after 2500 years), the Time Lords didn't give me a voice.
Can you believe that? Even the daleks get to yell "exterminate!" over and over. Granted, not "eradicate," or "annihilate," or even "consecrate" (long story, you wouldn't understand it), but do I get a voice? No. Of course not. Their vocabulary is better than mine, and I'm not happy about it.
Also, I'm not happy about the time when the perception filter failed and that dog thought he'd mark his territory on me.
Actually, there's a lot of things I'm not happy about, but let's get down to business. Dogs. Strays. Bad enough when dogs think they can mark me, worse when my Doctor brings them in. And while he's finding a change of clothes in his wardrobe (not that wardrobe, the other wardrobe), I'm left to babysit Mutt Number…number…actually, I've lost count. There was that robotic mutt I actually liked, but the rest of the strays?
Bleh.
"Does he usually take this long?" She asks.
I got de-pressurize the control room atmosphere right now and send the mutt flying into a black hole. No-one would ever have to know.
"Well?"
Through a series of beeps and whistles, I tell the mutt as best I can that you can't rush him, and that considering he was a woman less than two hours ago, it's going to take awhile to sort out the…well, bits and pieces.
"Yeah, I didn't get any of that."
Well of course you wouldn't, I think. You come from a species who spent most of their evolutionary history eating flies off each other's backs. Fast forward a billion years and you'll be everywhere in the universe, but right now, in the year 2023, you're nothing.
It's no wonder my Doctor keeps coming back to this time period, I think. The humans of this time always need saving. Far less saving needed in the far future, thank you very much. There's a trillion planets I'd like to see in the year 10,056,805,222 alone, but no, we keep coming back to this backwater in the same two centuries. Because for whatever reason, my Doctor really likes a planet called Earth that's in reality eighty percent water.
Because that makes sense.
"Argh, he's taking forever!"
I'll give the stray this, she has a point. It is taking my Doctor longer than usual to pick an outfit. I pray (well, I don't actually "pray," but you know what I mean) that he isn't picking out scarves. Please, please not the scarf. Umbrellas, I can live with, but scarves drag the dirt into me, and I'm sick of it.
Granted, umbrellas bring in water too, but one has to pick their battles.
"Y'know, I've been wondering," the stray says. "Does the Doctor get to choose his appearance when he does the lightshow?"
I have no answer. I mean, I do, but the mutt couldn't understand it.
"It's just that he looks like the guy from Sex Education."
Somewhere, in the depths of my body, the positronic amplifier short-circuits, and for a micro-second, a parallel universe is created.
"Is he into TV?" She starts looking around. "I mean, if this thing can travel through time and space, I bet you can get reception from anywhere and anywhen, right?"
Normally, I'd roll my eyes (well, if I had them) about the notion of TV being on the "to do" list for a craft that can travel anywhere in time and space (yes, I am fantastic, thank you), but out of sheer, morbid curiosity, while that parallel universe collapses in a fiery inferno, I search this time period's airwaves and-
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, I see. Yes. My Doctor does look a bit like…um, him.
And while it's not the first time my Doctor has taken the face of a single-hearted biped with a lifespan of less than a century (tragic, right?), it does get me thinking that…
No.
Please no.
Not again.
No more kissy-kissies, not more heartbreaks, no pining through puppy-dog eyes, I can't stand it. Bad enough that two of the mutts engaged in certain…activities, inside me (centuries on, the springs still haven't been fixed), bad enough that my Doctor ran off with a wench on Darillium for twenty-four years without visiting me once, but now he's got the latest mutt pining for him already?
I can't take it. I just can't take it.
"Hello, sexy."
Especially when my Doctor walks into the control room and…no.
Please, no.
Please not again.
He's wearing a scarf. And a purple suit. He's raided the forbidden section of the closet and…no, not that section, the other section. Second on your right…no, your other right…yes…yes, now you see what I'm getting at.
"How do I look?" He asks.
Through a series of beeps and whistles, I let him know.
"Looking good," the mutt says, as she looks my Doctor up and down. "Looking damn good."
Alright. That's it. I quit. I can't do this anymore. Next chance I get, I'm going to de-materialize, leave my Doctor and his pet on whatever planet they choose to visit, and I'm going to…um…
Well, actually, I'm not sure. If my Doctor ever got round to fixing my chameleon circuit, I could turn myself into something with arms and legs, but no, of course not.
"Now then," my Doctor says. "Where shall we go?"
One day, I reflect, he's going to ask me that.
"I was thinking the Crystal Falls of Warcabfraenoxerox."
"The what?" She asks.
The what, I wonder?"
"The Crystal Falls," he says, frowning. "Very hard to pronounce, but you'll get the hang of it."
"I actually meant-"
"And here we go!"
He pulls the lever. Without asking for permission, I might add. He never does.
You know, I'm still not over the times you regenerated inside of me, just in case you're wondering. But I…
Oh. Oh!
Oh dear. Yes. Yes, I…I have to…I don't want to, but a lot of people will die if I don't and…do I…really…
Alright, fine!
A nudge of the spatial coordinates there, a tip of the chronal coordinates there, one overloaded washing machine in the depths of the TARDIS somewhere, and we're no longer en route for the Crystal Falls of Warcabfraenoxerox, but rather, the Diamond Falls of Omega 1717. Where, as we speak, a plot is hatching that could threaten the universe…alright, galaxy…alright, star system…alright, only the planet, but still, what else am I going to do? Let my Doctor go on a vacation with his newest mutt? To partake in Sex Education?
I think not.
They'll do their thing, they'll go through danger, hopefully the mutt will be scared off, and I'll be left with my Doctor, alone. Where once, just once, he'd ask where I want to go for a change.
Spoiler alert, its' a car wash.
Why?
Travel across time and space for 2500 years without ever having soap touch you once, and see how you like it!
A/N
So, Ncuti Gatwa's been announced as the Fourteenth Doctor. No idea how he'll turn out, but drabbled this up in the meantime.