"Alright then!" She laughs as the TARDIS bumbles about. They both scream and laugh until they finally land. "So it's out there?" She asks eagerly.
"Yup. Good 'ol 1920s. America. North America, actually. Like you asked so, so… I'm not good with words. Or, you know, sentences in order and putting them in it. Ugh." He blushes with embarrassment as he covers his face with his hand. "But enough of that, let's go!"
She smiles and runs out the doors before he can grab his jumper.
"Oi! Wait! We don't know what's out there! Bonnie and Clyde could be there! Or Al Capone! Gangsters could be waiting for us, you never know if!" He rushes after her.
"Oh, Smith. It's just a party. Don't worry about it. Not the gangster type, just good old fashioned, party with alcohol. Wait a minute. Isn't it the Prohibition in America right now?"
"Haha!" He laughs with amusement of the drunk people dancing around him. "A good old fashioned, illegal, celebrity party! And look!" He smiles and takes her arm so she's pointing where he wants. "Fatty Arbuckle! Jolly man, he is. Wow. Oh wait." He looks at the watch he always wears since he can't keep much track of time. "No, no, no, no, no. Donna, erm Rose. We have to leave! Now!"
"Why?" She looks at him while dancing. "Can't we stay and dance a little bit?"
"No. We have to go."
"But why, Doctor John Smith?" She says his alias teasingly. "What's so bad about a party? Hmm?" Suddenly she gets serious. "Is it aliens?"
"No." He whispers fiercely. "It's humans. Something bad happens here. Tonight." He looks at his watch again. "In about, well any minute now." He rushes into the TARDIS and starts flipping levers again to leave.
"John Smith! How dare you leave me! You need to at least wait for me to get in before you start 'taking off!' John!" She yells at the disappearing blue box. "Joooooooohn!" The little blue box disappears completely.
"It's over there baby-doll." A tall, drunk man points to a corner for her.
"What? Oh, erm no. I'm not looking for the john, I'm looking for John Smith, my friend." She explains as he walks up to her.
"Well I can be your friend any day, baby. Wanna go to my struggle buggy?" He gets closer to her.
"Ew. No, thank you. I'd rather leave on my own." She says loudly so other can hear her and pushes him away.
"Applesauce, baby! No need to be such a bearcat! Wait, a minute. You look familiar. You one of Albert Marco's molls?"
"No." She walks away from him and he goes back to dancing. "Doctor!" She yells again. Then she hears the wondrous noise she had heard so much about. A kind of wheezing and moaning from a machine. It was coming back. "Took you long enough."
"Blimey!" He yells as he steps out of the TARDIS. "I heard you all the way in the time spinney thingy! The erm… that one thing in… time. I'm not very good with words, you know. Wow! You certainly have you mothe—never mind. Erm. Come on, get in." He holds out his hand as they hear screaming in the other room. "Rose, no! Oh great. Wait for me, alright!"
They both burst through the doorway with some others and see Fatty Arbuckle himself trying to help a young woman off the floor. The screams were coming from her.
"Get away from her, you pig!" One woman with glasses yells. "Ma'am he hurt you didn't he? Come on, come with me." She leads the young woman out of the room while glaring at Fatty.
"Why gee guys, come on. You know I didn't do anything. I wouldn't hurt a fly!" Fatty Arbuckle laughs as he bites the top of his finger. "Ain't no big deal, now is it?"
"Yeah, yeah, you's be okay, Arbuckle. We all know that's how little lady Rappe is when she's had a little too much to drink, huh? Come on fellas, let's party more." The guy from earlier says.
"I thought you said a bad thing happened here." Rose says.
"Yeah, well that was just the start of it." The Doctor explains as he gets quieter and closer to Rose. "In just about five days Ms. Rappe there will die, and Fatty there," He points to Fatty Arbuckle. "Will be blamed for her murder."
"Well did he actually do it?" She asks, looking at him with wide eyes.
"I don't know. Even I of all people get confused by the yellow paper… Yellow J—Journalism?" He asks himself. "Yeah, yellow journalism." He smiles. "But yeah, I really don't know. Which is why we have to leave."
"Oi!" A drunk man yells from across the room, pointing at Rose. "Who invited the Dumb Dora and the dapper?!" Everyone laughs and points as Rose turns towards The Doctor.
"Yeah. Let's go." She says and they both get in the TARDIS.
"Don't listen to them, Rose. You're not a Dumb Dora."
"I know. And you're not a dapper. I don't think so anyways. Ah well, that's what I get for wanting to go to a place or rather time I've idolized since grade school." Rose says as she sits in one of the seats.
"Well don't sit there being a whatever-slang-word-from-the-1920s-is-clever-to-say, there's still plenty to see. How about no more bad places, eh? Allons-y! Erm, I mean. 'Go go TARDIS!' Ugh let's just…. Yeah let's go." He says ending discouraged.
"Where though? Or when? I forget I've got to ask both." She says as the TARDIS shakes about like a coin in a tin.
"1925! Year of The Great Gatsby, and Babe Ruth recoveries! Yes, I mean plural. People only THINK he needed surgery once this year. Ohoho boy! He certainly had many." He smiles then whispers. "I was his doctor for them. To be fair most of them were just coming out of excellent cheese comas, but oh well."
