13. Awkward
"So your plan is to just... walk into a crime scene?" Stan couldn't believe the arrogance of the British-sounding alien as they walked through the snowy woods outside of South Park. As if a crime scene was that easy to enter.
While the Doctor was still at Stan's house, he heard the TV report of the Vice President's death. Without a hesitation, he somehow surmised it was related to his missing TARDIS. "Come along Ponds... err... boys," he had said awkwardly, making both Stan and Kyle turn to each other awkwardly in confusion. However, at this point, they both wanted answers to all of this, and shoved that idiosyncrasy of the Doctor's, along with all of his others, onto a mental back-burner.
An hour or so of walking later, and they were in the South Park woods, trying to locate the crime scene. The Doctor kept using his glowing wand thing, which he had called a Sonic Screwdriver, to somehow scan the area for signs of anything suspicious.
Stan tried arguing his case again, as if the Doctor hadn't heard him.
"What's your plan, to just say that you're the Doctor? The Vice President was just murdered! It's going to be high security and guns and cops and FBI and..." before Stan could finish, he was interrupted with the answer. Only instead of it coming from the Doctor, it came from his friend, Kyle.
"Stan, you're forgetting the Psychic Paper. Remember, he can make it say whatever it needs to for us to get through."
"Oh yeah," Stan replied, clearly underwhelmed by his own inability to piece that together.
As they crested a particularly large hill, they stared down into a valley, where police tape and a few officers and men in suits were examining the area.
"Boys, it's not too late to turn back, whatever killed that Allegory chap..."
"Al Gore" both boys reminded him, annoyed. Kyle particularly, as he could never seem to get his name right, either.
"Right, him, whatever killed him could still be here. This may not be safe," the Doctor said, his usually excited face gone as he stared at the boys. His somber tone, a few wrinkles on his forehead, a grim smirk and a slight tilt to his head seemed to convey the danger that could be here.
"No way dude. I didn't walk an hour..." Kyle began.
"Over an hour..." Stan corrected.
"Over an hour just to turn around now..." The Doctor's eyes darted as his face was still contemplating. Then, in a snap, as if his face were made of rubber, the Doctor's excited face returned briefly.
"Well then, let's go see the excitement!" he said, starting down the hill into the valley. The boys followed in step.
As they reached the bottom of the hill, a police officer in a dark blue uniform stopped them before the yellow tape.
"South Park Police, I'll have to ask you folks to turn around and go back," the man said in a routine voice, as if he'd been saying it all day. The Doctor smiled and held out his right hand for a shake, while his left hand held up the Psychic Paper."
"Nice to meet you Officer. I'm Doctor John Smith, Special Munitions Expert for the FBI. They flew me in all the way from... to look at this. These are my assistants, Stan and Kevin..."
"Kyle!" an annoyed voice chirped up at the Doctor.
"Right, sorry, Kyle and Kevin, part of a joint operation from the University of Munitiony Things in... Alabama?" Before the Doctor had finished, the Officer gave a shrug and pulled up the police tape to let the three in.
The Doctor led the boys towards the scene. But as he walked, he kept scanning with the Sonic Screwdriver. It's usual low-pitched humming replaced with a more rapid interplay of whirring sounds. He quickly jolted in the direction of the whirring, almost slipping in the snow. This clearly surprised the boys, and Kyle spoke up.
"Doctor, Al Gore is... that way," he motioned with a mitten to a yellow tarp clearly lying over the lumpy outline of a body.
"We're not here to look at a body, boys, we're here to find out how it happened. Clearly there's no smoking gun, as it were, at the scene over there. And my Sonic Screwdriver seems to think there's something over there," The Doctor motioned towards a small dip between two hills, 90 degrees from where they entered.
As they ducked under the police tape, leaving the scene, and began walking towards the small crevice in the land, they couldn't help but notice the snow was steadily becoming slipperier, like a path of ice, leading in the direction the screwdriver was pointing.
"Doctor..." Stan said.
"Something melted the snow, and it's refreezing into ice..." he said, no excitement in his voice, all analysis now. "And whatever it was went this way..."