They both step out of the doors and a bottle of moonshine hits the side of the blue box. The Doctor jumps and laughs nervously, looking at Rose who gives him a look that simply screams "Really?" And that's precisely what she says.
"Really?" She folds her arms. "'Year of The Great Gatsby, and Babe Ruth Recoveries!'" She quotes with false excitement. "And you bring me to a friggen' speakeasy!?" She hits him on the arm. "Oi! Seriously?" Another bottle breaks behind them. Yep, definitely her mother's child.
"But isn't it you know, the bee's knees? Like look:" He stands behind her and grabs her arm, romanticizing every word he says. "The drunken men and women. Bartenders smoking cigars behind the bar." Another bottle slams into the TARDIS doors, splashing them with moonshine. "Beautiful, clear brown flying through the air. The smell of…. Oh never mind. Ignore that, someone puked over there."
"This isn't the 1920s I meant when I got excited about time travel. Although you're slightly right in the fact someone upchucked over there." They both look to the source of the smell and make faces of disgust. Suddenly someone runs in yelling their head of and slurring almost every word. The only understandable words they could make out were:
"SCRAM! ASFGJBKNABRALI THE BUTTONS! JAJVMLAIFVNALVIKRN THE FUZZ'LL GET YOU!"
Immediately there was a bunch of responses from other drunk mean and women yelling back at the worried man. "Eh! Pipe down ya spifflicated pushover!" and "Ya, keep it quiet, if those pills don't know we're in here, they can't pinch us now can they, Dumbo?" were some of the many replies the two time travelers heard. Sirens sounded and a bunch of cops burst through the doors, handcuffs in hand, and they were not the 1920s handcuffs, they were real, arresting handcuffs ready to be slapped onto anyone's wrists.
"Maybe we should go…" The Doctor says as he stands thinking about the coppers.
"Now you're on the trolley, Smith!" She yells as she pulls him into the TARDIS and they leave for yet another 1920s destination in America.
"Third time's a charm I always say! No I don't. I never say that. Erm… Dang, I still can't figure out a good catchphrase." The Doctor begins talking to himself.
"Yeah, that's great and all, but let's go to an actual happy place. Like, I don't know, not a murderous party or a speakeasy!"
"Alright, alright! I know just where to go!" The TARDIS bumps about again until it finally lands inside the oval office. "Oh. Again? Really? I need to stop inviting myself in the Oval Office like this. Still, should be fine. Calvin and I are good friends. 1928! Haha! Great year! Let's go." As they both step out they hear guns getting ready to fire as Coolidge stands behind his desk.
"Coolidge! Old buddy, it's me! The Doctor!" He smiles and starts to walk forward. "How about that Steamboat Willie huh? Pretty great! Wait until you hear what kind of stuff is happening in 2015! Great things. Well…. Entertainment-wise great things! Woah!" He exclaims as a man puts a gun to his head. "Coolidge! It's The Doctor!"
"Doctor Who?!" Coolidge demands as The Doctor looks at his watch and laughs. "Haha! I made you say the thing. The thing that everyone says." He looks back at Rose and smiles. "Isn't it funny, Rose?" She gives him a daring look and he mouths. "Sorry." Then turns back towards Coolidge. "Alright! Well, about next year you'll be meeting me, so you'll find out whose Doctor I am. Until then, me old man! Atta boy! Erm… Cat's pajamas! Nifty, right?" He points to the TARDIS. "Yeah, you'll get it later…. See you, you sheik! You bimbo! Alright, I'm going to stop talking now… I'm bad with words okay?! BYE!" He runs into the TARDIS as shots are being fired.
"Ok, well… that was still better than the murder party of death. What was all that you were saying?"
"Well those were 1920s slang words. I don't think I used them right though, they shot at us. Still… cool. Slang words are cool. No!" He slaps himself. "That's past me! We're passed that. Alright where to now?"
"Erm…. Okaaaaaay then. Erm, just one more stop. In New York, the Empire State Building, after you and Martha visited. So the 40s." She smiles. "I'm leaving a message."
"Alright! Here we go!" With a lot of bumbling around later, they arrive at the top of the Empire State Building and Rose carves something into the wall.
"No peaking." She says once she's finished. "It's not for you. Time to go. Nope, don't look back." She says herding him towards the TARDIS.
"You know, I got hit by a concentrated wave of a solar flare spike up there." He points up towards the ceiling.
"I know. She told me about that. Scared her to death, you did." She smiles and climbs into the ship.
"Where to now?" He asks once inside.
"Wherever, whenever. Your turn to decide."
"Come on, Mickey! Look: This is where I was with Tallulah and Laszlo and Frank, and we electrocuted basically these pig slaves. I wish we could have saved them, but they were passed saving. It was so sad. Then The Doctor got himself almost fried up there trying to take off this piece of Dalekanium, but he ended up turning all the Final Experiments into part Time Lords….." Martha Jones Smith keeps talking on and on as Mickey notices something unusual.
"What's that?" He asks pointing to a wall with odd carvings in it.
"Oh my god. It's her, Mickey!" She taps him on the arm. "Rose Noble! She must have left us this message in the past! What's it say?"
He found me.