As they approached the middle of the two hills, the whirring of the screwdriver indicated they should make a left, and head behind one of the hills, towards a rocky foothill. The landscape was notched with small, finger like enclaves. A perfect spot for who knows what to hide in.
As they continued walking, Stan's phone chirped. He dug it out of his pocket and saw a new message from Butters.
"Help! Aliens!" Stan said out loud reading the message. Kyle looked over at Stan nervously.
"What?"
"Kyle... I think Butters is in trouble. There's aliens!"
"Shit! You don't think it's the Al Gore murderer, do you!?"
"I dunno man!"
"Where is he?" Kyle shakily said, panic creeping into his voice.
"I don't know!" Doctor, can you find out!?"
The boys looked up and saw the Doctor still walking, following his screwdriver, as if he hadn't heard the boys.
"Doctor!" The boys shouted in unison. The Doctor stopped, turned around, and looked at the boys. His face had a look of exhausted irritation.
"What?" the Doctor said, clearly irritated. Stan spoke up, talking slowly and trying to stay calm.
"Our friend is in trouble. With some kind of aliens. We need your help!" The Doctor shook his head.
"The only aliens I'm worried about right now are the ones this way. Your friend is just going to have to do without us for a bit." The boys went wide-eyed, irritated at the Doctor's non-chalance at this apparent crisis. Stan's attempt to stay calm was starting to crack.
"How can you say that! Who cares who killed Al Gore! Jesus Christ, someone's going to kill our friend! We need to help! He's got to be back in South Park! We have to go back to South Park!" The Doctor shook his head as Stan became more and more irrational.
"Whoever, or whatever, killed Al Gore is this way. Now, either we find your friend this way, because whatever caused Al Gore's untimely demise may have taken your friend. Or else we don't. But our best lead right now is in this direction."
"And what if you're wrong?" Kyle chimed in, a little cooler than Stan at this point, but still panicked.
"Then I'm wrong," The Doctor said flatly, turning back towards the signal and following it. The boys just stood there as he walked off. Stan began shouting again.
"How can you just not care! Shit dude, it's like you've never had friends in the world that needed you! How can you ignore someone asking for help so easily! I bet you've never had friends! The lonely asshole alien douchebag who shows up in his retarded blue box with no one he cares about!" Stan laid into him harshly, and this seemed to get a reaction. The Doctor slowly turned around. His head tilted slightly down at Stan, as he glared at him from just under his eyebrows. He slowly started walking back towards the boys.
"I'm over 1,000 years old. I've had friends come and go. I've seen entire planets burn and species die. I watched my home fade from existence in the fires of a war," The Doctor's voice slowly escalating in volume as he went on. "I've lost more friends than you'll ever know. I've seen them vanish into the ether of a past I can never visit! I've seen my dearest friends devoured before my very eyes right in front of me. Points of history I cannot save them from! And I'll NEVER see the Ponds again! NEVER!"
The Doctor closed his eyes and clenched his fists, realizing his voice was much louder than he realized. The boys, in shock from the angry outburst, stared wide-eyed at the usually-jovial man. This untamed anger surprising them. The Doctor's voice settled to a very soft, yet sincere tone.
"That's what my life is. It's standing up and making the call. Doing what's right. It's saving entire species, entire planets, entire universes. And sometimes the cost is too damned high. Higher for me than anyone." The Doctor blinked, tilting his head up at the boys. "Stick with me, and I'll do my best to save your friend. Or you can leave and try on your own. But I'm going this way," he said, and turned back around. He took out his screwdriver again, and continued following the signal.
The boys looked at each other. Kyle gulped in nervousness. Neither spoke aloud, but their eyes communicated all that needed to be said.
Stan began walking with the Doctor, and Kyle followed. No one said a word, silence drifting over the next few minutes of walking.
In the silence, a faint mechanical whirring sound could be heard behind the three. The Doctor stopped and spun around as a familiar, menacing, maniacal mechanical voice greeted him. Although occasionally the voice would cut out, as if substituting words unfamiliar to it.
"No..." the Doctor whispered.
"The Doctor has found Funnybot just like -Hillary Clinton- found -superior cleavage on a younger woman-. AWKWARD."